After Becoming the Cannon Fodder Live-in Spouse A (GL) - Chapter 3: Third Day

Chapter 3: Third Day

Ye Fuguang didn’t know what seeds her words had planted.

After sighing, her legs ached. She stood up from the bedside and paced the stifling, bright red room with ample floor heating, feeling suffocated.

She undid the buttons of her phoenix robe to free her neck, but it wasn’t enough. Looking at the gilded animal-head incense burners in the room’s corners, she saw wisps of smoke rising, filling the space with a misty haze.

It was like a cultivation scene.

Didn’t a patient’s room need basic ventilation?

She grew puzzled.

The novel’s plot didn’t detail why Shen Jinglan was in a vegetative state. Ye Fuguang took a deep breath near the lit incense and nearly choked her soul out.

Too. Pungent.

Having learned about herbs from her best friend from a traditional medicine family, she realized this incense had no calming effects and even made her restless. She grabbed a teapot from the outer room, poured water over the incense burners to put them out, and then opened a window.

Cracking it slightly for ventilation, she sat down but found the room’s red walls grating.

Ancient people loved vermilion for its festive, auspicious, and evil-repelling symbolism, with some feng shui meaning, but painting interiors with it could cause heavy metal poisoning.

Ye Fuguang, unsettled by her own thoughts, abandoned dreams of waking up in a five-hundred-square-meter bed. Now she wished she could sprout wings and fly out of this hall.

She couldn’t be blamed for not understanding the room’s state—

The original novel summed up this part in one paragraph.

“Ye Fuguang had a Qianyuan’s temperament. Even if soft, charming Dikun were rare in brothels, with the Ye family’s wealth, she’d seen plenty. Naturally, she had no interest in the disgraced, corpse-like Prince Qi. On her wedding night, she didn’t enter the bridal chamber and stayed in a side hall.”

Later, the original Ye Fuguang had the mansion’s servants prepare a garden near the female protagonist’s quarters. Except for one accident, she rarely set foot in Shen Jinglan’s main hall.

The original her didn’t care if Prince Qi lived or died.

Or rather, harboring resentment toward the Ye family and this marriage to ward off illness, she wished Prince Qi would die.

But the current Ye Fuguang was different.

Sitting on a rosewood chair by the window, feeling the cold breeze drift in, her gaze fell on the person under the covers on the bed. She suddenly felt Shen Jinglan was pitiful.

Ye Fuguang bore the title of side consort. With no major affairs in the mansion, she should manage its affairs. No matter how minor her role, she had hands and feet and could leave this room. But Shen Jinglan?

This room was a cage, or a coffin.

Trapping her body and soul.

…

Ye Fuguang didn’t know when she curled up with her knees hugged in the chair and fell asleep.

Crossing over, the wedding, hunger—unexpected events came one after another, overwhelming her.

She woke up in the middle of the night, feeling hot.

Even with silk cushions, an adult curled up in a wooden chair was cramped. Opening her eyes, she thought the room was on fire, but it was still the same red room, with the curtains unmoved.

“?”

Ye Fuguang rubbed her eyes, stretched, and felt uncomfortable all over. Lowering her hand, she groggily touched her forehead.

It didn’t seem like a fever.

Why was it so hot?

Her slowly waking sense of smell brought new information—

The room was filled with a strong floral scent.

Like being thrown into a garden of camellias, one of her favorite flower fragrances.

Was it drifting in from outside?

She leaned toward the window, sniffing the cold wind, but it wasn’t that. She rubbed her nose.

Drowsiness returned. She lingered, thinking the heat didn’t bother her much, and like a quail, buried her head to sleep again. Her head nodded repeatedly, but on the edge of sleep, a thought struck her like lightning:

Wait!

In this world, flowers weren’t the only things that gave off scents!

People did too!

And such a strong scent was likely abnormal!

Ye Fuguang jolted upright, sniffed herself, and after a moment, stared blankly toward the bed.

The lingering, directionless fragrance seemed to sense her gaze, forming an invisible bridge, guiding her to its source.

…It was Shen Jinglan.

The candles in the hall crackled, their red wax pooling like tears. Whether due to the light or the room’s colors, Ye Fuguang felt the skin of the person on the bed had turned from cold white to an unnatural peach pink.

—

Ye Fuguang had a bad feeling.

This feeling was confirmed after observing Shen Jinglan and lightly touching her cheek with the back of her hand.

…This Prince Qi, once called a corpse by the original Ye Fuguang, seemed to be in her pheromone cycle.

