Jiang Xingyan gave a few instructions to Cui Yu and Liu Suwu.
Both of them were wily old foxes, so of course they understood all the twists and turns involved. They thanked her profusely and went off to make the arrangements.
She had planned to head to the Military Machinery Camp to see if Iron Stone had made any new progress, but suddenly, her heart jolted with anxiety. Was the Empress making things difficult for her physical body? Or had Shangguan Hanshan gone crazy after seeing “her”?
She couldn’t help but worry.
Yun Ge’er was putting the increasingly clingy little Ya to sleep for her nap. With no other option, Jiang Xingyan left the military camp alone.
Wang Qi worked fast. The two-horse carriage had just been prepared when he immediately rushed off to take her to the imperial palace.
The closer they got to the palace, the more intense her heart palpitations became.
“General, not good. There seems to be a runaway horse up ahead, still hitched to a carriage.”
Wang Qi tightened the reins, staring intently at the scene before him.
“General, even worse! That looks like my brother’s carriage! Brother!”
Wang Qi was desperate to save his brother. Without waiting for Jiang Xingyan’s command, he cracked his whip against the horse’s rump. The carriage suddenly lurched forward and sped ahead.
Jiang Xingyan lifted the carriage curtain just in time to see her own black horse rearing up on its hind legs, front hooves in the air, letting out a fierce whinny. She caught a glimpse of the mother and son who had nearly been hit. They were huddled together, looking pitiful.
A wave of fear washed over her. Before she could even get out of the carriage, she heard Xiao Chonghua trying to win people over again. Jiang Xingyan was furious and had no intention of sparing his feelings.
“Xia Feng, give this woman two hundred taels in banknotes. Take them into the carriage as well, and we’ll all go to the Imperial Hospital together later. The child is frightened, so he’ll need a few prescriptions to calm his nerves and stop the tremors.”
Xiao Chonghua’s face stiffened. He had thought that “Huo Ci” would side with him after agreeing to marry his cousin. He hadn’t expected such continued hostility.
Mu Shian felt both ashamed and embarrassed. A creeping sense of guilt for stirring up trouble spread through her heart, making her afraid to look directly at “Huo Ci.” If she saw even a hint of impatience on his face, how would she ever hold her head up again?
But Jiang Xingyan didn’t even look at her. She ducked into the carriage and saw blood splattered everywhere, especially on the veiled hat and the veil. Huo Ci lay inside the carriage with her eyes tightly shut.
Jiang Xingyan saw that her face was as pale as gold paper, with more breath going out than coming in, and knew this was bad. It seemed that the damage hadn’t been swapped this time. She had no idea what had gone wrong.
There was no time to think. She lifted Huo Ci into her arms and carried her out. Watching this scene, Mu Shian’s eyes went wide with disbelief. She stared as the robust and sturdy “Huo Ci” carried the soft and slender “Jiang Xingyan” into the waiting carriage, which then drove off.
Her eyes turned red. What had she even come here for? She’d rushed over, wanting to vent “Huo Ci’s” anger for him, to get back at the merchant’s daughter for stirring up trouble in his household. She never expected the two of them to act as if their feelings weren’t over yet! The worry in “Huo Ci’s” eyes didn’t look fake at all. Then what about the things he’d said to her at noon—did they still count?
No! She couldn’t just sit around and wait for things to happen! Mu Shian gritted her teeth, stomped her foot, and climbed onto her own carriage. “To the Imperial Hospital!” There was no way she was going to let this remain so unclear—she had to get to the bottom of it.
——-
Inside the carriage, Wang Fu, his arm broken, looked dejected and full of self-blame. “It’s all my fault. I couldn’t hold onto the reins, and now the general’s wife—”
“It’s not your fault. That palm strike on the horse’s hind leg might have looked light, but it was packed with brutal, forceful internal energy. That horse is already done for, and it struggled with everything it had at the end. Without a strong internal energy base yourself, no one could have held it back.”
