"Are you surprised?" Peng Mingzhu suddenly asked the frozen man. "Well, even if you aren't, I am."
"W-what do you mean?" the man stiffly turned to Peng Mingzhu as he asked in a rigid voice.
"Well, if I had to be honest, I didn't think this liquid would work on her," Peng Mingzhu admitted without any shame. "I was only joking about the liquid being able to peel off her mask. Usually, you need to use a different type of liquid in order to peel the mask. Who knew that she'd be so stupid to create her own recipe for masks instead of using the ones in books."
"Haaaahhhhh!!!! Pain… Hurts… Dear!!! Please!!!! Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!" Kang Huian screamed loudly once again, almost damaging the ears of Peng Mingzhu due to her close proximity.
"There is a book on creating fake skin masks?" Wei Kangnuan asked when he heard the last sentence that Peng Mingzhu spoke.
"Yes," Peng Mingzhu nodded. "I'm quite shocked that something so unique would be in a bookstore. Something so special as disguises should be in the imperial palace library, isn't that so?"
"Was the book from the Verbatim Bookstore?" Wei Kangnuan questioned when he heard her question.
"That's the only place I've gone to visit thus far aside from the prisons and such…" Peng Mingzhu answered with a deadpan face and a rhetorical voice.
"Sorry…" Wei Kangnuan apologized, knowing that due to her helping them, she was unable to tour or have fun in the capital city. "How about I take you to places once this case finishes?"
"No need," Peng Mingzhu immediately denied his offer. "I want to spend time on my own. Just have Mo Nianzu help find a reputable inn for me."
"Are you sure?" Wei Kangnuan asked Peng Mingzhu with a worried voice. "The inns do not make the best food and they do not have the best quality in bedding or furniture. I am worried…"
"No need to be worried," Peng Mingzhu assured Peng Mingzhu without staring at him. "I can survive quite well as long as I have a roof over my head and food in my stomach."
"Are you guys here to prove to me that she is not my wife or here to show off your worries for each other?!" the man shouted angrily at their bicker that kept on going back and forth, though the bicker was quite calm to even be considered as one.
"Didn't I already show you?" Peng Mingzhu questioned with a shrug.
"You said that the acid was just a joke…" the man pointed out with a frown.
"Oh, yeah. It was," Peng Mingzhu simply answered while shaking her head.
"Then, why did you throw acid then?" the man continued to ask as he stared at the face of the woman who was now a stranger to him.
"Something was filling up the storage, so I needed to throw something away," Peng Mingzhu honestly answered. "But I didn't want to waste it, so I've been waiting for a good time to use it. Kang Huian just appeared at the right moment and I felt like throwing it. You have a problem?"
"No…" the man answered with a low voice.
"Are you mad at her?" Peng Mingzhu asked as she stared at the woman who was rolling around on the ground.
"...I...do not...know…" the man weakly answered with a deep sigh.
"It's a waste to get mad at people who were never a part of your life," Peng Mingzhu advised the man.
"She has been my wife for years," the man told Peng Mingzhu. "The memories are too vivid for me to forget them…"
"But they were never true," Peng Mingzhu countered the statement he made in his reminiscent voice. "If you want to know if someone loves you, all you have to do is stare into their eyes. The weakest part of a human is their head and the most honest part of a human is their eyes."
"That is why you said that she never truly loved him?" Wei Kangnuan asked as he looked at Peng Mingzhu who was currently crossing her arms together.
The man ignored the conversation between Peng Mingzhu and Wei Kangnuan, and the question that he asked her. Instead, he tried to look into the eyes of the woman who used to tell him that she loved and the woman that he used to say that he loved so dearly. However, her fast moving and rolling caused him troubles - such that he could not get a good view of her eyes at all.
At the same time, since Peng Mingzhu was not really paying attention to Wei Kangnuan, she managed to see the struggle that the man was going through, so she decided to give a little help.
Even though the rope was being used to keep Kang Huian still, she was still a person who was professionally trained with strength - especially physical strength.
"Huh? What did you do?" the man asked when he saw Kang Huian no longer moving with wide eyes.
"I stuck a needle in one of her acupoints," Peng Mingzhu answered. "She'll be paralyzed for a while."
"How...did you do that without us seeing it?" the man asked with a deep frown on his face, worry was not seen at all on his expression.
"Oh, I'm used to throwing needles nowadays," Peng Mingzhu admitted. "It'd be bad if you could see me throwing these thin needles when they were personally made for me to practice throwing them."
With a disgusted face as though he was meeting the weirdest human on earth, the man asked, "Why the hell do you need to practice throwing needles at humans?"
"Not everyone likes to tell the world that the reason why the host fainted is because they wanted them to faint," Peng Mingzhu stated while staring at the man.
"What the hell do you mean?" the man questioned as his brows knit together.
"I just happen to need to make people faint at parties," Peng Mingzhu once again honestly answered before asking a question. "Are you done looking at her eyes? If you are, I need to remove the needle. You must understand, these needles are limited."
"Why the hell use them if they are finite?" the man retorted with scowl on his face.
"Well, they were infinite at first, but then I came here and now my resources aren't unlimited anymore," Peng Mingzhu honestly stated. "Anyways, are you done yet?"
"Yes," the man gave a brief answer as he stood up from his kneeling position.
"What do you think?" Peng Mingzhu asked.
"Those are indeed her eyes…" the man slowly said with a sad face.
"If you want to cry, you can cry," Peng Mingzhu stated while walking to where Wei Kangnuan stood.
"A man does not cry…" the man answered, but his tone was as though he was trying to persuade himself instead.
"That's false," Peng Mingzhu interrupted with a disapproving look on her face. "If you are really a man, you will cry. Crying is not weakness, but honesty. And honesty is something that is hard to come by."
"It is the first time I have heard a woman say such words," the man commented on the words that Peng Mingzhu had just spoken.
Even though he was praising her, Peng Mingzhu did not really care as she had only one thing on her head at the moment.
"Do you know why I've asked the second prince to help me release you to see this fake woman?" Peng Mingzhu suddenly inquired, taking the man off guard.
"No," the man answered before looking at the chains that connected his hand to his feets
"Because I've been thinking that having a subordinate in this place is not so bad," Peng Mingzhu said with no shame.
"Huh? Wait...what!?" the man exclaimed as he soaked in the words.
"You don't want to serve me?" Peng Mingzhu questioned with a raise of her brow.
"I...goddamnit! I'm-ugh!" the man struggled to get words flowing out of his mouth.
"I respect your skills and morals," Peng Mingzhu stated as though she was not offering something, but poaching someone instead.
"Huh?" the man coughed and averted his eyes to Kang Huian who used to be his woman.
"Nothing," Peng Mingzhu decided to forget about the current topic. "Let's talk about this woman lying on the ground for now."
"What do you want me to do with her?" Wei Kangnuan finally pitched in as he could not participate in their previous conversation.
"Do whatever you see fit. She's not my enemy, but your's," Peng Mingzhu shrugged and walked out.
However, that was only after Peng Mingzhu already broke the chains off of the man and said something that took the man by surprise again.
"In all of our lives, we go through many identities," Peng Mingzhu began to whisper to the man beside his ear. "But there is only one identity which we were first born with. I wonder what that is?"