Phoenix Rising

056

The tension in the room was palpable as Lady Li readied the fine golden needle between her fingers, getting ready to place the first of it upon the crown prince's acupoints. Soft crying from the queen could be heard from outside the room, as the king had ordered her locked outside to prevent her from disrupting the procedure unnecessarily. Zi-ning stood quietly by the side, beads of sweat pooling within her clenched palms as she watched her mentor lower the needle.

It took over two sticks of incense before the entire procedure reached its final stage, and when the last needle was put in place, Ru-quan suddenly broke into violent convulsions.

"Wanle, what's going on? Did something go wrong?" the king exclaimed in alarm.

Lady Li instinctively took two steps back, equally shocked by the prince's reaction. Zi-ning's heart rose up her throat, as a suffocating sensation of fear and terror gripped hold of her. What if she had been wrong? What if this gamble failed, and the crown prince died because of it? Could she not change their fates, no matter how hard she tried?

Zhenghuan marched over to the bedside, shifting the prince so that he was seated upright. Ru-quan's eyeballs lolled back in their sockets, revealing only the frightening whites of his eyes. Then, with one decisive move, Zhenghuan slammed his palm against Ru-quan's back.

The crown prince lurched forward and retched, vomiting a vile brown paste-like substance onto the bed. He coughed a few times, then leaned limply against Zhenghuan's shoulder.

Lady Li quickly took Ru-quan's pulse, then she heaved a sigh of relief. "It's fine. His pulse is still weak, but it has returned to normal. I think everything has been expelled. He should recover with rest and some medicine from the royal infirmary," she said. She began to remove the needles from Ru-quan's body, while the attendants busied themselves with cleaning up the mess.

From where she was standing, Zi-ning could see the writhing bodies of the tiny worms that had been ejected from Ru-quan's body. She shuddered. It was vicious, for someone to have resorted to such means to kill the crown prince. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ru-an with his gaze fixed upon his older brother, an unreadable expression on his face.

It was you, wasn't it?

How could she not have realised that there was a rotting, blackened heart hiding behind that glossy veneer? She had been fooled, along with everyone else, until it was too late.

"Thank you for saving my brother," a soft voice piped up from beside her.

Zi-ning looked up, surprised to see the eighth prince standing there. She smiled. "I only offered a possible solution. It could just have likely have failed. The crown prince owes it to his own destiny that he was not fated to meet his end today," she replied.

"You are too humble. Not everyone would risk their own life to save another. You could have remained silent and everyone would have been none the wiser."

Her smile faltered. If only Ru-wen knew that her intentions were not as pure as he had assumed them to be, perhaps he might not think the same of her. But as always, Ru-wen thought the best of everyone. That was why he had been betrayed by a brother that he had loved and respected, and then forced to his death, branded as a traitor.

"That's because she's foolhardy," another voice joined the fray. Fingers wrapped themselves around Zi-ning's wrist, pushing her a step back and further away from Ru-wen. Zhenghuan's tall frame inserted itself between her and the eighth prince. "Always sticking her nose into things that are entirely none of her concern. I suppose that is how you get the attention of others, am I right?"

Ru-wen shook his head. "There is a fine line between courage and foolhardiness. I do believe that Miss Han is the former," he said.

"Ah, looks like your efforts have not been futile," Zhenghuan replied drily, turning to glance down at Zi-ning. "After today, there won't be a single person in the capital who does not know of the great Miss Han and how she saved the life of our crown prince."