Female Disguised as a Man: A Warring States Hostage Slave Cannot Escape Chapter 27

After the rain of early spring, the morning light shimmered like scattered gold. Once the violent storm of the previous night had passed, a gentle breeze drifted in from the southeast. It was just as dawn broke that the wind brushed through the four courtyards and eight compounds of Lantai Pavilion, awakening the fresh greens of willow branches and the crimson blossoms of spring.

Beneath the vine trellis beside the vegetable patch in the westernmost side courtyard, Cai Song had been nagged by Cai Pi into building a small swing two days earlier.

Perhaps Cai Song had grown tired of being ordered around, for he had deliberately woven the dead vines too narrowly. Cai Pi had only sat on it three times before her weight snapped the ropes twice.

Stepping across the ground strewn with fallen petals and withered leaves, Ying Wuji absentmindedly entered the western courtyard and immediately noticed a slender figure wearing the very outer robe he had given her the previous night.

The swing stood tucked away in the corner, so she could not see him.

Separated by a large vegetable garden planted with all sorts of unfamiliar crops, Ying Wuji unconsciously lightened his footsteps and stood silently beneath the flowering crabapple moon gate, his gaze lowered.

The girl, dressed once again as a young man, idly pushed herself with the tip of one foot. Even the shoes she wore were the same pair from the previous night, still marked with damp stains.

Moments earlier, Zhao Shu had received a letter delivered from Mi Rong’s residence. She recognized Qi Ying’s graceful, orderly handwriting at a glance. The letter plainly stated that the royal residence could no longer protect her. It assured Zhao Shu that she herself was safe, but urged Zhao Shu to take good care of herself.

Unlike the fragmented, hesitant farewell of the previous night, Qi Ying, well-versed in poetry and elegant prose, even lamented her own disloyalty within the letter. She begged only that when the Young Master one day regained power and returned to Zhou, they need not worry about her anymore.

The wording was simple, yet the meaning profound. On the surface, the silk letter seemed to sever all ties cleanly, but Zhao Shu could read the deep affection and painful hesitation hidden between the lines.

Ordinarily, she would have immediately written back, making promises to reassure Qi Ying and telling her that she would certainly take her back to Zhou together.

But this time, she did nothing of the sort.

Concubines and women of the pleasure quarters… such insignificant people. She had never imagined that because of them, Qi Ying had nearly become the concubine of a fifty-year-old man.

Such a trivial matter, something even a man like Mi Rong could resolve with a single sentence, had somehow become more difficult for her than ascending to heaven.

How could someone like her still claim to protect those she loved?

How had everything come to this?

She simply sat motionless upon the swing, lazily kicking her feet from time to time to sway back and forth.

Perhaps an outsider would notice nothing unusual. But Ying Wuji could see it clearly. This was the posture of someone who had completely lost the will to live.

A gentle breeze lifted her loose sleeves. As the robe slipped back from the hands gripping the vine ropes, it revealed two arms that were both fair and luminous, yet painfully thin.

For some reason, that single glimpse made the man’s chest tighten with inexplicable heaviness. His long lashes lowered, casting shadows beneath his eyes.

Unconsciously rubbing the obsidian thumb ring on his fingers, he turned it over several times. Only then did he realize he had already crossed the vegetable garden without a sound and come to stand behind the swing.

One seated, one standing. Looking down from where he stood, the figure leaning crookedly before him seemed even smaller and frailer from behind, no different from a child.

As the daylight brightened, golden rays had originally fallen across her back. Yet now that he stood there, his own shadow swallowed every trace of sunlight.

The moment he realized this, the heaviness in Ying Wuji’s chest deepened for no apparent reason. He suddenly thought that his hands had been stained with too much blood, that he had taken too many lives for the sake of his ambitions, lives that should never have been taken. Standing here now, blocking her morning sunlight, felt somehow as though he himself had pushed her into the abyss.

Thinking that, he started to step aside, stubbornly wanting the sunlight to fall upon her back again. But just as he moved, Zhao Shu suddenly pressed hard against the ground with her toes, soaring high into the air on the swing.

Like a frail, delicate butterfly, she flew away from him. At the highest point of her arc, facing the western palace wall, she almost seemed as though she might fly clear over the walls themselves.

Yet in the end, her own strength failed her. Like a drifting autumn leaf, she floated gently back toward him.

For reasons he himself could not explain, Ying Wuji had intended to step away. Instead, he reached out and gave the swing another push.

Just as he was about to announce himself, the person in front spoke first. “Is that you, Cai Pi? Push me a little higher.”

