After the Cold and Aloof Husband's Mask Falls - Chapter 34

The tongues of fire were closing in.

Gu Wanlan hesitated no longer. She used all her strength to shove a nearby table toward the hole in the ceiling. “Zhu Hengyuan! You go up first!”

“Understood.” Given the dire situation, Zhu Hengyuan knew now was not the time for polite deferral. The situation above was unknown; it was only right that he go up first to scout the way.

He stepped onto the table, leaped upward, and grabbed the edge of the opening. The mute servant reflexively pulled back his hands to make room, but as he retreated, his gaze lingered—seemingly by accident—on Gu Wanlan’s face for a fleeting second.

Once Zhu Hengyuan scrambled onto the third floor, he scanned the room. It was nearly empty, occupied only by the mute servant and a burly, bare-chested man who was panting heavily; it was likely this brute who had smashed through the floorboards.

Seeing that neither man carried a weapon, Zhu Hengyuan felt a surge of relief. He reached back down into the hole. “Commander, hand the Prince to me!”

The opening was narrow, barely wide enough for one person, and the surrounding structure was groaning, on the verge of total collapse. Knowing this, Gu Wanlan had already untied the Prince from her back. She hoisted the unconscious royal upward into Zhu Hengyuan’s waiting arms.

While Zhu Hengyuan was pulling the Prince up, Gu Wanlan quickly administered an antidote to the guard who had been drugged earlier. She scooped her golden mask off the floor and slid it back into place.

“Take him too! He’ll be awake shortly! Pull him up!”

“On it! Cough, cough!”

Just as Zhu Hengyuan dragged the second guard clear of the hole, the floor where he had been kneeling gave way with a sickening crack. Cold sweat broke out on his brow as he scrambled back. “Commander! Get up here now! The fire is coming! This floor is going to drop!”

Gu Wanlan prepared to jump, but a massive section of the ceiling suddenly buckled and fell. She barely managed to twist her body aside, but the falling timber slammed into her left side. Her entire left arm went numb, and she coughed up a spray of blood.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she leaped. She caught the edge of the hole with her right hand, her muscles bulging as she hauled herself upward. She rolled onto the third-floor boards just as the fire licked at her heels.

“Zhu Hengyuan! Go find the others in the—”

She cut herself off. The atmosphere on the third floor was unexpectedly icy.

Gu Wanlan scrambled to her feet, only to see the Prince now in the hands of the burly man. Zhu Hengyuan was standing in front of the mute servant, his face pale and his body frozen. Someone was clearly holding a weapon to his back.

Wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth, Gu Wanlan looked at the mute servant and let out a cold laugh. “Whose man are you, truly?”

The mute servant remained silent, his deep, dark eyes fixed solely on her.

Dragging her numbed left side, Gu Wanlan took a step forward. “This mission was sudden. Very few in the court knew of it, yet you were able to seize the initiative. And…” She offered a mocking smile. “You were even ‘kind’ enough to save us rather than take our lives.”

The mute servant finally spoke. His voice was raspy, his tone carrying a distinct chill. “You are quite clever.”

“Commander?” Zhu Hengyuan was reeling. He had been careless, allowing the mute servant to close the distance and hold him at bay with a concealed weapon. But if what the Commander said was true, these people hadn’t come to kill them?

Gu Wanlan’s gaze turned even colder. “You didn’t hide your presence from me because you planned for this day, didn’t you?”

The mute servant smiled, pressing the weapon slightly harder against Zhu Hengyuan’s spine. “We are simply performing a task for His Majesty.”

Performing a task?

Gu Wanlan nearly laughed from pure rage. This “mute servant” was truly a man of the Cui family—his speech and mannerisms perfectly mirrored Cui Jue. He was essentially flaunting the fact that she didn’t possess enough of the Emperor’s favor, and thus His Majesty had used her as a decoy for this mission. “Fine. Since you’ve brought up His Majesty, what can I possibly do to a man of the Cui family?”

“Cui family? You are from the Cui family?!” Zhu Hengyuan was stunned.

It hadn’t occurred to him that these two were Cui men, but the logic clicked into place. The Roulan Prince was of vital importance; it was entirely possible the Emperor had dispatched both a public and a secret team. The reason they knew the route so well was likely an internal leak—and that leak was almost certainly Doctor Chen, whom the Cui family had personally recommended.

The Embroidered Uniform Guards had been used as live bait.

The burly man, seeing that their cover was blown, stopped pretending. He pulled a Cui family jade token from his robes. “As such, we will be taking the Prince back to the capital. You guards have worked hard.”

“Be that as it may, I must still verify the token to prevent any ‘errors’ in identity.” Gu Wanlan looked directly at the mute servant. Following a glance from his partner, the burly man tossed the token to her.

