Chapter 86: "How does it feel to be betrayed?"
Yuan Zhaobi's carriage stopped outside the Lu residence.
She sat upright, straightened her clothes, stepped out of the carriage, and looked up to see the two characters "Lu Mansion" written in a vigorous and flowing style on the plaque.
"Lord Qingheng has finally arrived. The young master and young lady have been waiting for quite some time." The steward stepped forward to greet her.
Before even stepping into Lu Runlan's room, a crisp sound of a teacup falling to the ground could be heard, followed by a woman's heart-wrenching scream: "Get out, all of you!"
Just as Yuan Zhaobi stepped across the threshold, a vermilion wooden box flew from afar. She barely dodged it, but the box smashed into the door behind her, sending her hairpins flying out with a clatter.
Just then, a jewel embedded in a hairpin broke off, splashing onto Yuan Zhaobi's cheek and leaving a thin scratch on her mask.
Yuan Zhaobi suddenly raised her hand to cover the area below her ears. Although there was a layer of human skin and a mask between them, her skin was not injured, but the edges of her face were slightly raised.
Yuan Zhaobi used her fingertips to lift the veil and pull it behind her ear to cover the flaw.
The room was a mess, as if a storm had passed through. Teacups were broken, tea was spilled all over the floor, and various utensils were overturned.
Lu Runlan stood there, her long hair loose, breathing softly. Her eyes, which she slowly raised, were unusually calm as they fell on Lu Changli, who was sitting across the table.
"When are you finally going to take me to see the Empress Dowager? I've been locked up at home for a whole month, and every time they give me some excuse! It's my aunt's birthday, but they still won't let us see her!"
Yuan Zhaobi put down his medicine box and saw Lu Runlan's gaze as cold as a dagger: "You get out too!"
Yuan Zhaobi smiled slightly and looked at the young man standing beside her. "Lord Lu, could you please excuse me for a moment? I need to take the young lady's pulse."
Lu Changli frowned: "Are you alright by yourself?"
Lu Runlan said, "I'm not sick! I don't need you to take my pulse!"
Yuan Zhaobi smiled and said, "Don't worry, sir, I will take care of comforting the young lady."
After the young master Lu left, Yuan Zhaobi approached from behind and wrapped his arms around Lu Runlan's arms, trying to get her to sit down calmly, but she suddenly broke free.
Lu Runlan bent down and picked up a shard of porcelain razor blade. The sharp blade gleamed coldly as she pointed it at her. This sight frightened the other maids into a daze.
Only Yuan Zhaobi took a step forward and said in a very low voice that only the two of them could hear, "I am here to help the Empress Dowager deliver a message to Miss."
Upon hearing the words "Empress Dowager," Lu Runlan's hand holding the razor blade trembled slightly, and a trickle of blood slid down her palm.
Yuan Zhaobi strode forward, snatched the shard from her hand, then helped her to the table and called out to the maids at the door, "You may all leave now."
Lu Runlan raised her suspicious eyes. "You said your aunt sent you?"
“Yes,” Yuan Zhaobi took out a jade pendant from the medicine box. “Does Miss Lu recognize the Empress Dowager’s keepsake?”
Lu Runlan's gaze sharpened, and she immediately raised her hand, trembling as she touched it. "Is it really my aunt's old item? Did my aunt send you here?"
Yuan Zhaobi pushed the brush and ink in front of her and said, "Time is of the essence, so please hurry, Miss. Write whatever you have to say here."
Lu Runlan lowered her head, a few stray strands of hair obscuring her eyebrows and eyes, suppressed sobs escaping her throat, tears falling from her eyes and spreading across the rice paper.
“I knew my aunt wouldn’t forget me…”
Yuan Zhaobi looked at the wine pot on the table and said softly, "Miss, drinking every day is really bad for your health. Please don't torture yourself like this anymore. If the Empress Dowager finds out, she will be heartbroken. Later, I will give the Empress Dowager your medical records and the letter you wrote."
Tears welled in Lu Runlan's eyes. "I know Lu Changli's secrets... and he's kept me imprisoned ever since, forbidding anyone from seeing me... You must tell my aunt for me, that she must save me... Lu Changli is heartless and cruel, he wants to kill me..."
Yuan Zhaobi gently comforted her and took out a liver-nourishing pill from the medicine box, asking Lu Runlan to take it.
Soon after, there was a knock on the door.