He opened his mouth, but no words came. Silently, again and again, he continued pushing the swing as it rose and fell.

Then he heard the girl’s voice, filled with a strange, liberated delight, laughing as she called, “Higher… even higher, Cai Pi! I’m not afraid of heights!”

The hand pushing the swing suddenly paused. The man’s lashes lowered almost imperceptibly as the bewilderment faded from his expression, like the first crack spreading across the surface of frozen ice.

At last, he put real strength into his hand. Hearing the person on the swing suddenly burst into delighted laughter, a sound so vividly alive despite the bitterness in his heart, he lifted his eyes and gazed deeply at her fluttering figure.

A trace of unmistakable hesitation and uncertainty flashed through his jade-green eyes. His thoughts churned in restless turmoil, and his hand lost its usual precision. Distracted for a fleeting instant, he casually flicked out a palm strike with only a fraction of his strength. A startled cry rang out, and one of the swing’s vine ropes snapped. The person on the swing truly tumbled through the air like a fallen leaf, pitching sideways as she fell.

It happened far too quickly. Even the finest swordsman under heaven could never have caught her.

Yet the moment he heard that cry, the man instinctively launched himself after her. Heaven and earth spun several times around him. By the time he regained his senses, he had already caught her in his arms, rolling across half the vegetable garden before the two of them finally came to rest together on the damp, muddy ground.

“Y-Your Highness?” Zhao Shu, who had landed on top of him, hurriedly braced herself against his chest to get up, only for him to wrap an arm firmly around her waist.

Using his own body as a cushion beneath her, he simply let her support herself with her hands pressed against his chest. Reflected in those wide, clear apricot eyes filled with surprise, Ying Wuji saw scattered remnants of plum blossoms lying in the muddy vegetable patch, the dying blossoms of late winter, a fate destined to wither away before spring could truly arrive.

Within the girl’s eyes, he also saw himself. His thin lips were tightly pressed together, sorrow lingering at the corners of his brows. The expression of deep anguish on his face was so striking that even he himself was stunned by it.

He had clearly already obtained the tiger tally. From this day forward, aside from the few old armies still loyal only to his father and grandfather, he would become the true ruler of Qin’s future.

So why was this the expression on his face?

The future Qin Wang, one who would one day go even farther than that, how could he fail to control his own emotions?

“Y-Ying Changsheng? You…”

That was what he told himself. Yet when he heard her voice by his ear calling his true name instead of the disguised one, filled with puzzled concern, it was as though he had suddenly returned to the western frontier of Zhao, to the very first month after they had met.

Grief and numbness gradually overflowed in his eyes. At the sound of her voice, he remembered three years earlier, also in the bitter depths of winter, when the person before him had still worn her childish twin buns. She would always sneak up behind him unexpectedly, smack him hard on the back, then laugh mischievously as she called out, “Ah Sheng.”

During that first month, she had not yet grown tired of him.

It had nothing to do with romance, nor love or hatred. Before meeting her, Ying Wuji had struggled to survive amid the filthy, desolate depths of the palace. He had never imagined that anyone in this world could be so transparent and pure, brighter and more radiant than the finest glass brought from the Western Regions.

On the night he was sent away as a hostage, he had thought she was merely a foolish, spoiled noble whose fortunate life had spared her from ever seeing the world’s darkness, and that was why she possessed such a carefree nature. Yet over these past days, reports brought back by his spies in Handan had finally made him realize the truth. This person… had long since walked alone through countless shadowed alleyways. Her life had not necessarily been any easier than his own.

No matter what, however cruel and muddleheaded Lord Hengyuan had been toward his mother and their siblings, he had never stooped to turning his own child into a living test subject for poison. Ying Wuji even remembered that on the third day after his younger sister Wuyou died, his father had returned and punished Lady Zheng for what had happened.

As though possessed by some unseen force, Ying Wuji tightened his hold around her slender waist and asked coldly, “That demonist Ji Yue in Handan… has he… sent anyone to deliver your medicine again?”

The question was utterly unlike him, awkward, abrupt, even foolish.

Yet Zhao Shu immediately stopped trying to rise. She did not sense anything strange about the question itself; instead, her eyes instantly reddened. Turning her face slightly away, she answered, “Imperial Preceptor Ji is also considered my teacher. He only developed that poison because he was carrying out the king’s orders. The antidote he refines every ten days is also extremely difficult to make. Didn’t you say something had happened in Handan? I imagine he simply hasn’t had time to refine another batch…”

Before she could finish, the man suddenly shoved her aside. By the time she scrambled to her feet, he had already crossed to the moon gate beneath the flowering crabapple tree. He was walking so hurriedly that Cai Pi, who happened to be carrying a freshly brewed wine jar into the courtyard to bury it for aging, walked straight into him.

