"If you were not my uncle..." Yinyue's voice trailed off from her bed, clutching her head with one hand, while the other balled into a tight fist at her side.
The effect of the drug had worn off. Ayi stepped in front of her in time to stop her from grabbing Chiyin's neck.
Her eyes narrowed at him, causing him to shrink back in guilt. The peace in her residence vanished since Chiyin arrived. Then again, the same thing could also be blamed on Hushiyi.
Strange and stranger things occurred upon both their arrival, shattering her momentary peace. The Grand Prince's residence in Bian was her hideaway from the busy Yancheng, the regional capital of Yandi, her territory.
All Yinyue wanted was a bit of peace before and after embarking on a campaign. Had she been in Yancheng, the officers will bother her day and night over minor administrative matters.
This situation is just great, Yinyue scoffed inside. She didn't have minor administrative matters to worry about. Now she needed to cover up Hushiyi's killing of three women from the Empress's faction; and worry about 01.
The thought of 01 overwhelmed her with a great unease. In both matters, the sword in her personal treasury seemed to be connected. It moved itself on two occasions — first in Hushiyi's room, and second in her personal treasury.
The second occasion was more unusual. She checked on the sword in her personal treasury again, but nothing appeared out of place. Even the sword remained exactly where she had last left it on the weapons rack. It wasn't on the table.
Yinyue asked the servants and guards who found her on the second occasion — no one noticed anything odd except finding her unconscious on the ground at that time. How she ended up in the garden unconscious remained a mystery. Was she going mad?
Was the strange phenomenon with the sword a warning from some higher power?
Yinyue hasn't scoffed entirely at the paranormal because of her circumstances — she herself crawled back from Hell and went back in time to change her fate.
In her first life at this age, she was a lowly Dayan princess preparing for the alliance marriage with that heartless prince from the state of Gaoyang. Hushiyi was the Grand Prince. Now in this life, she is a Grand Prince who flattened a city under Gaoyang's control. And Hushiyi is not a Grand Prince.
But did it have anything to do with a sword? She had an inkling it did, but not completely.
She stared hard at Chiyin, resisting the impulse to label him an unlucky omen. In her first life, she could remember him as a child, but not as an adult. In fact, she never knew the adult Chiyin during her first lifetime. His face bore a childlike guilt, avoiding her gaze.
Her eyes drifted to his left foot digging into the carpet — his childhood habit never changed. He only did the foot digging when he knew he made a mistake.
The harbinger might not be him. What if it was her?
Yinyue changed her path to avoid suffering her fate in her first life. With those drastic changes came different events.
And the previous night's nightmare about 01 gave her a migraine. She couldn't even remember what she saw on his face, which created such terror. Was it the drug or a warning?
Yinyue eyed Chiyin from head to toe, making him shift uncomfortably in silence. Words, once uttered, could never be taken back. She still needed a cordial relationship to worm out information from Chiyin about the sword. Only he can access Hua Dushen's library.
Was Chiyin repentant? He looked the part, but knowing her uncle's personality, Yinyue doubted his ability to stay out of trouble. If he didn't find trouble, trouble would still find him. She lacked the energy to lecture him, opting instead to dismiss him.
Yinyue shook her head in dismay at the loss of nicer words to continue. "Just go…do whatever…"
She almost said 'whatever he likes', but stopped in time. It would give him permission to wreak havoc in her residence. Her eyes darted across her blanket while she thought of the proper words — diplomatic words that didn't sound harsh.
"…you need to do," she uttered. Then Yinyue realised the vague order still sounded like giving him permission to do whatever he wanted. She clutched her head, praying to the spirits of their ancestors to keep him in check before she died of the stifling exasperation stuffed in her chest.
"He didn't mean it," Ayi spoke softly while waving her hand in a subtle motion, hinting at Chiyin to leave. Those words offered no reassurance to Yinyue, but she waved him aside, saying nothing.
Without hesitation, Chiyin scrambled toward the door in his eagerness, almost tripping over the wooden door sill to remove himself from Yinyue's presence.
He swore silently to himself that it was an honest mistake. Yinyue could have investigated, but she didn't. Instead, she ordered silence on the matter.
"How did cunub get into the concoction?" Chiyin mumbled to himself, ignoring 02, who waved at him along the courtyard.
Ayi had looked for Chiyin without alerting the rest to the problem, creating an excuse about Yinyue falling rather ill.
Chiyin could only assume Yinyue didn't want to reveal her weakness, which would create more problems than necessary. The problems he didn't know, and he didn't want to think about the politics within the residence. He wanted no part of it.
Chiyin never expected to be burdened with the responsibility of taking care of two people in her residence, or that he would have to compound so many drugs for Yinyue's use.
Chiyin lowered his head, wondering what went wrong. How did his hidden stash of cunub mix with the other medicinal herbs? He had set up the shelves to hold his jars of dried roots, leaves, and powders according to his specification.
The cunub herb, known for its hallucinogenic properties, had to be stored differently from the other medicinal herbs. Instead of keeping it in a jar like the rest, he secured the cunub herb in a small wooden box hidden in the corner of the top shelf. Because of its dangerous side effects if ingested, Chiyin had gone as far as locking the box to restrict access to himself. He carried the only key to the box with him.
Yet now, somehow, it had found its way into the mix, mingling with the other herbs and endangering his own niece. Was it even his stash of cunub?
"Hey there!"
A shadow loomed over the ground that Chiyin walked on, snapping him out of his thoughts. He looked up and saw the caller, a puzzled looking 02 looking at him.
"What is it?" Chiyin asked impatiently. He wanted to get back to his quarters to check if anyone touched the box of cunub.
"I'm going to see the Grand Prince to report on what Ahan told us…do you want to be present?" 02 replied with a frown at Chiyin's reaction.
"I just left, but…," Chiyin muttered as he thought of an excuse. He wasn't keen on returning to Yinyue's quarters. "You can do it on your own. I went to report on …something else and I need to do …um…something else."
02 nodded and left without a word, to his relief.