The moment the door was pushed open, Yuan Zhaobi swiftly took the pen and paper from Lu Runlan's hand, pulled out a stack of brand-new Xuan paper and covered it with the original one, then turned to look at the middle-aged man who had come to the door.
Butler Liu said, "How is Miss? Physician Qingheng finished examining Miss's pulse and went to Young Master's room first. Young Master is still waiting."
Steward Liu looked around the room: "Why are all the maids outside?"
Yuan Zhaobi smiled and said, "There were too many people and it was too noisy. I sent everyone away so that I could take the young lady's pulse in peace. By the way, the young lady's liver fire is too strong, and she has been drinking a lot. She is depressed all day long, which is really not good. I wrote this prescription to regulate her liver fire. You must give it to the young lady on time."
Butler Liu stepped forward to take the prescription, his gaze falling on Lu Runlan. He saw that her face was flushed with drunkenness, her eyes filled with a deep weariness, and she still looked listless.
Before leaving, Yuan Zhaobi lowered her voice and said to Lu Runlan, "After I finish taking Young Master Lu's pulse, I'll come back and give Miss a few more words of advice."
On her previous visits, she had always seen Lu Runlan sitting by the pond in the courtyard, drinking alone to drown her sorrows. This time, after hearing this, Lu Runlan waved her hand, got up, picked up the wine pot, and walked to the back of the courtyard.
Yuan Zhaobi followed the steward to the eldest son's room.
As for the token of the Empress Dowager in her hand just now, it was a reward that Qi Yu received when he served by the Empress Dowager's side.
There were no lights on in Lu Changli's room. The room was dim and stuffy in the afternoon. The windows were closed, and no light could get in.
"You've arrived?"
Following the hoarse voice, Yuan Zhaobi finally discerned a blurry figure behind the desk.
Lu Changli leaned back in his chair, raised his hand to pinch his brow bone, took out a tinderbox, and the moment the candle was lit, it illuminated his eyes, making them appear deep and unfathomable.
Yuan Zhaobi noticed the unusual sound in his voice: "Is your wrist hurting again, sir?"
"Yes. My wrists ache in rainy weather. Please apply the medicine for me."
The room was deathly silent, and even Yuan Zhaobi's footsteps sounded particularly clear. Yuan Zhaobi applied the medicine gently, her cheeks lowered, yet she could still feel the intense gaze of the person in front of her.
But then he heard the person in front of him suddenly command, "Lift your head up a little more."
Yuan Zhaobi slightly raised her chin, but her gaze remained lowered in accordance with etiquette.
Lu Changli stared at the person in front of him for a long time, looking at those eyes that felt incredibly familiar to him.
A sharp, needle-like pain shot through his wrist, a pain that seemed to linger on rainy days, like a persistent, incurable wound. On gloomy, damp days, his longing for her was ever-present.
Ah Zhao, Ah Zhao...
He murmured the name.
He thought of the night he set fire to the medicinal herb field, the wind of the wilderness penetrating his very being.
For more than two decades, he has been strict with himself and adhered to the principles that a member of the Lu family should have. Under the watchful eyes of countless people, he has never overstepped the mark or deviated from the norm.
Only when he met A Zhao in Jiangnan did she suddenly disrupt his orderly world like a gentle breeze.
If he wanted her medicinal herb field, he could have simply taken it by force. Why go through all that trouble and put on such a show?
Marrying her was his true wish.
That feeling of deviating from the established path was like a breeze penetrating his bones, making him feel refreshed all over, something he had never experienced before.
He was willing to sink into depravity, wishing he would never wake up from this beautiful dream. But a letter from Empress Dowager Lu brought him back to his senses. His family asked him when he would return to the capital from his post in Jiangnan and had arranged a marriage for him.
He ultimately wanted to marry a woman of equal social standing, not that orphan with no background.
So, that night, he set fire to her medicinal herb field, watching as the painstaking efforts she had inherited and nurtured for years were destroyed in an instant.
The moment something beautiful shattered filled him with an unparalleled sense of exhilaration.
Finally, under the rolling dark clouds, he aimed his arrow at his wife in the sea of fire.
She knew far too many of his secrets.
A brief deviance from the established path is enough. After that night, no one will ever know that on a spring night in Jiangnan, a woman held his hand, lay with him in bed, and gently soothed his inner wounds.
How could he have absolutely no feelings for her...?
Lu Changli used alcohol to numb the pain, his vision blurred and almost imperceptible. After a while, he finally saw the woman's gentle, autumn-water-like eyes clearly.
