Chapter Text
Whether it was the icy wind stinging his cheeks or the cold sweat trickling down his neck and back, despite the many layers of clothing he was wearing, Gong Ziyu felt as if he were freezing solid on the spot. He was shaking so violently, either from the cold or stress who cared, that he might as well be literally convulsing very soon.
It made one wonder who was trembling more between him, weighed down by anxiety and disbelief, or Gong Yuanzhi, half-dead in his arms, growing paler by the second from blood loss and the time he’d spent dragging himself in the snow before the Sword Wielder found him.
It was when the freezing wind got excited once more and Gong Ziyu felt snowflakes lashing the back of his neck that he was glad he had at least turned his back to the wind to shield Gong Yuanzhi from the icy gusts. They could as well have finished him off, had the young leader of the Gong residence left the Back Hill even a few minutes later.
Gong Ziyu used his free hand (the other being occupied with supporting the injured young man’s upper body) to grab Gong Yuanzhi by the shoulder. He shook it softly to encourage him to finish his sentence, or at least the little that could be understood amid his coughing and whimpering. The Sword Wielder might have stemmed the bleeding for the time being, but the young poison genius’s survival was by no means guaranteed right now, and the cold certainly wasn’t giving them any extra time for that matter.
Although Gong Yuanzhi had clearly been insisting on telling him something urgent despite the horrible state he was in, Gong Ziyu hadn’t really understood the meaning or significance of the words he’d stammered out in his agony.
“Gong Yuanzhi,” Gong Ziyu urged him, gently shaking his shoulder again so as not to aggravate the injury. “I don’t understand. The Herb Elixir? What about it?”
“It’s…” But no sooner had the young master opened his mouth to try once more to get his point across than his body tensed in the arms of the Gong clan leader. His chest heaved as he first let out a violent fit of coughing. Seconds later, Gong Yuanzhi was already vomiting an alarming amount of blood.
If Gong Ziyu’s cold sweats could get any worse, they did. He ran his trembling hand under Gong Yuanzhi’s chin in a somewhat desperate attempt to wipe away the blood, his goal not being to return the younger brother to the older brother in a state that looked any closer to death than he already was.
Gong Ziyu cursed this baffling situation, but above all, he cursed himself for not having arrived sooner.
“What on earth happened to you?” he asked, wiping Gong Yuanzhi’s chin, who finally seemed to have finished puking his vital liquid onto his sleeve.
How could things have gotten downhill so quickly?
Two weeks earlier.
When the first maid had collapsed, right in the middle of her walk to Yu Manor one evening when the winter cold had already set in, everyone had wavered between two possibilities: either she had fallen ill, which was by no means unusual given the season, or she had overexerted herself, which was also not an brand new occurrence among the maids.
She was a petite young woman, neither tall nor well-nourished, which made it even more likely than usual that she would collapse. When she had been brought, feverish, to the clinic by another maid — her best friend she claimed — the latter had immediately demanded to see Gong Yuanzhi, arguing that he would provide “the best diagnosis.”
They had explained to her, first politely, then curtly in response to her insistence, that Young Master Zhi did not wish to be disturbed over such trivial matters as a fever (and, above all, that he was not a doctor). He was already preoccupied with a secret duty he’d been putting off ever since Gong Ziyu had confirmed his position as Sword Wielder; a matter that put him in such a foul mood that he might well have sent the maid packing if she’d addressed him directly. And even if that burden hadn’t been weighing on him, Gong Yuanzhi was already busy enough with his new projects to develop tonics to protect his family from viruses and other nasties that came with the arrival of winter.
However, even though the complaints from the patient’s friend had been hushed up and a qualified physician had taken charge of the feverish maid’s case, word of the incident had still reached Gong Yuanzhi’s ears, and, out of sheer curiosity, he went to the clinic anyway to take a look at the girl who were so eager to catch a glimpse of his handsome eyes.
He wouldn’t admit that he was also using this brief moment to further put off the obligation to Gong Ziyu that was getting on his nerves. But that was exactly what he was doing.
He strolled nonchalantly into the small room where the sick maid was lying. Her friend, slumped at her bedside as if her world were falling apart, looked up as he entered, and her eyes lit up as if suddenly, her world wasn’t falling apart anymore.
