Chapter 44: Antidote

In the Dali Temple prison, Meng Lanxi's situation has improved a lot since Qian Deng helped to speak up. The wound on her chest has almost healed. After applying medicine, she is curled up in the corner and falling into a deep sleep.

Suddenly, footsteps were heard at the door. The jailer came over and banged hard on the iron door, shouting, "Meng Lanxi, get up!"

Meng Lanxi sat up dazedly in her sleep and saw an extremely tall figure wearing a cloak standing in the darkness outside the door.

He was sure that he didn't know this person, but the oppressive feeling from the other person made him feel vaguely uncomfortable. He just covered his chest, slowly moved to the door, and looked at him silently.

"I'm Ling Tianshui, the new husband candidate for the Changhua Palace. I have something to ask you." Ling Tianshui's eyes fell on his face, not caring about his inquiring look, with a slightly gloomy expression.

Meng Lanxi didn't know why he came for a moment. She glanced at Jin Tang, who responded and went to the iron fence to watch the show, and said "hmm" lightly.

Ling Tianshui took out a white jade pendant from his sleeve and displayed it in front of him: "You should recognize this thing."

The white jade pendant shone brightly under the light. Meng Lanxi's pale face was tense, but she couldn't hide the surprise and panic that flashed across her eyes.

He raised his hand to grab the jade pendant, but Ling Tianshui raised his hand slightly to avoid him and asked coldly, "What kind of poison did you give me?"

Meng Lanxi looked up in confusion, looking at him innocently: "Poison? What poison?"

Ling Tianshui narrowed his eyes slightly, and looked at the stranger in front of him, who was carefully entrusted to him by his mother, uncertainly: "The kind that touched when I took this jade pendant from you."

"What are you talking about? How come I don't understand?" Even though she was imprisoned, uncared for, and suffering, Meng Lanxi's pure aura was still hard to erase. Even because of her thin and haggard face, her eyes, as if shrouded in the misty rain of Jiangnan, were even more moving. When she looked at him, there was even a trace of haziness and trance stained by doubt. "This is something I brought with me. After the county lady allowed me to stay in the palace, I kept it in a safe place. How did you find it?"

Ling Tianshui studied his expression, thinking about the trust that Madam Meng had placed in him before her death, and the responsibility that she had forced him to shoulder.

Now he already had some regrets. After all, the person entrusted to him was not the innocent young man that Madam Meng had thought, but a thorny figure with a deep and sinister nature.

It might not have been a difficult problem originally, but now... He clenched the hand that had just pushed the county lady away, and felt a sense of turmoil in his heart.

He lowered his eyelashes, leaned closer to Meng Lanxi, and said in a voice that only he could hear: "The person who took this jade pendant is the Princess of Lingling County."

Even the still waters of deep depths eventually ripple. Meng Lanxi's eyelashes trembled, and she unconsciously let out a single word: "She...?"

"To clear your name, she went to your residence and discovered this jade pendant while searching for clues. However, she didn't notice what you had done to the drawer. Now..."

Meng Lanxi asked anxiously: "How is she now?"

The tear marks on his heart still seemed damp, and the breath lingering on his neck seemed to still bring a tingling sensation. Ling Tianshui turned his face away, his expression still cold, only his voice was slightly deeper: "She seems to have had a hysterical attack, talking nonsense, and has been temporarily subdued for now."

Meng Lanxi's expression changed drastically and she stared at him, obviously wondering whether it was true or not.

Ling Tianshui knew that he was meticulous and suspicious, and would definitely not trust a stranger like him. So he took out the autopsy file from his sleeve and threw it to him, saying in a deep voice, "Do you know what the county lady did for you?"

Meng Lanxi grabbed the file, her face filled with surprise and confusion.

"The county lady asked me to come into the palace because I have some basic knowledge of the coroner's profession. The Dali Temple closed the case hastily, even forcing you to confess. So the county lady wanted to use her own power to overturn your verdict!" Ling Tianshui flipped open the autopsy file, pointing to every stroke recorded by Qian Deng, and said coldly, "Look carefully. To save you, she, a county lady so honored in the royal palace, personally went to the charity cemetery to examine Yu Guangling's rotting corpse and recorded the marks on the body with her own hands. She went to Zheng Junshan's bedroom to look through rags and found a pool of blood in the library alley where Yu Guangling was murdered!"

Meng Lanxi was stunned and shocked, her eyes wide open with disbelief: "The county lady...did it for me..."

"Yes, but she survived the charity cemetery and found evidence in the dormitory and the alley that could clear your suspicion. But because of your actions in the palace, she has now fallen into madness! When dawn comes, the fact that Princess Lingling is stupid will be revealed, and the whole world will know that she is crazy..."

"That's a mixture of datura and Nanzhao poisonous mushrooms. After being poisoned, you will have hallucinations and become confused!" Meng Lanxi, who had been so careful just now, looked at every word written by Qiandeng himself, and finally revealed the poison he had prepared in a trembling voice.

Ling Tianshui stared at his anxious expression, his cold face expressionless. He placed the white jade pendant he had found in his house in his palm, stared at him and asked, "Where's the antidote?"

Meng Lanxi tightly grasped the jade pendant in her hand and said hoarsely, "It's in that drawer... Mix the fourth bottle in the second row with the first bottle in the third row, and apply it to the areas the county lady touched."

Ling Tianshui took note and pointed at the jade pendant, saying, "Since it's something important to you, keep it well. Don't hurt others by mistake in the future."

Meng Lanxi tightened her fingers, held it tightly in her hand, and nodded heavily.

Waking up from a deep sleep, Qiandeng felt a splitting headache and nausea.

She opened her eyes with difficulty and saw the dawn outside the window.

The dim morning light in the sky shone on the window lattice, illuminating a figure in front of the window.

He had broad shoulders and a thin waist, his back straight as he leaned against the window. He looked down at a piece of letter in his hand, and his silence revealed his profound and majestic demeanor.

Qiandeng's gaze slowly moved down from his slightly drooping face, along his neck, and landed on his solid chest.

She still remembered the scent she smelled when she leaned against that chest.

Perhaps because he came from a life of slaughter, he had the same scent of blood and sweat that seeped into her bones as her grandfather and father, which made her pores dilate slightly, her blood circulation quicken, and she felt happy and comfortable, as if she was back in the arms of her loved ones.

but……

But when Qian Deng thought about everything he had done to him before he knocked him unconscious and he fell asleep last night, he looked at this tall figure and wished he could just bang his head against the bed and die, so as not to have to face this man again -

In the hallucination, she hugged the person tightly, rubbed his chest, pressed his neck tightly, and acted coquettishly with him...

It can only be that it's the person in front of me...

I really want to die...

She raised her hands and covered her face with them, trying to hide her shame and helplessness. He looked up and saw that she had woken up, so he stuffed the letter into the envelope and walked towards the small couch where she was lying.

With every step he took, Qiandeng's heartbeat quickened. Finally, she felt incredibly dizzy and could only rub her temples. She pretended to be bewildered as she half-lifted herself up, avoiding his gaze as she looked around. "Where is this? Why am I here?"