ITVCFITB CHAPTER 48

 Chapter 48 — Let’s Leave It at That

From the upstairs window, Luo Shuyu never imagined his private room might be in danger. He thought Li Mingjin had swung off his horse because he couldn’t wait to come up and see him.

He latched the window and returned to his seat just as the server set down a pot of fine Yunding Mountain Mist tea.

One sip: fragrant and clean.

Thinking of the hard work of tea pickers, he lifted the pot for a second cup when an icy blade kissed his throat. “Don’t move.”

Another cold warning slid over his skin. “Don’t move.”

Qingwang, who’d been standing beside him, lay knocked out on the floor.

Luo Shuyu’s hand holding the teapot stilled. He’d never pictured himself in real danger, but calm came quickly. “You’re the assassin they’re hunting?”

A muffled voice behind him said, “I know you’re the Third Prince Consort.”

The intruder wore a mask; the voice was pressed low and hard to place. Luo Shuyu had died once already; fear of death no longer ruled him.

He set the pot down with one hand and idly rotated the teacup with the other, as unhurried as if he were at home.

“I’m no great person,” he said evenly. “Just a coward who wants to live. Please don’t nick my neck.”

“I don’t think you’re afraid at all,” the assassin said. “You’re not like I imagined. You’re calm, more so than many men.”

“Mm? Holding me won’t help you.”

“Who says it won’t?” the assassin drawled. “The one chasing me is the Third Prince.”

Steel slid fully across his throat, just as Li Mingjin kicked the door open.

Somehow he had a sword in hand, point leveled at the masked figure behind Luo Shuyu. “Let him go.” Then, to Luo Shuyu, “Yuer, are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, Your Highness,” Luo Shuyu said, steady as stone, the tone alone easing Li Mingjin’s tight control.

“Just like the rumors,” the assassin mused. “Married not long, but the Third Prince and Consort are devoted. How enviable.”

Li Mingjin’s voice went glacial. “Release him. If you harm so much as a hair, I’ll have your mangy head and grind your corpse to paste.”

“No need to worry,” the assassin replied. “I can be… accommodating. Let me go, and I’ll let your consort go.”

“Deal,” Li Mingjin said without a blink.

No life weighed more than Luo Shuyu’s. If the assassin escaped, he’d catch him next time.

“I want a horse, and provisions for three days.”

“Fine,” Li Mingjin said. “Release him now.”

A dry chuckle. “Which of us is the fool, me or the Third Prince? I’ll let him go after I’m outside the city.”

Li Mingjin’s gaze locked on the blade at Luo Shuyu’s throat.

Afraid he’d lunge and make things worse, Luo Shuyu said, “Your Highness, agree to his terms. I’m all right. Prepare a carriage for us to leave the city and meet me outside. I don’t think he intends to kill me.” He already had a plan.

“Reasonable,” the assassin said.

With that knife pressed to his vital spot, Li Mingjin had no choice but to comply.

While they waited in the private room, Luo Shuyu took the chance to probe.

He picked up a small cake and popped it into his mouth. “So who did you try to kill?”

“Someone who shouldn’t be alive,” the assassin said.

“Personal grudge or state hatred?”

“You’re trying to trick me into talking,” came the amused reply.

“Just passing time,” Luo Shuyu shrugged. “Might as well crack melon seeds and chat.”

A short laugh. “You really aren’t ordinary. No wonder even a violent man like the Third Prince dotes on you.”

“That’s a bit exaggerated,” Luo Shuyu said, humoring him.

Then the assassin couldn’t resist a boast. “I went for your Crown Prince. Brave enough for you?”

Luo Shuyu paused, the flicker gone almost at once.

Once Fuman Tower had been cleared out, the assassin forced Luo Shuyu into the carriage Li Mingjin provided.

Word spread fast: the assassin had taken the Third Prince Consort hostage.

The capital locked down in an instant.

Bold beyond sense. Did he not know the Third Prince would avenge a slight tenfold? To seize his consort? Madman.

Li Mingjin shadowed the carriage on horseback, whip in hand, only dropping back when the assassin pressed the blade harder in warning.

Luo Shuyu wanted to signal Li Mingjin, but they’d never rehearsed any hidden language; a signal might be missed anyway.

Still, he sneaked a quiet sign to breathe and think.

Li Mingjin had survived this long on cunning. The assassin was alone; with Luo Shuyu as a living shield, he wouldn’t dare do more than threaten.

At least Luo Shuyu wore a new winter fur robe: no draft and no chill. The assassin, by contrast, looked lightly dressed.

