Chapter Eighty-Four: A Sister Takes After Her Brother

As Qianyu started to rise, Jinye hurried forward to support her.

Yuming had ordered the hidden guards to take Huangfuchen back to Listening Wind Pavilion, and then he entered Veracious Words Pavilion.

Jinye was helping Qianyu sit down, the very picture of a man utterly devoted to his wife, when Yuming’s voice sounded: “Are you all right?”

Qianyu answered carelessly, “I won’t die.”

Jinye frowned at that.

The room fell silent at once. Qianyu turned in surprise to look at him. Why should a single sentence anger him so?

A cough from Yuming broke the hush. “The imperial physician came to examine me today. He said your arm may well be ruined from now on.”

“Ruined? Mine?” Qianyu was stunned, then immediately retorted, “Your arm is the one that’s ruined!”

“Lifting heavy things may no longer be possible. In the future... would that not mean it is ruined?” Yuming said with some hesitation.

Jinye’s gaze sharpened. He gave Yuming a sidelong look and asked, “Are you going to Cloud Pass City or not?”

Yuming had in fact come for this matter as well. He had suddenly become the crown prince of Liyue, and the people of the kingdom were already in an uproar.

Under that pressure, he would probably have no choice but to go to Cloud Pass City and investigate Qianyu’s origins.

In truth, Qianyu’s background was simple enough: she had taken both her father’s surname and her mother’s, entered both family genealogies, yet only one name had been registered in the household records. By contrast, the Lu clan had two legitimate daughters listed in the Ministry of Households’ registry: one was Luyanran, the other was the former false legitimate daughter of the Lu family, Luhuiyan.

So under the laws of the land, Qianyu had only one identity, while the genealogies of the great clans were internal family matters. The Ministry of Households did not concern itself with how many people were entered into a clan’s own records.

The Empress Dowager had naturally uncovered Qianyu’s identity as well, yet this only made her more vexed.

She could not acknowledge that Qianyu possessed two identities. She could not acknowledge that Qianyu had been granted marriage twice. And she absolutely could not admit that the later betrothal had been meant to marry the War King to a spy from the Western Yan.

Thus, for the Empress Dowager, the precise truth of Qianyu’s identity mattered little now. What mattered was using the matter to set Jinye and Yuming against each other.

Qianyu guessed that the Empress Dowager had sent Yuming to Cloud Pass City precisely in order to kill him on the road there, then pin the blame on Jinye.

The atmosphere in the room tightened again.

Qianyu saw through Yuming’s hesitation and said, “He cannot放心 about Qingxuan.”

Jinye frowned.

Qianyu suddenly stiffened. “I just remembered something...”

She looked at Yuming. “When Jinye went off to war, before I took Qingxuan back to the Qia family for the New Year, it seemed Qingxuan did not know you had gone to Cloud Peak Mountain. She...”

Was the person Qingxuan had been waiting for in the War King’s residence all along Yuming, and not Huangfuchen?

That was right. Huangfuchen had gone to war together with Jinye. If Qingxuan had been waiting for Huangfuchen, why would she have stayed in the War King’s residence for three months before returning to the Qiao family for the New Year?

It seemed that only on New Year’s Eve did Qingxuan learn that Yuming had gone to Cloud Peak Mountain...

A moment later, Qianyu remembered another thing. “After Qingxuan was rescued, she said she had recovered some of her memories...”

Why had someone been so determined to kill her?

“What do you mean, ‘recovered some of her memories’?” Jinye asked.

Yuming also looked at Qianyu in astonishment.

“Didn’t you say that after that escape, Qingxuan was in terrible condition, and only improved after seeing Huangfuchen?”

“It should have been Huangfuchen who performed hypnotherapy on Qingxuan. Perhaps because the situation was unusual then, he chose to make Qingxuan forget that memory...”

“That kidnapping may have made Qingxuan remember it again...”

“What kidnapping?” Yuming asked sharply.

“The one... he... came back from Qu City to find me that year because Qingxuan had been abducted by Lin Yichu, who forced me to write him a cruel break-up letter!” Qianyu rarely saw Yuming this agitated.

