Jiang Songyi's pupils constricted. In her previous life, she'd fallen off a cliff to save Jiang Yuyao, clinging to a branch like this. As blood soaked through her drawings, she heard Jiang Yihuan's sneer from the clifftop: "What's with all the pretense of sisterly love?"
"Look out!" Li Tingzhen suddenly lunged forward. His coarse sleeve brushed Jiang Songyi's cheek, shielding her from falling debris. The book "Night Talks on Purple Bamboo" fell from the arms of the impoverished student, and a yellowed piece of paper floated out from between the pages—unbelievably the unsent blood-written letter from Jiang Songyi's previous life.
Jiang Yihuan snatched the letter away, and upon reading the words "May my brother be well, Songyi's last words," his heart trembled like a sieve. He turned suddenly and saw blood oozing from the wound on Jiang Songyi's left arm, overlapping the brown mark on the letter.
"You." He had just begun to speak when a tiger's roar suddenly echoed from the depths of the forest. The crescent-shaped pattern of the tigress, faintly visible in the morning light, was the one Jiang Songyi had shot in his previous life.
Xinyi Daoyi suddenly grasped Jiang Songyi's hand, which was resting on the arrow. "All living things suffer." A golden light from his fingertips pierced the tiger's forehead, and the beast, growling, retreated into the forest. The cub seized the opportunity to scramble up the rock face, looking back at Jiang Songyi with eyes that mimicked the tears of its mother's last moments.
"Your Highness is kind-hearted." Jiang Songyi, stunned, released the bowstring, and the white-feathered arrow plummeted into the mountain stream. She didn't see the blood seeping from the prince's sleeve—the backlash from forcibly activating the sealing power.
On their way back in the afternoon, Jiang Jinzhao finally mustered the courage to hand over the wooden box. The moment the gilded lid opened, Jiang Songyi's hairpin suddenly buzzed. She glanced coldly at the white jade hairpin and whipped it down the mountain stream, "Too late."
The moment Bai Yuzhi fell into the waterfall, Jiang Jinzhao seemed to see Jiang Songyi falling off a cliff in his previous life. He reached out in vain to grab it, but only caught a wisp of mountain wind.
"Brother!" Jiang Yihuan hurriedly pulled the reins. Seeing the blood-stained Buddhist beads on his brother's wrist, he suddenly remembered the assassination attempt when he was seven years old—it turned out that it had always been Jiang Songyi who had taken the knife for him.
On the way back to the camp, Bai Linxi deliberately lagged behind, walking side by side with Jiang Yihuan. She suddenly untied the sachet from her waist and said, "Third Master, do you know that this is specially made by Song Yi using hemostatic grass?" She threw the sachet back, "It's a pity I can't use it."
Jiang Yihuan caught the still-warm sachet, remembering that in his previous life, Bai Linxi had clutched an item embroidered with magnolia flowers before her death. He suddenly spurred his horse into a gallop, startling birds along the way.
As dusk fell, a low cough was heard from the prince's tent. Jiang Songyi stood outside the curtain, holding a medicine bowl, and heard Su Sheng muttering inside, "Cousin, there's blood on your sleeve."
"That's all right." Xinyi Daoyi's voice was tinged with laughter. "Seeing her happy today was worth it."
Jiang Songyi's fingertips trembled slightly, and ripples appeared on the medicine. This was what her master had meant when he had said "worth it" in her previous life.
…
Jiang Yihuan blurted out: "Then you must have been a jerk in your previous life."
Jiang Jinzhao's face suddenly darkened: "How innocent do you think you were in your past life?"
"What bad thing could I do?" Jiang Yihan's fingers unconsciously stroked the leather texture of the quiver, and the green bamboo arrow feathers brushed against his palm.
Jiang Jinzhao frowned, recalling fragments of Jiang Songyi's thoughts. "That herbalist you brought back from the border, I'd better investigate her background." He tightened the reins, and the horse snorted as it trotted out hoofprints. "If she's really been poisoned, don't even think Songyi won't risk her life to save you like she did in her previous life. I'll be the first to stop her."
"Miss Xue is just an ordinary female doctor!" Jiang Yihan almost broke his bowstring. Suddenly, he remembered that the woman always liked to put cinnabar grass in her medicine basket. A chill ran down his spine. "Where did you hear about the Gu tribe?"
Suddenly, Bai Linxi exclaimed in the forest: "Look! There's a deer over there!"
Su Sheng immediately reined in his horse. He had shot three hares and two pheasants along the way, and now, seeing the swaying antlers of a deer in the bushes, his eyes lit up with excitement. "Finally, I've found valuable prey! Your Highness, please wait a moment. Once I've hunted the deer, I'll keep all the blood for you to nourish your body!"
"No need." Xin Yidao followed slowly on her red pony, nearly slipping off her horse upon hearing this. Everyone knew deer blood was a folk remedy for enhancing male sexual performance, and this young Marquis Su didn't even consider the occasion when flattering.
Jiang Songyi looked at the swaying antlers in the distance and chuckled, "It's actually an elk."
"What an auspicious omen!" Yu Huanshen shook his head and recited a poem on the spot, "Deep in the clouds of Mount Li, an immortal came riding a deer."
Su Sheng had already rushed out on his horse. He was a formidable archer, so naturally, no one else would compete with him for the prize. The elk was nibbling on grass roots, its gray-brown fur barely visible through the underbrush, with only half its tail visible.
The moment the bowstring was pulled tight, the elk suddenly leaped up in fright. Su Sheng cursed and jumped onto his horse, his hooves crushing the dead branches on the ground. "Jiang Songyi! Aren't you known for your ability to shoot an arrow through a hundred steps?"
"Here it comes." Jiang Songyi gently squeezed the horse's belly, and the snow-white steed shot out like an arrow. Xin Yidao looked at her back and silently swallowed the words "a beast who will spend his whole life in prison."
Jiang Yihuan refused to be outdone. How could the Black Tiger Cavalry's young master's archery skills be inferior to a woman's? He drew his bow, aimed at the elk's hind legs, and just as the green bamboo arrow was about to leave the string, a pink-feathered arrow flew through the air, piercing the elk's forehead with pinpoint accuracy.
“Got it!” The cheers made the birds in the forest fly away in panic.
"The county lady shoots brilliantly!"
"I've heard that County Master Jiaqing is an exceptional archer, and today I've finally seen it!"
The young men from the Linglong Poetry Society were so excited that their faces flushed. Xia Miao always engraved their names on their arrows when hunting. Jiang Songyi's pink arrow feathers were specially made by a craftsman at Jiang Shu's request, and they were now trembling on the elk's forehead.
Jiang Yihuan froze in place, holding his empty bow. "Didn't she grow up in the countryside?" He turned to look at his brother. "Did father secretly teach her horse riding and archery?"
"I learned it from the prince in my previous life." Jiang Jinzhao wiped the arrowhead and looked at his brother's pale face and added: "But the feeling of archery is something."
"How could he be reborn with all his memories?" Jiang Yihan nearly crushed the bow arm. He'd trained hard in the coldest days of winter and the hottest days of summer to achieve such accuracy, but was he still inferior to what the other person had learned in his past life?
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