Waiting for You for a Long Time, But You Haven't Arrived - Chapter 35.2

Jiang Qionghua wanted Ji Zijun to continue sending medicine, so she specifically allowed the guards to relax their vigilance.

The guards took the order, indicating they would ease their surveillance of Ming Yishu.

Jiang Qionghua pushed open the door and walked in.

“I brought you something to eat—some of the pastries you usually like.” Jiang Qionghua kept a stern face as she pulled open the cage door and stepped inside. Looking down at Ming Yishu, she said, “Stay in the cage. You are not allowed to wander.”

Ming Yishu had no appetite and shook her head, not wanting to eat.

Jiang Qionghua said, “How long has it been since you ate? Are you going to go on a hunger strike for me to see?”

Ming Yishu looked up. “I want to wash up and change my clothes.”

She was only wearing thin white undergarments, and her hair was loose. Although she wasn’t cold now, it was unseemly.

Jiang Qionghua said coldly, “Eat first, then I’ll agree.”

Ming Yishu replied, “I’ll eat afterward.”

Jiang Qionghua hated being talked back to, but remembering Xuan Ji’s warning, she couldn’t lose her temper. She could only give in to Ming Yishu’s request: “Fine. I’ll give you the time it takes for half an incense stick to burn.”

Ming Yishu walked out. She quickly changed her clothes and simply tied up her hair. Finally, she went to look at her belongings that had been moved here.

Su Qian’er had been meticulous, bringing everything she needed.

Ming Yishu quickly found a wooden box and took out two medicine bottles—the ones Jiang Qionghua had brought last time. One was crane red poison, and the other was an aphrodisiac.

She only glanced at them before putting them back. At the very top of the box was the sleeping medicine she usually took when she couldn’t rest. In the past, when she was a light sleeper and tossed and turned, she would take one pill. The medicine had a strong sedative effect; it was slightly sweet and dissolved quickly.

Ming Yishu chose the sleeping medicine. She took exactly three pills—a dose that wouldn’t kill but would definitely knock someone out.

She quickly returned to the golden cage, her gaze falling through the gold bars onto Jiang Qionghua, who was waiting for her inside.

“Qionghua.”

Ming Yishu stood outside the cage looking at Jiang Qionghua’s profile. She saw the woman draped in dark green silk embroidered with gold, wearing a heavy, ornate headpiece. The gold ornaments were crafted in an ancient, solemn style, and her jet-black hair was adorned with a tortoiseshell comb inlaid with pearls. From this angle, she could see the woman’s cold, overbearing beauty.

Even at thirty-four, her grace and beauty were hard to hide. Ming Yishu didn’t dare imagine what a peerless beauty she must have been sixteen years ago.

Hearing her voice, Jiang Qionghua turned her head. “What are you calling me for? Stop dawdling and get in here.”

Ming Yishu had a sudden flashback to when she first transmigrated into this book and saw real ancient people. The very first thing she saw was Jiang Qionghua’s beautiful face—it was so stunning it had been enough to stay in her mind for many years.

This person had sat by her bed, looking down at her, her beauty peerless, strong, and domineering. It was like an arrow piercing straight through her heart, making it hard to breathe and impossible to look away.

Ming Yishu walked in. As Jiang Qionghua’s back was turned to her, she knelt behind the woman and embraced her.

Jiang Qionghua asked, “What are you doing? I told you not to dawdle.”

Ming Yishu kissed the side of her neck and asked, “Qionghua, say it once. Tell me you like me.”

“Are you going crazy?” Jiang Qionghua was stunned by these words. The woman was embracing her tightly from behind; she couldn’t see Ming Yishu’s expression. She felt an inexplicable discomfort and could only reach down to grab the chain on the floor, hoping to pull Ming Yishu closer.

“It’s here.”

As Ming Yishu spoke, she proactively handed one end of the gold chain on her ankle to the other woman. Then she asked relentlessly, “Do you really not like me?”

Jiang Qionghua didn’t want to say it, dodging the question: “Are you being childish?”

It seemed she wouldn’t hear the answer she wanted. Ming Yishu smiled bitterly and let it go. She thought to herself: she was leaving, and she would never come back.

The bond between them was breaking here. Whatever it was before—hatred or something else—it would all vanish.

In short, Jiang Qionghua was not the person she was looking for. She would leave with Ji Zijun, and once the task was complete, she could return to reality.

“Fine, don’t say it.”