“G-General!” Wang Fu wasn’t comforted by Jiang Xingyan’s words at all. Instead, he looked at her in terror and instinctively stepped in front of the woman holding the child. The woman hid behind Wang Fu, her face pale with fear. She reached out to cover the child’s eyes, her lips trembling as tears welled up.
Jiang Xingyan was puzzled. “What’s wrong now?”
Dong Yang looked up and gasped. “Young—General, your face…”
Jiang Xingyan quickly grabbed the bronze mirror kept in the carriage and looked at herself. The face of Huo Ci in the mirror looked utterly exhausted. Seven streams of blood were seeping from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
The woman was from the countryside and already timid. Now she was even more terrified. She watched in disbelief as Jiang Xingyan showed no sign of panic, casually took a handkerchief, and roughly wiped her face. The blood smeared evenly across her features, making her look even more like the legendary grim-faced King of Hell. Instinctively, she grabbed hold of Wang Fu’s arm. Wang Fu’s body went stiff, and his stutter worsened. “G-General, y-you—”
“Don’t be afraid. We’ll be there soon.”
Watching Huo Ci’s complexion gradually return to normal, Jiang Xingyan understood. It seemed that after one person suffered an injury, it took about the time it takes an incense stick to burn for it to fully transfer.
By the time the carriage came to a shaky stop right at the entrance of the Imperial Hospital, Huo Ci’s injuries had completely transferred to her own body. For the first time, Jiang Xingyan felt weak in all four limbs and unsteady on her feet. With Xia Feng and Dong Yang supporting her on both sides, she barely managed to shuffle into the Imperial Hospital.
When Sun Miao saw the blood-covered faces of “Huo Ci” and his wife, the worry that had been hanging over him finally hit rock bottom. No wonder his right eye had been twitching nonstop ever since he got up that morning.
“Get them into the inner room quickly!”
Sun Yaxiang also came over. She felt the pulse of “Jiang Xingyan,” found it steady and strong, and determined there was no serious problem. Yet “she” remained unconscious, looking like someone with severe internal injuries. Then she looked at “Huo Ci,” who was quite lively, constantly asking about the operations of the free clinic: “Physician Sun, if you’re facing any difficulties, just speak up. Lady Jiang will certainly take care of everything for you.”
But all the meridians in his body were ruptured, and he’d completely lost his martial arts. If they weren’t reconnected in time, he would be a cripple for life. Sun Miao rolled his eyes at “him.” They were already divorced, yet he still had the nerve to spend Lady Jiang’s money? And he said it so confidently, as if it still had anything to do with “him”!
“Chief Physician Sun, the Third Prince and Princess Shian are here. They want to see General Huo.”
Sun Miao knew that troublemaker wouldn’t get off so easily. Couldn’t he go one day without causing some kind of incident and just quietly tend to his patients?
“Yaxiang, go out and tell the Third Prince and Princess Shian that Lady Jiang is severely injured and needs acupuncture to save her life, and General Huo has to stand guard over her and can’t be disturbed. Ask them to wait a moment in the back courtyard. No one is to be allowed into this courtyard!”
“Yes, Grandfather. Yaxiang will go at once.”
Seeing the grave expression on Physician Sun’s face, Jiang Xingyan knew this was going to be difficult. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should be honest with Sun Miao.
“Physician Sun, actually, I—”
“Shut up!” Sun Miao didn’t want to hear it at all!
But even though he pretended to be deaf and dumb, bits of fragmented information always found their way into his ears. Especially when he took pulses—the way “Huo Ci’s” pulse alternated between masculine and feminine, and the strange condition of Lady Jiang’s body being intact while her spirit was damaged, forced him to reluctantly guess a shocking, earth-shattering truth. But he didn’t dare to speak it out loud, nor did he dare to dwell on it. He would just let that thin layer of window paper stay forever unbroken.
“General Huo, let me say this again. No matter who you really are, you’re only my patient. Everything else has nothing to do with me!”
