A feeling of tightness comes over her chest. Li Wanrou kneads her head between her eyebrows to release the pain, saying, "I have a headache due to the wine I drank just now. Maybe I"ll feel better if Igo out for a walk to get some fresh air."
An Ruyi, who is fascinated by the play on the stage, doesn"t even notice what she says. Seeing that, Li Wanrou shakes her head helplessly and leaves.
In the palace, every brick or stone has the memory of her life when each day seemed like a year to her besides the countless intrigues she had to face. Now the memories of those days fade away by degrees, but her heart still aches when she is here in the palace.
She managed to get through so many lonely days in so many years alone with no one to turn to. Besides, there were so many sworn enemies.
She goes to the pavilion in the center of the lake to sober up. Suddenly, a small boat approaches with some dots of light s.h.i.+ning out, which attracts the attention of Li Wanrou.
Only one glimpse makes her totally sober up with a shock.
Why! How could it be Ouyang Chengde!
The man lying across in the boat wears nothing but a loose robe and clogs in the bitter winter. His face is pale with no sign indicating whether he is alive or dead.
The pain between her eyebrows is getting worse, and she subconsciously wants to go away in order to keep her nose clean. But the man"s deep dark eyes attract her, and she cannot help approaching the boat.
Jumping into the river, Li Wanrou feels the piercing cold water like needles in her body. Her cold has just been removed and now she has a relapse. She is aching all over, but still keeps swimming to the boat.
After getting on the boat, she quickly pulls down the thick curtains from the four sides of the boat, and then lights the silver charcoal, and takes off her fur coat to warm herself up by the fire.
Then she takes the pulse of Ouyang Chengde, and finds that his pulse beating is abnormal, as if he were poisoned, and the toxin is deep in his body, but not enough to kill him.
It is odd that the crown prince has been poisoned for years. Isn"t that he himself doesn"t know? Is it because of the toxin in his body that his disposition was changed greatly five years ago? But he was perfectly sane when she met him a few days ago.
The more she thinks, the more doubts she has. It takes quite a long time before she comes to a rough conclusion that Ouyang Chengde must have been poisoned by the Powder of Five Minerals.
His pulse beating is sometimes weak and sometimes strong, and there are a few moments when she couldn"t feel his pulse, which is in conformity with the symptom of being poisoned by taking too much of the Powder of Five Minerals.
But the Powder of Five Minerals is only made in the western regions. It is in her previous life that she occasionally heard the name when she gave an interview to the envoys from the western regions. Because of its special effect, she could remember the Powder of Five Minerals.
Moreover, what Ouyang Chengde wears is something which is permeable and ventilated, and those who take the Powder of Five Minerals have an internal fire for a short period of time. Therefore, it is proper for them to wear less. Besides, their skin would tend to be so tender that any friction would cause damage to the skin so that clogs would be the right choice.
Li Wanrou is surprisingly terrified to see that Ouyang Chengde is poisoned. She could not figure out who had done this to him, the legitimated crown prince, or at least he is now.
Her face becomes cold and serious and it takes a long time before she recalls how to detoxify the toxin of the Powder of Five minerals, which not only takes time but also would make the seemingly strong body of Ouyang Chengde weak and exhausted in no time.
Taking out an acupuncture needle from her sleeve, Li Wanrou instantly inserts the needle into his body, and then, she takes out a Pill of Life which she just developed, and helps him take it.
Having done all these things, Li Wanrou feels her eyelids are heavy with fatigue. Now that her fur coat is getting dried, she would like to put it on and go back home.
However, with a glance at the frowning face of Ouyang Chengde, she refrains from leaving him alone. Therefore, she lies down beside Ouyang Chengde with her clothes on. With her eyes closed, she soon falls asleep.
It is getting dark. When Ouyang Chengde gradually comes out from his stupor, he puts his hand on his chest as he used to, for he often has an epigastric pain, only to find that he is quite well this time.
He rises up abruptly, seeing that Li Wanru lies beside him with her shoulders raised as if to be on guard against something. Her little face looks like she is ill and she looks haggard.
There is a silver needle in her hand and there is no pain on his own forehead, so that Ouyang Chengde doubts that whether it is Li Wanrou who saved his life.
He once took the Powder of Five Minerals in the palace. He took the d.a.m.ned Powder again when his illness attacked again, for it could kill the painfulness.
It has been five years since he first took the Powder of Five Minerals. Five years ago, he fell off his horse and broke his leg when he was. .h.i.t by a rolling rock from the hill. In order to stand up and walk well, he endured great pain these years. Now his legs are getting better, but he is addicted to the Powder of Five Minerals.
He could not pa.s.s a single day without taking the Powder of Five Minerals. Otherwise, he would become some crazy maniac looking for it everywhere.
He clenches his fists to make himself come back to his sense, and then takes Li Wanrou in his arms and walks to his palace. There are many people in his palace, but everyone seems to see nothing at all when he goes by with a woman in his arms.
Nearly half of the people in his palace are those who had followed Ouyang Chengde, the crown prince, fighting on frontier expeditions and pledged their loyalty to him. And the rest are chosen by special training. Each of them looks bellicose and formidable.
Ouyang Chengde places Li Wanrou in a side room in his palace and asks his attendants to get ginger decoction ready for her. Ouyang Chengde himself attends to her by her bedside, his eyes falling on her without moving.
He has never expected that a woman would come to his life, all of a sudden, and rescued him twice successively, all at the crucial moment of life and death without showing any intention of great pride or taking credit.
Moreover, Li Wanrou asked others to return for her the jade pendant to him many times, but he refused to accept it with some excuses each time.
The deep dark eyes of Ouyang Chengde move a little, which is not often seen, with a sign of pain in the eyes. He could not forget how his mother died miserably on the grand bed in the palace.
His mother worried about him even before she died. She even regretted that she would have left Ouyang Chengde alone in this lonely palace when she died, where each person tries to cheat others.
Seeing the attendant brings the ginger decoction in, he drops his gaze, which is full of sorrow, and holds Li Wanrou in his arms, who is still comatose, and then feeds her the ginger decoctionone a spoonful after another.
"Hmm…."
Li Wanrou wakes up leisurely, looking around with blurred eyes for a quite while before she comes to her sense. With her face changed, she cries out surprisingly, "Is this the crown prince"s palace? How on earth am I here?"
"Well, you are awake?"
With a kind smile, Ouyang Chengde says, "When I woke up, I found that you were asleep. I see that you must have caught a cold so that I fed you some ginger decoction, and then you woke up. It will take a while before the Palace Banquet comes to an end. Don"t worry, I have the carriage ready for you."
After a pause for a long time, he continues, "Don"t worry about being in the Prime Minister"s Mansion. Thanks for what you have done for me, and surely, I will make your stay safe and sound in the Mansion. Don"t let me down."
Li Wanrou is a little fl.u.s.tered by his concerned eyes, so she keeps shaking her head and biting her tongue tightly in order to get her dizzy brain working properly. Although she doesn"t know why he becomes suddenly so gentle to her, she does know that such a powerful ally as he is will surely make her way of revenge smoother.
Now that he is her ally, she would not like him to die soon. She will help him detoxify the toxin of the Power of Five Minerals. She will not lose him!
She nods seriously and says calmly, "You will help me to gain a footing in the Mansion, and I will help you to detoxify the toxin completely in your body which has harmed you for a long time. We"ll just call it even. But, Crown Prince, you have been hiding your strength and biding your time for a long time. I think you will not mind if you keep doing it a little longer until one day you can rise abruptly based on your acc.u.mulated strength. When that day comes, I am sure their faces will become more "colorful"!"