"Get off!" Yanyue finally pushed Beichen away by biting hard on his lips.
He let out a low painful groan. "You woman!"
"If you touch me one more time without permission, then I will chop off your little brother!" Yanyue naively threatened, and Beichen chuckled mockingly.
"If you chop him off, then who will satisfy your big appetite?" he asked sheepishly.
Yanyue gritted her teeth in frustration at his unyielding shamelessness. "I will divorce you and find another person! Anyway, your lover is Wanyue, so better stay chaste for her lest she finds trouble for me!"
Beichen did not respond. Yanyue thought that it worked and was pleased. Of course, she should have known not to use his lover to threaten him. The next moment, she felt his hands reaching under her clothes, groping her chest.
"Beast!" she tried to pull his hands away.
"I'm not so weak as to lower my pride down because of a woman. No one can control me, not even her. And certainly not you," Beichen said coldly.
"Your pride will be the death of you one day," Yanyue opposed.
"That day will not come because I make the rules, and no one can break through it."
Just then, a knock and shout came from outside the tent.
"Doctor Arun, His Highness asked for your presence!" Captain Sean shouted outside.
The two people who were still engrossed in the act stopped at the interruption.
"Fuck!" the doctor cursed angrily.
"Babe, don't go..." the nurse begged pretentiously, her eyes drooped down like a puppy.
"Be good, and I'll be back."
The doctor wore his clothes, and after checking that he looked fine, he went out of the tent. The nurse was unsatisfied and did not wait for the doctor.
"Old hag, if you can't satisfy me, then I will go find another younger and fresher meat! Anyway, no one can reject this body of mine!" the nurse growled to herself and also left shortly after dressing herself up again.
The tent became quiet, so the two people hiding under the bed finally came out. Yanyue patted the dirt off her clothes and breathed a sigh of relief. She looked at the man who was also wiping his clothes clean. Unlike her, who was frustrated, he was refined and calm. That infuriated her.
"You are so bold! But I warn you: If I don't want to touch you, then you better not lay your hands on me again! It's dirty!"
She declared it so angrily and hastily that she was almost out of breath. Then, she gave Beichen a death glare before stomping out of the tent.
The man's dark eyes followed her figure out the door. He was angry that she called him dirty because no one had ever called him that before. In retrospect, he was the most hygienic person he had ever met. He was obsessed with cleanliness, and intimately interacting with another person casually disgusted him.
However, he didn't know why but she was an exception. For this reason, he decided to keep her by his side with the contract. At least, she would benefit him by bearing him an heir and keeping his grandma's health in check. Of course, after she completed those, he would divorce her and marry Wanyue to fulfill his childhood promise. He was someone who always kept their word.
Even though she was almost exposed, Yanyue was glad that she had gathered a piece of evidence. She entered her tent and reclined on the bed. It had been an eventful day, so she dozed off immediately after storing the poison bottle in a safe place.
The next day when she met the nurse at the infirmary, she recalled the scene from Doctor Arun's tent. But, that did not change her previous good perception of the nurse because the nurse was competent. Yanyue learned to appreciate people's professional skills and did not treat them based on their personal lives. That was unless they were a psychopath or some deranged criminal.
She spent the rest of the day helping the two nurses take care of the patients after passing out aids in the morning.
As the sun dwindled at the horizon and it was time to rest, Yanyue went back to her tent. She was on her way when she spotted a white shadow disappearing into the forest. The back looked familiar. Doubts filled her mind, and she quickly followed the shadow hadn't learned from her last lesson.
She ducked behind a tree when the man came to a stop abruptly. She noticed a figure coming out of the dark and started to talk with the doctor. The man had a mask over his face, so Yanyue couldn't tell who this person was.
"I planted the evidence on another person, so they are not suspecting me for now. But they are too smart, so it will be hard to carry on the plan further."
Yanyue recognized the doctor's voice. She bet that the person he was talking about was her. Beichen had shown her the syringe and said that they dug it out from behind her tent. Now, she understood that everything was not a coincidence at all, and Doctor Arun was the one who slandered her.
"We can't stop. It is only the beginning." The masked man's voice was raspy. Yanyue recalled that she had heard this voice somewhere before. She searched her memory, and it dawned on her that the man sounded like the person she heard talking to Mrs. Shen on the fire escape a couple of months ago.
X was his name or a codename to her knowledge.
Doctor Arun frowned unhappily and said, "Then, I demand more material."
The masked man sneered. "Who do you think you are to negotiate?"
"I'm the only person who can help you guys. So, if I'm going to risk my life, then I want to increase the material!"