A mile beyond the gate, Luo Shuyu suddenly asked, “Cold, are you, Princess Jiayang?”

A sharp flinch. “Who?”

“Don’t pretend,” Luo Shuyu said, smiling. “I know it’s you. At the skating grounds I compared our heights. You’re half a head taller than me. And what princess barges into the wrong privy at just the right time?”

He smiled again. “Don’t pretend,” he repeated. “I know.”

A low laugh; the mask slipped from the voice. “You really are something. Pity you married the Third Prince and not the Crown Prince. You could have helped him to the throne.”

“Fate,” Luo Shuyu said mildly.

The “princess” tugged down a black face cloth. “Didn’t expect you to guess me.”

“I almost didn’t,” Luo Shuyu admitted. “If you’d been an ordinary killer, I wouldn’t have. But after we boarded, I caught jasmine on you. The same scent you wore at the lake.”

“Your eye for detail is impressive,” Jiayang said. “In my country, a ger can hold office. You’d have a fine future.”

“So which are you, a ger or man?” Luo Shuyu asked.

“You can guess again.”

“Given how you praise the right of a ger to govern, I’ll say you’re a ger. In women’s dress, no one would question it. Men have Adam’s apples. A ger doesn’t.”

“Clever.”

But Luo Shuyu had another itch to scratch. The identity of the Zhou prince Shen Mingyun had seduced in his past life.

“One question?”

“I like your wit. Ask.”

“Your rank among your royals?”

“Fourth.”

In the book, the Zhou prince tangled with Shen Mingyun had been second in rank. If Jiayang was a ger, not a man, then the Zhou Second Prince hadn’t shown his face yet.

“So your Second Brother’s in Great Xia too?” Luo Shuyu mused. “And this attempt on the Crown Prince, his idea, not yours?”

He thought of the Crown Princess’s sudden miscarriage. Likely a Zhou hand had always been pushing from the shadows, first to sow discord among Great Xia’s royals, then to stab the Prince and pin it on the Eldest Prince, so it would look like an internal feud.

If Jiayang wasn’t the real mover, then the Second Prince was still hidden in the capital, using the marriage alliance as cover to slip inside.

Jiayang’s smile thinned. “You’re too sharp, Third Prince Consort. I think I’ll break our deal. I can’t let you go.”

“Or maybe I’m wrong,” Luo Shuyu said coolly. “Maybe you and your Second Brother aren’t aligned at all. If you were, you wouldn’t risk exposing yourself so soon.”

Zhou’s throne battles were as vicious as Xia’s, perhaps worse. Their gers could govern and even inherit the crown. Why else would Jiayang cross-dress into Xia to stir the pot?

“Guess all you like,” Jiayang said. “I won’t tell.”

“That’s fine. I don’t do martial arts or hold office. Call it idle speculation.”

“You’re interesting,” Jiayang said. “Had you been born in Zhou, we’d be friends.”

“I think so too.”

“We’re nearing Wangyou Pavilion,” Jiayang warned. “Tell your man to stop following me.”

“No need,” Luo Shuyu answered with a small smile. “If my prince gives his word, he’ll keep it.” So long as I’m in your hands, he didn’t say.

At the pavilion, Jiayang swung onto a horse with clean grace, took two remounts, and galloped off, leaving Luo Shuyu behind.

Only the driver and Luo Shuyu remained.

“Shadow Nine,” Luo Shuyu said, “go bring ‘her’ back.”

“But His Highness isn’t here yet,” An Jiu protested, still a little stunned that the prince consort, held at knifepoint minutes ago, could be this calm…and issue a chase order.

“Fine,” Luo Shuyu said.

He hopped down, stretching his arms. He seldom came outside the walls.

Winter’s edge wore a different face here.

Before long, Li Mingjin arrived with a squad. Men peeled off to pursue while he rushed straight to Luo Shuyu.

“Yuer, are you hurt?” His worry ran raw.

“I’m fine,” Luo Shuyu said. “Truly.”

Li Mingjin pulled him in tight. “You scared me half to death.”

“I’m right here,” Luo Shuyu soothed, then steered him away. “I’ve never been to this side. Let’s sit in the pavilion?”

Seeing no fear on him, Li Mingjin tapped his forehead. “You heartless little thing.”

Hand in hand, they sat. Shadow Nine and the guards brushed snow from the stone and set out two round cushions.

“I know who the ‘assassin’ is,” Luo Shuyu said without circling.

Li Mingjin blinked. “Who? How?”

“Someone we’ve met.” Luo Shuyu flicked a dry leaf from his shoulder. “We talked about ‘her’ during ice polo.”

“Princess Jiayang?”

