Yun Yi’s consciousness drifted through the nightmare, an intense sensation of suffocation washing over her, making each breath heavy and wet.
Seeing the assassin’s face turn the color of pig liver, Xiao Zhi suddenly recalled a time from his childhood when he had choked on a rice cake.
His grandmother had lifted him like a chick, draping the little him over her knee. She pounded his chest with her fist. The greedy child he was, he had vomited up the cake with a loud wail.
Almost instinctively, Xiao Zhi mimicked his grandmother’s movements. He grabbed the back of the assassin’s collar, yanked her up like a spring onion from the earth, and wrapped his arm around her back.
Yun Yi’s stomach was shoved a few times by the dog emperor’s fist. The suffocation receded, and she gasped in a huge breath of air.
“Ugh… cough, cough.”
In the solemn imperial study, the palace attendants could barely even breathe. The silence was brutally shattered by the violent retching.
Xiao Zhi’s body was half-bent. To prevent the assassin from recovering and resisting further, he used force, passing his arm under her armpit and firmly pinning her upper body against him.
Pressed against his chest, Yun Yi was like a bundle of mugwort tied to a door during the Dragon Boat Festival. Her heart and lungs felt almost crushed.
“Did Yue Minye send you?”
“…” Who? The only ancient surnamed Yue she knew was General Yue Fei.
“A disciple of Cen Ni?”
“…” Such unfamiliar names.
“Then you must be the Fifth Prince’s person.”
“…” The tyrant hadn’t even finished off his own brothers?
Hard-mouthed. Xiao Zhi locked her throat.
“Cough, cough, cough.”
The assassin who had killed the late emperor had been hung from the city gate for public display. After the edict was proclaimed, Xiao Zhi had secretly left the palace to see the corpse. The body was tall and robust – one could imagine how powerful the assassin must have been in life.
Yet this assassin, currently restrained before him, had the strength of a chicken. If he applied even a little more force, he would surely snap her neck.
For a fleeting moment, his focus wavered. Xiao Zhi’s fingertips loosened by half a measure.
The loyal guard captain, seeing the emperor distracted, warned, “Your Majesty, be careful!”
Who would have thought that the assassin would not seize this golden opportunity to escape? Instead, like a fully rehydrated sea cucumber, she wriggled twice before going limp against the emperor.
The various members of the emperor’s protection squad: “…”
Xiao Zhi fell into thought: They sent… this… to assassinate me?
Yun Yi: He’s choking me unconscious. Shouldn’t the dream end now? I want to go home…
She didn’t wake up. Xiao Zhi, however, snapped back to full alertness. He couldn’t underestimate her – she might be saving a big move. He ordered the assassin to be bound hand and foot.
Unexpectedly, the dream felt real. Yun Yi’s throat was raw, her arms painfully sore. She grew a little anxious. “I’m not an assassin. I’m the impe— Ah, no, I’m a ghost, I… mmph—”
Her voice was pitiful and aggrieved, sounding as though the entire Yan Dynasty owed her ten thousand taels of gold.
The emperor had no patience for her nonsense. He casually tore off his own hair tie. His black hair cascaded down, making him resemble the black-suited ghost of death come to claim a soul.
Yun Yi’s mouth was bound with the black-suited ghost’s hair tie.
Mmph, mwomp, mwomp… Are you stuffing a smelly sock in my mouth?! I have OCD!
The late emperor had passed away, the new emperor had ascended the throne – and such a commotion was erupting in the imperial study.
Those present were quickly counted: several guards, a few eunuchs and palace maids. The maid who had stained the incense burner was among them. She had received twenty hits on the palm that day and was hoping to redeem herself, never expecting such a huge incident to occur. She felt certain her head was no longer hers and wept in despair.
Xiao Zhi looked at the guard captain. The man knelt to pledge his loyalty.
For some reason, everyone who worked in the imperial study knelt down. Yun Yi had a terrible feeling that it was all over for her.
As for the emperor, not a trace of his earlier beauty remained. He was so ferocious and malevolent that even the ghosts of hell looked kinder than him.
