After recovering her wits, Han Yunxi withdrew her foot beneath her skirt like someone shocked by electricity. When she looked at Long Feiye's eyes again, her face turned bright red! This fellow wouldn't think she was some sort of loose, wanton woman, right? Or that she was trying to seduce him on purpose?
Of all things!
She'd lost face utterly!
"Your Highness, chenqie can apply the medicine herself. Why don't you go out first?" Han Yunxi managed to open her mouth with difficulty.
But Long Feiye didn't leave. Instead, he pulled over a chair and sat before her before personally opening the liniment oil.
Is he going to apply medicine for her?
Thinking back to his expression just then, Han Yunxi felt uneasy and forced a smile. "Your Highness, I…can do it myself."
"Esteemed wangfei's already taken off shoe and sock, so your lordship naturally must work in her service," Long Feiye's cold voice held a trace of mocking.
No matter how she listened, Han Yunxi felt something off about the tone. Besides, she didn't believe that this guy would really be so considerate to personally apply her medicine. Suppose he wasn't careful and used too much strength, wouldn't it hurt her to death?
"Your Highness, although we're husband and wife, still…still…" Han Yunxi dawdled before adding, "Your Highness, men and women shouldn't be so intimate with each other, you should go out first."
A cold smile crept onto Long Feiye's lips as his domineering gaze focused on her thoughtfully. "Qin Wangfei, are you sure you want to debate matters of indecorum with your lordship?"
Unexpectedly, Han Yunxi felt a rush of doubt, but still replied with reason on her side. "Your Highness Duke of Qin, we're together in name but not in actuality. I'm just a wangfei with a title, so why can't I discuss matters of indecorum with you? Please be more serious!"
But Long Feiye retorted, "Han Yunxi, since when has your lordship said you were only a wangfei in name? After you crossed over the threshold of my front gates, you became one of I, Long Feiye's, people." So speaking, he swept a gaze over her discarded shoe and warned, "Since you're a married woman now, please remember to maintain your wifely virtues!"
"You!" Han Yunxi was depressed. This guy was obviously shaming her for not following the wifely virtues!
It was just taking off her shoe, since when had she thought about it so deeply?! He was the one who thought too much and turned things crooked, all right?! Anger built atop guilt, but to her abomination, Han Yunxi found that she couldn't refute him. Seeing Long Feiye's icy gaze, Han Yunxi decided to risk everything regardless and stuck out her foot directly before Long Feiye. It was just shy of kicking him in the face.
"Then I'll have to trouble Your Highness!" she said word by word with gritted teeth.
Long Feiye sat unmoving with his deep, cold eyes. He raised a hand, grabbed Han Yunxi's tiny foot, and abruptly pulled it down!
'Ah!' Han Yunxi cried out in pain in her heart. This fellow had used force directly on the red and swollen part of her ankle. How could it not hurt? But she remained stubborn, refusing to even scrunch her eyebrows. She'd gone through far more horrific pain than this, so what did this pain count for?
Long Feiye glanced at her with a dark face before using his other hand to support her foot and pinch the injured ankle again.
'You fricking bastard!'
Han Yunxi cursed him thoroughly in her heart, silently gritting her teeth without making a sound. Long Feiye's mouth was set as he took some liniment oil and applied it to Han Yunxi's injury. This cooling ointment immediately reduced the fiery swelling of Han Yunxi's injury, allowing her to unconsciously release a breath of relief. But just as she started to relax, Long Feiye's fingers started reaching over to apply the cream.
Dab, and, smear!
What a dab and smear! A man's hands were naturally more forceful; he intentionally applied more strength as he spread the liniment up and down along her injury.
Pain!
Every instance was filled with pain. Thanks to his increased pressure, the cooling effects of the medicine quickly vanished as he spread it, to be replaced with a burning sensation. It wasn't just the skin, but her bones that felt like they were on fire! This feeling was as if someone was cutting open badly mangled flesh from her injury! Completely intolerable!
Only a short while had passed before Han Yunxi's back became damp with sweat. Droplets appeared by her temples, but she still gritted her teeth and kept her head lowered, eyes fixated on her ankle. She didn't move an inch, but allowed Long Feiye to torment her as he willed.
She wouldn't die, so let it hurt all it liked!
Long Feiye thought she'd be pleading for mercy, but she was still silent long afterwards, when his hand starting aching. He took a closer look and discovered Han Yunxi with her head bowed, head streaked with sweat. He mused, this woman should be reaching her limit and ready to surrender, right?
But right at this moment, Han Yunxi raised her head to meet his eyes, not an ounce of surrender in them. Instead, it was a face full of stubbornness. Her fearless gaze shot directly into his eyes as if seeing right through him. Long Feiye's heart gave a jolt as he involuntarily knitted his eyebrows, looking into her irises in exchange.
Two pairs of eyes met in the surrounding silence, one stubborn, one cold. They seemed to be locked in combat as foes, both refusing to look away or yield. But Long Feiye hadn't realized that he'd already stopped moving his hands. Nor did Han Yunxi notice that she wasn't hurting anymore. Time passed in the stillness as everything went quiet…
It wasn't clear how long had passed before someone bangbangbanged on the door. Afterwards, a guard reported anxiously, "Your Highness, another one in the dungeons died!"
