Please, Don’t Die - Chapter 36

Peach blossoms drift on flowing water.

The silver chain at the man’s waist dangles into the stream, its small leaves clinking together with his movements, producing a crisp, delicate sound.

Amidst the mountains and forests, the scene feels particularly chaotic.

He Qingsheng: “What are you doing?”

Ying Qujie: “Stop that right now!”

The man by the shore, who had been scooping water, paused in surprise and looked up: “Xiao He? Physician Ying?”

Yan Xingyi’s eyes lit up: “Physician Ying, you’ve shrunk too! Perfect timing, come take a look at His Highness!”

In his other hand, he held a little boy whose eyes were tightly shut, his face flushed red, teeth chattering unconsciously as he shivered. A cold, damp cloth was pressed firmly over his forehead.

A single glance was enough to see how severely feverish he was.

Ying Qujie strode forward, swiftly removing the cold cloth from Prince Liang’s head. He pulled a medicine bottle from his sleeve, signaling Yan Xingyi to help prop up the prince as he poured the medicine into his mouth, every movement precise and efficient.

He Qingsheng hovered nearby, clicking his tongue at Yan Xingyi in amazement: “If His Highness ever decides to play the fool in the future, you’ll undoubtedly be his greatest contributor.”

Yan Xingyi looked up, puzzled.

He Qingsheng raised an eyebrow: “Prince Liang was already frail, and the two of you soaked in that icy water for so long. Now that he’s running a high fever, you go and slap a cold compress on his forehead, driving the chill deeper into his body. If we had a thermometer here, it’d probably read 40 degrees just to give you a proper scare.”

“Ah… really?” Yan Xingyi scratched his nose sheepishly. “So cold water’s a no-go?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve always done it this way before?”

Under He Qingsheng’s scrutinizing gaze, Yan Xingyi looked a little embarrassed: “I’ve always been healthy, never really had a fever before, so I never paid attention.”

He Qingsheng gave him a thumbs-up.

With Ying Qujie now tending to Prince Liang, Yan Xingyi immediately felt relieved of responsibility and slipped away to wash his blue embroidered silk shawl by the water.

But washing the shawl wasn’t enough, he also carefully detached the silver chain from his waist, making sure not to miss a single speck of mud from the fields.

After taking the medicine, Prince Liang gradually began to sweat, his fever subsiding. His clothes grew damp with perspiration, and his breathing slowly steadied.

He Qingsheng poked the prince’s cheek twice and was about to do it again when Ying Qujie caught his hand.

“Don’t wake the kid up and make him cry.”

He Qingsheng chuckled: “So shrinking in size also comes with a side of mental regression for you guys?”

Ying Qujie ignored him and called out to Yan Xingyi by the water: “We need to find a place to change His Highness’s clothes.”

“Got it. I remember falling into a farmland earlier, there should be houses nearby,” Yan Xingyi stood up at the sound. “Honestly, there might’ve even been snakes in that field. Something kept poking my back, scared me half to death. Good thing I ran fast.”

He Qingsheng: “…”

“How strange. Weren’t we in that freezing pool earlier? How did we end up here? Could there be some hidden entrance to a utopia at the bottom of that icy lake?”

Muttering to himself, Yan Xingyi scooped Prince Liang up from the ground, testing his weight with a couple of bounces before deciding it was too much effort to carry him. He then called for Ying Qujie to help hoist the prince onto his back.

He Qingsheng’s gaze shifted from Ying Qujie’s face to Yan Xingyi, then back to Prince Liang. “I’ve never heard of a utopia that can change people’s sizes, though.”

“True.” Yan Xingyi adjusted his grip. “Kid’s heavier than he looks.”

He Qingsheng: “So why haven’t you shrunk?”

“Huh?” Both Yan Xingyi and Ying Qujie turned to look at He Qingsheng.

In this illusory realm, Ying Qujie and Prince Liang had both undergone physical changes, while He Qingsheng, being in a spectral state, remained unaffected.

How could Yan Xingyi, also an ordinary mortal, remain completely unchanged?

He Qingsheng’s gaze turned deep and inscrutable.

