Chapter 57. Swallow it, Song Jie.
Xie Yushu was awakened by the thunder. She opened her eyes and saw that the window was illuminated by lightning. Jinye and Yinya quickly got up to close the doors and windows and came over to whisper to her, "It's raining so hard, Miss, please sleep a little longer."
Xie Yushu felt a strange palpitation. He glanced out the window and felt that the night seemed unusually cold.
With such heavy rain, I wonder where Xiaodao will sleep tonight?
She wanted to lie down a little longer, but then she heard a clanging sound outside the window, as if someone had knocked something over.
Wang An called out in a low voice from outside, "Who is it?"
Has someone broken into the house?
Xie Yushu immediately sat up, and then heard someone urgently call out in the rainy night: "Miss Yushu!"
The voice sounded familiar.
Xie Yushu got out of bed, put on her clothes, and pushed open the door. As soon as she stepped out, a figure, soaking wet, rushed over amidst the lightning and thunder, knelt down at her feet, and called out, "Miss Yushu!"
Jin Ye and Yin Ya were startled and quickly protected Xie Yushu.
Xie Yushu looked closely and realized it was Cang Shu: "What is this...?"
Before she could finish her question, Cangshu said urgently, "The Prime Minister has fallen ill again! Miss Yushu, please save the Prime Minister!"
"He's had another attack?" Xie Yushu looked at Cang Shu's pale, rain-soaked face and knew that he wouldn't have broken into her house in the middle of the night unless it was an emergency.
He couldn't bring himself to say those sarcastic things like, "Why don't you go find Xie Jianing?"
He immediately asked, "Where is he now?"
“In the carriage outside!” Cangshu replied immediately.
Xie Yushu didn't say much, but instructed Wang An and Zhao Feng to help carry Song Jie in.
※
When they carried her into her bedroom, she said she was shocked by Song Jie's condition.
Blood was on him from who-knows-where, and his face was also covered in blood. He was unconscious, his hands and feet were stiff and cold like a corpse, and his face was like a zombie. When you touched his chest, it was as if his heart had stopped beating and there was no warmth at all.
"How did it turn out like this? He was fine during the day," Xie Yushu asked Cangshu. "Why did he suddenly fall ill again?"
Cangshu didn't know what had happened either. He only said that the emperor urgently summoned the prime minister to the palace, and when the prime minister went in and came out, he was like this.
Before he could finish speaking, Song Jie, who was still unconscious, suddenly vomited blood again, mixed with black and red dregs of medicinal pills.
Cangshu panicked immediately; the Prime Minister couldn't even swallow any pills anymore.
He knelt down before Xie Yushu again, hurriedly pulling out a handful of soaking wet silver notes from his pocket and offering them to her: "These aren't many, consider them an advance payment. I'll go back to the Prime Minister's residence right away to get gold notes, thirty thousand taels, one hundred thousand taels, I'll give them all to you, as long as you can save the Prime Minister..."
Seeing his expression, Xie Yushu looked as if he was about to cry. "I'm not a miracle doctor. I can only warm him up like before..."
"It's good that it's warmed up! Once it's warmed up, the Prime Minister can take the pill!" Cang Shu immediately said, "Only you can warm the Prime Minister up!"
Xie Yushu ordered people to boil water and light a heater. In a few moments, he took off Song Jie's outer robe and wrapped him in his own quilt.
After Granny Xizhi filled the bathtub with hot water, she and Cangshu helped Song Jie into the tub.
She entered the bathtub in her nightgown, embraced Song Jie's stiff and cold body, and instructed Cang Shu, "Bring me a pill, I'll feed it to him."
Cangshu immediately agreed and turned to the table, but he was unfamiliar with the layout and could not find hot water.
"Let me do it." Jin Ye deftly poured a cup of warm water, took the pill from him, dissolved it carefully, and handed it to Xie Yushu behind the screen.
Xie Yushu held Song Jie's neck with one hand and slowly poured the medicine into his mouth with the other, afraid that he would spit it out. She poured it in extremely slowly, and only dared to pour in another mouthful after he swallowed it. She was covered in sweat after pouring in half a bowl of medicine. She then asked, "How many pills can you take at most?"
“Three pills.” Cangshu stood behind the screen, not daring to go in, afraid of offending Miss Yushu, but he was very anxious. “These pills contain cinnabar, which is a kind of hot poison. It is used to suppress the Prime Minister’s coldness. He cannot take too many.” He added, “The Prime Minister has already taken two pills when he entered the palace.”
Using poison to counteract cold toxins—how is this any different from drinking poison to quench thirst?
