novelraw Chapter 118 : Qin Wan’s Strength, Yan Chi’s Dilemma
Chapter 118 : Qin Wan’s Strength, Yan Chi’s Dilemma
118: Qin Wan’s Strength, Yan Chi’s Dilemma
Qin Li’s eyes reddened, and he called out in a low voice, "Grandmother."
Yan Chi and Qin Wan exchanged a look. No matter what Qin Chen had done before, this time, he had truly gone in to save Madam Jiang. If the corpse beside Qin Chen now had been Caihe’s, it would have chilled the hearts of everyone in the Qin residence even more.
"Let’s prepare them for burial first," Qin Wan said, then turned to Qin Li. "Second Brother, can you still hold on?"
Qin Li lowered his gaze, quickly raised a hand to wipe the corner of his eye, and nodded when he looked up. "I can hold on, I can hold on."
Qin Wan hesitated for a moment. "Sister-in-law has given birth. It’s a daughter."
Qin Li froze, his expression momentarily complex, yet a light shone in his eyes.
"That’s good, that’s good… At least Eldest Brother has an heir."
Qin Li sniffled and coughed lightly twice. Qin Wan thought for a moment before speaking again. "The Mistress fainted just now. I’m afraid she’ll be even more grief-stricken when she hears the news. For now, the Qin residence will have to rely on you, Second Brother."
In the past, the Qin residence had Madam Jiang at the top, and below her were Madam Lin and Qin Chen. But now, Madam Jiang was dead, and Qin Chen was dead. In her grief, Madam Lin would at best be too distraught to manage affairs, and at worst, would likely fall ill. Looking around, Qin Li was truly the only man left who could step up to support the family. Qin Li, once a neglected concubine’s son whom neither Madam Jiang nor Madam Lin cared for, was now in a completely different position.
Qin Li coughed again. "Ninth Sister is right. I understand."
Qin Wan sighed, her gaze turning to the Buddha Hall behind the main house. The once spacious and elegant main house had collapsed from the fire, and the surrounding walls were burned into crumbling ruins. Looking across the expanse of blackened ruins, she could see the Buddha Hall behind it still encircled by flames. Qin Wan knew that in there, there was another charred corpse.
Her eyes darkening, Qin Wan rallied her spirits. "I still need to check on Sister-in-law. She was in a critical condition earlier. I’ll leave this place to you, Second Brother."
Hearing this, Qin Li quickly nodded. "Good… good!"
Qin Wan turned to look at Yan Chi, who tilted his chin. "Go on. I’ll watch over things here as well."
Qin Wan frowned. "But Your Highness’s injury…"
"It’s nothing," Yan Chi said, his lips curving. "It’s not a big deal."
Qin Wan, however, looked completely unconvinced. "On a normal day, it truly wouldn’t be. But now, it’s different."
"How is it different?" Yan Chi’s eyes lit up as he pressed Qin Wan directly.
Qin Wan was about to say something, but the words caught in her throat. "Now… now a physician is right before Your Highness the Heir Apparent. Naturally, it’s different…"
Seeing this, Qin Li seemed to understand something and also said, "Your Highness should go as well. This servant can watch over here."
Yan Chi and Qin Wan’s eyes met for an instant. The corner of his lips curved. "Very well, let’s go."
Qin Wan turned and walked directly toward Tinglan Pavilion. Yan Chi followed behind her. For some reason, Qin Wan subconsciously felt that he was in an exceptionally good mood. Feeling suspicious, Qin Wan walked very quickly, and before long, they arrived before Tinglan Pavilion.
Qin Wan entered the gate and saw Wanxing guarding the door. Seeing her, Qin Wan felt a measure of relief. Wanxing curtsied. Qin Wan glanced sideways at Yan Chi. "Your Highness the Heir Apparent, please come in."
Yan Chi strode through the courtyard gate. This was his second time in Tinglan Pavilion.
As they walked toward the inner room, Qin Wan asked, "How is Fuling?"
Wanxing quickly replied, "After Sister Fuling was brought back, she has been unconscious. She hasn’t woken up yet."
Hearing this, Qin Wan grew anxious. She hurried into the main house, then quickly walked toward the inner chamber, only turning to call out to Yan Chi, "Please wait a moment, Your Highness the Heir Apparent."
She glanced at Wanxing. "Please show His Highness to the Warm Chamber."
Yan Chi nodded. Qin Wan then walked toward the inner chamber. Fuling was in the side room off the inner chamber, her own quarters. She was covered with a brocade quilt and seemed to be fine. Qin Wan walked over in a few steps to feel her pulse. After a moment, she finally breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, Qin Chen had only intended to kill her; his attack on Fuling had not been severe.
