Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The wind carried the season’s first snow and cut straight through me.

I wiped my eyes again and again until the tears finally stopped.

The handsome young man’s eyes were still red. After hearing my answer, he seemed lost in some sorrowful memory.

“How could any father bear to abandon his own child?” he murmured at last.

He stroked my head, then brushed the mud from my clothes without the slightest disgust.

“Will you give me the candied hawthorns?” he asked gently.

Did he really like them?

“But they’re dirty. You can’t eat them now.”

I blamed myself. If I had stood more steadily, if I had held on a little tighter when I fell, the skewer would still be clean.

I tried to hide it behind my back, but he took it before I could.

“Some of it is still clean.”

As he peeled away the wrapper, the black-clad man behind him cried, “Your Highness!”

“It’s all right, Suishan.”

The moment he bit into an untouched hawthorn, his expression changed. He suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.

“Your Highness!”

Suishan lunged forward in terror to support him.

I froze, frightened senseless by all that red. Darkness swallowed my vision, and I fainted.

When I woke, I was lying in a large, beautiful room. A kindly old woman sat beside the bed.

I did not know where I was, but I remembered the blood.

I shot upright. “Blood! The handsome young man!”

The woman set down her needlework and turned. “Handsome young man? Do you mean His Highness?”

“Don’t worry. Prince Rui is safe.”

Smiling, she brought me steaming pork congee and fed me.

“The physician said you fainted from hunger and fright. He told us to give you congee when you woke, so it would be gentle on your stomach.”

“Eat, child.”

It took me a moment to realize I had heard the name Prince Rui before.

Back in Xianzhou, whenever a child threw a tantrum, the village women would warn, “Prince Rui, Xiao Yan, is the King of Hell reborn. He has a hideous face and eats naughty children. Keep crying, and he’ll come take you away.”

I had been so afraid that I needed Mother to hold me before I could sleep.

But those stories could not be right.

Prince Rui was handsome. He did not mind that I was dirty. He had brought me home and fed me congee.

He clearly did not eat children.

He was a good man.

The old woman explained that she was Prince Rui’s former wet nurse and that everyone called her Nanny Jin.

After finishing the congee, I asked, “May I see Prince Rui?”

“Of course.”

I climbed down, put on my shoes, folded the quilt, and made the bed until the room looked untouched.

Then I stepped forward. “Thank you, Nanny.”

She was quiet. I did not dare look up or hurry her.

After a long while, she sighed. “You poor child…”

She took my hand and led me through long corridors and several courtyards. At the largest, most beautiful one, she stopped.

“His Highness lives here.”

Suishan happened to arrive with a bowl of medicine. As he passed us, he gave me a cold glance.

Soon his miserable plea came from the room. “Your Highness, please drink it.”

Prince Rui answered calmly, “It won’t help. Pour it away.”

Nanny Jin shook her head and sighed. Suishan did not dare argue and came back out with the bowl.

When he saw me, he stopped. After a moment’s hesitation, he thrust it into my hands as if he had nothing left to lose.

“You try.”

He wanted me to persuade the prince?

I thought about it and decided I should. Prince Rui had brought me home and fed me. I ought to repay his kindness somehow.

The room was warm and fragrant. Prince Rui reclined on the bed, his face still pale.

When he saw me, his brow relaxed.

“It’s you.”

I held up the bowl. “Your Highness, time for your medicine.”

He shook his head. “It won’t help.”

“It will. Mother said medicine makes sick people better.”

Mother’s illness had simply been too severe, and medicine too expensive. Prince Rui could surely afford the best medicine.

I rose onto my toes and stubbornly offered the bowl again.

He still would not take it. His smile looked as bitter as the medicine in my hands.

“I am not ill,” he said. “I was poisoned.”

“Poisoned?”

“A long time ago. I need an antidote, but we cannot find it. This medicine only eases the pain.”

Would he die like Mother?

My head drooped. “You’ll get better. You will.”

The bowl suddenly left my hands. When I looked up, Prince Rui had already drained it and set it aside.

He stroked my head in silence. He was the one who had been poisoned, yet he was comforting me.

My eyes burned again, but Mother had said I must not cry. There were many rules in the capital. I had to endure.

A physician entered with his medicine chest and sat down to take the prince’s pulse. I slipped behind him and rubbed my eyes where Prince Rui could not see.

Then the physician said in surprise, “How strange. Since Your Highness expelled that stagnant blood, your pulse has become much steadier.”

Rapid footsteps approached outside.

Suishan burst into the room, clutching a letter.

“Your Highness! A letter from the southern frontier! They’ve found the black-gold herb. Your poison can be cured!”