At this, both people recovered their senses, noticed each other, and quickly averted their gaze. Han Yunxi lowered her head, unsure what she had been thinking just then, or what she was looking for. Long Feiye didn't get his intended outcome and lost a bit of his cool. He frowned slightly before tossing the liniment over.
"When you've taken care of things, come over immediately. I'll wait for you by the door." As soon as he was finished, he turned to leave, his footsteps markedly quicker. It wasn't clear whether he was anxious about the matters outside or preoccupied by other reasons. Han Yunxi raised her head and released a long, relieved breath as he shut the door.
"Bastard!" she cursed, just as Long Feiye urged her to hurry up.
"Han Yunxi, you better be quick!"
"Son of a b–ch!" Han Yunxi cursed again, before quickly applying the liniment and binding her ankle in white cloth. She wanted to put on her shoe, but found it and the stocking too complicated. In addition, there was no way her foot and its bindings could fit inside. After thinking for a while, she could only resign herself to binding her entire foot in multiple layers of bandage. This shouldn't count as exposing her skin, right?
Truthfully speaking, Long Feiye's liniment was very effective. Just leaving it on the injury without spreading it out left a comfortable, cooling sensation that eased much of the pain. But Han Yunxi didn't covet the bottle of medicine and tossed it back on the table when she was done. Then she lightly hopped off to land on one foot and hobbled outside. Long Feiye shot a glance at her toes but saw nothing. Her skirt was very long, which meant it hid her feet most of the time when she was walking.
"Did the poisoned people die?" Han Yunxi asked.
"One of them did," Long Feiye replied, showing her his back as he bent down before her. "Get on." Han Yunxi hesitated, but Long Feiye was impatient. "Hurry, the poison's flared up."
Hearing this, Han Yunxi realized he really was anxious about treating the poison. Without a choice, she quickly climbed on, wrapping her arms around his neck as she lifted both legs. Han Yunxi was very light, so it wasn't tiring for Long Feiye to piggyback her. She didn't even have time to experience what it was like to be piggybacked by him before his form vanished into the darkness. Very quickly, he darted through the flower gardens and went through a secret passageway before arriving at the dungeons and setting Han Yunxi behind a platform for the dead. Though Han Yunxi had been carried over the whole way, she still felt like she just finished a 400 meter dash and couldn't catch her breath for a moment. After she regained her bearings, the detox system alarms went off in her head.
There's poison!
Even without her system warning, Han Yunxi could tell at a glance that the corpse on the table had died from poison. The area between her eyebrows, lips and fingers were all black, a symptom of hypertoxic poisoning. She took a deep breath and asked, "This person should've been dead for one or two days already, right?"
Long Feiye nodded before pointing at another body. "That one just died recently."
Han Yunxi glanced over and saw another corpse. She drew closer for another look and discovered that signs of poison had yet to appear on her person, but her lips were already black. She examined the dead woman's eyes and lips, then her nails, before remarking, "Suicide from taking poison?"
"She never had the chance to take poison," Long Feiye said coldly.
The captive spies in this dungeon were tied hand and foot and stripped of all their weapons and poisons. In addition, each of them were locked in solitary cells and gagged to prevent them from making a fuss or biting off their tongues to kill themselves. Moreover, in light of the fact that these spies were all experienced poison users, Long Feiye had long ordered various famous poison specialists to check their mouths to see if they'd hidden poison anywhere inside. Previously, it was only Chu Xifeng in charge of interrogation. These people didn't say a word but refused to eat and drink, wishing to slowly starve themselves to death. A few had already died this way.
Recently, Long Feiye had come to personally interrogate them and used savage forms of torture, but he then discovered that some of them had been poisoned, then died. It was impossible for the dungeons to hide enemy agents, so it was obvious that these people couldn't stand the torture and killed themselves with poison instead. Up until now, Long Feiye still couldn't figure out where their poison had come from or how they'd taken it.
Now there were only two enemy spies left. If another died from poison, then all his previous interrogations would have been a waste of effort. Han Yunxi listened to Long Feiye explain the situation as she used her needles to take the poisoned blood from both bodies. She wasn't interested at the start, but grew curious once she understood the current situation.
Typically, a person who committed suicide via poison would hide the poison inside their teeth. A simple bite would release the poison. But all of these captives had undergone an oral inspection.
How did they take the poison?
Han Yunxi used the excuse of taking something out of her medical pouch to send her blood samples into the detoxification system dimension before ascertaining the results: Rice Poison!
"It's actually Rice Poison!" Han Yunxi was shocked as she looked towards Long Feiye.
Long Feiye didn't understand. "Rice Poison?"
Han Yunxi turned grave. "Are there still survivors?"
"Still two people," Long Feiye answered honestly.
Han Yunxi hesitated before speaking. "Take a blood sample from each person. Also, find me some rice gruel."
Long Feiye did as he was told. Very soon, fresh blood from the two captives and a bowl of rice gruel were delivered to Han Yunxi. She ladled out some gruel onto the captives' fresh blood and silently observed the results. For a long time, there was no reaction. Long Feiye didn't understand and only watched Han Yunxi's scrunched expression, keeping silent the whole time. The two guards on the side, though, were incomparably curious. What was esteemed wangfei doing?