Chapter 4.1

“You’re awa——smack——”

Su Jiao’s words of delighted surprise had not yet finished when the porcelain bowl in her hand was knocked to the ground, and in an instant a large hand closed around her throat.

An icy killing intent poured forth; Xie Yan pressed a shard of porcelain against her neck, and without a moment’s hesitation moved to draw it across.

“Xie Yan!”

Su Jiao cried out in pain, her eyes going wide with terror.

The familiar voice made his hand pause. Xie Yan looked down, and before him was a familiar face like a hibiscus blossom — a young woman of striking beauty, half her face hidden behind loose, scattered hair, her lovely eyes reflecting a flash of panic and fear.

A flicker of confusion and uncertainty crossed his eyes. But only for a moment — his hand tightened again, locking fast around her throat.

“Who sent you here to impersonate her?”

A cold and vicious gaze swept over her like a storm. In the dim hall it carried an even more chilling air. Su Jiao’s body trembled, the air in her lungs grew thinner and thinner, and her face flushed red as she struggled desperately.

“What are you doing!

I went to so much trouble to drag you back from outside — I kept you from becoming the first prince in the history of Great Zhao to die on the second day of his own wedding — and never mind if you feel no gratitude toward me, but now you want to strangle me to death?!

If you want to die so badly, go to Fengyi Palace yourself and find the Empress, cough cough cough…”

The familiar tone made Xie Yan’s gaze stop short, and he looked at her again more carefully.

Su Jiao covered her mouth as she coughed violently, then called out again in a hoarse voice.

“Remember to tell the Empress you chose to die willingly, and have her properly issue a letter of separation, then send me safely out of the palace — don’t drag me down to be buried alongside you!”

Xie Yan: ……

His grip loosened somewhat.

Contemptible, petty, clinging desperately to life.

That was her, no doubt about it.

And yet……

“Would you hurry up and let go — if you squeeze any longer, I’m going to become the first prince’s consort in your imperial family to be strangled to death by her own husband!”

“What did you just call me?”

Su Jiao’s complaints had barely fallen when a shadow suddenly loomed over her. She looked up and met Xie Yan’s cold, piercing eyes.

That gaze was dark and oppressive, and it inexplicably reminded her of the last time she had seen the tyrant in her past life — when he had lain dying on his sickbed. Su Jiao’s tone immediately deflated.

“Xie… Xie Yan.”

No. That wasn’t right.

Even when he had lain at death’s door on that bed, this woman had been audacious enough to say such things to provoke him — yet she had never dared call him by his given name directly.

Xie Yan looked at her pale little face, his throat moving. He took another step forward.

Su Jiao was entirely enveloped by his tall frame. The young man pressed his lips together, his expression dark and unreadable.

“You called me…”

Before he could finish, Xie Yan caught sight of the wedding robes on his own body.

His whole body went rigid. In that moment of stunned bewilderment, Su Jiao shoved him away with both hands and fled to the other side of the room.

The hand she used to push him away landed on his wrist. That warm touch threw Xie Yan into sudden confusion. He looked at the Su Jiao before him — so utterly unlike the Su Jiao who had become Empress — and it was as though something had abruptly struck him as wrong.

Xie Yan strode quickly forward. Su Jiao backed away warily step by step. He passed her, walked out through the inner door, and the dilapidated palace hall spread out before his eyes. Outside, the rain fell in an unbroken curtain. The crimson silk decorations had yet to be taken down. In the flashing and rolling of lightning and thunder, palace attendants came rushing in from outside.

“Your Highness the Prince, Her Majesty the Empress has sent us back, and she also asked us to remind you to rest and tend to your wounds properly here in Yongning Hall.”

“Boom——”

A crack of thunder rolled down from the heavens, casting light on Xie Yan’s ashen face. The suspicion taking shape in his heart swelled to its greatest extent in that moment. His heartbeat surged with fierce, vigorous force, as though it might leap out of his chest.

He could not stop himself from bowing his head and pressing his hand over his heart.

Alive.

…..

Xie Yan had already been standing at the doorway in that same position for a long while.

Su Jiao had gone from her initial shock and fright to watching the man — as pale as a sheet, motionless as a stone pillar — until after a moment’s hesitation she moved closer and reached out her hand.

“What are you doing?”

Xie Yan spoke lightly the instant Su Jiao’s hand came near his nose.

Su Jiao immediately let out a breath of relief.

Then at once she felt irritated.

Alive? Why couldn’t he just have died.

The pain of being choked still seemed to linger on her throat. Su Jiao coughed twice, then looked at Xie Yan with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“I thought the rain had addled your brain, or that the snake venom had affected your mind.”

Otherwise how could he have nearly strangled his own new bride to death?

A muscle in Xie Yan’s temple jumped. He parted his thin lips and was about to speak, but when his gaze landed on the finger marks around that slender neck, it paused again.

He slowly looked away.

“I was a little dizzy when I first woke — I thought an assassin had gotten into the hall.”

He paused again.

“I apologize.”

The explanation was better than nothing at all. Su Jiao turned around and prepared to clean up the herbal medicine that had shattered beside the bed.

“Hss——”

Xie Yan had just moved to rise and head outside when he staggered the moment he stood.

A bone-deep pain shot through his knees. He reached down and rolled up his trouser leg, revealing a knee already reduced to a bloody, mangled mess.

It seemed as though he was only now feeling some measure of pain. Xie Yan frowned and quickly turned the matter over in his mind, yet could not recall anything from his past life that should have happened at this point.

He scooped up some clean water from the basin nearby, rinsed the wound repeatedly, then tore a strip of fabric from the hem of his trouser leg and bound it around.

The bone-deep pain didn’t cause him to frown in the slightest. Su Jiao stood three feet away and watched him roughly wash the festering wound, flesh and skin peeling back to reveal a raw and bloody gash. Finally, when he was binding up the wound, a muscle in her own temple twitched.

“Let me do it.”

He had been soaked through and unconscious in the rain for a good while — if the wound was wrapped so carelessly, a high fever could take half his life.

Su Jiao had no wish to bring further trouble on herself. If you’re going to see a good deed through, see it through to the end. She had already saved him once, twice — a third time was no different.

Her fair, pale hand extended toward him. Xie Yan’s gaze settled on her for a long moment, then he pulled loose the bandage he had just tied.

At once that blurred and bleeding wound came into view again. Su Jiao looked up in surprise.

“It’s not just the snake venom? How did it get this serious? What else did you do?”

Snake venom?

Xie Yan’s gaze came to an abrupt halt.

Had there been a matter of snake venom in his past life?