Suddenly, the masked man kicked the doctor on the leg, and he fell knee down to the uneven terrain. Yanyue couldn't read the masked man's expression, but his action let her know he was dissatisfied with what Doctor Arun said. The masked man certainly wouldn't let anyone tell him what to do. He was the boss.
"Don't be naive. I call the shots here."
Then, the man threw a small white packet to the ground. The doctor frantically picked it up as if his life depended on it.
"If you want your son to be safe, then just do your job well."
The doctor looked up and rebuked heatedly, "Leave my son alone! He is innocent!"
"I believe you know his life depends all on you."
The doctor became silent, and the masked man took that as mission understood.
Yanyue was listening intently to the conversation until her feet started to hurt. So she adjusted her position, but she accidentally stepped on a dry bark. The sound was loud and crisp against the still forest.
"Who's there?!" the masked man asked wildly, looking towards the tree's direction.
At this moment, Yanyue could only curse at herself for being careless. There was no point in escaping now, so she might as well confront the two men. It was harder to convince Beichen that she was innocent, so she calmed her excited heart and prepared to face the doctor and the masked man. At last, against the faint moonlight, Yanyue stepped out from behind the tree.
"It's you..." Doctor Arun said with a surprised look on his face.
Yanyue only replied with a simple yes. The doctor was genuinely surprised. He did not expect a weak person like the princess consort to spy on him.
"You heard our conversation!" It wasn't a question. The doctor knew that he was caught red-handed.
"I didn't mean it. I just happened to pass by," Yanyue said, her carefree voice betraying her inner frustration.
"Do you think that I'm easy to fool?"
Yanyue sighed. "Of course not. Otherwise, how could you have gotten away with four murders around the Prince and the Captain?"
"I never thought someone like you could find out. I underestimated you just because you're pregnant."
"Doctor, you would have gotten away if you didn't frame me by burying that syringe behind my tent."
"I wouldn't have framed you if you didn't come to the infirmary right after I injected the patient with the poison. But your appearance was perfect for me to use as a scapegoat."
The doctor moved in closer and closer. Yanyue's outwardly calm appearance betrayed her as she felt a glint of danger shine from the doctor's bloodshot eyes through his glasses.
"I'm the princess consort. If you guys do anything to me, then wait for your life to end!"
Doctor Arun glanced at the masked man. When he received a nod from the man, he took out a syringe and chuckled maniacally. He was not afraid of her threats.
"Those stupid nurses loved to gossip. One of the most interesting topics was how His Highness always kept a mistress by his side while ignoring his pregnant wife. I know that your relationship with the prince is not as harmonious as you said. He would thank me for getting rid of an eyesore for him."
Yanyue looked around for anything that could help her. She was wrong to assume that the doctor had some sanity left in him.
And what was wrong with his bloodshot eyes? Was that the effect of drugs?
She assumed that the masked man must have kept the doctor under control by manipulating him with drugs.
She spotted a thick branch on the ground to her side and quickly grabbed it.
The doctor grinned. "Do you think that a mere branch can stop me?"
Yanyue hesitated. "No, it cannot...but, this might!"
A handful of dirt left Yanyue's hand. The doctor tried to dodge it, but her action was too sudden, so he got caught up in the dust. Yanyue knew that this was not enough to stall the doctor, so she swung the branch right toward his head, knocking down the doctor's glasses. Without waiting for a second, she took off back the way she came.
"You bitch!" the doctor yelled as he scrammed to the ground to find his glasses. Without it, he was as much as blind.
"Useless! Can't even subdue a pregnant woman!" the masked man barked and chased after Yanyue himself.
When the doctor couldn't find his glasses because of the dark ground, he stood up and ran after the two blurry figures ahead of him.
Yanyue moved as fast as she could with a six-month-old baby bulge. It was not light, and she couldn't risk losing her baby if she were to trip on something that she couldn't see. She wondered if this would be the end of her miserable life and regretted following the doctor into the forest. Everything was also so dark that she couldn't find her way back.
"Ah!" Yanyue screamed. The masked man suddenly seized her arms.
The doctor also reached them. Even though he ran clumsily from poor eyesight, he ran fast without the constraints of extra pounds on him.
"You dared to hit me! Let's see how you will die right now..." Doctor Arun raised his hands, about to strike Yanyue's face.
"Stop! No one can harm her!" the masked man shouted, stopping the doctor in his tracks.
"Let me go!" Yanyue strived to get out of the masked man's iron grasp. "You guys are crazy! I said Let me go! I'm the princess consort, so don't you dare to hurt me!"
The masked man's expression was gloomy. Nothing had gone according to his plans, so he was already losing his patience, but hearing Yanyue's antics almost drove him even crazier. He was about to hit her unconscious despite the warnings he gave to the doctor.
Then, a loud bang echoed through the forest.