Chapter 9 Horrifying Medicated Bath
Late at night, the bathroom in the Regent's Palace was filled with steam.
The enormous white jade bath was filled with a black medicinal soup that emitted a strong, pungent smell of sulfur and herbs.
"Splash—"
The sound of water could be heard.
Pei Yunjing, shirtless, slowly stepped into the pool.
Tang Li was sitting on a specially made small round stool at this moment, right on the edge of the bath, no more than two feet away from Pei Yunjing.
She was also pretending to hold a dry towel in her hand, but in reality, she was there to act as an indispensable "human muffler."
Although we had slept in the same bed before, we were still wearing clothes.
At this moment, looking at the man's strong, naked upper body, Tang Li still subconsciously wanted to look away.
However, when her gaze swept over Pei Yunjing's back, her pupils suddenly contracted.
There wasn't a single good piece of meat there.
From the shoulder blades to the lower back, the area is covered with a dense array of hideous scars.
Knife wounds, arrow wounds, burns, and even claw marks left by some kind of ferocious beast.
They resembled ugly centipedes, coiled around this powerful man, demonstrating the extent of his survival amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
Is this what they call a crazy, tyrannical ruler?
It turns out that beneath the madman's skin was a body already riddled with holes.
Pei Yunjing did not pay attention to Tang Li's gaze.
The scalding hot medicine stung the skin upon contact, but this pain slightly suppressed the surging internal heat and toxins.
He leaned against the pool wall, his eyes closed, his dark hair clinging wetly to his face, making his usually gloomy face appear somewhat pale and alluring in the steam.
"Don't stop."
His voice was hoarse as he gave the order.
Tang Li snapped out of her daze and, not daring to be negligent, immediately adjusted her breathing, silently releasing the calming magnetic field in her heart, while humming that unknown little tune on and off.
Time passed little by little.
As the indoor temperature rose, Pei Yunjing's breathing became heavier and heavier.
Sudden--
Pei Yunjing's brows furrowed tightly, and the veins on his forehead began to throb violently.
The effects of the medicine triggered a backlash from the fire toxin.
In his perception, the once quiet bathroom suddenly transformed into a blood-red battlefield.
The sound of flowing water in his ears turned into the shouts of thousands of troops, and the pear tree beside him... turned into an assassin holding a sharp blade, ready to stab him in the heart!
"court death!"
Pei Yunjing suddenly opened his eyes, his pupils bloodshot, revealing a beastly nature that had completely lost its reason.
"Splash—!!!"
Water splashes everywhere!
Before Tang Li could react to what was happening, she saw a large, wet hand burst out of the water, accompanied by a sharp gust of wind, and tightly grip her neck!
"Hmm!"
A tremendous force swept over her, dragging Tang Li directly to the edge of the bathtub, with half of her body suspended above the water.
"You want to kill me?"
Pei Yunjing's voice was chilling and piercing, as if it were a demon crawling out of hell.
His fingers tightened like iron clamps, instantly cutting off all the air from Tangli.
A feeling of suffocation overwhelmed me.
Tang Li's face instantly turned purplish-red, and the air in her lungs was squeezed out bit by bit.
Looking into Pei Yunjing's unfocused eyes, which held only the instinct to kill, she felt a chill run through her.
It's over.
This madman's brain was poisoned and he started hallucinating!
At this point, if you struggle or try to pry his hands off, it will only trigger his instinctive reaction as a "warrior"—to snap the enemy's neck.
Don't move!
You absolutely must not resist!
On the verge of death, Tang Li forced herself to calm down.
She recalled the scene of taming the Great White, and her experiences facing those frightened and frenzied wild beasts.
Instead of trying to push him away, she struggled to raise her hands.
Under Pei Yunjing's violent gaze, her slender, trembling hands did not attack him, but instead... gently wrapped around his neck.
Then, a hand gently covered the back of his wet head, fingers running through the tangled black hair, extremely slowly and gently—
Smooth the hair.
one time.
Two times.
“Pei... Yunjing…”
Tang Li struggled to squeeze out a broken voice from her throat, no longer calling him "Your Highness," but calling him by his name.
She turned that calming aura to its maximum, trying her best to convey a "safe" signal.
"It's alright... I'm here... there are no assassins..."
She gently massaged the acupoints behind his ear with her fingertips, as if soothing a giant, ruffled feline.
That familiar, herbal-scented touch travels through the skin to the brain.
Pei Yunjing's originally volatile and chaotic mind seemed to be infused with a clear spring.
The blood-red battlefield before them began to collapse, and the assassin's face gradually blurred, eventually becoming Tang Li's flushed but not ferocious face.
She was... hugging him?
Is she touching his head?
Pei Yunjing shuddered, and his unfocused pupils finally refocused.
The sounds of battle cries around me disappeared.
The only sounds were the rapid rushing of water and the girl's painful gasps.
He looked closely and realized that he was tightly choking Tang Li by the neck.
Instead of running away, this fragile little thing hugged his head like a baby and was... stroking his fur?
Damn it.
Pei Yunjing reacted as if he had been burned, and abruptly let go of his hand.
"Cough cough cough! Cough cough..."
As fresh air filled her lungs, Tang Li's body went limp, and she collapsed onto the paving stones by the pool, clutching her neck and coughing violently, tears streaming down her face.
Almost there.
She was just a hair's breadth away from meeting the King of Hell.
The bathroom fell into a deathly silence.
Pei Yunjing sat in the water, his chest heaving violently.
He looked at his hands, then at the lily lying on the ground.
Five horrifying bluish-purple finger marks were now clearly imprinted on the girl's once fair and slender neck, appearing shocking in the candlelight.
If it had been a second later, the neck would have broken.
A strange sense of irritation welled up inside me.
It's not about feeling guilty; Pei Yunjing is the kind of person who doesn't understand guilt.
He just...finds it troublesome.
This medicinal ingredient is too fragile.
It will break if you apply even a little force.
If it breaks, who will relieve his pain later?
"……roll."
Pei Yunjing turned around, his back to Tang Li. His voice was still cold and hard, but it lacked the murderous aura from before and had a hint of barely perceptible annoyance.
"Splash."
A white porcelain bottle flew out of the water and landed precisely beside Tang Li's hand, rolling twice.
That was a top-grade wound medicine from the Western Regions, priceless and hard to come by.
"Take your things and get out."
Pei Yunjing closed his eyes, leaned back against the pool wall, and added in a harsh tone, "If you dare to show any murderous intent in front of me again, it won't be as simple as just pinching you."
He's turning the tables on me.
He was clearly hallucinating, but he insisted that Tang Li was murderous.
Tang Li picked up the bottle of medicine, touched her neck which had almost broken, and cursed Pei Yunjing's ancestors for eighteen generations in her mind.
But she knew that she had passed this hurdle.
Not only did she go through with it, she also implanted an anchor in this madman's subconscious: "I am safe, don't kill me."
"Yes... Thank you for the medicine, Your Highness."
Tang Li thanked him in her hoarse voice, grabbed the wound medicine, and scrambled out of the bathroom.
I heard the door close.
Pei Yunjing slowly opened his eyes and raised his hand to touch the back of his head where Tang Li had touched him earlier.
There seemed to be a faint, soft touch remaining there.
"...You're really bold."
He murmured softly, immersing his entire body in the dark medicinal soup, concealing the complex emotions swirling in his eyes.
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