After tucking Fuling’s quilt, Qin Wan returned to her own bedroom. She took a few commonly used medicines from a tall cabinet and then went to the Warm Chamber. As she reached the door, she found the room silent. Wanxing was serving outside. Not only Wanxing, but Wantao, Wantang, and even Wanli were present today. The four of them standing there made for a pleasant sight.
But when she had entered earlier, these three had been nowhere in sight.
Qin Wan didn’t go out. She glanced at Wanxing again. Seeing her wooden expression, Qin Wan felt relieved.
Withdrawing her gaze, Qin Wan walked straight into the Warm Chamber. As she approached, she saw Yan Chi standing before her desk.
This Warm Chamber was where she usually practiced calligraphy. What Yan Chi was looking at was a new piece she had just completed the night before. The sound of her footsteps made Yan Chi turn around slowly. "Your calligraphy is excellent."
Qin Wan felt a bit apprehensive. She smiled and walked to the low couch by the window. "Please, Your Highness, come and have a seat."
Qin Wan put on her physician’s air. Yan Chi went along with her and walked over. As the injury was on his shoulder, he naturally undid his collar. Qin Wan pressed her lips together, suddenly finding the scene a bit strange…
Deep in the night, a man and a woman alone in a room, disrobing…
"What are you standing around for?"
The sudden sound brought Qin Wan back to her senses. She looked down and saw that Yan Chi’s shoulder was already exposed. On his lean, strong shoulder was a palm-sized area of raw, red skin. A large portion of the blisters that had formed had been rubbed open, now a vicious-looking, weeping sore. Qin Wan frowned, her focus settling. She took out the prepared medicinal powder, cleaned the wound, and then carefully sprinkled the powder evenly across his shoulder. Yan Chi sat upright. Qin Wan leaned forward slightly, the hair from her shoulder brushing against Yan Chi’s arm as her shallow breath landed on his shoulder, stirring a maddening itch deep in his heart.
"It’s a good thing you’re all right," Yan Chi said suddenly, looking at Qin Wan’s profile and the faint pink of her earlobe.
Qin Wan turned to look at Yan Chi. She saw his phoenix eyes filled with a shimmering, fragmented light, like a scattering of stars, yet they reflected her image clearly. Qin Wan had always found Yan Chi unfathomable; beneath the shimmer in his eyes was always hidden an abyssal, endless darkness. But now, outside the window was the deepest, coldest part of the night before dawn. Yan Chi’s eyes, however, were inexplicably bright and clear, as if the cold stars of the night had been warmed by the room’s gentle lamplight, revealing a tenderness that caught Qin Wan completely off guard.
Qin Wan pressed down hard on Yan Chi’s shoulder.
"Sss…" Qin Wan’s movements were swift and deft. Taken by surprise, Yan Chi hissed in a sharp breath. Qin Wan pulled her gaze back. "I must thank Your Highness for the timely rescue."
Yan Chi’s brow furrowed slightly. He watched Qin Wan’s calm profile and, after a slight hesitation, still asked his question.
"What exactly happened that night?"
Qin Wan’s hands didn’t stop. "Your Highness means the night I fell into the lake?"
Yan Chi fixed his gaze on her. "Is what Caihe said true?"
Hearing this, Qin Wan gave a bitter smile for an instant. "It should be true…"
Yan Chi’s expression immediately darkened. "How so?"
After finishing with Yan Chi’s wound, Qin Wan straightened up. "When I woke up back then, I truly remembered nothing."
Yan Chi’s brow lifted slightly, as if in doubt. Qin Wan turned and placed down the bottle of medicinal powder, continuing in a detached tone, "But Your Highness knows that I perform autopsies. Although my mind couldn’t recall things in those days, the marks left on my body wouldn’t lie. Right after I woke up, I discovered I had ligature marks on my neck, and there were minor injuries on my legs and hands. From these marks, I could tell that I hadn’t simply fallen into the lake…"
Qin Wan turned around, her expression serious. "The ligature marks on my neck had a very large arc and span, indicating they were made by a man. I was pulled from Half-Moon Lake, so I went back there. Perhaps by coincidence, I found bamboo branches from the Purple Bamboo Grove in the lake. At the time, I thought it was likely that I had been strangled in the Purple Bamboo Grove, entering a death-like state, but the murderer thought I was already dead and then threw me into Half-Moon Lake…"
Qin Wan paused. "Discovering all this took several days, but no matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t remember what had happened that night. I could only search for clues in secret. I suspected many people, but I never suspected Qin Chen. Perhaps because everyone in the residence knew my memory was impaired, he didn’t harbor any more killing intent toward me afterward. But as my investigation went on, just as I was about to question the gatekeeper about whether he had left the Qin residence that night, he somehow found out. He thought I had remembered what happened that night, and that was why he tried to kill me."
Yan Chi watched Qin Wan, his heart trembling slightly.