"A Zhao..."
Yuan Zhaobi heard this sound but did not show any abnormality. She continued to apply the last bit of ointment as usual. Unexpectedly, he suddenly leaned over, and the man's aura surged towards her. Then, a hand reached out and touched her skin.
Yuan Zhaobi stiffened, then abruptly raised her head, "My lord..."
His fingertips traced along her wrist bone, subtly hinting at something, but if he were to probe further into her sleeve, he would surely discover the letter.
Yuan Zhaobi's voice was barely audible: "My lord, Miss is still waiting for me to go there again."
Lu Changli stared at her silently, as if suddenly waking up, and abruptly withdrew his hand.
Yuan Zhaobi lost her balance and stumbled to her knees. She quickly got up and saw the man in front of her sitting back in his chair with his eyes closed and his cheek muscles twitching slightly. He was completely different from the refined and gentle Lu family scion in everyone's eyes.
He said, "Get lost."
Yuan Zhaobi fled in panic, and even the steward at the gate was unaware of what had happened.
The dark clouds in the sky dispersed, and there was a glimpse of the sky clearing up.
She walked briskly forward, and only when she returned to Lu Runlan's courtyard did her steps calm down, and there was no trace of panic on her face.
The maid led Yuan Zhaobi into the courtyard, around the house, and sure enough, they saw a figure by the small pond in the backyard. The woman was leaning against a tree, her body slumped over by the pond, clearly drunk. One arm was dangling in the water, and wine jugs lay scattered around her.
Yuan Zhaobi gestured for the maid to wait outside, then stepped forward alone, "Miss Lu."
Lu Runlan leaned her cheek against the blue stone, opened her sleepy eyes, and saw a corner of a blue-white skirt in her vision. Her gaze slowly moved up and landed on a face covered by a veil.
"Miss, do you feel like your body is out of control, and you can't muster any strength? Do you feel dizzy and lightheaded?"
Lu Runlan's eyelids trembled incessantly.
Yes, she felt her body was out of control. She had only been sitting by the pond for a short while when she collapsed, feeling weak. She assumed it was because she was drunk, but she didn't expect her consciousness to become increasingly hazy.
Perhaps because she had been drunk so many times in the past few days, every time the maidservants were afraid that something had happened to her and came forward to inquire, she would be scolded and sent away. Today, she was really feeling unwell, and not a single person came forward to ask about her.
At that moment, a warm hand came forward, cupped her cheek, and gently moved her neck to a different position. Because Lu Runlan's arm was in the pond, water had already overflowed from the edge of the pond, and a shallow puddle of water had accumulated on the bluestone at the edge of the pond. At this moment, her cheek was moved and gradually slid into the puddle.
Water overflowed, flooding her mouth and nose. She was unable to move, staring wide-eyed at Qingheng in bewilderment.
"Miss, there's no need to guess. It's not that you drank too much alcohol. It's the pill I gave you that can make your hands and feet numb and cause you to lose strength."
Lu Runlan felt all her strength drain away as if being pulled from a cocoon; she could not utter a sound and was in excruciating pain. All she could see was the shallow water rippling as her eyelashes brushed against it.
She was like a fish on the chopping block, fully aware of what was about to happen, yet utterly powerless to stop it, her despair mingling with pain and resentment. Her eyes, filled with bitter hatred, gazed at her.
The air grew thinner, life slipped away bit by bit, and the scenery before my eyes began to blur.
The person raised a fingertip, lowered a corner of the veil, then reached towards the ear, groping for something, found a joint, and slowly peeled off the mask: skin was revealed, the corners of the eyes were revealed, and the bridge of the nose was also revealed...
The moment she saw those eyes, Lu Runlan trembled, and a rush of heat surged to her head.
Yuan Zhaobi still had a gentle smile on her face. "Does Miss still recognize me? Now you understand cause and effect? You schemed against others for marriage, but others schemed against your marriage in return. How does it feel to be betrayed by your closest people? How does it feel to be pointed at by the world and have your reputation ruined?"
"Don't worry, the Empress and I will avenge Lu Changli."
Lu Runlan's eyelids trembled incessantly, but she was perfectly conscious and wanted to shout out, but she couldn't even lift her fingertips.
Despair grew stronger with each passing moment. Overwhelmed by immense fear, Lu Runlan's vision blurred, and the last thing she heard was the scream of the person in front of her.
"Someone, someone quick! The young lady... the young lady is dying!"
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