Gu Wanlan caught it with one hand. To “see it more clearly,” she turned toward the flickering light of the fire rising from the second floor.

“No issues. It is indeed a Cui token.” She walked over and held it out to the mute servant. As he reached out with his gloved right hand to take it, Gu Wanlan suddenly “stumbled.” The token accidentally brushed against the mute servant’s inner sleeve.

“Apologies, my foot slipped.” She steadied herself by grabbing Zhu Hengyuan’s shoulder. The mute servant said nothing. He took the token, stared at her for a long moment, and then withdrew the weapon from Zhu Hengyuan’s back.

“Move!” At the servant’s command, he and the man carrying the Prince vanished from the room.

By the time the rest of the guards were rounded up and the fire was extinguished, it was well past midnight. Doctor Chen and Xiao Sun were nowhere to be found, and Xiao Sun’s men in the second-floor rooms had all committed suicide. The leads had run dry.

Gu Wanlan sighed and turned to Zhu Hengyuan. “Our mission here is over. Get some rest tonight and return to the capital tomorrow.”

“Understood.” Zhu Hengyuan started to relay the order, then paused. “Is the Commander leaving first?”

Gu Wanlan cleared her throat, her hand over her mouth. “Ahem. I have an urgent matter. I must go.”

She had a wedding to catch.

Zhu Hengyuan looked at her left hand. Ever since she emerged from the burning room, she hadn’t used it once. “But if you return alone and run into trouble, can you hold your own with only your right hand? Perhaps I should accompany—”

“No need,” she interrupted. “My left arm was just hit by falling timber. The bone might be slightly out of alignment, but it’s no great matter.”

Zhu Hengyuan looked at his exhausted, bedraggled comrades and cursed under his breath. “Those Cui bastards. We did all the dirty, exhausting work, and they just waltz in to take the credit and the Prince.”

Gu Wanlan adjusted her left arm, her eyes crinkling into crescents behind her mask. “Perhaps… their journey won’t be quite so smooth.”

In the Forest

Deep in the woods, the air was damp and biting following the storm. A burly man waited beside a luxurious carriage, holding a heavy cloak. Nearby, Doctor Chen was shaking with fear as agonizing screams echoed from the shadows. “Is this… is this really okay? The Prince is already wounded! If your Master kills him…”

The burly man sneered. “Him? He isn’t worthy of my Master staining his hands. Just wait.”

Doctor Chen shuddered. What was the relationship between this man’s Master and the Cui family that he could be so arrogant? Regardless, he decided to stay quiet; he needed a powerful patron now that he had offended the Embroidered Uniform Guards.

The shadows shifted, and the burly man hurried forward. “Master.”

“A handkerchief,” the mute servant said, his voice raspy.

Doctor Chen stepped forward eagerly, offering a fresh cloth. “Use this, My Lord. It’s brand new.”

“Mm.” The man took the cloth and focused on wiping blood from his hands.

As the blood was wiped away, Doctor Chen noticed a hideous scar near the man’s right pinky finger. It looked as if something had been torn away from the flesh, though there shouldn’t have been anything there. Before he could look closer, the servant turned to the burly man. “I have the information. Bring the Prince back, but ensure he doesn’t die before we reach the capital.”

As they prepared to board the carriage, Cui Jue (the mute servant) looked back toward the relay station. His expression was dark.

The face beneath the “Feiyan” mask hadn’t been Gu Wanlan. So, where was she? And on the day of the grand wedding, would she show up to marry him as promised?

“My Lord! Your hand!”

Doctor Chen’s sharp cry snapped Cui Jue back to reality. The doctor grabbed his right hand and pushed up his sleeve. A dense cluster of red spots covered his skin.

The doctor’s face went grave as he squeezed Cui Jue’s forearm. “Do you have any feeling here?”

Cui Jue frowned. “It is somewhat numb. Did I brush against something in the forest?”

Then, it clicked. He pulled the jade token from his sleeve using the handkerchief. “Look at this.”

Doctor Chen sniffed the token and sighed in relief. “It’s nothing fatal. It’s a prankster’s poison powder. There is no antidote, but it only causes the affected area to lose sensation for a few days.”

Thank goodness he won’t die, the doctor thought. My new patron is still functional.

However, his “patron” looked as though he had just lost something of infinite value. His face twisted with a murderous intensity. “How many days?” he ground out through his teeth.

Doctor Chen was startled. “Based on the spread… about five days. You should rest and let others handle your affairs.”

Five days?

At that moment, Cui Jue truly felt like turning back to kill “Feiyan.”

Four days from now was his wedding night with Gu Wanlan!