The Deposed Crown Prince had Three Lifelong Regrets - Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Li Qinghuai used her other hand to push the other woman’s hand away. “Don’t worry about me. I’m going to check things out. I’ll be fine.” She lightly pulled at her stiff lips, forcing a smile, and turned to leave before the other person could react.

But this time, no one indulged her strange temper. Lu Fengmian immediately stood up and angrily followed her.

Li Qinghuai paused at the door, turning back to look at her in confusion.

Having never had such an unpredictable and capricious teammate, Lu Fengmian’s emotions were a rollercoaster. She wanted to crack open Li Qinghuai’s skull to see what was actually inside.

In recent years, Li Qinghuai had developed a habit of being reserved with those she wouldn’t have continued contact with. Regardless of like or dislike, avoiding entanglement in disputes was the priority.

She genuinely lacked the self-awareness to explain her thoughts to her companion. Now, facing the scrutiny of the crowd, she frowned, paused for a moment, and then forced a smile again.

“Then you have to tell me what you want me to do by following you.” Li Qinghuai’s deep brown eyes sparkled with a smile. If one ignored the birthmark on her face, one would notice that her features were actually quite attractive.

It was a striking, vibrant beauty, with delicate and charming features. Although her brows were naturally defined, they carried a hint of fierceness, which made her look somewhat unapproachable.

But to Lu Fengmian now, she looked no different from a dishevelled female ghost who had just crawled out of hell. Despite her dazzling appearance and air of nobility, her demeanor was filled with gloom and hostility, a look inappropriate for a person from a respectable family.

To her own surprise, Lu Fengmian was only choked with anger, perhaps mixed with a bit of revulsion, but devoid of shock or fear.

In Lu Fengmian’s recollection of their first meeting, seeing this person’s “high and mighty, all others are mere commoners” attitude should have first brought a sense of recognizing her true nature, coupled with the wariness of someone untrustworthy. But none of these feelings appeared.

There was only a familiar, habitual anger.

She kept a solemn expression, momentarily deciding not to address the elephant in the room. She handed Li Qinghuai the water flask and the brush. With no concern for her as a patient, she sternly ordered her to take the items and draw a protective talisman on the back of every person.

Li Qinghuai shook the water flask in her hand. The muffled sound of the water, unlike the clear clinking of shaking wine, unexpectedly interwove in her mind with the memory of the rain, the frantic hoofbeats of horses rushing to Tuo Mountain, and the sound of water cascading down the valleys. The sounds seemed to cross time and space.

She guessed it was probably black dog blood or something similar inside.

Everyone took off their outer robes. Li Qinghuai held the brush. Although she tried to hurry, her talisman drawing was clumsy, and by the time she finished, most of the night had passed.

While others stayed awake out of fear, Li Qinghuai was genuinely sleepy. The more she listened to their whispered conversations, the drowsier she became.

She hadn’t been keeping regular hours or eating properly for days, and her health was already poor. The moment her body leaned against the wall, her eyes involuntarily clamped shut.

Countless illusions immediately appeared in her mind.

In the dream, Li Qinghuai vaguely returned to nine days ago.

The bonfire crackled, warming her whole body. The conversations around her were blurred and indistinct.

Someone sprinkled medicinal powder on her body. The flower-shaped birthmark, the size of a baby’s fist, on her left hip was fully exposed.

The birthmark looked as if it had been smeared with blood, varying in shades. Although it was roughly like a sketch, it carried a mesmerizing sadness, as if it had absorbed countless vile and dirty elements to justify its enchanting brilliance.

This scene did not happen in reality.

Soon after, everything became bizarre, stretched, and distorted. Suddenly, she was back in her childhood with a group of palace maids seeing her off. The carriage rumbled along the Qinhuai River. Then, she saw the lush green bushes and the flowers that covered the mountains of Maoshan.

Li Qinghuai was jolted awake by a scare.

