BBTTD Chapter 2.1

A crowd of people suddenly rushed in from outside, seizing Su Jiao and several servants without a word.

The old eunuch looked at Xie Yan, who had collapsed on the ground, wiped the blood from his neck, his eyes filled with vicious spite.

Today was the Third Prince and his bride’s wedding day, and it happened to coincide with the Emperor being away at the Shanglin Garden. The timing and circumstances were favorable, so the Empress had intended to quietly do away with this Third Prince.

The original plan had been to set a fire inside Yongning Hall and then blame it on the servants’ negligence on the wedding day. What they hadn’t anticipated was that the plan had not yet been carried out when the heavy rain came.

So a group of assassins had slipped silently into Yongning Hall — yet the Third Prince’s martial skills were remarkably formidable. Even without his shadow guards by his side, not one of their assassins had come back alive. By the time Su Jiao arrived, Xie Yan had already yanked Eunuch Xu out from where he had been crouching in the grass outside Yongning Hall.

Eunuch Xu had been racking his brains trying to come up with some excuse to smooth the whole thing over, when Xie Yan collapsed without any warning.

He immediately seized the initiative.

The Third Prince was already out of favor with the Emperor, and on top of that he bore serious wounds. If one could tamper with things while he was unconscious and shift the blame onto this new Prince’s Consort, it would not be a difficult matter.

The crowd surged forward to seize her, but Su Jiao no longer had the mind to think about her rebirth. Even if this were a dream, she could not afford to be dragged down to her death by that tyrant again.

“Stop!”

She shoved a guard aside and cried out.

Eunuch Xu was startled as well.

No one had imagined that this seemingly delicate and gentle Prince’s Consort would possess such boldness.

Su Jiao strode across the threshold and walked all the way up to the front of the room.

“The Third Prince has merely fainted. Eunuch Xu speaks recklessly and declares that the Third Prince will never wake — how dare you!”

The heavy stench of blood hung over Xie Yan where he lay on the ground, and Su Jiao could see at a glance that he had fallen unconscious from his serious wounds.

If her memory served her correctly, in her previous life, assassins had indeed come to the palace on their wedding night. That time, Xie Yan had remained unconscious for a full day and then spent half a month bedridden to recover.

But it was absolutely not as Eunuch Xu had claimed — that he would never wake.

Eunuch Xu was a man of many years’ cunning. How could a single word from Su Jiao possibly shake him?

“My Lady the Prince’s Consort, on your wedding night, you failed to properly attend to His Highness, and then accidentally struck him and caused him to lose consciousness. Your boldness far surpasses this servant’s.”

“Assassins have entered the palace, His Highness is gravely wounded, yet Eunuch Xu neither summons the imperial physicians nor moves to capture the assassins — instead you stand here slandering me. Shall I report this to Her Majesty the Empress to have you, this ill-intentioned servant, dealt with? Or shall I wait for Father Emperor to return and report everything to him directly?”

Su Jiao immediately seized upon the gap in his position.

Eunuch Xu would naturally not admit to her accusations, but he also knew that this Prince’s Consort was not easily deceived. His heavy gaze fell upon Xie Yan, still unconscious on the ground.

“This servant naturally cares for His Highness, and will go at once to inform the Empress and summon the imperial physicians. However, if the Third Prince truly lost consciousness from being struck by My Lady the Prince’s Consort, My Lady cannot escape blame.”

Eunuch Xu gave a cold laugh and turned to walk out. Su Jiao met his gaze and knew at once that tonight did not bode well. In her past life, she had witnessed the Empress’s methods more than enough times to know that no matter why Xie Yan had fainted tonight, once the Empress arrived, it would likely be easy enough for her to pin tonight’s assassins on her as well.

Su Jiao looked with a headache at Xie Yan lying on the ground, crying out inwardly at her wretched fate.

What are you standing there for? Do you actually want to be buried alive with him?

The palace servants immediately scrambled to carry Xie Yan inside.

Yongning Hall was quite plain, and even for the Prince’s wedding, only a few lanterns and decorations had been casually hung about. Xie Yan lay on the bed, his incomparably handsome face rather pale. Su Jiao reached out and pressed her fingers to his pulse.

If she waited for Eunuch Xu to return, who knew what underhanded methods the imperial physicians might use to frame her. She needed to bring Xie Yan back to consciousness before the Empress arrived, and give the Empress no cause to make a move.

Her own little life was worth far more than Xie Yan’s.

Only when she finally felt the pulse — reasonably steady under her fingertips — did the anxiety Su Jiao had been carrying at last settle.

It was nothing more than blood loss from his wounds. No poison, no grave illness.

Scourges live a thousand years. She had always known this tyrant would not die so easily.

Su Jiao withdrew her hand and looked at the mangled wound on Xie Yan’s arm — it must have been left during his fight with the assassins earlier.