Fire seemed to blaze around Yuming. Jinye also frowned, and only then did Qianyu belatedly realize something was wrong.

It had all been a trap carefully laid by someone else: as soon as Jinye went off to war, the hidden hand struck Yuming, and when Yuming was poisoned and sent to Cloud Peak Mountain, they immediately moved against Qingxuan. Then they threatened Qianyu to manipulate Jinye from both sides, forcing him to race back to Yuedu in utter disregard of everything else.

On the road back to Yuedu, there had been a premeditated ambush.

Thinking even deeper: if Jinye had died then, military power would have slipped from his grasp and into someone else’s—either Huangfuchen’s or Lubityan’s...

Qianyu shuddered all over.

“Could it have been Huangfuchen?” she asked.

“No,” Jinye and Yuming said at the same time.

Qianyu bristled at once. “Then it could never be my brother!”

At that, Jinye’s face darkened.

Yuming, with no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, said, “We didn’t even say it was Lubityan, and you’re already defending him!”

Jinye glanced at Yuming sternly. Yuming understood the look perfectly: Jinye could be jealous, but no one else was allowed to speak ill of his wife.

“And the assassin last night...” Qianyu also looked toward the flying dagger on the desk.

It was identical to the one used when Qingxuan, under the name of Cotton Voice, attempted assassination. It was also the same as the blades used by Seductress Ji when she broke into the War King’s residence and Drunken Jade Tower.

What Jinye did not say was that the dagger was the very same as the one Luyanran had thrown on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival four years ago.

Had Luyanran truly been forced by Luhuiyan in so simple a manner?

Yet Luyanran was Qianyu’s own maternal cousin; that much could not be denied. The birthmarks on their bodies were identical. Jinye did not much believe that people of the Lu family would collude with spies from the Western Yan.

“What are you thinking about?” Qianyu saw the thoughtfulness in his eyes.

“The throwing blade Luyanran used to assassinate me on the Mid-Autumn night was exactly the same as this one,” Jinye said, unwilling to hide it from her.

Qianyu fell silent, her expression cold.

After a long, long pause, she suddenly asked, “Just now, outside, were you fighting Huangfuchen?”

Jinye nodded. Since someone wanted him to suspect Huangfuchen, he might as well do so for their benefit.

“Then first tell me—should Yuming go to Cloud Pass City or not?” Qianyu said distractedly.

In truth, last night had looked very much like Luyanran’s work. The throwing blade without poison was like the drugged tea Luyanran had once given her at a poetry gathering.

Was Luyanran forced to kill her, yet unable to harden her heart enough to do it? Or did she want to kill her, but was not permitted to?

Qianyu was certain Luyanran must be under the control of some person or force—perhaps Mistfall Pavilion. After all, did not the dagger come from Mistfall Pavilion in the first place?

“I’m going to Cloud Pass City!” Yuming suddenly rose, left that single sentence behind, and turned toward the Green Orchid Courtyard.

Spring in Liyue was rainy. The bright, sunny sky darkened without warning, and a fine drizzle began to fall, while the wind stirred the leaves into a rustling whisper.

When Yuming reached the Green Orchid Courtyard, Qingxuan was as she had always been, sitting by the left window and looking out at the bird’s nest beneath the eaves.

“Xuan’er...” Yuming could not help calling her by her intimate name.

“Brother Yuming...” Qingxuan still answered in Cotton Voice.

Yuming smiled and pulled her to sit. “Brother Yuming has something to tell you.”

Qingxuan nodded obediently and waited for him to continue.

“Brother Yuming must go away for a while. I won’t be able to come see you for quite some days,” he began, and already felt the ache of parting.

Qingxuan pouted silently, but still listened quietly.

“Cotton Voice, promise Brother Yuming this: before I return, do not go to Veracious Words Pavilion to attempt an assassination. Otherwise Brother Yuming will worry while I’m away, understand?”

He could not bring himself to demand that she stop trying to kill Qianyu, so he could only guide her gradually.

Qingxuan nodded with an innocent expression.