Yan Xingyi immediately bristled. “Damn it, what’s with that look? You think there’s something wrong with me? No way! I’ve been lying low just fine, living my little life happily, and then Prince Liang dragged me here to investigate this case. I ended up soaking in freezing water for half a day, utterly selfless, risking my life to keep him company. It was never a good job to begin with!”

“And in this weird place where everyone else shrank, why didn’t I? I’m just a half-baked Imperial Preceptor, how the hell should I know what’s going on?”

Yan Xingyi began venting furiously, like a dam bursting open, the words flooding out uncontrollably.

He Qingsheng tried to interject twice but failed.

In his rambling, he ended up revealing the entire purpose of Prince Liang’s visit.

Two hours earlier.

Half an hour before He Qingsheng and Ying Qujie arrived.

Prince Liang and Yan Xingyi had come to Tianxiang Tower, splitting up to cover more ground.

Prince Liang, in plain clothes, met with the owner of Tianxiang Tower, Dai Xianyun.

Meanwhile, Yan Xingyi took the opportunity to sneak into the tower’s forbidden area, searching for clues related to the missing children case.

As for why it was the seemingly unreliable Yan Xingyi who took on this task, his own explanation was that even if he was only half-competent, he was still more agile than Prince Liang, who could be knocked over by a gust of wind.

Besides, as the Imperial Preceptor, he wasn’t entirely without means to protect himself.

He Qingsheng was skeptical, if he had such means, why had he struggled so desperately in the freezing lake?

At this point, Yan Xingyi indignantly flung out a crumpled, soggy talisman from his sleeve.

After searching Tianxiang Tower and finding nothing unusual, he went to find Prince Liang, only to witness Dai Xianyun knock him unconscious and drag him into a hidden passage.

Strangely, Ying Jiu, the usual guard who followed Prince Liang was nowhere to be seen.

In a panic, Yan Xingyi hastily left a mark and used a concealment talisman to follow them unnoticed.

But it seemed the other party knew he was tailing them. The moment he stepped inside, a tremendous force kicked him straight into the frozen lake.

Soaked through, the talisman became utterly ruined.

When he turned around, Prince Liang was thrown in right after him.

Backlit, Yan Xingyi couldn’t make out the figure’s features, only the silhouette of a tall, slender woman standing on the shore, delicate as a willow swaying in the wind. After a moment, she let out a mocking laugh and walked away.

Prince Liang was unconscious, sinking straight to the bottom of the lake. Yan Xingyi had no time to observe the woman further, he desperately grabbed Prince Liang and struggled to swim.

He tried to reach the edge, but the currents kept pulling them toward the central platform.

Only when they drifted close enough did Yan Xingyi see the piles of bones beneath it, chilling and horrifying, enough to strike fear into anyone at a glance.

But he was already exhausted from fighting the currents while dragging Prince Liang. No matter how hard he tried to swim away, it felt futile.

Just as despair set in, he looked up and saw He Qingsheng.

“You stood there like a divine warrior descending from the heavens. All I could think was, ‘Surviving a great disaster means fortune must follow!’”

Yan Xingyi stared at He Qingsheng with shining eyes, but Ying Qujie subtly shifted to block his gaze.

“Enough. I don’t accept ‘repaying a life-saving favor with marriage,’” He Qingsheng said, rubbing her chin. A fleeting image of Lan Shanqing’s deranged expression flashed through her mind, sending a chill down her spine. Her expression turned serious. “Let’s focus on the matter at hand.”

Yan Xingyi’s post-survival euphoria was cut short before he could fully express it. Deflated, he muttered, “Well, you saw what happened after that.”

He Qingsheng glanced at Prince Liang, his fever hadn’t fully broken, and he was still unconscious.

They could only wait for him to wake up to ask for more details about Dai Xianyun.

After Shang Lehe’s death, all the information she had gathered during her lifetime was handed over to Dai Xianyun.

Even Liang Wang, the imperial authority, had only recently traced the leads to Tianxiang Tower.

It could be said that this woman was likely the person in the capital who knew the most about the “life-exchange” scheme. What could her motives be behind her actions?