In the end of her dream, she saw a woman crawling on the ground. The woman’s legs seemed to have long been unusable. She was accustomed to crawling and was extremely fast, like a lizard scuttling on all fours.

In the distant darkness, countless shadows darted about. When Li Qinghuai looked at the woman again, her face had emerged from her matted, dry hair.

It was a scarred face, with hardly any good skin. Several long, thin scars tore her face in two, like a shattered bronze mirror.

When she opened her eyes again, Lu Fengmian’s face was very close, looking at her with schadenfreude, “You didn’t have a nightmare, did you?”

Li Qinghuai shook her groggy head, too lazy to decipher her intentions. What they could discover would be up to their own abilities. She just needed to have a normal person’s reaction. Just as she was about to retort, she heard a faint sound on the roof.

The sound instantly suggested that something was crawling on the roof, and the direction of the sound kept changing, indicating that it was extremely agile.

Instantly, everyone in the room became alert, holding their breath.

Just then, Li Qinghuai stretched. Her tone was composed. Although her fingertips were still trembling from the scare, she spoke lazily, “I won’t blame you for making me smell the knockout incense, but do you know what the situation is here?”

I know.

I dreamed it. I can foresee it.

Lu Fengmian didn’t dare to speak to her. A huge black shadow flashed past the window.

“Watch them!” she tossed out a word, pushed open the window, and jumped out.

It was too late for Li Qinghuai to try to stop her. She could only turn and ask the person next to her, “Is she carrying a sword?”

“Hiss—”

Everyone present stammered, unable to answer. Li Qinghuai paced around the room twice, still worried, and then went to the window, leaning on the window frame, intending to climb out.

With only a fraction of her strength, her back wound flared up with a tearing pain. Her legs flailed a few times, and she finally gave up.

She watched the flash of swords outside the window, which consisted entirely of Lu Fengmian chasing something in the darkness and whipping it left and right.

The whip contained silver fragments, darting in the dark night like venomous snakes, appearing and disappearing intermittently.

“Good! Good!” Li Qinghuai watched with excitement, clapping happily. Then she realized that the whip Lu Fengmian had given her was not an expensive item; otherwise, why would she be able to produce as many as needed?

Large red lanterns hung on every house on the street. Humans and demons dashed through the flickering light and shadows. Before long, the battlefield shifted to another roof, and Li Qinghuai could no longer see them fighting.

The roof of the other house rattled loudly under the sound of footsteps. Li Qinghuai’s face was full of schadenfreude.

She pulled the door open and looked out into the corridor.

A girl of thirteen or fourteen met her gaze outside.

The girl had delicate features, wore a pale moon-white dress, and was as fresh and tender as a lotus flower emerging from water. After being seen, she quickly stepped forward and pulled up her younger brother, who was tottering as he learned to walk.

She then looked back at Li Qinghuai, hastily hid behind a pillar, and only ran away after hiding for twenty-something seconds.

At this point, one of the bodyguards came out to pull her, likely feeling afraid without her presence.

Li Qinghuai smiled, shook off the hand that grabbed her, pulled a flint from her clothes, cracked the cover, and blew on it.

“Watch me perform a magic trick for you.”

The person who grabbed her was the female bodyguard who had treated her injuries. As she didn’t quite understand the words, her expression was one of suspicion.

But her gaze held not just doubt, but also a faint, fleeting pity. That strange emotion quickly dissipated.

The female bodyguard asked, “What?”

Her expression seemed to grow indifferent as she spoke.

Li Qinghuai suddenly felt a wave of sadness. She walked to the edge of the eaves, turned her back to the people, and pulled out an oil-paper package from her clothes.

After a sudden commotion, a magnificent firework suddenly exploded in the dark sky.

Grand and brilliant.

The firework was released from Li Qinghuai’s hand. She turned to look back at her savior. The other woman’s face was filled with both astonishment and ruthlessness.

These emotions had not been present in her before. Her eyes had been cloudy and unfocused, giving a first impression of indifference.

“What did you do?!”