Prince Qin's Mansion.
The room was as warm as spring. Chu Zhiyan was lying on the couch, breathing lightly.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes wide and sat up. His eyes were clear and cold, showing no trace of the drowsiness one would expect from someone just waking up.
He got up and walked to the table. After pouring himself a cup of cold tea to moisten his throat, he said, "What's the matter?"
Qiao Yan had just reached the door of the room when he heard the voice inside. He quickly took out the note he had removed from the carrier pigeon and read its contents to Chu Zhiyan.
After hearing this, a cold glint flashed across Chu Zhiyan's deep obsidian-like eyes. His thin lips parted slightly as he said, "Idiot! Replace him and have him go to the confinement room to receive his punishment on his own!" He casually picked up the clothes beside the couch, put them on, and walked out quickly.
Assigning his secret guard to keep an eye on that idiot Di Lanmo was really just to monitor her. He had to wait until everything was over before reporting. For the first time, Chu Zhiyan began to question his ability to judge people.
The night was as still as water, and the stars and moon seemed to have lost their light.
In the Wenjing Pavilion, Di Lanmo half-awoke from her dream and heard sobbing sounds beside her ear. It was Qingque.
She opened her eyes and saw the little girl beside the bed, holding her hand and crying her eyes out. She managed a wry smile at the corner of her mouth and said, "Alright, I'm awake. Go and get that small box I prepared before for me."
Seeing that her young lady had finally woken up, Qingque stopped crying and smiled. "Yes! I'll go right away!"
In about half the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Qingque came back with a box about the size of a square.
Di Lanmo took it from her.
Seeing Di Lanmo reaching out to undress, Qingque quickly stepped forward. "Miss, let me help you!"
"No need. It's getting late. You go back and rest first. I can do it myself." Seeing that Qingque still wanted to come forward, she smiled helplessly. "Alright, really, I'm fine. Hurry back!"
Unable to persuade her, Qingque had no choice but to leave, looking back every few steps.
After Qingque left, Di Lanmo took off her clothes, opened the box, and took out the medicine and gauze she had prepared before to treat her wound. As a mercenary who was always on the verge of danger, it was necessary to prepare medicine for emergencies.
Even though she hadn't encountered any great danger so far, wasn't it useful now?
Just as Di Lanmo was about to apply the medicine to the dense needle holes on her waist, her hand suddenly stopped. "Who's there?"
The woman sitting on the couch had a loose and messy hair bun. She had taken off her outer clothes and was only wearing a thin undergarment. Her round shoulders glowed with a moist light in the candlelight. Her slender hands were stained with pale yellow medicine as she applied it to her lower back.
Her slender and fair waist was covered with dense red dots, which were formed by the blood oozing out after the acupuncture. In the areas where the needles were inserted densely, the blood was still oozing out and slowly flowing down along the waistline.
The contrast between her fair skin and the bright red blood was striking, constantly assaulting Chu Zhiyan's eyes.
The woman turned her face sideways. Her phoenix eyes were lazy yet sharp. When she saw that it was Chu Zhiyan, she lowered her eyelids.
"Why are you here?"
Chu Zhiyan's Adam's apple bobbed. He watched as the woman treated her wound with a quick and strange technique. A glint of interest flashed across his eyes. It seemed that he didn't need to step in.
"I heard that you were punished by your father. I came to take a look." He coughed lightly and then asked, "Where did you learn this technique?"
Di Lanmo quickly tidied herself up and replied indifferently, "It was taught by a master I met before. It's not worth the prince's attention!"
Seeing that she avoided the topic, Chu Zhiyan naturally wouldn't continue to ask. Just as he was thinking, he heard a cold snort. "It's one thing for the prince to visit a young lady's boudoir at night. Now, do you still want to watch me change clothes?"
Chu Zhiyan naturally understood the implication. He rubbed his nose and turned around. A voice came with the wind. "Half a cup of tea!"
Chu Zhiyan stood at the courtyard gate for a while. When he thought the time was about right, he turned around and went back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a black shadow rushing towards Di Lanmo's room. His sharp eyes narrowed slightly. "Courting death!"