In her mind, she strangled a screaming chicken.

Why?!

This wasn’t in the original novel’s plot!

Why would a vegetative person have a pheromone cycle?

Standing by the bed for a while, Ye Fuguang thought of the imperial guards outside. Worried for the patient, she lifted her cumbersome skirt and ran out.

“Two, two brothers! Can, can you call a doctor? Prince, Prince Qi, she’s not okay!”

She stammered, choking on the cold wind as she opened the door.

Her disheveled clothes and panicked demeanor made the guards’ faces stern. Due to today’s special situation, the black-armored guards on duty were Zhongjun, unable to smell the scent in the air. One asked, “What’s the situation?”

Ye Fuguang pointed inside. “She, she’s having her pheromone cycle!”

“…”

The tense air relaxed instantly.

The black-armored guards exchanged glances. The leader chuckled, speaking down to her mockingly, “Has Lady Ye never seen a Dikun in their pheromone cycle?”

She really hadn’t.

Ye Fuguang stared at him blankly, only to be rudely pushed back into the room. “The love-incense was lit by Aunt Rong for the prince’s wedding. The prince is only unconscious—”

He suddenly stopped, changing his tone. “Anyway, a pheromone cycle is something any Qianyuan knows how to handle. Is Lady Ye suggesting we fetch some knowledgeable aunts to teach you how to consummate the marriage?”

“No…”

‘Bang!’

The hall door slammed shut in her face.

Ye Fuguang’s next words came several beats late. “…But she’s a patient.”

…

Ye Fuguang, a college student yet to be beaten down by society, had a high moral baseline. On her way back to the inner chamber, she recalled how the original Ye Fuguang had once stumbled into Prince Qi’s hall during her pheromone cycle. Enticed by the scent, and finding it no hardship, she vented her impulses on the spot.

Qianyuan didn’t lose out, after all.

Whether it was the dewdrop mark on the nape or the bonding mark drawing in a Qianyuan’s scent, with her relationship to Prince Qi, no one would know.

But Ye Fuguang refused to be so depraved.

She tossed aside the cumbersome phoenix robe, crawled onto the soft bed, apologized, and leaned down to check Shen Jinglan’s forehead.

Still very hot.

She tried taking her pulse, finding it matched heat symptoms, even heat poisoning.

After confirming, Ye Fuguang rushed to the washstand by the hall door, grabbed a clean towel, soaked it in cooled water, and hurried back to fold it over Shen Jinglan’s forehead.

This wasn’t enough to reduce the fever—

Frowning, she considered injuring herself to trick a doctor into coming.

She walked to a bronze mirror, sticking out her tongue like a ghost to check for signs of heat.

Good, she had heat symptoms too.

According to the novel, a Dikun’s pheromones during their cycle were strong enough to stir a Qianyuan, so their symptoms should be similar.

Ye Fuguang recalled a simple, emergency fever-reducing method from her best friend.

Her gaze drifted to the chaotic trays from earlier.

There seemed to be silver needles among them.

The naive, clear-headed college student stared at the pressure points on her hand, imagining pricking herself with the needles, and gasped.

“Shen Jinglan…”

She murmured, “My sacrifice for you is a bit too much.”

—

Shen Jinglan heard that voice again.

Unlike the earlier murmurs, this time it was lively.

“Ahhh, help! Is the Shixuan point here? My gosh, I’m just an innocent history major…”

“Wahhh, will this even reduce your fever? I won’t kill you, will I? Shen Jinglan, don’t die, please don’t die, live a few more days! I don’t want to be executed by a thousand cuts, sob…”

At first, she was unmoved.

But after listening, she sensed something in the vibrant, rabbit-like hopping voice. Sitting in her endless hell, the corner of her eye twitched, forming a faint curve.

Like a crack in a frozen lake.

—Who was getting executed by a thousand cuts?

She wondered.

If they couldn’t save her, would they be executed?

That sounded rough.

She commented detachedly.

After a while, the voice calmed down.

“The bl00d coming out is black. That’s pretty toxic.”

“It doesn’t seem as hot now. Hmph, I knew the idea of having to ‘do it’ during a cycle only exists in brainless, silly novels.”

The strange words and shifting emotions made Prince Qi think this little maid’s brain wasn’t very sharp.

Her thoughts settled, and then she heard: “Tch.”

“Shen Jinglan.”

The soft, melodic voice sighed, “I’m serious about you, don’t fall too hard.”

Shen Jinglan: “…”

Shen Jinglan: “?”