Xie Yushu looked at Song Jie's deathly pale face and felt complicated. He was barely surviving by drinking poison to quench his thirst. Even if he didn't die in the palace coup in the original drama, he probably wouldn't live much longer.
He must have known very well that he wouldn't live much longer, which is why he risked everything to seek revenge against the emperor and Wan Susu.
Was he living only for revenge?
Pitiful and hateful at the same time.
"You deserve it," Xie Yushu said with a sigh.
He couldn't hear anything, but his chest started trembling again, as if he was about to vomit up the medicine he had just drunk.
Xie Yushu hurriedly covered his mouth and lifted his chin: "Don't spit it out, swallow it, Song Jie."
Her warm hands gently stroked his chest, calling his name repeatedly, telling him to swallow Song Jie so he could live, and that he still wanted revenge.
As if he had heard it, Song Jie's throat trembled but he didn't vomit. His chest, which had been heaving like a bellows, slowly calmed down. He collapsed onto Xie Yushu's shoulder, taking two rapid breaths, then two more, as if a dying person was desperately gasping for air, trying to survive.
Xie Yushu hugged him, her warm, wet hands stroking his stiff, cold back, and exchanged all 6 points of her cuckolded value for life points.
On the system interface, her life points had increased to 529 days, and her heart felt like it was on fire.
She hugged Song Jie tighter, pressing his cold chest against her chest, melting him like a block of ice.
Yinya and Jinye carried buckets of hot water inside, Xizhi heated the stove, and then glanced at Cangshu, who was standing outside the screen like a piece of wood, dripping wet. She found a thick blanket and handed it to him: "Wrap yourself up. If you get sick again, you and your servant will stay with our young lady."
Despite saying that, she still brewed a bowl of ginger tea for Atractylodes.
Cangshu stood there holding the ginger tea, her eyes suddenly welling up with tears. Miss Yushu and the people around her were all good people, the best people in the world. Even though Miss Yushu was sarcastic and openly displayed her wealth, she would still save the Prime Minister every time.
She could have chosen not to save him, she could have told him: Go find your Miss Jia Ning.
But she didn't.
※
The rain lessened a bit in the latter half of the night, but outside the window, the night was cold and rainy, while inside the room, it felt like the height of summer.
Xie Yushu was practically steaming alive. Leaning against the bathtub, he alternately pressed his palms and the backs of his hands against Song Jie's neck, not to warm him up, but to cool himself down.
He pressed half his face against her chest, and his breathing gradually calmed down.
The two pairs of hands and feet intertwined in the bathtub were so hot that it was impossible to tell whose hands and feet they were.
Xie Yushu, half asleep, touched Song Jie's chest in the water, trying to see if it was warm. When his fingers touched it, he shuddered and let out short breaths, murmuring something as if in a dream.
Is she conscious? Has she warmed up?
"Song Jie?" Xie Yushu looked down at Song Jie's face and saw that his mouth moved, but the sound was like a mosquito's hum, and he couldn't hear it.
"What did you say?" Xie Yushu leaned closer to listen, and through the steaming heat, she heard Song Jie call out to Xie Yushu.
He was not fully conscious, as if he were having a dream, and called out Xie Yushu's name again.
Xie Yushu looked at him in the steam and remembered the first time he went to the Prime Minister's mansion to take care of him for a fee. He was still half asleep and called out Xie Jianing's name.
"Serves you right," she said softly again, adding that everything he had done in his life had been like drinking poison to quench his thirst.
When Yinya was about to add more water, Xie Yushu waved his hand. His body temperature had returned to normal, so he must have survived this ordeal.
She pushed Song Jie away from her arms, intending to leave the bathtub, but then heard Song Jie murmur, "King Song..."
King Song?
Xie Yushu stopped again, leaned closer to Song Jie, and asked him, "Song Jie, who is the King of Song?"
Song Jie murmured in a daze again: "King Song... Heshan..."
Who is Heshan?
Xie Yushu couldn't understand, so he leaned closer and lifted his face, which was turned to the side. He touched the wet and warm patch at the corner of his eye. Was he crying?
How pathetic.
"What happened to Song Jie?" Xie Yushu asked him gently, "What happened? Did you see the Prince of Song?"
His warm, wet face pressed against her palm. Whether he heard her words or not, he murmured again, tears streaming down his face, "Master..."
Master?
Xie Yushu was stunned. The Prince of Song? Heshan? Master?
She was surprised and wondered: Could it be that the King of Song was Song Jie's teacher?
