Chapter 82: Chapter 82: Lying Drunk Beneath the Flowers

Liang Wan sent away the summoned physician. She was well aware of her own condition.

If things went as expected, she would have to face Gao Qian again soon. Being so filthy would only add to his disgust.

’If she truly earned his disgust, then all her efforts today would have been for nothing...’

Her clothes shed, Liang Wan sank into the wooden tub. The wound on her shoulder blade throbbed with a piercing pain.

Qiuxi helped her wash, her heart still fluttering with fear. "My lady, you fell into the water! Thank goodness Young Master Zhou saved you! Even so, you nearly... How could you, my lady?"

She had wanted to rush forward and stop her, but her mistress had frozen her with a look. It was clear she had fallen into the water on purpose.

Liang Wan smiled but said nothing. ’A long time ago, she wouldn’t have dared. But later, he had forced her to stay submerged for so long...’

’What was there to fear now?’

’She was merely showing him, ahead of time, what he himself had taught her.’

Qiuxi sighed. "My lady, you’re not an impulsive person. Why act on a whim today? That lady from the Prime Minister’s Mansion is not someone to be trifled with."

A shiver of fear ran down her spine whenever she recalled the master saying he would seek justice for Lady Cao.

Liang Wan leaned against the rim of the tub, her eyes lowered in a faint smile. ’Qiuxi didn’t understand. If Liang Wan didn’t choose her own way to die, Gao Qian would choose one for her.’

’And then, she would truly have no way out.’

Liang Wan turned her head, her voice a soft whisper. "If the master hadn’t been there, I would never have provoked her."

Qiuxi’s scrubbing hand froze. A chill crept into her heart. "My lady... did you do it on purpose to get the master’s attention?"

Liang Wan looked away, her eyes cast down. "Haven’t you always been urging me to make plans for my future? In all the world, who is more powerful than the Emperor?"

"My lady—" Qiuxi said, aghast. "He may be the Emperor, but his own pregnant wife was poisoned, and he just continued drinking with everyone! He might be beyond powerful, but he is no good man! You deserve a husband who will truly cherish you!"

Liang Wan pressed her lips into a smile. ’Qiuxi is so kind, and so sharp. She won’t have to worry about her future.’

She turned around to face her. "I was only joking. Do you think just anyone can enter the Imperial Palace as they please?"

Qiuxi was skeptical, but seeing the earnest look on her mistress’s face, she chose to believe her for the time being.

After a quick bath, she changed into the clothes that had been prepared for her. If not for the fear of appearing improper before everyone, she would have just loosely pinned up her hair.

’She knew all too well what Gao Qian liked.’

Liang Wan retrieved a small white porcelain bottle from the clothes she had shed and told Qiuxi to deliver it to Zhou Yun. Though confused, Qiuxi did as she was told.

After Qiuxi had gone, Liang Wan glanced back at the tub. She had only asked the servants for a quick wash, yet they had made such thorough preparations. ’This is the Duke Mansion, and I’m still technically a criminal. To receive this kind of treatment... it certainly makes one think.’

Liang Wan took out the Ying Grass Ointment hidden in her sleeve. This was the folk remedy she had spent so long searching for the other day.

’Some things are a cure, but they can also be a poison.’

Liang Wan put the ointment away and, before the servants returned, pushed the door open and slipped out of the room.

Debauchery and drink go hand in hand, and where there’s wine, there must be flowers. If she followed the fragrance of the blossoms, she was sure to find the drunken men.

In the afternoon, the high sun made the foliage lush and vibrant. The scorching rays made the very air feel dry and hot. On the tree trunks, cicadas shrieked their lungs out, as if venting some frustration.

A single wall separated the Flower Garden from the East Wing, where guests were received. But such convention was hardly to Gao Qian’s liking.

Using the dense foliage as cover, Liang Wan followed the base of the wall toward the West Wing. She’d heard that after Wang Yansheng died, Lou Xu Ru had been brought back to the Duke Mansion. A new widow couldn’t very well enter the Imperial Palace, so she was surely suffering from unbearable loneliness.

In the small courtyard, there wasn’t a single sign of the matrons and maids who should have been standing guard along the covered walkway.

