The scorching sun baked the earth. Song Wanchu staggered out of the side hall in a daze.
From afar, she saw Liang Yuzhou, standing upright and graceful.
His figure could always be spotted at a glance in a crowd.
With an outstanding posture, noble temperament, and a calm and distant expression, he was like the unreachable moon in the mountains, only to be admired from afar, never to be touched.
All the noble ladies and young misses were picked up by their husbands, fathers, or elder brothers, but Liang Yuzhou just watched from afar. His gaze passed over the crowd and landed on her.
He never showed the slightest bit of concern for her in public.
He seemed like a different person from the one who kissed her, clung to her, and indulged in lust in the carriage.
Song Wanchu walked up to him.
The two of them got into the carriage one after another.
As soon as the carriage curtain was lowered, Liang Yuzhou reached out and pulled her into his arms.
His arm rested on her waist and rubbed it ambiguously a few times.
The place his palm pressed on was exactly where Song Wanchu had hidden the Crown Prince's purse.
Song Wanchu's nerves instantly tightened. Her cold - sweating little hand slapped his palm away.
"Before we've even left the Lingxiao Pavilion, if you want to be bold, sir, you should choose the right place."
The imperial sacred place where the meritorious officials of past generations were enshrined should have been solemn and respectful. Liang Yuzhou couldn't be so out of line.
The man gently curled his lips and watched her annoyed and nervous look leisurely.
This Wanchu was far more vivid and lively than the one with a cold and indifferent face, caring about nothing.
His gaze fell on the red mark on her chin, and his face darkened slightly.
"Did the Princess Dowager make things difficult for you?"
Song Wanchu sneered sarcastically.
Not long ago at the Dragon Boat Festival banquet, he had witnessed the Princess Dowager and the County Princess Jiahe humiliating and belittling her.
He didn't care at all about the mockery and humiliation she endured, but instead blamed her for being aggressive and making Yu Huiyan lose face.
Now he was asking if she had been made things difficult by the Princess Dowager.
It was so insincere.
Although the Princess Dowager's attitude towards her was far from friendly, they had a common goal today.
The content of their conversation must never be known to Liang Yuzhou.
Liang Yuzhou and the Crown Prince were always on the verge of conflict whenever they met. Yesterday, he had been like a rabid dog, lashing out at her.
She already had enough things to consider and worry about. She didn't want to waste any more energy dealing with Liang Yuzhou's emotions.
"Just the same old stuff. You've heard it before. There's nothing new."
Song Wanchu was calm, as if she were talking about something extremely ordinary.
But Liang Yuzhou felt a pang of soreness in his chest.
How many times had she been insulted and hurt by words before she could become so calm and composed?
It was he who had allowed the rumors to slander her...
His chest felt stuffy. It wasn't until the carriage drove out of the Lingxiao Pavilion that he pulled her back into his arms.
The body in his arms was a bit tense, and Song Wanchu looked a bit unnatural.
Liang Yuzhou flared his nostrils and smelled a faint scent that didn't belong to her.
"Why does my wife smell like cooling oil?"
Song Wanchu tensed up even more. The slight bulge around her waist was like a firework that had already been lit and could explode at any moment...
"It must be my purse. I put some cooling oil in it in case of heatstroke."
She lied randomly, hoping to get away with it.
A meaningful sneer flashed across Liang Yuzhou's eyes. "I remember my wife doesn't like the smell of cooling oil very much. In summer, your purses usually contain mint leaves mixed with poria cocos and dried osmanthus, and are sprayed with rose dew."
Song Wanchu's heart tightened. She didn't dare to look into Liang Yuzhou's eyes.
He had been cold and distant towards her for the past three years. How could he know such trivial details?
It was really difficult to deceive him.
She had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue lying. "There were so many people in the side hall. Maybe someone else used cooling oil, and it got on me."
Such a lie was clearly a self - contradiction to her previous one.
Liang Yuzhou placed his hand on her forehead. His slightly cool fingertips wiped away her cold sweat.
"I was just asking casually. Why are you so nervous? I thought you were hiding something shady on you."
Song Wanchu tightly pursed her red lips, trying her best to make the uneasiness on her face less obvious.
The Crown Prince was usually calm and steady. Why did he send the eunuch to give her the purse this time? It was too reckless and didn't match his usual style of being patient and self - restrained.
As soon as they got back to the Duke's Mansion, she had to dispose of this purse as soon as possible!
"You're not saying anything. Could it be that you really do have something shady?"
Liang Yuzhou gently but firmly turned her shoulders. His sharp gaze scanned every inch of her body.
Song Wanchu felt as if she had been stripped naked. She felt extremely uncomfortable.
"Liang Yuzhou, how did you get poisoned at the palace banquet three years ago?"
She changed the subject.
The Princess Dowager had said that Liang Yuzhou had saved her once. She searched her memory desperately and suddenly remembered what Shen Yuhe had said to her after Liang Yuzhou was poisoned.
At that time, she had donated a whole bowl of her heart's blood, fainted in the Princess Dowager's Mansion, and was carried back to her uncle's house.
When she woke up, Shen Yuhe was by her side. She asked how Liang Yuzhou was.
Although Shen Yuhe wasn't involved in Liang Yuzhou's treatment, her grandfather, Doctor Shen, was the first doctor to diagnose Liang Yuzhou.
It was just that Doctor Shen wasn't trusted by the Princess Dowager, so he didn't go to the Princess Dowager's Mansion.
But Doctor Shen was highly skilled in medicine and had already determined that the poison was called "One Drunken Millennium", a rare poison from the Western Regions.
Women were yin in nature. If they took even a sip, they would immediately die from the poison.
Men were yang in nature, so the potency of the poison would be greatly reduced. Coupled with Liang Yuzhou's strong body and deep internal energy, which helped him resist the toxicity, and timely treatment, he managed to survive.
The Emperor was extremely angry and ordered a thorough investigation. But there were so many delicious foods and drinks at the palace banquet that they never found out what Liang Yuzhou had eaten to get poisoned.
The poisoning incident had become an unsolved mystery.
This kind of poison was specifically designed for women. Obviously, the murderer's target wasn't Liang Yuzhou.
At that time, the Princess Dowager deliberately humiliated her and asked her to toast Liang Yuzhou in front of all the young misses.
And Liang Yuzhou, going against his usual behavior, directly took her wine cup and drank it all in one gulp.
Drinking from a young girl's wine cup in public...
The behavior was too ambiguous.
Song Wanchu was stunned for a long time, and her pretty face blushed. She had thought at that time that Liang Yuzhou did this because he liked her and was using this way to remind her that he remembered their marriage agreement.
Connecting all the clues together, Song Wanchu finally had a clearer idea in her mind.
Liang Yuzhou drank from her wine cup not to publicly express his love for her.
He had known that the wine was poisoned.
He had taken the disaster for her and almost lost his life.
At the critical moment of life and death, it was her heart's blood that saved him...
It seemed that there were countless threads tightly binding their fates together.
It was a pity that Liang Yuzhou thought the one who had saved him was Yu Huiyan.
Song Wanchu's heart was in turmoil. She couldn't tell what she was feeling.
Looking up, she stared into those deep eyes and said with difficulty, "Liang Yuzhou, why did you save me?"
Liang Yuzhou's eyes turned a bit colder. "Isn't it too late to ask now?"
"I didn't know there were so many hidden secrets behind your poisoning."
The Princess Dowager wanted to kill her, and Liang Yuzhou had no feelings for her. He could have just sat back and done nothing.
But his act of standing up for her was completely contradictory to his later cold and distant attitude.
"What do you think a man is willing to give his life for a woman for?"