Coughing all the while, Zhu Huan waved the maids away. Before long, one of them brought over a cloak and wrapped Xie Shuishan from head to toe.
The moment Xie Shuishan was covered up, all the attendants and maids in the hall seemed to come back to life. They began crowding around Zhu Huan, who was coughing without pause and occasionally breaking into laughter.
Medicinal soup, ginseng tea, and the transfer of internal energy were brought into play one after another, yet none of them could suppress it.
Before long, a female court physician in blue, a medicine chest strapped to her back, hurried in and stuck Zhu Huan full of needles until he resembled a hedgehog.
Jiang Yi also reached through a piece of cloth, took the dragon-headed wooden carving Xie Shuishan had stuffed beneath her skirts, and threw it away.
Only then did Zhu Huan finally stop laughing uncontrollably.
With two palace maids attending her, Xie Shuishan changed into fresh clothes and watched the crowd bustle around Zhu Huan.
After the physician removed the needles, Zhu Huan’s complexion finally looked somewhat better. He lay on the bed and, at some point, once again picked up the memorial he had only read halfway and held it before his eyes.
The physician packed away her needles and closed her medicine chest, but did not leave.
After exchanging several rounds of meaningful glances with Jiang Yi from across the room, she finally put on a tender young face and assumed the earnest, long-winded manner of an old man before beginning to lecture Zhu Huan.
The details went round and round, but after grasping the main points, Xie Shuishan understood that the physician was telling Zhu Huan that his internal organs had all been injured, and that he had exhausted himself with worry and overthinking. Under no circumstances was he to allow his emotions to rise and fall too sharply, and so on.
Zhu Huan lay on the bed looking as though he were obediently listening to her scolding. In reality, the memorial in front of him had not moved an inch for half a day.
Sitting inside the inner hall, Xie Shuishan inexplicably detected a hint of playfulness in the way he shielded his face.
He was like a “naughty” student who, after being scolded by his teacher for mischief, hid his face behind a book while grinning impishly behind it.
After being lectured by a female physician for so long, he had actually accepted her good intentions and listened patiently all this time.
Even Xie Shuishan, the person who had nearly exposed Zhu Huan’s greatest secret—someone whose allegiance could not even be determined—was still sitting here with her head firmly attached to her neck.
Xie Shuishan could not help wondering again: How exactly had the system concluded that Zhu Huan was a violent, incorrigible tyrant who killed without batting an eye?
Only after the physician finally left did Zhu Huan take the memorial down from his face.
There was no trace of childish mischief on his face. He had returned to his pale, bluish, gloomy appearance.
He did not ask anyone to help him sit up. Instead, he turned his head and met the eyes of Xie Shuishan, who was drinking tea while watching him from a short distance away.
Very soon, he looked away first and pressed his lips tightly together.
He seemed to be trying not to laugh.
Xie Shuishan: “…”
Was it really that funny?
She thought back over why she had done what she did. In the end, it was nothing more than not wanting to involve herself in any of this world’s cause and effect.
Even if she spent the night at Changle Palace, she did not need that thing to make the empress believe without a doubt that the emperor had favored her.
She had not deliberately intended to help Zhu Huan conceal anything.
But clearly, that was the most important reason Zhu Huan had not killed her.
Xie Shuishan sighed inwardly. She set down her teacup and looked at Zhu Huan with a helpless expression.
Zhu Huan pressed his lips together for a while and did not look at her again. Laughing twice in a single day was an intense emotional upheaval he had not experienced in several months, and it had left him so weak that his voice became even softer and more languid.
“Jiang Yi… take her back.”
Take her back to Lindian Hall and keep a close eye on her.
The rest did not need to be said. Jiang Yi understood at once. And no matter how slow he could be, after turning the matter over in his mind several times, he now knew what the woman sent by the Xie clan had used the dragon head for.
As a eunuch who had once been a real man, even Jiang Yi could not have imagined such a bizarre trick for a moment.
She had tried to muddle through with such a method. One could say she had done everything in her power to cover for His Majesty…
Though Jiang Yi still did not trust the woman sent by the Xie clan, since she had not deliberately meant to harm His Majesty and had even gone to such lengths to conceal the truth for him, he became considerably more courteous toward her.
Even his voice imitated his master’s, becoming softer and less sharp or hostile. “Miss, please come with me.”
Jiang Yi paused, then added, “This time, I’ll personally keep an eye on them and have a comfortable room prepared for you.”
That already counted as an enormous favor.
After all, Xie Shuishan’s suspicions had not yet been cleared.
