Phoenix Rising

063

Zhenghuan slowly let go, moving to wipe the tears away from her cheeks. He smiled. "I'm sorry about not telling you about all this earlier. It was a last-minute decision and I didn't want to distract you when you had enough to worry about with the preparation of the medicinal brew," he said.

"So you're fine?" Zi-ning studied him with suspicion. He still looked a little paler than normal, but other than that he seemed to be okay. She took hold his wrist, quickly taking his pulse. It seemed stable.

He stretched his arms out sideways and spun himself around. "Fighting fit," he declared. "Thanks to your very effective prescription. I assume that it's working well for all the other patients in the city too?"

Zi-ning nodded. Relief finally began to set in.

"I've sent Mingshen to search for the source of the gu-du. There should be news soon. Once we manage to clear that out, then things in Zhuiya should begin to look up. In the meantime, you should get some rest. I thought I was the one who ingested the poison, why is it that you look even more worse for wear?" Zhenghuan joked.

She scowled, smacking him on the shoulder. Zhenghuan smiled and caught hold of her hand, keeping it pressed against his chest. Her cheeks flushed.

"Zhenghuan?" a new voice entered the room.

A girl stood by the doorway, dressed in the standard silver armour of the Duan military. Her long hair was tied back into a single braid, emphasising her high cheek bones and delicate nose. She rushed in and suddenly threw her arms around Zhenghuan's neck.

"Zi... xi? What are you doing here?" Zhenghuan said, surprise lacing his voice.

Zixi?

Zi-ning remembered that name. Yu Zixi—daughter of the mayor of Anyang and Zhenghuan's cousin—and also the girl that Zhenghuan was supposed to marry.

#

The moment Mingshen walked through the doorway, a cup came flying towards his face. He caught it in the nick of time, before it could smash into his nose.

"What is Yu Zixi doing here?" Zhenghuan demanded. "It was you, wasn't it? You told her that I was here."

Mingshen blinked. Then he burst out in peals of delighted laughter.

"Shouldn't you thank me?" he replied, sitting himself down and pouring some tea into the cup that had been thrown at him. "You should have told me that you were stopping in Zhuiya, then I wouldn't have gone to Anyang first. I only spoke to Mayor Yu briefly about the situation in Zhuiya, so I suppose he must have been the one who told Zixi about it."

Zhenghuan glowered at his best friend. It was the worst possible time for Yu Zixi to show up.

Tonight, he felt as if he had finally managed to break through the icy barrier that Zi-ning had carefully constructed around herself. Seeing her stand herself between him and those assassins, he could at long last convince himself that he mattered to her, that he had earned a place in her heart, despite the many other secrets and burdens that weighed down in her mind.

And then Zixi showed up.

Zi-ning had politely excused herself after that, citing a need to return to the infirmary to check on the progress of the administration of the medicine. If he were her, he would have found any reason to escape too. He sighed, resting his chin miserably against the table.

He wasn't unhappy to see Zixi—after all, they had grown up together and he had never thought poorly of the girl—but he knew that everyone assumed they were engaged, and that was not a misunderstanding he wanted to reinforce. He had never thought of Zixi as anything more than a little sister, even though he knew that she had different thoughts.

"What? You have two beautiful ladies—one on the left, one on the right—isn't that great? I'm almost jealous of you," Mingshen joked.

"Why don't you take one away then?"

"Zi-ning?"

Zhenghuan shot Mingshen a death glare. "How are your investigations going?" he asked, changing the topic in hopes that it would make his headache go away.

"We've traced the source of the gu-du to three wells across the city and drained and sealed all the wells. If we didn't miss any out, then the number of cases in Zhuiya should stop increasing from here on."

He was right. Whoever was behind this had used the city's water sources as an easy means to spread the poison. Residents of the city would have been continually exposed to the gu-du when they drew well water for drinking, and the amount of poison in their bodies would accumulate as the days dragged on.

"I also stopped by the city prison to check in on our lone assassin on my way back," Mingshen continued. "He's still refusing to talk, but we found this on him." He withdrew a circular wooden pendant from his sleeve and slid it across the table to Zhenghuan.

The pendant was carved with a lone character: Huang.

Zhenghuan frowned. "An imperial guard?" he mused. That was unexpected.

Such a pendant belonged to a member of the imperial guard, but if this assassin was indeed a guard, then he was a very long way from home. What made it even more interesting was that there were only two people in the kingdom that were able to command the imperial guards—the king and the crown prince.

It can't be the king... but Ru-quan?

Upon deeper thought, it was not impossible, even if it might be improbable. Ru-quan could well have staged his own poisoning to remove suspicion from himself. If it wasn't him, then things were even more insidious, because it would suggest that someone else had gained control over the imperial guards, which placed the safety of the king and the palace under threat.

"Keep trying to get him to talk, and do identity checks on him and the other two as well. I want to know whether or not they are truly imperial guards," he said.

Mingshen nodded. "Things in Zhuiya should settle in a matter of days. What is our next step?" he asked. "General Du sent word to say that he's expecting you back in Anyang."

Zhenghuan closed his eyes and sighed. Returning to Anyang was inevitable, but the thought of having to entertain the gossipy tongues of the many members of his adopted family filled him with dread.

"Are you planning to bring Han Zi-ning with you?" Mingshen asked with a cheeky wink.

Zhenghuan sighed again, deeper and louder this time. "If you think I'm able to 'bring' her anywhere, then you're sorely mistaken. The better question is—will she want to go?"