Jing Xunche finished his wontons with a smile and watched the King of the Grasslands with an expression of easy amusement. “I didn’t expect you to be so tough—you ate the whole bowl without batting an eye.”
The Grassland King felt as if his stomach would turn inside out from the heat, but he forced himself to remain composed. To lose face in front of the Marquis was unthinkable. “Marquis Zhongning, you flatter me. These wontons are very tasty. Didn’t you finish yours just the same?” He wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and swallowed a bowl of water.
Jing feigned hurt. “Ah, you overestimate me. Mine wasn’t spicy at all.”
“What do you mean by that?” A cold foreboding slid across the King’s face.
“Just what I said,” Jing replied, casual as ever. “My bowl wasn’t spicy. I thought you liked spicy food, so I didn’t warn you.”
The look the Grassland King returned was ice. People from the steppes didn’t care for heat—they simply hid it rather than admit weakness. He’d been pretending to enjoy it to save face, and now Jing had played him for a fool.
The King had to laugh it off. “Well, the Marquis is right. I do like spicy food,” he admitted, more to cover himself than out of truth.
“Is that so?” Jing’s eyes glittered. “Perfect. Then I must have struck lucky.” He paid the bill and led the King from one stall to the next—everywhere they went served fiery dishes.
“Won’t the Marquis have any?” the stallkeeper asked.
Jing shook his head with mock solemnity. “No, I don’t care for spice. I’m only here for the King.” His tone made the King’s mouth twitch; backing out now would be to admit defeat, and the King was not about to do that.
At last they returned. Jing reported the outing to Mu Fengqia as if recounting nothing more than a pleasant afternoon. “Your powder didn’t work on the Grassland King,” he said, watching her closely.
“That’s impossible.” Mu Fengqia’s voice held more surprise than outrage. She prided herself on her pharmacology; her powders rarely failed. “When did you sprinkle it?”
“At noon,” Jing answered. “I put it on everything he ate.”
Mu Fengqia’s face fell, then cleared into a wry sort of calm. “I should have told you. This particular powder has a delayed onset. It doesn’t act immediately—when it takes effect, it hits hard.” She had made it to give revenge without leaving any trace pointing back to her. Slow and certain was the point.
She sighed and, in a small gesture of pity, lit a candle for the King’s delayed misery. “Tonight will be the best time to take his blood,” she said. “When the powder erupts, he’ll be helpless.”
Jing’s eyes flickered toward darker things. “And perhaps his heart’s blood—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Mu Fengqia cut him off with a steady look. “You will not get his heart’s blood.” She saw what he was thinking and refused to entertain it. Then she surprised him. “I’m going with you tonight.”
“No.” Jing’s refusal was immediate. “Too dangerous.”
“You can trust me,” she said. “If you doubt my skill, at least trust your own. I have reasons to come.” She had already decided, and he found himself unable to change her mind. “Fine,” he relented at last. “But stay close to me.”
“Always,” she answered, unflinching.
Back at his residence, the Grassland King drank pot after pot of water, trying to douse the fire in his throat and numb the smear of heat on his lips. He clenched his fist until his knuckles went white, cursing under his breath. Jing Xunche—he would remember this.
A prickling rose across his skin, then a red rash. Itched first, an unbearable heat just under the skin that made him want to tear himself apart. He tried to restrain the urge to scratch—tried to hold on to that final shred of dignity—but the torment was like a cruel instrument.
When his fingers slipped, the consequences were immediate: blistered pustules broke where he’d scratched, a little blood mingling with the pus. The sight made him stop—then think. Someone had drugged him.
His mind leapt to Jing Xunche, but the delay didn’t add up; no one could have poisoned him so late after a single afternoon together. If not Jing, then who?
He sent for the court physician. The old man arrived with measured steps, pressed cool fingers to the King’s pulse and frowned. “What did the King eat today?” he asked.
The King listed the day’s dishes.
The physician’s expression settled into certainty. “Then the diagnosis is clear. His body cannot take such heavy spice—an allergic reaction to the rich, hot food. Eating so much at once has overwhelmed him.”
All the King could do was scowl. The notion of being felled by bowls of fiery wontons was humiliation—worse, the idea that he might have been tricked into eating them fanned the burn of anger in his chest. He ground his teeth and tightened his fist until his nails bit his palm.