With a loud crash, the wine jar fell to the ground and shattered into countless pieces. Cai Pi immediately dropped to his knees, intending to beg forgiveness, but the man did not even spare him a glance. He strode past without looking back, leaving behind only one sentence. “Wait here until I return.”

After he disappeared, Cai Pi let out a miserable wail and threw himself onto the ground, heartbroken as he tried to salvage the unfermented glutinous rice wine soaking into the dirt. “My osmanthus flowers! I spent the entire winter drying them! And the premium Jiangnan glutinous rice I searched all over Xianyang to find! This was the only jar that hadn’t even started growing mold yet! Waaah… it’s all ruined!”

Brushing the small splatters of mud from her clothes, Zhao Shu walked over and offered Cai Pi a few perfunctory words of comfort. She looked in the direction Ying Wuji had disappeared, puzzled. She did not understand why he had left in such a hurry, nor why he had told her to wait. But she could tell that Ying Wuji’s state of mind was likely no better than Cai Pi’s at that moment.

***

When the crimson steed Chiji reared to a halt before the magnificent eastern main gate of Changming Palace, Cheng Wu happened to be leading a group of men out through a side passage. Seeing his lord arrive, he immediately dismissed the attendants and hurried forward with quick steps.

The official road before the palace gate was broad and empty. Before Cheng Wu could even speak, the man leapt from his horse. His robes were splattered with mud from head to toe. Without preamble, he demanded, “Hengyuan still doesn’t know about the medicine, does he? Where is it? If he does know, tell him it may not be the real antidote and that it still needs to be tested.”

Completely baffled, Cheng Wu nevertheless replied with unconcealed delight, “No need to test it! What incredible fortune! My lord, where in the world could there be such a coincidence? If I had gone to see His Majesty first today and arrived at Changming Palace just a little later, Lord Hengyuan would probably already be dead! You should have seen His Majesty’s condition when the attack struck today. He was suffering so terribly it was frightening! The moment he swallowed that pill, he regained consciousness within moments. When I came out just now, the imperial physicians had already taken his pulse. They said the chaotic pulse he had before has completely returned to normal. Aside from being somewhat weakened, he’s no different from an ordinary healthy person…”

Ying Wuji paid no attention to the rest of what Cheng Wu was saying. Nothing unusual could be seen on his handsome face. Only beneath the mud-stained sleeve, the hand that had been about to reach out and ask for the antidote suddenly clenched into a tight fist.

So the poison his father had been taking together with those alchemical pills had truly come from the Imperial Preceptor’s residence in Handan.

And that antidote had been genuine.

If that was the case, then even though he still had not uncovered why his father and Crown Prince Zhao had been afflicted with the same poison, he now understood one thing. That single antidote… had very likely been her last chance to save her own life.

Ying Wuji’s brows drew together sharply. Forcing his mind back under control, he nodded slightly before asking, “Have the arrangements for next month’s campaign against Chu been settled with Mi Yan?”

After receiving a solemn confirmation, he continued, “You know the tiger tally has only just come into my hands. This battle is of utmost importance, but Royal Grandfather will only approve it if Changming Palace takes the lead. He is far too suspicious. For the next month, I will remain out of sight in Zhongnan Mountain. Send every capable officer in the army out with the expedition. Also, Brother Rong must not be allowed to stay behind. Give him the title of Supervising Commander and have Zhang Mao keep an eye on him. Oh, and have Young General Lian accompany them as well.”

The matter was of tremendous importance. Cheng Wu had just been about to swear a military oath to reassure him when Ying Wuji added, “Since we’re only attacking Chu’s western frontier, and we’ve already thoroughly surveyed the terrain, you won’t need to accompany the army this time.” Swinging himself onto his horse, he gave one final order. “Little Wu, personally take enough men and make a trip to Yan. Spare no expense. Either find another antidote… or simply capture that demonist and bring him back to Xianyang.”

One of Cheng Wu’s brows arched slightly. He asked no questions, merely cupped his hands in acknowledgment. Then, deliberately raising his voice so the man on horseback would hear clearly, he mischievously added, “The medicine His Majesty no longer needed was originally going to be thrown away. I figured Your Highness might have a use for it, so I had the palace physicians preserve it carefully. Every person has their own fate. If it truly proves useful, it should be enough to keep someone alive for several months. Your Highness mustn’t waste such a precious thing.”

The remark carried an unmistakable implication. It bordered on outright insolence.