As the three of them discussed, they unknowingly walked out of the peach blossom grove.

Ying Qujie, after all, had spent three days lost outside Jimo Town, and now the surrounding mountains and forests looked increasingly familiar.

He exclaimed in surprise, “This is Jimo Town?”

He Qingsheng gave an affirmative hum.

“Jimo,” Yan Xingyi repeated thoughtfully, “Where is that?”

He Qingsheng: “?”

He Qingsheng: “Didn’t your disciple Qi Wan go to Jimo Town to investigate the drought?”

“What? She told me she was heading southeast to see the ocean!” Yan Xingyi was shocked, disbelieving, and utterly dismayed.

He smacked his forehead and groaned, “Right, now I remember. It was that damned Shangguan kid the Emperor sent to Jimo. She actually lied to me for him?”

Faced with Yan Xingyi’s ashen expression, He Qingsheng raised an eyebrow, her mood suddenly lifting.

Compared to her own metaphorical cabbage being stolen by a pig, the fact that Qi Wan had been tricked by Yan Xingyi’s artifact in Jimo Town was nothing.

He Qingsheng grinned, eyes crinkling, and immediately fanned the flames: “Lord Shangguan is handsome, young, and accomplished, it’s perfectly normal for a girl to like him. No harm in that. Don’t go playing the overbearing parent now.”

Ying Qujie, however, was entirely preoccupied with the fact that this was Jimo. He caught a falling peach blossom, its edges soft, its texture lifelike, and crushed it between his fingers, the tart juice trickling down his palm.

An illusion?

Or was the lake somehow connected to Jimo?

This was too unbelievable.

Ying Qujie gazed at the little puppet’s back and adjusted her collar.

No, perhaps it wasn’t so strange after all.

Ever since meeting He Qingsheng, his life had been filled with too many unbelievable things.

In less than two months, the number of ghosts, evil entities, and bizarre incidents he had encountered far surpassed what he had experienced in decades prior.

And it seemed his future would never be dull again.

How peculiar.

“You little brats, picking my flowers again! How can they bear fruit if you pluck them all? I’m dragging you to the magistrate today to settle this!”

“Why are the villagers here so fierce?” Yan Xingyi instinctively turned to run but was stopped by He Qingsheng.

“Why are you running? You didn’t pick any flowers.”

“Oh, right.” Yan Xingyi halted, instantly regaining his composure.

He Qingsheng noticed him stealing a glance at the ever-composed Ying Qujie, as if silently resolving to emulate his steadiness.

“Don’t be nervous, Imperial Preceptor. Right now, you’re the only adult among us.”

At these words, Yan Xingyi suddenly straightened up, standing tall and dignified behind Liang Wang.

Ying Qujie rubbed his temples.

An old man approached, carrying a hoe on his shoulder. The moment he spotted Ying Qujie, his face crinkled into a smile. “Hey, isn’t this Brother Ying from East Street? Not studying today and out for some fun?”

The three of them were baffled by his words.

Ying Qujie nodded obediently, careful not to say anything more.

The old man looked Ying Qujie up and down, noting how clean and tidy he was, with no broken branches or trampled flowers around him. He praised sincerely, “Brother Ying is so refined, not like those other little rascals who come here and wreak havoc on my peach blossoms.”

His gaze then shifted and landed on the Prince of Liang, who was being carried by Yan Xingyi. His tone was familiar as he asked, “What’s wrong with this little troublemaker today? So quiet.”

“He fell into the water and got a fright. Now he’s running a fever,” Yan Xingyi replied tersely, unsure of the situation and opting to keep his answers brief to avoid mistakes.

“Oh dear, a fever is no small matter. You kids shouldn’t be playing around anymore, hurry back to town and find a physician to take a look.”

The old man was friendly and chatted with them a bit longer, reminding them not to let the town’s children come and ruin the peach blossoms. Then, humming a tune, he shouldered his hoe and headed off toward the fields.

From his perspective, Ying Qujie and the Prince of Liang seemed to have grown up right before his eyes, and Yan Xingyi wasn’t an outsider either.

In this town, the three of them appeared to have established, plausible identities.

Role-playing?