Her wary face relaxed when nothing had gone amiss. She would be devastated if a second tragedy were to happen. The last one was enough to send her to death's door once. She caressed her stomach in relief.
She had a lot to think and reflect on, but her task right now was to go to the infirmary. Little Ahmee this morning was so pitiful that she couldn't rest well, not knowing of her every development.
The infirmary was calm after the horrible episode. Yanyue walked in and did not forget to wear protective face coverings this time. She appeared so quietly that when she greeted the doctor, the man was so startled that he dropped the syringe on his hand. Two drops of sweat left his forehead, and his face was deathly pale when he turned to face Yanyue.
"Princess consort...do you need something?" asked Doctor Arun, trying to hide his awkwardness. But Yanyue was sharp, and she noticed right away that the doctor was acting strange.
"I don't need anything. I just came to check on the child," replied Yanyue with a friendly smile. She proceeded to scan the room. First, it was to observe the overall status of the patients. Then, also to make sure that little Ahmee was here, meaning that she was still alive. A smile surfaced on Yanyue's face as she spotted a small ball of a blanket in the middle of the room.
The toddler was sleeping, her breaths rising up and down waveringly. She had just gotten out of a life-and-death battle, so she was exhausted.
She pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed.
Doctor Arun thought that after taking a glance at the child, then Yanyue would go away. However, she remained seated next to the sleeping child for a long time, and he did not know when she would leave. He was getting impatient, so he left the tent.
Yanyue walked over to the patient that Doctor Arun was managing earlier when she arrived. There was nothing out of the ordinary, and the patient was resting peacefully. She got rid of her doubts and went back to her tent.
However, not long after she came back, Beichen broke into her tent. His eyes were dark and piercing, and anger scribbled all over his face.
Yanyue was still reading, but he trod over in three long strides and snatched her book away.
"What did you do to the patient?"
Yanyue was just absolutely flabbergasted at his unreasonable ludicrous behavior. She couldn't explain why he would march into her room as if the world owed him something. She knew that he hated her, but he didn't need to be so bad towards her all the time. In all honesty, she should have been the one to curse him and side-eyed him. And so, she suddenly lost her patience as well.
"What are you even talking about? What patient?!"
"Don't pretend to be innocent."
"I'm not acting or anything. I don't know what you are angry about."
"Follow me."
Beichen didn't wait for her consent and pulled her out of the tent. He brought her to the tent where the two soldiers' corpses were kept. Except, this time, two more corpses joined the white sheets. The new bodies belonged to the pneumonic patients.
When Yanyue saw the bodies, she was stunned. It was unlike anything that she had seen before. The bodies were like they had been drained of blood and injected with some indigo pigment.
"Tell me everything you know about the poison. And who did you meet when you disappeared?"
Yanyue looked at Beichen, fully confused.
"Were these people poisoned?" she asked, instead of answering him.
"You already know, so don't pretend. Tell me everything you took part in." Beichen demanded firmly.
Yanyue chuckled cynically.
"Let me go!" She flung his hands away from her arms.
"With no proof, and you said that I poisoned these people?" Her face flushed red from boiling anger and irritation.
"No proof? We have tried many methods to locate the perpetrators, but you magically retrieved the map from those men. We only said that there were issues with the supplies, nothing too detailed as it would cause a stir, but how did you know that the supplies got stolen the moment you were conscious? You even had a map. Were all these your ploy to gain the villager's sympathy? If so, why did you have to poison these people?"
Beichen mockingly admitted in a fit of passion, "Your acting was good. But, you exposed yourself when you went to the infirmary earlier."
Then, he took out a ziplock bag. There was a syringe in the bag.
"We found this buried behind your tent."
Yanyue frowned.
Was this the syringe that Doctor Arun used on the now-dead patient earlier?
She thought that he looked suspicious.
"Injecting the patients with poison... it is truly an evil deed," Beichen commented wryly.
"I didn't poison anyone or hide the supplies!"
"You were last seen exiting the infirmary before the patient died of poison!"
"And because I was the last one, you think I did this?" Yanyue laughed like a fool. "No, you have always distrusted me and blamed me for everything. What did I do to deserve this?"
Beichen was silent. Then, he replied flatly, "You know what you did."
Her heart broke. After regaining her memories, she had no more hope for him. But, just now with his accusation, the last shred of anything that she had lingering for him vanished into thin air.
"Sounds good then. I will show you who is wrong!"
With that, Yanyue left the tent. Beichen said nothing else but only stared at her confident but lonely back. His eyes were deep, and no one could pry into his mind.
*
The morning after, Yanyue visited the toddler. The child's mother had gone back home to pack some food, so she volunteered to watch the child. Compared to last night, the child's face was beginning to show color, and she was relieved.
Doctor Arun came into the infirmary to check on the patients. Unlike yesterday, he acted normal, so Yanyue could not detect anything out of the ordinary with his behavior. But the doctor was cunning and careful, so he would have kept his guard up after the last time if he was guilty.