But Xie Shuishan first turned her head to glance at Jiang Yi’s oddly expressive old face, then looked toward Zhu Huan on the distant bed.
And once again, she began trying to court death.
“I’m not going to Lindian Hall,” Xie Shuishan said. “If you want me gone, you might as well send me back to Changle Palace.”
She had been born amid the hopes, adoration, and pampering of countless people.
She could die, but she absolutely refused to suffer even the slightest discomfort.
The puppets in Lindian Hall were unbearably annoying, and filthy besides.
And what was that food they served? Even a dog would refuse to eat it.
Jiang Yi froze. His broom-shaped brows shot upward. “I advise you not to provoke—”
“Jiang Yi…” Zhu Huan was so exhausted that he looked ready to pass out. Half his head had already sunk beneath the quilt.
His muffled voice came slowly from within it. “Prepare the side hall for her.”
The reprimand died in Jiang Yi’s throat.
He wanted to object. The woman’s intentions were still unclear, and the investigator sent to look into her identity had not yet reported back. Leaving her in the side hall was far too dangerous!
But Jiang Yi had followed Zhu Huan for many years. As the saying went, those who stayed close to vermilion became red, and those who stayed close to ink became black. Even if he was a pig, he was at least a pig with some color on him by now.
He quickly understood that this might well be another part of His Majesty’s plan.
So he ordered the palace attendants to tidy up the side hall for Xie Shuishan and politely invited her to move over and rest.
Unfortunately, Jiang Yi’s good manners lasted less than fifteen minutes.
“Why is it so much colder in here than in the main hall?” Xie Shuishan asked, casually ordering two attendants in yellow, “Bring four more braziers.”
Jiang Yi: “…”
When she reached the bed, Xie Shuishan frowned delicately. “The bedding is too thin. Bring several more quilts.”
She had never missed her ergonomically customized mattress so much in her life.
Besides, Zhu Huan’s bed was piled high with thick bedding. It looked so soft.
Jiang Yi: “…Heh.”
He was so angry that he actually laughed.
Unable to hold back his sarcasm, he said, “I say, Miss, do you really think you’re the emperor?”
Xie Shuishan thought to herself that the emperor’s treatment in this world was nothing special. Not only did she not envy it, she found it rather lacking.
But she did not argue with Jiang Yi. As usual, she merely gazed at him calmly.
If the bed was not made to her satisfaction, she would not sit down. She had the stubborn determination to stand on the floor all night.
The braziers were soon carried in. Placed near the bed, they quickly warmed and steamed this small corner of the room.
Jiang Yi’s old face turned red as well.
He had been angered into it.
In all his years alive, he had never encountered anyone in the imperial palace so absurdly oblivious to danger—someone even more demanding than the emperor himself, a “precious person” who had no idea of her own situation!
Did she have any self-awareness at all?
She was still a prisoner under investigation!
But in the end, Jiang Yi did not lose his temper, lest he ruin His Majesty’s plan.
Jiang Yi gave a cold laugh and ordered them to pile three more layers of quilts over Xie Shuishan before finally coaxing the demanding lady into bed.
By then, it was already past the hour of the ox.
After a maid helped Xie Shuishan wash up again, she had lain down for less than a quarter of an hour before she instructed the palace maid on night duty, “Put out the incense burner. The smoke is suffocating.”
It didn’t smell nearly as pleasant as the incense in Zhu Huan’s sleeping quarters. These people really knew how to cut corners.
She had barely been quiet for the time it took to drink a cup of tea before saying, “Bring me two hot-water bottles.”
The air around her had finally warmed up, but the bedclothes were still freezing inside. She had always slept on a temperature-controlled waterbed.
Once the hot-water bottles had been filled, she hugged one through its padded covering and put the other beneath her feet.
But she remained quiet for less than the time it took to burn a stick of incense before complaining that the brazier had been placed too close. The room was too dry.
Xie Shuishan sat up again, her robes hanging loosely open at the collar, her brows knitted in profound displeasure.
“Shovel up a basin of snow and put it beside my bed.”
The heat from the brazier would melt the snow, naturally adding moisture to the air.
Just as the eunuch was carrying out a basin to shovel snow, Xie Shuishan issued another order. “The plum blossoms in the rear courtyard are blooming beautifully. Pack a basin with tightly pressed snow, break off a few branches of plum blossom, and arrange them in the snow before bringing it in.”
The crisp, natural fragrance of flowers had to smell better than incense.
The eunuchs and palace maids serving her were sent scurrying in every direction.
Strangely, none of them dared to feel the slightest resentment. Xie Shuishan’s commands came so naturally and fluently, concise and precise, without the slightest trace of timid pleading or arrogant imperiousness.
