Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The year the late emperor passed away, Gu Yanzhi was twenty years old. He supported the Young Emperor’s ascension to the throne and took the reins of power as the Prince Regent.

Everyone in the court said his power eclipsed the world, that he was decisive and ruthless, and that a single step from him could suppress a hundred officials until they dared not lift their heads.

Ah Ying stayed by his side, watching him grow colder day by day.

When he dealt with corrupt officials, his expression was calm; when he forced imperial kin to their deaths, his tone was gentle; when he tossed an imperial decree onto the royal desk, even the Young Emperor dared not make a sound. Everyone feared him; even the night wind blowing through the eaves of the Regent Prince’s Mansion seemed to tremble.

Only Ah Ying knew that Gu Yanzhi actually spent entire nights without sleep.

He would sit alone in his study, looking at maps and secret reports until dawn. When his chronic headaches flared up, he would press his brow with white-knuckled intensity. Occasionally, upon hearing news of a great victory at the border, a faint, incredibly subtle smile would flicker in his eyes.

That smile was too light, like moonlight falling onto the surface of a lake.

Ah Ying secretly committed it to memory.

She was literate, taught at the age of ten by an old eunuch in a deserted palace. That old eunuch had served in the South Study in his earlier years but was sent to the Cold Palace to wait for death after being implicated in an old case. While Ah Ying was responsible for standing guard near the Cold Palace, she had given him wound medicine twice and a bowl of hot porridge.

The old eunuch said that since she was going to live for so long, she ought to leave something behind.

So, he used a twig dipped in water to teach her how to write on the brick floor.

Ah Ying learned slowly, but she had a good memory. After the old eunuch died, she hid an old wooden box in the deserted palace, inside of which were several thin booklets.

She wrote of nothing else, only Gu Yanzhi.

“Today, the Prince returned from the morning court; his sleeves were stained with snow.”

“Today, the Prince had a headache; he only finished half a bowl of medicine tonight.”

“Today, the Prince smiled.”

As time went on, the words grew more numerous, but her private thoughts became even more afraid of the light.

She knew she shouldn’t have a heart.

If a shadow dares to long for the moon, retribution will follow.

When Ah Ying was sixteen, Gu Yanzhi was ambushed in Shanglin Park.

The assassins that time were Death Warriors raised for many years by the Remnants of the Former Dynasty. Seventeen assassins lurked in the woods, their arrows coated in “Soul-Severing Green,” a poison that sealed the throat upon contact with blood.

Ah Ying protected Gu Yanzhi as they fought their way out of the encirclement. She took a blade to her left arm and an arrow to her waist. Finally, at the edge of a cliff, she intercepted a fatal second crossbow bolt for him, her entire body tumbling from her horse into the mud.

When the poison took effect, her mouth was filled with the taste of blood.

Bai Qingheng, the Imperial Physician traveling with them, had a grim expression as he scraped the poison from her.

“The old toxins in your body haven’t been cleared, and now you’ve added new ones. If this continues, you won’t live more than a few years.”

Ah Ying leaned against the couch, her face pale, but her voice was very light. “It doesn’t matter.”

Bai Qingheng let out a cold sneer. “You truly aren’t afraid of death.”

Ah Ying thought for a moment and said, “If I die for the Prince, it’s not a loss.”

Bai Qingheng glanced at her but ultimately said nothing more, only adding a few more heart-protecting herbs to the prescription.

Gu Yanzhi visited that night.

He stood outside the screen and did not enter, only asking, “Can she still be used?”

Bai Qingheng was silent for a moment before answering, “Yes.”

And so, Gu Yanzhi left.

Ah Ying lay on the couch, watching his silhouette through the translucent screen. She suddenly felt like laughing.

It turned out that surviving such a life-and-death struggle only earned her the phrase “Can she still be used?”

Yet, she didn’t feel the slightest bit of resentment.

She just suddenly wanted to touch her chest to see if it was already empty. Otherwise, why was it that every time he hurt her, it wasn’t a sharp pain, but a dull, stifling ache that she had nowhere to hide from?

After her recovery, she returned to the shadows as usual.

In the following years, she blocked open spears and hidden arrows for him.

Once, during an assassination attempt on the Imperial Street, a blade swung out from the crowd. She blocked it with her shoulder; the bone was fractured and took three months to heal. Another time was a night banquet in the palace where the wine was laced with a slow-acting poison. She tested the wine first and barely survived after suffering for seven days. There was also the time Gu Yanzhi went to the imperial tombs to offer sacrifices by decree. The mountain road collapsed, and she practically shielded him with her entire body, the skin on her back mangled by falling rocks.

Gu Yanzhi didn’t know.

Or rather, he didn’t need to know.

A shadow is meant to swallow the blood and the pain for its master.