This was absolutely an experience that would be hard to write even in a common storybook. Qin Wan was murdered, yet she was "resurrected from the dead." When she could have identified her killer immediately, she had amnesia. So, on the surface, she was calm and unconcerned, but in secret, she began to investigate who had tried to kill her.
"Knowing someone in the Qin residence wanted to kill you, how did you dare to stay here?"
Hearing this, Qin Wan lowered her gaze and gave a bitter smile. "First, if I didn’t stay here, I had nowhere else to go. Second, although I had forgotten past events and my personality had changed somewhat, I knew that my former self would not have gone to the Purple Bamboo Grove without a good reason. And before this, no one in the residence had truly wanted me dead. For me to be killed, there was only one possibility: I had unintentionally stumbled upon something I shouldn’t have seen."
As she spoke, Qin Wan looked at Yan Chi again. "The murderer killed me only to silence me. But since I had already forgotten the matter, he had no reason to risk killing me again. For him, my forgetting that incident was the outcome he most desired."
Yan Chi looked at Qin Wan, the shock in his heart still not receding.
No matter how one looked at it, Qin Wan’s courage and insight far exceeded his expectations. In two consecutive cases, Qin Wan had played an extremely important role. But in the end, those two cases had nothing to do with her. Although she had intervened, she had, on the surface, been safe. Her own murder, however, was different. Knowing there was a killer in the residence, she was still able to do so much.
How could an ordinary boudoir young miss accomplish this?
Suddenly, Yan Chi thought of what Qin Chen had said after being caught red-handed…
Qin Chen had asked her who she was…
In an instant, a strange sense of absurdity washed over Yan Chi. He realized that Qin Chen’s words had affected him; he was even contemplating the possibility of what Qin Chen had said.
But if the person standing before him wasn’t the Qin family’s Ninth Young Miss, then who was she?
Her temperament had changed, and her medical skills had been revealed, but no one had said her appearance had changed.
In this world, it was impossible for there to be two identical Qin Wans. And if the current Qin Wan wasn’t the original Ninth Young Miss, then where was the original one? Surely she wasn’t still at the bottom of Half-Moon Lake…
"Your Highness doesn’t believe me?"
Seeing that Yan Chi hadn’t spoken, Qin Wan suddenly asked. Yan Chi shook his head. "It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just that I find it incredible. At that time, you must have suspected many people. The Qin residence was full of danger for you, yet you could remain here in peace. Even after receiving the Grand Princess’s favor, you never asked for help. If at first you had nowhere to go, later you did. But you didn’t. You wanted to find that murderer with your own strength."
There were other complex feelings Yan Chi didn’t voice. At first, he was stunned by her beauty. Later, he came to know of her courage, her wisdom, and her accomplishments in both medicine and forensic examination from the first time she conducted an autopsy to solve a case. But what he had just learned gave him a deeper understanding of Qin Wan.
The image of Qin Wan in his heart became more resilient and fuller than before. He had discovered a powerful and fearless will in her that she had not previously fully revealed. And this Qin Wan, with all these advantages combined, even made him feel a sense of reverence.
Yan Chi knew deeply that this was a first. Never mind a woman; even among all the men in the world, none had ever made him feel such shock and reverence. He didn’t show it on his face, but his heart suddenly grew solemn.
There were many kinds of love and affection between a man and a woman. In the past, he had been arrogant and willful. Apart from the open and secret struggles of the imperial court, no man or woman in the world entered his eyes. Except for the person on that throne, he felt he could control all living beings in the palm of his hand. But today he suddenly discovered that all living beings did not include Qin Wan.
Qin Wan gave a faint, slight smile. "Your Highness the Heir Apparent overestimates me. I am merely unwilling to hide what I know and can do, and then used that knowledge to differentiate the levels of danger. If the killing intent were truly right in front of me, believe me, I would definitely run to the Marquis’s residence to seek shelter immediately."
After saying this, Qin Wan smiled herself. She pointed to Yan Chi’s open collar. "Your Highness’s wound is treated. I still need to go check on Sister-in-law. Your Highness, please take care. Don’t let the wound get wet these next few days."
Yan Chi stood up, his expression somewhat grave.
He nodded and didn’t speak, immediately following Qin Wan out.
He walked behind Qin Wan. From his angle, Qin Wan’s figure was slender and delicate. Not to mention him, even an ordinary soldier could easily end her life. Yet Yan Chi also knew clearly that even if she were as fragile as dust and mud, she would still be stronger than anyone else in the world…
Yan Chi didn’t say where he was going, but he followed Qin Wan all the way to the entrance of Linfeng Courtyard.
Just as Qin Wan reached the gate, a servant woman hurried out from inside. The moment she saw Qin Wan, her face lit up with joy. "I was just about to look for you, Ninth Miss! Ninth Miss, the Young Mistress is awake!"