Yuming gently ruffled her hair.

The next morning, Yuming set out for Cloud Pass City, with Night Eleven leading four squads of hidden guards at his side.

Along the way, as Qianyu had foreseen, Yuming’s party encountered several waves of assassination attempts.

Near Cloud Pass City...

A spring thunderclap suddenly rolled across the sky, and the mountains and fields were swallowed in a rain curtain as light as gauze.

Another slaughter began.

At the War King’s residence in Yuedu, Yuming had already been gone ten days, and Qianyu grew more and more uneasy.

Another peal of thunder sounded. Night Ten hurried to Veracious Words Pavilion, his urgent voice blurred by the rain: “Your Highness, Princess Consort, the Princess Qingxuan is gone!”

Qianyu was startled, and at once thought of Qingxuan having visited her before Yuming’s departure. “Did Yuming say anything to Qingxuan?”

Night Ten reported, “His Highness the Crown Prince told the Princess that he was going out for a while, and that she need not come to Veracious Words Pavilion so as not to leave him worrying outside. The Princess agreed.”

“She must have gone after Yuming...” Qianyu frowned and sighed, then looked helplessly at Jinye. “Like brother, like sister!”

Jinye rose at once, opened the door, and a rush of cold air driven by the rain swept into the room. He instinctively lifted a hand to shield himself, stepped out of Veracious Words Pavilion, and pulled the door shut behind him.

“Bring her back!” Jinye ordered coldly, then added sternly, “Have Night Nine take a squad with him!”

Outside Cloud Pass City, Yuming had already grown numb to one round of killing after another, but when his gaze fell upon the figure running toward him from afar, his face instantly darkened.

“Brother Yuming...” Qingxuan called in her soft voice.

“Why would you disobey?” Yuming asked angrily, though he kept his temper in check.

“I didn’t disobey. Brother Yuming said not to go to Veracious Words Pavilion, and Cotton Voice did not go to Veracious Words Pavilion!” Her voice remained soft and harmless.

Yuming was at a loss, remembering what he had said to her in the Green Orchid Courtyard before departing: “Cotton Voice, promise Brother Yuming this: before I return, do not go to Veracious Words Pavilion to attempt an assassination. Otherwise Brother Yuming will worry while I’m away, understand?”

Seeing the girl before him, drenched through by the rain, he finally removed the light cloak from his shoulders and wrapped her tightly in it. Then he raised a sleeve and carefully wiped the raindrops from her forehead.

Not far away, a group of men were locked in slaughter, and the smell of blood grew thicker by the moment...

Qingxuan frowned and instinctively looked that way, but at just that moment, a broad palm covered her line of sight.

She saw nothing. In the next instant she was in Yuming’s arms.

“There are bad people here. Be good and close your eyes. Just stay beside Brother Yuming, understand?”

Qingxuan breathed in the cool scent upon Yuming’s body, and a smile filled her lips as her heart grew steadier.

Yuming’s chest rose and fell as he pressed her head into his embrace, unwilling to let her see any more bloody scenes.

Then Qingxuan suddenly caught a strange herbal scent. She immediately raised a hand to cover Yuming’s mouth and nose.

Yuming frowned. It was a sedative.

Before anyone could react, a storm of flying blades came sweeping toward them.

“It’s Sister!” Qingxuan turned, delight lighting her face as she looked toward the newcomer.

It was Seductress Ji.

It was said that Seductress Ji was a demon who killed without blinking, always clearing the way with throwing blades. Yet this time, unexpectedly, she had used smoke instead.

As the hidden guards and assassins fell one after another, Yuming instinctively tightened his hold on Qingxuan.

“Sister!” Qingxuan called softly.

Seductress Ji gazed calmly at the two of them. Her eyes moved back and forth between them, and then her seductive voice rang out: “Come back with Sister!”

At that, Qingxuan frowned and shrank into Yuming’s arms, calling in a soft, pleading voice, “Brother Yuming...”

Seductress Ji’s gaze immediately fell on Yuming, and in her heart she guessed that he must be the one Qianyu meant to save.