Just as he was about to rush forward to deal with this overconfident person, there was a "bang". The black-clothed man was kicked out of the door by Di Lanmo and fell to the ground.
Seeing this, Chu Zhiyan felt relieved and stood aside with his arms folded, watching the fight.
Di Lanmo's figure flashed and appeared beside the black-clothed man like a ghost. Before the black-clothed man could even raise his hand, he was subdued by Di Lanmo.
In the blink of an eye, the black-clothed man's neck was snapped by Di Lanmo with a "crack".
Di Lanmo loosened her hand, and the dead black-clothed man fell to the ground, raising a small cloud of dust.
Any martial artist could tell that Di Lanmo had no internal energy at all, yet she was able to easily kill this assassin with a strange movement technique and martial art!
Chu Zhiyan watched the woman's clean and decisive actions. A glint flashed across his black eyes.
"Are you really Di Lanmo?" Chu Zhiyan asked in a low voice.
Di Lanmo knew what he meant. "Absolutely!"
Chu Zhiyan looked at the unruly woman in front of him. His eyes flickered slightly, and it was hard to tell whether he believed her or not.
After thinking for a moment, he said again, "Your father and mother treat you like this. Haven't you ever thought about leaving here?"
"Leave?" Di Lanmo laughed. "The world is big, but I'm just a weak woman without any strength. If I leave the general's mansion, where can I go?"
"..."
Chu Zhiyan gave a quick glance at the still-warm body on the ground and then looked at the so-called weak woman. The mockery in his eyes was very obvious.
Di Lanmo also knew that her words didn't hold water.
But as the saying goes, as long as I'm not embarrassed, it's others who will be. So she calmly pretended not to see Chu Zhiyan's expression as if she were lying to a ghost.
Chu Zhiyan said in a low voice, "If you really want to leave, I can take you away!"
"Go with you? In what capacity? Anyway, I'm still your fiancée for now. After the wedding, I can naturally leave here legitimately!" Di Lanmo's eyes were cold and indifferent. There was no trace of shyness that a normal young girl would show when talking about marriage.
She walked up to Chu Zhiyan, reached out her hand and grabbed the front of his robe. Chu Zhiyan was stunned but didn't resist. He lowered his head following her strength until their eyes were on the same level. Their breaths mingled.
As their eyes met, an undercurrent surged.
Perhaps because they were too close, Di Lanmo's pale face gradually turned red. Chu Zhiyan looked at the woman's proud face like a cat. His heart skipped a beat, and his breathing gradually became heavy.
Di Lanmo curled the corner of her bright red lips. "Speaking of which, didn't you take my birth date to calculate the wedding date? How about it? Have you set the date?"
Chu Zhiyan's chest vibrated as he let out a soft laugh. "My wedding is a grand event. It needs to be calculated several times by the imperial astrologers. If you can't wait, I'll go and urge them tomorrow to set the earliest auspicious day. How about that?"
Di Lanmo didn't expect that the cold face of the man in front of her would look so bright and warm when he smiled. It was so bright that it almost dazzled her eyes.
Her originally frozen heart seemed to have a crack under the sun. Most of her hostility suddenly dissipated from that crack. "Sure!"
The night wind blew. On a tree not far from the Wenjing Pavilion, the leaves rustled slightly, revealing a black shadow. It was Chu Shisan, the new secret guard from Prince Qin's Mansion. Chu Shisan had just climbed onto the tree when he was so shocked that he almost fell off.
What shocked him? Of course, it was his master's long speech.
It might not mean much to others, but for them, the secret guards who had followed their master since childhood, it was as amazing as the sun rising from the west.
Take himself for example. He had been following his master for seven or eight years, and the total number of words his master had said to him might not even reach a hundred!
But just now, his master had actually said forty-seven words to this Miss Di in one breath!
Chu Shisan felt heartbroken. In his master's eyes, he and his brothers were not as important as a woman!
Chu Shisan wanted to cry, but he didn't dare. Since a worker should act like a worker, he could only hide in the tree and bite his fist in grief.