“Your Majesty, shall we send the assassin to the secret prison?” The place the guard captain spoke of was not the Ministry of Justice’s dungeon, but the dark cell within the palace used for interrogation and torture.
No one knew how many people had died there.
I don’t want to go! Bound like a zongzi, Yun Yi struggled violently.
Xiao Zhi personally grabbed the hemp rope and rebuked her, “If you have that much strength, use it to confess properly.”
The young eunuch brought over a burlap sack.
Yun Yi was stuffed into the sack like a New Year’s pig. “Mmm mmm mmm!” Help, help, help!
“Lead the way. I will interrogate her personally.”
The guard captain led the way, and the group marched in grand procession. Palace attendants who saw them knelt one after another. Out of the corner of their eyes, they noticed a writhing person inside the sack. Their faces remained expressionless—clearly, this was nothing new.
Such things happened far too often in the palace. Even a favored concubine, once she enraged the emperor, would be tossed into a sack and sent to the cold palace.
On the first day of the new emperor’s reign, making a public example of someone was a warning to everyone else.
Contrary to Xiao Zhi’s expectations, the so-called secret prison was actually located beneath his former residence. There was a hidden passageway he had never known about, leading directly down to it.
No wonder he had occasionally heard crying in the night—it had been coming from underground.
Yun Yi was sent into the prison.
It was a place that blocked out the sun and sky, reeking of mold and decay.
There were no seats. The young eunuch specially fetched a lounge chair from the residence. Xiao Zhi recognized it at once—it was the same chair he used to sit on when sunbathing.
Shwing! A guard used the tip of his blade to slit open the burlap sack.
Yun Yi poked her head out and was greeted by the gleam of a sharp blade. “…”
She blinked frantically at Xiao Zhi: I confess! I confess to everything! Don’t torture me! Don’t cut my face!
Xiao Zhi stepped forward and untied the hair ribbon binding her mouth. The ribbon was soaked with drool. He tossed it aside in disgust.
Seizing the opportunity, Yun Yi wriggled closer to Xiao Zhi.
The guard moved to protect his master. “Bold assassin!”
“It’s fine.”
Xiao Zhi was sure she couldn’t move much. He crouched down and asked, “Think carefully and speak properly, and I will spare you from torture.”
In a voice only the two of them could hear, Yun Yi said, “Your Majesty, I am the imperial seal. Your precious imperial seal.”
Xiao Zhi’s breath caught in his throat. Had assassins degenerated into madmen now?
She had eaten his oil-glutinous rice cake and now babbled nonsense. He suspected this person was a “coronation gift package” sent by his rivals, purely meant to disgust him.
Xiao Zhi rose to his feet and looked down at her. “Lock her up for three days. If you don’t confess by then, the third day will be your death day.”
Three days?! Just torture me instead! As long as I pass out, I can go back to the modern era beautifully.
“Your Majesty—!” The girl’s mournful cry echoed through the dungeon. “Your Majesty, have mercy!”
The emperor had ascended. Palace attendants busily decorated his former residence anew. The dead elm tree at the gate was gone, replaced by a majestic podocarpus shaped like a grand canopy.
For a moment, Xiao Zhi felt a sense of disorientation.
Then he saw a palace maid running toward him in a panic, her face even paler than the assassin’s.
The young eunuch recognized her. “Was today’s lesson not enough? How dare you barge in before the imperial presence?”
The maid trembled uncontrollably. “Your Majesty, this servant reports—the imperial seal! The imperial seal is gone!”
The imperial study.
Xiao Zhi’s face was grim beyond measure.
The loss of the imperial seal was a grave matter.
Not only the palace maid but even the young eunuch’s face resembled that of a corpse about to be buried.
When all the testimonies were pieced together, the time of the imperial seal’s disappearance and the time of the assassin’s appearance matched almost perfectly.
“So it’s a little thief.” Xiao Zhi felt a measure of contempt for his rivals. Too cowardly to assassinate him, they sent a female cat burglar to steal his seal instead?