“Young Master Zhi, you’re here…” the physician — Physician Yan, as Gong Yuanzhi recalled — looked surprised to see him show up after he’d refused the woman’s request to have him come. He was right to be so.
What was unexpected, however, was that the healthy maid ultimately didn’t dare say anything after the poison expert had entered. In fact, she remained silent throughout his brief examination.
“Young Master Zhi, this maid seems to have been overcome by exhaustion. Overwork. We haven’t detected any symptoms of illness, but her fever is still quite high…”
While Physician Yan was explaining the results of his examination, Gong Yuanzhi scrutinized the unconscious woman, trying to recall where he had seen that face before. He expected to come across one of the former maids who had accompanied Shangguang Qian and her outlandish ideas; back then, her relentless (evil!) determination to penetrate Gong Shangjue’s mind had inspired her maids to work harder than intended. Gong Yuanzhi pushed aside that unpleasant memory of the only woman who had managed to win and then shatter his older brother’s heart.
After the second Wufeng incident, Shangguang Qian's attendants had been reassigned to the residence but hadn’t lost that tendency toward overzealousness.
But this one wasn’t one of them. Gong Yuanzhi would have remembered if any of the maids at Jue Manor were as frail and malnourished as this one. His brother probably wouldn’t have allowed her to look so malnourished, for that matter. No, he recognized this young lady because he’d seen her a few weeks earlier planting flowers near Shang Manor.
“What are you planting?” he had asked the pitiful woman, using the eyebrow-raising look he had become the master of.
“Young Master Zhi,” the maid had greeted him with a clumsy bow, her muddy hands trembling. “These are new flowers to decorate the Shang Manor.”
The fact that she hadn’t answered his question did nothing to ease Gong Yuanzhi’s suspicion, a suspicion that had an unfortunate tendency to grow extremely quickly with him, and for which everyone always paid the price.
Gong Yuanzhi let out a sneer and crossed his arms, staring the flustered woman straight in the eye. If she hadn’t been trained for her role, she probably would have fainted under the pressure; yet the young master hadn’t yet thought to use his maid-intimidation tactics. In fact, he had actually planned to rely on his status as an herbalist.
“I need to know what plants you’re… planting,” he had said simply.
After that, he had approached the flowerpot without taking his eyes off the maid, while she had stepped back to maintain the distance between them. Her aversion had become almost insulting, but Gong Yuanzhi had been obligated to admit that she was far from the first person to be afraid of a guy who knew more about poisons than human relationships.
When Gong Yuanzhi had plucked one of the small white flowers and eventually looked down at it to examine it, the young lady had finally clarified:
“Shuangsheng flowers.”
The master herbalist had looked up at her. She had immediately lowered her head again.
“Shuangsheng… like ‘Snow Born’?”
“Yes.” She had paused to catch her breath before going into detail. “They don’t look very good yet, but it's said they reach their peak beauty at the winter solstice…”
“Hmm.”
Upon hearing this explanation, Gong Yuanzhi had let the maid finish her work and had took the so-called Shuangsheng flower to Zhi Manor to examine it himself.
Gong Shangjue had seen him focus his attention on a new plant and, despite his younger brother’s explanations, had dared to remind him that the family’s health in the middle of winter took precedence over his herbalist’s impulses. After those words, which he had obviously taken as reproaches, Gong Yuanzhi would have loved to prove to him that the Shuangsheng flower was poisonous. He would have loved Gong Shangjue to see who actually cared about the family’s health while he was mourning his days with Shangguang Qian, ha!
Except that, despite spending hours examining his suspect, Gong Yuanzhi had got to face the facts: there was nothing unusual about the plant, let alone anything poisonous. There wasn’t even any point in using it as an ingredient in who-knows-what concoction. Truly, a useless flower.
So that was how Gong Yuanzhi remembered that maid. And indeed, not only was the woman herself pitiful, but the flower he associated with her was pitiful as well, and her fever was nothing out of the ordinary either. He left the clinic just as quickly as he had arrived.
The problem was that from now on, he no longer really had any options for putting off his business with the Sword Wielder. Gong Ziyu wasn’t even aware that this affair was a thing, for that matter. His superior’s ignorance was the only thing allowing Gong Yuanzhi to postpone the deadline. After the second Wufeng incident, the Gong family had too many matters to resolve to dwell on this “minor detail” (not really), but now that stability had more or less returned and certain people’s heartaches had been soothed, duty was breathing down Gong Yuanzhi’s neck.