Yet Ying Wuji merely narrowed his eyes and cast Cheng Wu a sidelong glance before saying, “I know.” He had no time to trade barbs. Cracking his whip, he galloped away in a cloud of dust toward Changming Palace.

***

Barely forty-five minutes later, when he returned to the west garden of Lantai residence carrying Lord Hengyuan’s medicinal pills tucked inside his robes, he found Zhao Shu seated on a stone bench beside the swing with a bowl in her hands. At her feet lay the large wild rabbit that had been absent for many days.

She was eating breakfast, a simple bowl of torn noodle soup with wild vegetables, by the look of it. The rabbit was clearly eating much faster than she was. She had taken only a few bites before reaching into a basket twice to pull out fresh grass for it.

Cai Pi was busy sorting dried osmanthus blossoms while reminding Cai Song over and over to be careful with the wine jars that were being sterilized for brewing.

But Cai Song was obviously far more interested in the plump rabbit. He kept urging Zhao Shu to tell him more about raising rabbits, and whenever Cai Pi looked away, he would secretly reach out, trying to tug at the rabbit’s long gray ears streaked with white fur.

“Hey! Are you trying to get yourself killed? With those hands, how are you supposed to keep the jars clean?” Cai Pi caught him red-handed when he turned around and immediately launched into a furious scolding. “You’re the one who eats and drinks the most, yet you’re useless whenever there’s work to do! What if rabbit fur gets into the wine? Cai Song, can’t you be a little more reliable?”

Watching the two of them, Zhao Shu could not help bursting into laughter. Setting down her bowl, she struggled to lift the rabbit onto her lap. Lowering her head, she gave its forehead a loud kiss before smiling and siding with Cai Pi. “Making wine is difficult. If you get rabbit fur all over your hands, there won’t be any osmanthus wine to drink next year.”

Following her advice, Cai Song casually rinsed his hands in cold water, though his eyes remained fixed on the rabbit chewing away without pause. The twelve-year-old boy smacked his lips in imitation of the rabbit and asked curiously, “How can it eat from morning till night? If it keeps eating like this, won’t it eat itself to death? When I was little, there was a famine back home. So many people had nothing to eat. Grandpa dug up Guanyin clay, mixed it with grass stalks and tree bark into a paste for us to eat. Lots of people got too greedy and stuffed themselves until they literally burst. When they died, every one of their faces was swollen like winter melons. My, you’ve probably never seen anything like that. And their stomachs…”

Zhao Shu could not bear hearing such stories. Starving to death through edema usually took many months, so even on the battlefield she had never witnessed such a grotesque fate. Yet she did not want to interrupt Cai Song. She had only just begun feeling a little happier, so she merely lowered her head and gently stroked the rabbit while listening in silence.

Cai Pi was rather more perceptive. Seeing Cai Song’s words becoming increasingly inappropriate, he pretended to fly into a rage, scooped up a handful of dried osmanthus blossoms, and flung them over the boy’s head. “You little brat! You’re spraying spit all over my wine jars! I’ve never seen you this talkative before. Go on, get lost and boil another batch of water!”

Three people and one rabbit basked beneath the dappled spring sunlight. Ying Wuji stood quietly to one side, watching them for a long while. Only when Cai Pi and Cai Song began laughing and shoving each other did he finally decide he had seen enough. With a dark expression, he stepped through the haitang gate.

He had not even changed his clothes. He was still wearing the same robe, one side of it stained with dried mud.

After dismissing Cai Pi and Cai Song, Ying Wuji withdrew a bamboo tube about two fingers thick, its surface tinged green with age, from his sleeve. Expressionless, he handed it to her and carefully explained in full detail how he had accidentally used the medicine inside to save her life in the cave the previous time.

Zhao Shu had long wondered how he had managed to save her that day. Taking the bamboo tube, she knew her body was rapidly failing and made no attempt to hide it. Holding the rabbit in her lap once more, she returned to the stone bench. As she listened to Ying Wuji’s explanation, she eagerly tipped the tube and carefully poured a single pill into her palm.

For more than ten years, she had taken medicine every three months. Staring at the reddish-brown pill lying in her hand, she nervously examined its scent for a long time. “The smell and color are similar, but the ingredients are completely different. Perhaps… it works on the same principle as stimulating the acupuncture points with silver needles.” She returned the pill to the tube and shook her head, hiding her disappointment behind a faint, bitter smile. “You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble for me, but the cold poison inside my body… I’m afraid only Imperial Preceptor Ji Yue can truly cure it. He’s spent more than ten years developing the medicine.”