No wonder the assassin’s figure was as thin as rice paper. He had made her cry with just a hair ribbon.
Xiao Zhi rubbed his fingers together. The sensation of the little thief’s tears still seemed to linger on his fingertips.
When he reappeared at the secret prison, Xiao Zhi brought only three people: the young eunuch, the palace maid who had committed the offense, and the guard captain.
The interrogation was to be conducted in secret.
Dealing with a mere petty thief required no complicated methods—just scaring her into tears.
In the dim secret prison, torchlight illuminated one corner.
Xiao Zhi had expected to find her huddled in a corner, pitifully weeping.
He stood hidden behind the cell door for a while but didn’t spot her in any corner. Instead, someone was lying on the lounge chair, sprawled out as if asleep.
Perhaps stirred by the torchlight, the sleeping figure instinctively pulled the hair ribbon over her eyes.
Xiao Zhi’s favorite lounge chair from his childhood was now being occupied by a petty thief.
The young eunuch, pitching his voice high, scolded, “How dare you!”
The young woman, annoyed at being disturbed mid-dream, shifted uncomfortably. The lounge chair creaked. She mumbled to herself, “Tch, such a hard chair. Uncomfortable.”
Xiao Zhi’s murderous intent surged.
He yanked the hair ribbon away. In the corner of his eye, he spotted the loosened rope knots on the ground—this thief truly had some skill.
He re-tied the hemp rope around her flesh, three times tighter than before.
Yun Yi, who had not returned to the modern era and now faced the emperor again, said nothing.
“Where is my imperial seal?!” Xiao Zhi’s handsome face twisted with ferocity.
“Huh? It’s really gone?” Yun Yi’s eyes brightened. This can prove that I am the seal. “Believe me now! I am the imperial seal. The imperial seal is me. Now that I’m in prison, of course your imperial seal is gone.”
Xiao Zhi: “Do I look like I believe you?”
Yun Yi had no way to prove herself. This era had no surveillance cameras. She arched her head toward Xiao Zhi’s neck and whispered, “You gave the imperial seal a bath this morning and scraped all the cinnabar paste off its bottom.”
Only the eunuchs and palace maids closest to Xiao Zhi knew about this. Xiao Zhi remained unmoved. “You’ve been following me?”
So his rivals had come prepared. They had planted someone by his side ever since the edict was issued, monitoring his every move.
Yun Yi grew anxious. Why won’t he believe her?
She suddenly remembered the homestay owner’s censer in Xiao Family Village and quickly said, “The ear-handled censer in your study—you were using it even before you became emperor.”
Xiao Zhi’s expression cooled slightly as he regarded her. “I only started using that ear-handled censer after I was placed under house arrest.” His rivals had been watching him since then? A truly skilled operation. He mentally eliminated a few hot-tempered ministers from his list of suspects.
Yun Yi was bound so tightly she could barely move. After arguing with the emperor for ages, her mouth was dry and her tongue parched.
She moved her dry lips and spoke to the emperor in a barely audible voice.
Xiao Zhi lowered his head without guard and heard her say three words: oil-glutinous rice cake.
A folk snack not even the reigning empress dowager knew about.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” Yun Yi felt she had found the key. “If I were following you, I would have had to start back when you were still wetting the bed. That oil-glutinous rice cake was made by your grandmother, wasn’t it?”
The “great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother” the villagers spoke of must have been the emperor’s grandmother.
Her mouth watering at the thought of the delicious food, Yun Yi exclaimed, “Such a shame it got cold. When it was hot and fresh, there was no describing how delicious it was!”
Xiao Zhi shifted a body’s length away from her. He could no longer listen to this madwoman’s ravings.
There was no need to wait three days. He had to make her reveal the mastermind behind her now.
Xiao Zhi’s voice turned cold. “Torture her.”
Finger clamping? Yun Yi instantly clenched her ten fingers into fists.
Xiao Zhi’s gaze fell upon the two small, bunched-up fists. He clicked his tongue in distaste.
So small, those hands.
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