BXBX NOVEL Chapter 2: Long Poisoned
The whole body is overwhelmed by aches and pains, Li Wanrou considers that she seems to have descended into the hell, for that spiteful couple would not release her even after her death.
However, once she opens her eyes, Li Wanrou finds that the halation of warm sunshine seems dazzling and blinding for her. Then she hears some cries.
“My lady, fortunately, you’ve waken up!”
Furong sweeps tears with deeply worried complexion. She promptly raises Li Yanrou up, and feeds her with medicine, but Li Wanrou overturns it at once.
Furong freezes and says: “It’s the last one. No matter how we ask for the doctor, he is not willing to provide any more prescriptions, claiming that you are well and just need to convalesce.”
On her face is not the sour smell of rotten flesh, but faint flour of flowers, which makes Li’s tightened heart feel relaxed a lot while her astonishment has not been appeased.
Furong has looked after her from a very young age and died from eunuch’s torture within no more than one year. When she died, her flesh did not remain intact. Nevertheless, Li Yanrou was totally pressed by Li Shifu at that time, unable to even bury Furong’s corpse.
However, her face is so fresh and vivid, am I in dream?
Li Wanrou stares at Furong’s fair face in a daze. “She is no more than twelve.” She thought to herself. Subconsciously, Li lifts her hands for a look and her eyes shrink fiercely.
They become fair-complexioned rather than rough and thick ones with bulged blue veins. The pale hands almost suggest her weakness. Her heart beats violently, and she asks hurriedly, “How long have I slept?”
Furong does not understand why her lady acts abnormally, and just replies worriedly, “My dear lady, you were praying for the First Madam in the temple and caught cold. If we had discovered you much later, you would have fevered to be in coma.”
Temple? Pray? Coma?
The recollection gradually comes back. She recalls everything. It was at the age of twelve when she prayed for Zhao’s thirtieth birthday and got ill after three days’ kneeling.
Remembering that she had complied with Zhao thoroughly to show her filial piety while she was finally put into such terrible condition, she is burned with inner fire of rage in her heart. At the moment when she feels nearly suffocated, she clenches her fists, determined to take revenge because God has given her the chance to restart. She will torture them herself to let them experience the aches and pains as well.
“My lady, you have not recovered thoroughly. These days I’ve asked them to spare your duly greetings, but Wang’s attitude is getting worse and worse. Madam must be in bad mood as well. You had better go for it tomorrow.” Furong signs. It will be harder for her young lady to live in the Mansion year by year.
Thinking that the evil has been itching for her to decease in the deep dark room, Li Wanrou, with a frozen face, says coldly, "Even if I died of illness, First Madam might not be happy. It is only a matter of face and acting."
Still, Furong is about to persuade her, but she suddenly zips her lip on after seeing the placid cold eyes of the young lady. Li looks like a ferocious ghost just climbing out of the hell, gloomy and spooky.
Her fair lady used to be gentle and weak. How could she look like so awesome and dignified even without anger after waking up from illness? Furong puckers up her lips and knits her brows, deeply in thought. She consoles herself that it is probably a good thing.
Li Wanrou rises and washes herself. Her eyes reflected on the mirror are as sharp and cold as a sword, but her face is calm and serene. She touches her tender face and can’t help beaming.
The spring breeze outside the window is just pleasing. Li Wanrou watches the gorgeous peach blossoms on the trees. Raising her lips, Wanrou asks: "Where is Bise?"
"She is the only one who knows something about medicine in the room, and my lady, you have told her to decoct medicinal herbs." Furong helps Li Wanrou to get up and puts a heavy fox-fur coat on her, sighing, “Summer is coming, my lady. Your body is still vulnerable to coldness, but the doctor asserted that you have recovered completely. What shall we do?"
Li Wanrou could suffer spring and summer, but at the onset of autumn and winter, she will be subject to chilliness as if there were leakages in her bones. She will huddle by the furnace for warmth all night, with the charcoal fire near her for every minute.
The chilly body was born with her. Old people in the Mansion all say that at that time Concubine Qin died of illness so early that her daughter, Li Wanrou, was like a stillbirth when she was born, with her whole body black and blue.
Li Wanrou lowers her eyes and brows. She had suspected this incident for many times before she was put into the cold palace--her mother was the daughter of the General, therefore, she always kept healthy. That she was born black and blue must be a scheme, in which Qin Huanyan was poisoned by some evil.
As the bead curtain rings slightly, Bise in a bright red dress drifts in, holding a bowl of steaming hot soup. Wearing a comfortable smile on her comely small face, she says, "Please have the soup and then take a rest. My lady, you need to greet tomorrow."
These gentle words and considerate care are mollifying to people who ever hear, and Wanrou must also be consoled and moved if she were still kept in the dark. However, Li Wanrou remembers that she entered the palace with Bise, not believing anyone else. When she was about to give birth, it was Bise who drugged her with musk powder, drenched her with safflower and narrowly made her abort.
Since then she became more and more rampant. Not only did she seduce the Emperor, but she repeatedly gave pillow talks as well, ordering the imperial servants to pull down a wall of the cold palace as soon as Li Wanrou was relegated to the cold palace.
Every winter, Li Wanrou was cold and freezing numb due to the cold wind from all directions. She could not have gone through that without her determination that she must wait till Li Shifu got old and ugly.
However, Bise smiles warmly in front of her. Li Wanrou beams towards her and takes the soup. One sniff at the soup and she knows that two lethal herbs have been added.
The herbs are precious, but they become deadly once put together to boil. If a person drinks it for a long time, the internal organs of the body will be hollowed out although the surface of the body will keep normal as usual.
No wonder the doctor swore that there was no need for her to take in plenty of tonics. Staring at her eyes reflected in the soup bowl, she becomes resentful.
When she raises her face again, she puts down the soup bowl and says suddenly, "Furong, fetch my colored glaze jasper hairpin."
Holding Bise’s bun, Li Wanrou tucks the hairpin into it and smiles gently: "This suit of clothes really looks good on you, but your hair lacks some jewelries, which is not quite appropriate when you go to see your lover."
The smile suddenly gets rigid on Bise’s face. She restlessly casts a glance at the young lady\'s complexion, finding that her face is as gentle as usual, and she says tentatively: "My lady, please don\'t tease me. My cousin isn\'t my ..."
"But I remember, your indenture is still in the Mansion. You are so indiscreet that you would be banished to a brothel if First Madam knows it!"
Li Wanrou’s face sinks suddenly. Furong, though surprised, persuades Li softly, "Bise was sent by First Madam and she hasn’t made blunders."
She implies that it is not easy to punish the girl in case that it disturbs First Madam easily.
Bise kneels on the ground and keeps kowtowing, lamenting: "My dear lady, I have served you since my childhood. My loyalty could be tested and I have never had any evil plot!"
Li Wanrou’s voice turns gentle and she says, "Oh... is it? Since you are so loyal to me, then, drink this soup."