Chapter 7

Chapter 7

But I had only wallowed in misery for a little while. I had not truly meant to curse myself.

After daybreak, Beidi soldiers once again barged into the room that had been stripped so bare only four walls remained.

This time, however, they had not come to loot. They went straight for Mu Yuchang.

When Mu Yuchang was seized, tears as large as beans rolled down his face. He screamed himself hoarse, begging me to save him.

My body went rigid. I stood rooted to the spot.

His eyes suddenly flew wide, and he shouted in heartbreak, “Zhu Daoning, why did you betray me!”

Following his gaze, the Beidi soldiers looked at me.

“She-she’s the Little eunuch who serves me,” Mu Yuchang blurted out in a panic.

He had meant to get me out of it, but the moment those words left his mouth, the soldiers seized me too.

We were thrown into a prison cart and jolted along the road for ages. In the end, though, we were not unloaded at a jail, nor were we forced to crouch down and serve as low stools beneath their feet.

Instead, we were escorted directly before the Imperial Grandson.

Beside the Imperial Grandson sat a burly man with a stern face like a tiger or a leopard. The soldiers in charge of escorting us called him General Wulu.

General Wulu-I had heard of him. He was the Beidi commander sent to capture Ying’an Prefecture.

He pointed at Mu Yuchang and asked the Imperial Grandson if this boy was also a member of the imperial clan. Once the Imperial Grandson nodded, the general’s fiendish manner vanished, replaced by an arrogant grin. “How honest.”

Mu Yuchang might have been young, but his mind was quick. In the space of a moment, he understood everything. Furious, he turned on the Imperial Grandson. “Mu Wanyan! You were the one who gave me up!”

Mu Wanyan’s voice was cold, though guilt flickered faintly in his eyes. “Twelfth Imperial Uncle, you can’t blame it all on me. Someone exposed the fact that I had been switched back into the Princess Residence. I had no choice, so I gave you up as well.”

As he finished, his gaze drifted to me. “Blame my good subordinate for reporting to the general that I met someone extra at the Princess Residence.”

Only then did I realize that the guard who had struck me without actually touching me, led me into the Princess Residence, and then stood watch while Mu Wanyan and I spoke was now standing at General Wulu’s side, his expression smug with satisfaction.

Mu Yuchang grew even angrier. “Couldn’t you have just shouldered it yourself?”

Mu Wanyan said, “No.”

“All of you, shut up,” General Wulu said. He looked Mu Yuchang up and down. “What should I do with you? Drag you through the streets for all to see?”

“General, he is only a child who got carried away with play. There is no need to frighten the common people with him.”

A calm voice drifted in from afar, leaving everyone briefly dazed.

The Grand Princess had arrived.

She wore a solemn palace gown. Though her face was unadorned by powder or rouge, it remained lustrous and pale as jade. Her slender brows curved gently, and the faint upward tilt at the corners of her eyes made her look both valiant and aloof.

General Wulu glanced at her and gave a cold snort.

I could not quite make out how they negotiated after that. My head buzzed. It was only when Mu Yuchang tugged at my sleeve and asked in a simple, muddled voice beside my ear, “Miss Daoning, did I drag you into this?” that I came back to myself.

I reached out and pulled my sleeve free from his grasp.

A moment ago, he had been fiercely shouting Zhu Daoning this and Zhu Daoning that.