Ying Wuji wanted to tell her that the demonist had, in fact, already prepared the antidote long ago, it was simply never given to her.

But the words stopped at his lips. There was no way to explain how he knew such a thing. Instead, he asked solemnly, “Whether it’s silver-needle acupuncture or these substitute pills… at most, how much longer can they prolong your life?”

Zhao Shu thought back to what her sworn elder brother had once warned her and answered uncertainly, “If I force myself to keep going… at the very most, three seasons. It absolutely won’t exceed ten months.”

Only after speaking the words aloud did she have to confront the truth herself. Whether Cai Pi’s osmanthus wine successfully finished brewing or not, if no more medicine arrived from Handan, she… simply would not live to see next year.

Running her fingers gently over the rabbit’s ears, she felt fear and bitterness tighten around her heart. For reasons she herself did not understand, she casually murmured in a quiet voice, “Your Highness has the affairs of an entire nation to worry about. Why do you keep asking about my illness? Surely you’re not planning to go all the way to Handan to look for medicine… for a useless hostage slave like me.”

Her voice was soft and hollow, carrying both quiet resignation and fearless acceptance, yet also a trace of unwilling sorrow. She spoke so lightly that the faint hint of reproach in her words seemed ready to drift away with the warm spring breeze.

Yet the person before her caught every trace of that quiet complaint.

“Why do you think I wouldn’t do something like this? Why didn’t you ask me to save you sooner?” he demanded in rapid succession. Then he strode forward until only three inches separated them, once again blocking the sunlight above her head. His next words were solemn. “Forty days. I’ve already sent Cheng Wu out of Xianyang. In forty days, you’ll see one of the two, the antidote, or Ji Yue.”

Zhao Shu looked up in astonishment. She almost thought she had misheard him. The instant their gazes met, Ying Wuji concealed every trace of emotion and, with a deliberately stern face, abruptly continued the topic Cai Song had brought up earlier.

“Has this rabbit gotten fat again? The way it eats… are you sure it really won’t get sick?”

As if on cue, the big wild rabbit lifted its brown eyes and looked innocently toward the man whose gaze was full of disdain. Its little three-part mouth chewed as rapidly as raindrops falling, while its fluffy ears repeatedly brushed against Zhao Shu’s chin.

The ticklish sensation made her laugh. She caught one of its ears, took a deep breath, then indulgently grabbed another handful of alfalfa and held it to the rabbit’s mouth. Speaking earnestly, she said, “When you’re raising rabbits, you can limit other kinds of food, but you can never stop giving them grass. They should eat as much of it as they want. You probably don’t know this, but a rabbit’s teeth never stop growing. They have to keep chewing grass to wear them down. If you keep one penned up and don’t give it grass, you’ll cause a terrible disaster!”

As she spoke, she used one hand to gently pry open the rabbit’s lips. The rabbit bared its teeth, and Zhao Shu measured their length with her fingertip before looking at the expressionless man and declaring loudly, “If they don’t get worn down enough, the teeth will keep growing until they pierce the rabbit’s eyes. At that point, not even an immortal descending from heaven could save it!”

The wild rabbit had grown annoyed by her fussing. It suddenly opened its mouth and nipped her pale index finger, leaving a faint bite mark. Zhao Shu winced and quickly pulled her hand back, but she only laughed harder. Lifting the entire rabbit into her arms, she affectionately scolded it in a voice like playful babbling, “You little rascal! You can’t even tell when someone’s trying to help you!” Even after scolding it, she still could not resist leaning over and planting a loud kiss on one of its ears.

When she finished, Zhao Shu buried her nose against the rabbit’s ear once more before raising her head and giving the man standing before her a look that clearly said, How ignorant.

Ying Wuji kept a cold expression, yet no matter how hard he tried, his eyes refused to leave the rabbit ear she had just kissed. Almost imperceptibly, he ran his tongue over one of his canine teeth. Then, without warning, he reached over and grabbed the rabbit by its ears, lifting it into the air.

“Hey! Hey! How can you pick it up by its ears? Put it down and give it back to me!”

The rabbit dangled high above his head, kicking its legs frantically, nearly level with the vine trellis overhead. Zhao Shu jumped up in exasperation, trying desperately to snatch it back, but she could not even reach its hind feet. Watching her fail, Ying Wuji suddenly broke into a dazzling smile. Reaching out with his free hand, he plucked a stray rabbit hair from the corner of her lips. One brow lifted arrogantly, and for once there was even a hint of roguishness in his expression.

“I’m going to Zhongnan Mountain to live in seclusion for a month. I have no one to accompany me. You’re coming with me.”