At the moment she handed the gold chain to Jiang Qionghua, Ming Yishu suddenly changed her tactics. She looped the long gold chain around Jiang Qionghua’s neck, much like when she used to accidentally tangle a leash while walking her dog in the modern world. She had been skilled at untangling them then; now she was skilled at entangling it. With a sharp tug, she pulled the woman into her arms.

She pressed her palm against the gold chain on the other woman’s neck, using force to choke Jiang Qionghua. In the moment the other woman’s breathing was disrupted, she used her other hand to feed her the medicine.

Ming Yishu was usually gentle and submissive; no one expected her to suddenly turn violent. Caught off guard, Jiang Qionghua didn’t have time to react. By the time she did, she had accidentally swallowed the medicine.

“What did you feed me? Ming Yishu!”

Jiang Qionghua’s face changed, but she was still held in the other’s embrace and couldn’t turn around to look.

A massive sense of unease instantly enveloped her. She reached up to tear at the gold chain, utterly furious.

She didn’t know where Ming Yishu had found such strength. Jiang Qionghua couldn’t pull it away; instead, she was pushed back against the bars of the golden cage. Her back hit them hard, and she clenched her teeth in pain.

“Shh—”

Ming Yishu was glad the gold chain was long enough. She used one hand to pull the chain wrapped around the woman’s neck and used her palm to cover the other’s mouth and nose, as if intentionally trying to suffocate her, treating Jiang Qionghua cruelly.

She was actually waiting for the medicine to take effect.

“It will be fine in a moment, don’t worry,” she said.

In the struggle, Jiang Qionghua’s headpiece hit the golden cage, making a sound. Fearing it would attract attention outside, Ming Yishu instead pinned the woman to the floor of the golden cage.

The magnificent headpiece fell off. Jiang Qionghua bent her legs to push Ming Yishu away, but Ming Yishu pressed her entire weight onto Jiang Qionghua. She used her knee to pin down the other’s bent legs and pulled the gold chain higher.

“Don’t move.”

“Qionghua, please don’t move.”

“I don’t want to make you suffer either.”

“I’m leaving.”

“From now on, the world is wide; we need never meet again.”

“I won’t be sad or lonely because of this, and you won’t have to be angry or lose your temper anymore.”

“I can’t take He Yi with me; release it back to the mountains. It hasn’t grown up yet; it can still learn to adapt and regain its wild nature.”

“I don’t like you anymore. I’ll never like you again.”

“I regret it. I shouldn’t have liked you in the first place…”

Ming Yishu whispered in her ear as she carried out her actions.

After an unknown amount of time, she suddenly felt her cheek get wet. She looked down and saw Jiang Qionghua’s eyes, looking like she wanted to devour her.

Like a trapped beast still fighting—desperate, bitter, and angry.

The woman couldn’t speak; she only glared with hatred… if one ignored the reddened corners of her eyes.

“You… are crying?”

Ming Yishu was slightly surprised but still didn’t release the hand covering the other’s mouth and nose. She looked at Jiang Qionghua from a very close distance and clearly saw a tear fall from the corner of her eye.

Jiang Qionghua tilted her head back in pain, her neck tensing. Because of the strain, a tendon stood out from her jaw to her collarbone. A tear fell, sliding down that curve.

“After I leave, you don’t need to look for me. I don’t belong here. Once I’ve finished what I need to do one day, I will never bother you again.”

“You and I will never meet again in any lifetime.”

“This is a cursed fate; it should never have existed.”

“Qionghua, if it hurts, just close your eyes.”

“Really, it will be over in a moment.”

“Don’t cry, stop crying…”

Jiang Qionghua lost her strength, letting her head sink into the soft bedding. Her chin was slightly raised, her eyes full of despair and unwillingness.

The medicine began to take effect. Her vision blurred. Ming Yishu’s words seemed to come from across a cloud-veiled moon, hazy and indistinct, as her consciousness slowly went blank.

Ming Yishu waited for a long time until she was certain the other woman had truly fallen unconscious before slowly releasing her hand. In their struggle earlier, she had accidentally used too much force. The gold chain had left marks on Jiang Qionghua’s neck, which were red and slightly indented. She reached out to touch them and then began to search Jiang Qionghua’s clothes.

She found the key, and also…

Ming Yishu felt a medicine bottle. She took it out and saw it was her own heart medicine.

