Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Old Madam’s expression darkened. She waved a hand. “Enough. You may leave. Drink your medicine properly and nurse your body back to health.”

I curtsied and withdrew from the room.

By the time I returned to my courtyard, it was already noon.

Xie Yunye had been helped back by his guard Changqing.

One hand pressed to his forehead, his steps were unsteady.

Gu Qinghan had heard the news from somewhere and was already waiting at the courtyard gate. Seeing him, she hurried forward to support him.

Xie Yunye raised his head. His gaze fell on Gu Qinghan’s face, and his hand clamped tightly around her wrist.

That look made my steps halt.

His eyes churned with guilt and deep affection.

“Qinghan.”

Gu Qinghan stiffened slightly and tried to pull her hand free. “Brother Xie, you are hurting me.”

Only then did Xie Yunye seem to realize something. He turned his head to look at me.

There was strangeness in that gaze, confusion, and a trace of disbelief.

“What happened to my lord?”

I asked Changqing.

Changqing bowed. “Madam, on the way back, my lord encountered a mad horse. To subdue it, he accidentally fell from his horse and struck his head.”

“Sit down.”

Gu Qinghan pressed Xie Yunye’s shoulder and made him sit in a chair.

“I will examine your head.”

Xie Yunye sat obediently.

But his gaze never left Gu Qinghan.

I stood where I was, my hands clenching slightly inside my sleeves.

Could it be… that he had been reborn too?

I left the main hall to the two of them.

Qiushuang kept looking back until her neck was nearly twisted.

“Stop looking. There is a peony competition at the teahouse today. Do you want to go?”

She grew anxious. “But my lord…”

“I am not a physician. I cannot understand his brain.”

I spent one hundred taels at the teahouse to buy several pots of especially fine peonies and had them moved back to the manor, where they were placed in my courtyard.

They were rather more pleasing to look at than the two people in the main hall.

During this time, for reasons unknown, Xie Yunye never brought up taking Gu Qinghan as his sworn sister.

Gu Qinghan, however, was not idle.

Every few days, she went to regulate Old Madam’s health and keep her company, telling her amusing stories from the military camp.

Xie Yunye was clumsy with words and could not say anything intimate before Old Madam, so Gu Qinghan said most of it for him.

Things like how brave the marquis was on the battlefield and how he cherished his soldiers – each story made Old Madam beam, and she held Gu Qinghan’s hand while calling her a good child.

Every day, I received a bowl of medicine meant to regulate my body. It was pitch black, its bitterness spreading through the air from far away.

I poured out every single bowl without exception.