“No!” Feng Qing Yin replied instinctively. He froze, realizing he was trapped. Agreeing would let Jin Mo obtain the beauty; declining meant Jin Mo could still relinquish the kingdom.
He snorted angrily and broke away from my battle line, leaving me to fight alone. Looking around, I finally wrinkled my nose: “Fine, I’ll think about it.”
Ah—” I cried out, quickly spitting out a pebble. How could I forget that this guy had recovered his martial arts? I searched for someone weak and vulnerable, only to remember that we had come out horseback riding, leaving the vulnerable ones at home. Jin Mo, our host, had abandoned us, insisting on studying a tattered map to unify the empire for future generations. Hmph! I might as well unify instant noodles.
Frustrated, I sat back dejectedly, reminiscing about the exhilarating feeling of galloping through the landscape.
“Report—report—” A heart-rending cry came from afar, prompting us to frequently turn and look back.
We reined in our horses and, after a moment of silence, observed a small dot in the distance growing larger, raising billowing dust. Finally, the horse knelt down and charged toward us, rider and mount together. Before the rider could shake off the yellow sand, he scrambled forward: “Your Majesty, something has happened to the Emperor!”
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
“Darlings, tomorrow is the grand finale! Hahahahaha”
I was stunned: “What happened?”
An ominous feeling rose in my heart. The faces of the beautiful men turned grave; they had developed some “brotherly affection” for Jin Mo in the short time they had known him.
“Your Majesty, he’s been poisoned!” Before the messenger could finish, he felt a face full of dust, and when he came to his senses, everyone had already ridden away.
Rushing into the tent in a panic, I pushed aside the circle of solemn expressions: “Jin Mo, Jin Mo!”
The person on the bed lay unconscious, pale as a sheet. The laughter of the past few days now felt distant, like withered flowers.
“This is a rare poison from the frontier tribes—Heartbreak Grass. There are no records in any books. It’s said to summon souls upon ingestion, a secret transmitted poison,” the royal physician trembled beside me.
I wanted to roar at him: Hurry and find a cure—but if there were one, it would have been used already! Emotions cried out, and my thoughts swirled in chaos.