This conjecture is absurd yet subtly reasonable. In the original drama, only Song Jie knew about Xiao Dao's background. How would he know? And how could he find Xiao Dao and use him to take revenge?
If his master was the King of Song, then it would make sense.
He was urgently summoned to the palace tonight. Did he see the King of Song in the palace?
According to Xie Yushu, Pei Heng will bring the Prince of Song to the palace tonight to see the Emperor, and Song Jie's current state must be related to the Prince of Song.
She desperately wanted to know what had happened in the palace that night, so she called out to Song Jie twice more, hoping he would come to his senses and answer her questions.
Before Song Jie could wake up, someone gently knocked on the door. Wang An reported from outside, "Miss, Pei Shilin requests your presence in the front courtyard. He says General Pei has returned."
Pei Heng is back? Shouldn't he be in the palace tonight? Tomorrow is the day he's supposed to return to court in triumph, why is he back so late?
Fearing that Pei Heng would come over and see Song Jie in her room, Xie Yushu immediately told Jin Ye to help her change her clothes.
Jin Ye and Yin Ya panicked and kept asking, "What should we do? What if General Pei sees Prime Minister Song and Cang Shu?"
Granny Xizhi rushed in, and whispered to Xie Yushu, "I'm afraid it really is General Pei who has returned. I saw several soldiers guarding the front yard. The scene was quite frightening. Miss, should we send Prime Minister Song away first?"
Xie Yushu glanced at Cang Shu waiting outside the door and said, "What's the rush? I am Pei Shilin's wife. It's not Pei Heng's place to interfere with me."
She couldn't send Song Jie away; this was such a perfect opportunity to get information out of him. She had to find out what was going on in the palace tonight.
She changed into a clean inner garment and casually put on a casual outer robe. Her black hair was half-dry and loosely tied up. She then called Cangshu in and told him that Song Jie's body temperature had returned to normal.
Tell him to change Song Jie into the clean nightgown on the bed and move her to her bed so Song Jie can sleep for a while.
Cangshu nodded repeatedly, and seeing that she was about to go to the front yard, he whispered, "I heard that General Pei Heng has returned. Tonight, he will be the one to see the Prime Minister off at the palace gate. If he finds out that he is making things difficult for Miss Yushu, just say that I forced you. As long as you call out, I will go to the front yard to explain for you."
As expected, Pei Heng is also in the palace tonight, so it must be about the King of Song.
Xie Yushu said, "It's nothing," and stepped out the door.
Cangshu suddenly called her name again from behind.
Xie Yushu turned around and saw Cang Shu suddenly kneel down in the room and kowtow heavily to her.
"On behalf of the Prime Minister, I thank Miss Yushu for saving my life." Cangshu raised his head again, his eyes slightly red, and solemnly said to her, "If Miss Yushu ever needs anything in the future, Cangshu will go through fire and water to repay you."
Under the thunderstorm, Xie Yushu looked at him, feeling an indescribable heaviness in his heart. He was a minor character with no parents, always just a background character for Song Jie. Even his death was only a brief close-up. He was only nineteen years old when he died.
In this world of feel-good dramas, only the true female lead can live a "feel-good" life.
She smiled at Cangshu: "You don't need to repay me, let your prime minister repay me."
A rumble of thunder echoed.
She turned and walked through the rain-soaked corridor, where she met Pei Shilin, whom she hadn't seen in a long time, at the courtyard gate.
Pei Shilin looked much more haggard, with dark circles under his eyes, indicating that he had also been woken up in the middle of the night.
He stood there holding an umbrella, his gaze following Xie Yushu as she approached. When Xie Yushu stopped in front of him, he was slightly taken aback. Hadn't it been half a month since they last met? Xie Yushu's appearance was even more ethereal than before. Even dressed in a plain robe and with her hair tied up, she looked like a goddess or fairy from a painting. Upon closer inspection, her eyebrows and eyes were relaxed, and she seemed no different from before, yet she just didn't look like Xie Jianing anymore...
"Lead the way," Xie Yushu ordered, too lazy to talk to him.
Pei Shilin snapped out of his daze, looked away, and couldn't help but say to her, "It's my uncle Pei Heng who's back. He has something to tell you. You... be careful. He doesn't know about you and Song Jie."
Xie Yushu asked with a sneer, "Is that so? He doesn't know? Then he should know that your Pei family is 'a family of loyal martyrs'."
Pei Shilin was speechless, and she still wouldn't say a kind word to him.
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Author's Note: Pei Heng is probably the male protagonist with the lowest presence I've ever written. [Clown]
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