Nor did she seem to be deliberately making things difficult for them.
She simply appeared to have been born with exacting standards when it came to her resting quarters.
Only a noble of truly exalted birth, raised amid gold and jade, delicacies and luxury, could have been spoiled into such a precious jewel.
When the eunuch finally brought in the basin of snow arranged with plum branches, he happened to run into Jiang Yi, who had just emerged from behind the layers of curtains in His Majesty’s hall.
The servants in the Hall of Supreme Polarity would never have come up with such a fussy little arrangement.
It had to be something that woman had ordered.
Jiang Yi had been kept busy all night. When he saw the basin of snow with its plum blossoms, his expression went utterly numb.
With a mocking snort, he muttered, “Aren’t you afraid that the man beaten to death this morning will possess one of those plum blossoms and come seeking your life in the middle of the night?”
He flicked his horsetail whisk and said, “Take it to her. Do as she says, whatever it is. Let’s see what other tricks she can come up with.”
Then he glanced at the basin and saw that she had already come up with one.
The corner of his mouth twitched again.
Never mind.
He remembered the plan he had just confirmed with His Majesty.
There was no point quarreling with someone who was about to die.
With the basin of snow and plum blossoms at her side, Xie Shuishan was finally comfortable in every respect—for the moment.
But she still couldn’t fall asleep.
Why was the quilt on her body so heavy?
It felt as though a fish weighing two hundred jin was sprawled on top of her, pressing her down more solidly than sleep paralysis. Worse, the quilt carried a strange damp, fishy smell.
She had clearly seen the physician prick Zhu Huan with needles earlier and, worried that he might catch cold, cover him loosely with a quilt.
If that quilt had really been something as heavy as a “two-hundred-jin fish,” it would have been pressed right into Zhu Huan’s body.
Xie Shuishan endured it for a while longer, but eventually could bear it no more. She sat up, intending to ask one of the eunuchs or palace maids to bring her a different quilt.
But the servants who had been attending her in the side hall had vanished without a trace.
Xie Shuishan put on her shoes and climbed down from the bed, searching around the room. She found no one.
After sitting on the bed and pondering for a moment, she rolled up her own quilt and gathered it into her arms.
She followed the passage through which the servants had led her to the side hall, crossed two half-closed doors, and returned to Zhu Huan’s main sleeping quarters.
The hall was sparsely lit, so quiet that not a human voice could be heard.
Xie Shuishan saw several servants on night duty leaning against the corridor pillars, clearly fighting sleep. She walked straight toward Zhu Huan’s bed.
With the quilt tucked under one arm, she lifted the first layer of curtains with the other.
Outside, Jiang Yi had been waiting for most of the night, cold enough to develop a runny nose. Lowering his voice, he let out a sharp, shrill laugh.
“I knew the Xie clan had come to assassinate His Majesty! Yin Kai, have the warriors prepare to execute the assassin!”
As Xie Shuishan lifted the bed curtains one layer after another, the shadow guards gripping their blades on the beams above tensed, ready to strike.
Their orders were clear: the moment the intruder revealed a weapon, displayed murderous intent, or made any move that threatened His Majesty’s life, they were to leap from the beams and cut the assassin down.
Yet the dozen or so shadow guards—men of the highest martial skill and the most extraordinary ability to conceal their presence—stared fixedly at the scene below.
After a moment, they could not help exchanging baffled glances.
Should they go down or shouldn’t they?
The reason was that the female assassin had come carrying a quilt. She showed no intention of smothering His Majesty and revealed no weapon whatsoever.
They had never encountered a situation like this in their entire lives. Unable to determine what to do, they could only send one man to seek further instructions from the shadow guards’ commander.
Outside the Hall of Supreme Polarity, the shadow guard sent to ask questions knelt on one knee before their commander, Yin Kai.
“She placed the quilt she brought beneath His Majesty’s feet, then began pulling off His Majesty’s quilt.”
“She made no move threatening His Majesty’s life. After pulling off His Majesty’s quilt, she covered him with the one she had brought.”
“After covering him, she still didn’t leave. She reached out her hand…”
“She didn’t leave? Did she attack him?” Jiang Yi asked impatiently. “Then why haven’t you killed her?”
“…She touched His Majesty’s leg.”
Jiang Yi: “…”
The shadow guards had endured years of brutal training. Under ordinary circumstances, nothing could make their expressions change.
With the utmost solemnity, he asked Yin Kai, whose expression was equally grave, “The brothers sent me to ask: if that woman merely touched His Majesty’s leg, does that count as an assassination attempt?”