Luo Shuyu nodded. “Confirmed. ‘She’ is a ger, not a man.”

“How could it be ‘her’?”

“In Zhou, gers stand equal with men. Not strange at all.”

“I know that,” Li Mingjin said, jaw tight. “I just didn’t expect them to be so brazen as to strike at the Crown Prince.”

“They may just be using Jiayang as a decoy,” Luo Shuyu said. “The real danger is their Second Prince.”

“How so?”

“The Crown Princess’s miscarriage wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t the Eldest Prince’s faction. Zhou slipped a hand in the water.”

“The Second Prince hasn’t shown himself.”

“Which is why we need to find him. At first, no one could trace any of this to Zhou. Now they’re acting rashly, maybe because the Second Prince’s faction and Jiayang’s have never truly been aligned.”

“Zhou’s royals are just as chaotic, then,” Li Mingjin concluded. “More ankle-biters than doers, each snatching at credit or trying to swallow it whole.”

“Your Highness is perceptive,” Luo Shuyu said and the picture finally matched his last life. Jiayang hadn’t appeared in the tribute train back then because the Second Prince had quietly removed “her.” Shen Mingyun had saved that Second Prince once, on a private estate. But this time Shen was penned up in Fourth Prince’s mansion, hardly free to roam, and so the meeting hadn’t happened.

If the Second Prince was in the wind, was Jiayang just improvising?

Hard to say with so few facts. But at least Zhou spies in the capital were now exposed as a class. The Emperor had already ordered investigations; things would surface soon enough and the Second Prince would show, perhaps even crossing paths with Shen again. It was only a matter of timing.

“Still,” Li Mingjin said, clasping Luo Shuyu’s hand, “you’ve untangled something huge. I want Jiayang taken alive.”

“In this cold,” Luo Shuyu asked, “where would ‘she’ hole up?”

Li Mingjin slipped a small, sharpened knife from his ankle and traced a few lines on the stone table. “Three li east is a little town. If ‘she’ keeps going without stopping, the next rest point is half a day away even on a fast horse.”

“Are there side roads?” Luo Shuyu pressed. “He’s being hunted. Would he march down the main road?”

“There are trails but, in this snow, only mountain hunters can cross straight over.”

“Then how does he evade us and survive with little food, and thin clothing?”

A spark lit in Li Mingjin’s eyes. “High chance ‘she’ doubles back into the city within two days.”

“Agreed,” Luo Shuyu said. “Catch ‘her’ and we can pull up their whole net.”

And truly, this was less about Zhou than about laying foundation for Li Mingjin. Real power meant safety. Nothing else did.

Li Mingjin squeezed his fingers and, not wanting to wear him out, took him back to enjoy the snowfall a moment longer before returning to the city.

By dawn, the city buzzed with the wrong headline: not “Crown Prince Attacked,” but “Third Prince Consort Held Hostage.” The first story was conveniently drowned by the second.

The palace sent heaps of “calming gifts.” No one needed the sender named.

Li Mingjin glared at the Empress’s offerings. “The Chancellor is slick, using Yuer as a lightning rod!”

“Don’t waste breath,” Luo Shuyu said, patting his back. “If they want to use me, let’s use it ourselves, flip the bad to good. Yes?”

“Got a plan?”

“With Mr. Chen’s pen,” Luo Shuyu said. “He’s crafty and writes well.”

Li Mingjin’s eyes brightened. “You mean to build our own momentum?”

Luo Shuyu nodded. “The Crown Prince wasn’t hurt. I was carted outside the walls with a knife to my neck. A little PR isn’t too much.”

“Not at all.”

Two days later, Chen Rong delivered: all of Beijing was abuzz with tales of Luo Shuyu’s “defiance.”

Storytellers in teahouses declaimed, “The Third Prince Consort, unbending unto death, fought the assassin on snowy ground! The blade kissed his throat when the Third Prince descended from the heavens! The two clashed for three hundred rounds till the carriage shattered to splinters, and at last our prince tore his beloved from the fiend’s grip! Truly, with hearts as one, they cut through iron!”

Later, Luo Shuyu asked Chen Rong why the tale had grown so tall Li Mingjin practically sprouted three heads and six arms.

With a pained look, Chen said, “His Highness personally drafted the script. I cut the most outrageous bits.”

“…He must be heartbroken,” Luo Shuyu muttered.

It wasn’t exactly the plan but fine. Let’s leave it at that.

---

Author’s Note:
Third Prince: Sweetheart, do you like my drawings? Ninety-nine positions! Let’s try the hundredth tonight~
Luo Shuyu: …

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