Everything that happened after was a blur. Zhenghuan leapt in front of her. Swords clashed. Bodies flew across the room. Guards rushed in. In a matter of mere minutes, all three of the assassins had been apprehended, disarmed and forced to their knees.
"Who sent you?" Zhenghuan demanded, pointing the tip of his sword at the throat of one of the men.
The man suddenly clenched his jaw. Blackened blood dribbled down the sides of his mouth, and he collapsed onto the floor—dead. The same happened to the second assassin, to his left. Zhenghuan's gaze flickered, then he immediately flew to the last surviving man, grabbing the latter by the jaw before he could do the same. With one swift motion, he shoved his hand into the man's mouth and pulled out the tooth that contained a poison sac, a common method used by assassins to kill themselves before any information could be tortured out of their lips.
Looking towards his guards, Zhenghuan said, "Lock him away and tell Commander Zhang to interrogate him. I want to know where they came from." The guard nodded in acknowledgement, and the one surviving assassin and two corpses were dragged out of the room.
Zi-ning was standing by the side of the bed, watching all of this unfold. Her heart still tremored at the thought of how close she had been to dying a second time, when those assassins had charged towards her with their gleaming blades raised. If Zhenghuan hadn't intervened, she would very likely be lying in a pool of her own blood.
Zhenghuan turned, and their gazes locked.
Anger and resentment suddenly began burgeoning inside her, when her mind pieced together the pieces of the puzzle and a clear realisation of what had happened set in. She picked up the nearest object she could find—the rectangular pillow lying on the bed—and flung it at his head.
"How dare you! You were acting all this while? You never suffered any real side-effects from the medicine, did you? It was all a giant lie! A ruse to lure out those assassins!" she yelled. The more she thought about it, the more infuriated she became. She had been so worried for him when she saw him spew blood, when he lay unconscious on that bed, yet it had all been an act. That was what Mingshen had meant when he asked her to trust Zhenghuan—because he must have known all along that this was a part of Zhenghuan's plan. They all knew, but they never thought to let her in on any of it.
Zhenghuan didn't move. He let the pillow bounce off his shoulder and fall to the floor. Then, he walked forward and pulled her into his arms.
"You are not to do something like that again, am I clear?" he said, his breath warm against her ear.
Zi-ning was so stunned by his sudden embrace that she forgot to move. Standing stock still, she asked, "Do what?"
"Put yourself between me and someone's sword. I don't need you to be my shield. I will be yours."
His words were so gentle that they left a shudder down her spine. Her nose stung, and tears threatened to spill from her eyes. All the rage that she had been experiencing was instantaneously doused. When had anyone ever told her that they would be her shield? That they would be there to protect her from harm? In her previous life, her family hated her, the love of her life had used her as a stepping stone for his own ambitions, and anyone who cared at least a little for her had been dealt a horrible fate.
Reborn a second time, she had been so determined to be as strong as she could be. She believed that she had to be capable enough of defending herself because she could count on no one. She was here for the sole purpose of taking revenge on those who had trampled upon her, and nothing else mattered.
Then, he had appeared. Proud, enigmatic and occasionally shameless, but also righteous, honourable and kind. Somehow, against her better judgement, this man had wormed his way into her heart and mind, and she could no longer chase him out. Yes, she had been terrified when those assassins had brandished their weapons before her, yet she had still instinctively moved to protect him.
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?"