If it wasn’t treated promptly, a high fever was likely.

Her gaze swept around the room and landed on the table off to one side. She walked over quickly, opened the innermost drawer in two or three moves, and rummaged through it until she found a porcelain vial.

The palace servants were still puzzled as to how someone who had just married into the palace could know Yongning Hall so well, when they heard Su Jiao give the order.

“Bring a basin of clean water.”

Her casual gaze carried a hint of quiet authority. The servants felt a jolt of wariness and hurried off at once.

Clean water was brought, and following Su Jiao’s instructions, Xie Yan’s wound was cleaned. The moment the palace servant turned back around, they saw Su Jiao pull the stopper from the porcelain vial, about to pour the medicine directly onto his wound.

“My Lady!”

Lin Cai, the head of Xie Yan’s personal guard, had just come in from outside, and the sight gave him quite a fright.

“You haven’t applied the painkiller yet!”

Nearly half of Xie Yan’s arm was a bloody mess — if the healing medicine were poured on directly, the pain would surely be terrible.

Pain?

Su Jiao’s hands did not stop as she sprinkled the medicine on. Xie Yan, still unconscious, let out a sharp hiss and his brow furrowed deeply. She set the medicine aside and went to wash her hands.

Good, let it hurt. The moment she had come back, she had nearly been dragged to her death along with this tyrant. He deserved to suffer a little before she could call it even.

“He’s in there! If you fail to heal the Third Prince, be ready to face punishment along with him today!”

Su Jiao had barely sat down when a grand procession came striding rapidly from a distance. The moment she heard the Empress’s familiar voice, her heart began to pound.

They say the relationship between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is always difficult. In her past life, Su Jiao had been fortunate in that her mother-in-law had died young — the misfortune was that Great Liang still had a true and legitimate Empress Dowager.

The Empress, backed by her clan and her beloved niece the Noble Consort, had secured her position as Empress Dowager without faltering. She had wielded power for half a lifetime, and in the end had dealt Su Jiao one final blow with an imperial decree deposing and then sentencing her to death.

Su Jiao recalled how that aunt and niece pair had stirred up storms in the rear palace in her past life, and felt her chest grow even more stifled.

That tyrant let them attempt his life again and again — all for the sake of his favored consort — so how did he manage to not get poisoned to death by them in the end?

The more she thought about it, the more aggrieved she felt. She looked up and saw the Empress now just two or three steps from pushing into the inner chamber, while Xie Yan still lay unconscious and pale, with not the slightest sign of waking. Su Jiao’s brow gave a sharp twitch.

“My Lady, what are we to do!”

The nearest palace servant cried out in panic. Everyone knew the Empress held no fondness for the Third Prince, and with Eunuch Xu’s words from earlier still fresh, they were all terrified they might truly end up losing their heads.

Su Jiao glanced quickly to either side. The Empress had already raised her hand to push open the door. Su Jiao rose to her feet at the same moment, and in the instant that all the palace servants knelt to pay their respects to the Empress, she struck with lightning speed and pressed hard on the philtrum point beneath Xie Yan’s nose.

“—!”

She showed no mercy in that pinch. Xie Yan inhaled sharply through his teeth, snapped his eyes open, and came awake drenched in cold sweat, his whole back rigid.

Before he could make sense of what was happening, someone yanked at his sleeve. The sudden force pulled him into a bow, and Su Jiao simultaneously sank to her knees at his side with graceful ease.

“This consort greets the Mother Empress.”

At that very moment, the Empress swept in past the folding screen.

“Outrageous Prince’s Consort! How exactly have you been taking care of Yan’er… he’s awake?”

The Empress’s imperious reprimand had barely begun when the second half lodged itself in her throat.

In the dimly lit hall, two newlyweds knelt before her in unison — the young bride smiling softly, and Xie Yan looking perfectly composed.

Her sharp gaze swept immediately to Eunuch Xu. With such a thorough plan laid out over the entire evening, how had Xie Yan come out without a scratch?

The sleeve that Su Jiao had yanked had conveniently fallen to conceal the wound, and Eunuch Xu’s heart erupted into silent wailing.

He had never anticipated that the Third Prince could come to his senses again in so short a time.

Every prepared accusation and outburst was swallowed back down. Before the Empress could say anything, Su Jiao had already dropped her voice into tearful sobs.

“Your Highness, you’ve finally woken. If you had stayed unconscious any longer, this consort feared she would have been wrongly put to death!”

The soft, plaintive voice fell upon the room and caught everyone entirely off guard.

Xie Yan, with her clinging to his sleeve and wiping at her eyes, was the most dumbfounded of all.

The philtrum beneath his nose still throbbed sharply. The moment he had opened his eyes, he had seen his delicate, beautiful new wife pinch him without a shred of mercy — so how had she turned around and started weeping in the blink of an eye?