Unsure of what she was feeling, Ming Yishu thought that the Mentor would have her medicine anyway, so she didn’t take this bottle and instead placed it on the floor.

She quickly unlocked the shackles on her ankles. After a moment’s thought, she took the chain and used it to lock Jiang Qionghua. She wrapped one end around the bars of the golden cage and locked the other end to Jiang Qionghua’s foot. That wasn’t all; to ensure she had enough time to leave, Ming Yishu also stripped off Jiang Qionghua’s outer clothes and took them outside.

Jiang Qionghua was someone who cared deeply about her dignity. This way, she wouldn’t call anyone in the moment she woke up.

Ming Yishu only left a thin brocade quilt to cover her body.

Still, it didn’t feel enough.

Ming Yishu looked at the scars covering the body of the person in the cage. She suddenly understood where Jiang Qionghua’s insecurity came from. With so many scars, she must have suffered a lot. No wonder she had always refused to take off her clothes when they were intimate.

She wanted to say she didn’t mind, but the other woman could never let go of her worries.

Ah well, they would never see each other again. What was the use of saying these things now?

Before leaving, Ming Yishu finally, cruelly, picked up the “Nine-Linked Rings” lock from nearby. Knowing that no one here could solve it, she confidently locked the cage. This was the only way to ensure nothing went wrong.

“Qionghua, I’m borrowing your clothes.”

Ming Yishu said to the unconscious Jiang Qionghua in the golden cage, then took the other’s dark green outer robe and draped it over her shoulders.

When night fell, she walked out the main door and told the guards she was going out for a while.

Because she was wearing Jiang Qionghua’s clothes, Ming Yishu feigned a bit of post-coital weakness. She said, “The golden cage was delivered today, and I played a bit too much with Qionghua. She woke up in the middle and said she wanted to eat osmanthus cake, and asked me to go buy it personally.”

This explanation would normally be hard to believe, but everyone had seen their Prime Minister carry Miss Ming to the bedchamber in front of everyone today and stay there for a long time…

At this point, no one doubted it.

After all, their Prime Minister often had crazy ideas; sending someone to buy things was entirely possible.

The Prime Minister valued Miss Ming; in the Prime Minister’s absence, Ming Yishu’s words held high status. Everyone knew her personality was sincere and that she treated the servants well, so no one stopped her.

Ming Yishu boarded the carriage. Before leaving, she pulled back the curtain to give one last instruction: “We played too hard just now, and I locked Qionghua up. She insisted on playing this kind of flirtatious game with me, so only I can return to unlock it for her. She’s tired and sleeping now; don’t go in and disturb her. It would be bad if you ruined her mood.”

Everyone was speechless, wishing they hadn’t heard a thing.

This sounded exactly like something the Prime Minister would do. If she could come up with a golden cage, what else couldn’t she do?

The Prime Minister had carried Miss Ming today, and Miss Ming had a gold chain on her leg. The two of them were clearly playing with something new. No one dared enter the bedchamber to serve them, fearing they would hear something they shouldn’t.

“Understood, Miss Ming. Please return as soon as possible. We will not enter to disturb the Prime Minister.”

“Rest assured, the first person the Prime Minister sees when she wakes up will surely be you.”

“This lock must be opened by your hand personally; we will not meddle.”

The carriage curtain fell. Ming Yishu left without another look.

At the Prime Minister’s manor, the secret guards watched her walk to the door. They looked at each other and ultimately did not follow.

Not long ago, the Prime Minister had specifically instructed them not to interfere too much with Miss Ming. Whoever Miss Ming saw or whatever she took was permitted.

In the dead of night, as the doors of the Prime Minister’s manor were closing, a white shadow suddenly darted out through the gap.

“What was that that just went past?”

Everyone was confused; no one had seen clearly.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was a wild cat coming to the manor to bully He Yi again.”

They said.

The carriage faced no further obstacles, speeding through the night. The wind whistled, and Ming Yishu threw something out the window.

Under the moonlight, the object hit a stone by the road, making a crisp clinking sound that was drowned out by the noise of the carriage.

It was a key—the key to the gold chain on Jiang Qionghua’s foot.

Having swallowed the sleeping pills, stripped of her clothes, restrained by the gold chain, locked in a golden cage with a puzzle no one could solve, and with no one daring to enter the bedchamber, Ming Yishu had used every method she could think of on Jiang Qionghua to buy herself enough time to escape.

She smelled the night breeze and the scent of melting snow. She had never felt so free.

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