After administering medications to the patients, Doctor Arun deposited the used syringes into the sharps container. He lifted his already well-fit glasses with his index finger, looking at Yanyue from the corners of his eyes. When he was sure that she wasn't paying attention at all, he went out as if nothing had happened.
That evening when the doctor was out, Yanyue took the opportunity to sneak into his tent. Being pregnant did not stop her from investigating. She searched under the pillow and mattress and obtained nothing. Then, she advanced to the desk, flipping through the messy array of piles of documents. She couldn't find anything regarding poison in the papers, so she looked in the drawers. There were more unrelated files and a batch of keys and pens, but nothing suspicious. She saw a suitcase in the corner and her eyes darted around the room for possible clues.
Ding!
A light shined on top of her head. But, who knew that there would be a lock on the suitcase! It raised multiple red flags. In her mind, no one in their right mind would lock their luggage if they didn't have anything secretive to hide. She was now more confident that the incriminating evidence would be in there.
Yanyue went back to the drawer and took out the batch of keys. She tried on all the keys, and none worked. There was only one more key left to try, so if that didn't pull through, then she was stuck. Yanyue prayed as she inserted the key into the lock.
Click.
Her thumping heart eased when the lock became undone. She quickly opened the suitcase and removed the clothes from the top. On the bottom was a dark bottle labeled: INDIGO SAMPLE.
Yanyue's eyes brightened as if she had just hit the jackpot. But just as she was about to finish, she heard footsteps behind her back. Her heart began beating frantically again, unsure whether Doctor Arun was behind her or not. Either way, she was dead meat for not being careful as she was too engrossed in opening the suitcase.
Yanyue pondered hard. She knew that her only choice now was to make a run for it. So, she slowly got up from the ground, not even bothering to close the suitcase or put it back to hide the fact that she was the one who opened it and made an effort to dash out of the tent.
However, a big hand grasped her body and covered her mouth from behind. She could only groan desperately for the person to let her go with muffled words. She thought she would die, but the person forced her to go under the bed with them. And she finally noticed that it was Beichen when she made eye contact with him.
"What are you doing?!" she whispered furiously.
The man looked at her with no expression and said, "If you don't want to be exposed, then be quiet."
Yanyue frowned. "What do you mean?"
Right at that moment, the tent opened, and entered the doctor. But he wasn't alone. Clung to him was one of the nurses. As soon as the two of them stepped into the tent, they began yanking off others' clothes to the ground. Even if Yanyue couldn't see them, the ambiguous kissing sounds and the coquettish moans from the nurse were more than telling of what they were doing.
Yanyue's eyes widened, and she gasped in surprise. She never imagined that Doctor Arun and the nurse would have this relationship. As far as she understood, the doctor was a married man!
There was only a lamp hanging on the side as the tent's light source, so the tent was dark where the light couldn't reach. Luckily, that was the bed, so Yanyue and Beichen would not be found out if no one suspected that anyone was under it. However, Yanyue was still scared when the couple crashed onto the bed.
"Ah!" the nurse cried excitedly. "Doctor Arun, you're so bad..."
"Baby, you're so sexy," said the doctor, taking the final piece of obstacle off the woman and tossing it to the ground. It fell right beside Yanyue, and her face flushed a crimson hue when she saw that it was a bra.
"She's smaller than you," Beichen commented nonchalantly as his breath fanned her ears from behind.
Yanyue's shrimp face became redder. She exclaimed quietly and moved her ears away from his hot breath.
"Pervert!" she whispered angrily.
How could he make that sort of comment during a time like this? Indeed, men were all perverts no matter in what situation, she thought.
The moans and groans from above got rowdier. The bed creaked and shook from the intense play of the two people.
"Yes, yes, yes! Harder, doctor!"
Pap! Pap!
"Ah!"
"You like that?" The doctor was a maniac as he continued slapping the nurse with his hands.
Yanyue covered her mouth in shock. These two people were going at it like rabbits. And she was promptly reminded of them, herself, and the man behind her. When she wasn't pregnant, he would do that, spanking her bottom whenever passion grew a little out of hand. She was surprised at first. But she didn't voice her discomfort because he might get angry and torture her even more. And at that time, she was still blinded by love, so all she wanted was to make him happy.
As she thought about this, she felt a hard and hot object hitting her back. She flinched a little, but she turned her head around to look for his eyes in the dark and muttered, "Beichen, you! How could you in this situation?!"
The man did not care, and instead, he wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her closer to him.
"Ah!" she screamed almost inaudibly in protest. She could feel the burning object pressing hard on her back. As she wanted to protest again, Beichen leaned in and covered her lips with his.
"Mmm!" Yanyue murmured. She fought to get out of his embrace, but Beichen was hugging her tightly from behind like a koala. And he continued to kiss her, trying to pry her mouth open as he held her head so she couldn't retract her face.