Liang Wan peered toward the entrance for a long time. Only after confirming no one was there did she tiptoe toward the walkway. She knew Lou Xu Ru lived here, but she wasn’t sure which room was hers.

Once on the walkway, she slowed her pace, inching her way further in. Lou Xu Ru loved luxury; her quarters would surely be inlaid with gold and jade, making them easy enough to identify.

Stepping into the main hall, she found the floor covered in a thick, soft cashmere rug that muffled her footsteps. She slipped past a jade mural that served as a partition. Beyond a small, square-shaped inner courtyard was Lou Xu Ru’s bedchamber.

Liang Wan’s eyes quickly swept the room: incense burner, teapot, bed...

She settled on the bed. She took out the wax pill and was just about to crush it and sprinkle the contents when her arm froze. Her wrist was caught in an iron grip.

"What in the world are you trying to do?"

Liang Wan started. That voice... it was Lu Xiu.

Before she could speak, voices sounded from the inner courtyard.

Lu Xiu knit his brows, his gaze unusually deep, as if it held a world of meaning. But when she tried to look closer, it seemed to vanish, as if she’d imagined it.

"I—" Liang Wan’s eyes pleaded with him.

Suddenly, Lu Xiu smiled.

The instant the newcomers stepped into the room, Lu Xiu wrapped an arm around her waist, lifted her, and leaped out the open window.

The movement was so fluid it was like a single breath. Liang Wan crouched beneath the window, her head bowed, her heart still pounding.

The commotion inside the room was loud. When it came to such matters, Gao Qian was already wild and unrestrained. Now, in the Duke Mansion, sneaking around behind everyone’s backs with the wife of one of his own officials—how could he not indulge his every whim?

Lou Xu Ru was Gao Qian’s older cousin. According to Lou Xu Ru herself, she and Gao Qian had become involved long before her marriage. It was just a pity that her betrothal to Wang Yansheng had been arranged long ago by Wang Su and Lu Ying.

In the past, Gao Qian had often summoned Lou Xu Ru to the Imperial Palace under the pretext of organizing his collection of art and calligraphy.

Now, with Wang Yansheng gone, she lived in seclusion as a widow. A meeting was not so easily arranged, so she worked all the harder to please him. Her cries grew louder and louder, as if determined to outdo the shrieking cicadas on the tree trunks.

Perhaps Gao Qian also found her cries too piercing, for it sounded as if he covered her mouth with his hand. Yet muffled whimpers still escaped through his fingers.

Liang Wan wiped her chin. ’Poor fool, Wang Yansheng. He probably died thinking their bond as cousins was just that deep...’

’Then again, with a hunger like that, who’s to say it isn’t a deep cousinly bond?’

’What a pity—’

’If I had just sprinkled the poison on the bed, they would have died in a state of supreme bliss. AARGH, such a perfect opportunity, ruined by Lu Xiu popping out of nowhere!’

Ever since Lou Xu Ru had witnessed Gao Qian’s violence toward her, she had not only ignored Liang Wan’s pleas for help but had even treated her as a rival. Thinking Liang Wan wanted to steal Gao Qian’s favor, she had used every means possible to humiliate her.

Liang Wan gritted her teeth.

Seething with resentment and frustration, she jerked her head up, not expecting to slam the top of her head right into Lu Xiu’s chin. She heard him let out a low, suppressed grunt.

Liang Wan hurriedly pulled back from his embrace, tucking her head down again and peeking up at him cautiously from under her eyelids.

She expected that having hurt him, she would have to face his furious expression.

But to her surprise, his dark eyes were slightly downcast. His face, normally so pale it seemed to glow, was now flushed a rosy pink, as if he’d applied rouge.

Liang Wan stared at him, blinking hard. He promptly turned his head away.

She glanced up at the window. ’Ah, maybe that’s why he’s blushing.’

Liang Wan sighed to herself. ’The opportunity to poison them is gone, and there’s no point in listening to this any longer.’ She tugged at Lu Xiu’s sleeve in frustration, wanting him to leave with her.

The moment her fingers touched his sleeve, he recoiled as if scalded and flung her away. Caught completely off guard, Liang Wan tumbled to the ground.

"Who’s there?!"

A sharp roar erupted from within the room.

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