Ah, what an unpleasant feeling, Gong Yuanzhi thought to himself on his way back. He grimaced.
Yes, he had essentially accepted Gong Ziyu and his position as leader. Yes, it turned out that his plan had worked to save the Gong family, and yes, Gong Yuanzhi had sided with him (out of interest. It was purely out of interest).
Oh yes, he had swallowed those poisoned swords of defeat, until he learned that they weren’t “defeats” really. Until he learned that he had to join the only side that had ever existed only halfway through the game, because he himself hadn’t even been aware of Gong Shangjue’s true intentions from the start.
Instead, he’d had to endure not one, not two, but three false accusations from Gong Ziyu. Gong Ziyu, who, barely appointed Sword Wielder even though he’d vocally expressed his desire to leave, was already flaunting his lavishly bestowed authority and his condescending gaze toward Gong Yuanzhi. Even though just the day before he’d been nothing more than a space-waster. The young master could still feel sick to his stomach just thinking about it.
To yield to someone who had never done anything in his life before, while others had worked so hard for years to serve the Gong family, with the transition that had taken a matter of hours, was inconceivable to Gong Yuanzhi, and certainly not right after being accused for the second time of a crime he had absolutely not committed. So he had trusted his brother and fought against Gong Ziyu. Until that was no longer an option, and apparently not even a thing at all, and then he was told to pretend. Beh.
But family came first, and besides, the Sword Wielder had passed the Trial of the Three Realms, so yes, Gong Yuanzhi accepted him as leader despite his bitterness. As leader. The person himself? Well, a new pouch doesn’t reconcile tigers and gazelles.
Had to admit though, although he clearly wasn’t at the start, the guy was smart. But naive. But smart.
Gong Yuanzhi would have liked to continue avoiding interactions with Gong Ziyu as he always had, but that was going to become increasingly tedious. And hiding this information from the Sword Wielder on account of bad relationship could be seen as selfish at best, betrayal at worst, and Gong Yuanzhi didn’t want to see himself as either, honestly.
So, duty called. To hell with tonics for winter and overworked maids, there was a Gong Ziyu who needed to be informed about a secret.
Gong Yuanzhi veered off course and headed toward Yu Manor.
Once there, he noticed, among other things, that Shuangsheng flowers had now also been planted in the surrounding area. The poison genius sneered inwardly with disgust. It seemed he was so unwilling to think about Gong Ziyu that his mind still wandered to these useless plants.
“These flowers…” he muttered despite himself as he stepped forward, catching the eye of a maid (a healthy one that is) conveniently passing by.
“Young Master Zhi,” she greeted him. “These pretty flowers were a hit at Shang Manor, so Eldest Young Miss suggested planting them in the other manors. The Sword Wielder thought they were beautiful too, so he agreed.”
Oh. Gong Yuanzhi pouted. Coincidences seemed determined to laugh at him today.
“Is something troubling you, Young Master?” the maid asked. “After all, you’re the plant expert.”
“Nothing, nothing.”
No need to remind himself out loud that he’d failed to find this plant’s crimes-in-the-making. That his instincts had failed him, on that score.
“Young Master, why have you come to Yu Manor? Is there anything I can do for you?”
“I need to speak with the Sword Wielder.”
“I’ll go get him for y…”
“No need,” Gong Yuanzhi cut her off with a wave of his hand after making a sudden decision. “Tell him to meet me at Zhi Manor after midnight.”
The maid nodded, and no sooner had she gone to carry out the order than the herbalist had already turned on his heel, striding purposefully toward Zhi Manor. He was certainly not in a position to demand that the Sword Wielder travel to him, status-wise, but this matter was too important to be discussed anywhere other than the place Gong Yuanzhi trusted most, he had realized. In any case, the object in question was there, and he certainly wasn’t going to bring it to Yu Manor out of deference to status. In fact, the object was more valuable than any status.
Gong Yuanzhi was also banking on the fact that Gong Ziyu wasn’t conventional enough to care about how the poison expert and his known personality expressed his desire to speak with him out of all the members of the Gong residence.
No, it wasn’t to give himself a few more hours without having to see Gong Ziyu’s face. No, nooo. It was because this was a matter of the utmost importance.
Okay, maybe both.