After Rebirth, I Married my Archenemy - Chapter 90
Qun Qing handed over the fish tally.
The tally indeed belonged to Shouxi, the personal eunuch serving the Crown Prince.
By the flickering candlelight, Qun Qing’s delicate features were illuminated.
“His Highness sent me to help the Prime Minister extract a confession.”
Meng Guangshen replied coolly, “I couldn’t make him confess. You think you can force him to sign?” He paused before adding, “If I recall correctly, you were a seamstres in the Yeting Court. His Highness dares to issue such an order and send you to interrogate a prisoner in the Ministry of Justice?”
His tone carried a trace of disdain, but Qun Qing merely pulled a small roll of sheepskin from her sleeve and unfurled it before him. Inside, rows of long, slender silver needles gleamed under the light, their sharp tips sending a shiver down the spine. Her eyebrows arched slightly. “A seamstress’s needles aren’t just for embroidery. They have many uses.”
“How long will it take to get a confession?”
“That depends on how much he can endure.”
There was a chill about her. Though her expression remained calm, the urgency in her arrival was unmistakable. A servant hesitated to let her through, but Meng Guangshen only chuckled, lifting his sleeve to grant her passage.
To him, her purpose here was irrelevant. If she could extract a confession, so much the better. But even if she succeeded, she would receive no reward from him. From the moment she stepped into this place, her fate had already taken a turn for the worse, not the better.
Inside, the scent of bl00d was overwhelming.
The moment Qun Qing stepped into the dark prison cell, she heard the heavy thud of the door locking behind her. They had sealed her inside as well. Her palm was already damp with sweat.
If she failed tonight, she would be dragged down with him.
But regret was pointless. Raising the candle, she scanned the room. The interrogation chamber was empty except for a single, pitch-black coffin in the corner.
At the sight of it, a sense of foreboding gripped her chest. She set down the candlestick and, with great effort, pried open the coffin lid.
Inside lay Lu Huating, curled up, motionless. Sweat had soaked his jade-white face.
This man feared nothing more than dark, confined spaces. Seeing him locked inside a coffin, Qun Qing felt an inexplicable pang of sympathy.
She knelt beside him, reaching out to check his breath. Faint, but still there. She let out a silent sigh of relief.
Her instincts as a covert agent urged her to act immediately. She had to stop the bleeding. Just as she moved to pull him out, her fingers brushing his neck, Lu Huating’s eyes snapped open.
For a moment, he stared at her in confusion. Then, with bloodstained hands, he gripped the coffin’s edge, trying to pull himself out.
Qun Qing stepped back, watching as he clawed his way free on sheer instinct, collapsing onto the ground.
She quickly flipped him onto his back and, holding a needle over the candle flame to sterilize it, pressed it into the acupuncture points on his chest.
Suddenly, his ice-cold fingers clamped around her wrist with bone-crushing force. Qun Qing struggled hard and broke free.
—
The inside of the Purple Palace was brightly lit.
Prince Yan, Li Huan, had come to see the Emperor with his wife, Princess Consort Yan, but was stopped outside by the eunuch Zheng Fu.
After receiving a report from Juan Su, Li Huan had rushed to the palace. Xiao Yunru, unable to stop him, had no choice but to follow.
Zheng Fu said, “If this is about Minister Lu, His Highness cannot enter now. Concubine Lü is with His Majesty.”
Hearing Concubine Lü’s weeping from within, Li Huan grew even more restless.
The Emperor rarely summoned concubines at night, as he often suffered from headaches and needed rest. At this hour, only a favored consort like Lü could bypass protocol and enter the hall.
Concubine Lü had come with her hair unbound, kneeling before the Emperor in tears.
“Your Majesty, I have something urgent to report.”
Steadying herself, she raised her teary eyes and said, “I must accuse Minister Lu of attempting to violate me.”
The Emperor’s eyes snapped open, locking onto her.
He had long heard whispers of her association with Prince Yan’s household but had turned a blind eye out of favor for her.
Now, Concubine Lü sobbed, “I was foolish before. Minister Lu frequently sent gifts to Caiye Palace, and out of courtesy, I treated him with kindness. But I was well aware that palace concubines must not associate with court officials. I warned him repeatedly, but he ignored me. A few nights ago, emboldened by drink, he entered my chambers, grabbed my hand, took my hairpin, and spoke shamelessly to me. If I had not resisted, it would have been a disaster. My attendants, Yin’er and Qun Qing, can testify to this.
“These past days, I have been living in fear. Your Majesty, please punish him.”
An affair between a court official and an imperial concubine was a scandal that could shake the entire palace.
And Concubine Lü, along with Consort Han, was still young. Lu Huating, too, was unmarried.
Looking at her tear-streaked face and disheveled hair, the Emperor’s fury erupted. With a single motion, he hurled the golden incense burner from his table to the floor, shattering it to pieces.
The maids and eunuchs in the hall all dropped to their knees.
Standing outside, Li Huan trembled as he listened, his face turning pale. He turned to Xiao Yunru and hissed, “You always said I misunderstood Qun Qing. Does this look like a misunderstanding to you?!”
Xiao Yunru, equally pale, was speechless.
Still kneeling, Concubine Lü pleaded, “Your Majesty, please send Minister Lu to the Imperial Prison to uphold the dignity of the palace. I also request a length of white silk—I have no face to live after this disgrace.”
Emperor Chen Ming glanced at her. Concubine Lü suddenly spoke the punishment he was about to issue aloud, which made him feel a little strange. But seeing that Concubine Lü was going to commit suicide, he had to call someone to stop her and calm her down. Then he issued a decree:
“Send someone to take Lu Huating and put him in prison!”
—
A heavy silence filled the torture chamber. Lu Huating’s lashes drooped slightly. In a daze, the dark prison before his eyes blurred and shifted, overlapping with the verdant mountains and clear waters of his nightmares.
Before the age of seven, he had been no different from the other children of Huaiyuan—roaming through forests, spearing fish, hunting wild game, and living the rugged life of fishermen and woodcutters. Among the many skills he learned, he was best at boiling medicinal herbs and tending the fire.
After the loss of her eldest son, Lu Wan was devastated. Grief took root in her body, and she gradually became bedridden.
All her remaining hopes were pinned on Lu Huating. She said little, but never left his side—and quietly watched him grow up, safe and sound.
His mother often said that his father Meng Guangshen worked as a tutor for the young men of the Li family to support the family with difficulty. So she was grateful for Li Feng’s reward, and never spent it, but quietly saved it and saved it for him.
When he walked in the mountains with a bamboo basket on his back, he never felt that he needed any future.
Meng Guangshen gave lessons to Li Xuan and the others, and occasionally, Lu Huating would stand outside the window to listen in.
When Li Huan was punished to stand outside, he struck up a conversation with Lu Huating and even asked him to do his homework. While looking over the completed assignment, he was astonished.
“How do you know everything? Why don’t I?”
Lu Huating only smiled without answering.
Because these things were simple for him. If they could be exchanged for silver, that would be even better.
Later, when Meng Guangshen discovered that Lu Huating had been listening in, he walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Qilang, your mother can’t be left alone. Your father is busy teaching. If you keep running around, no one will decoct your mother’s medicine, and her illness will worsen because of you. Do you want that to happen?”
Lu Huating looked at Meng Guangshen, shook his head, and returned home.
Everyone said his father was a gentle and refined man—including his mother.
But he felt differently. He couldn’t quite describe it, and as a result, he and his father were never close.
Meng Guangshen must have sensed it too, for he rarely spoke to him, treating him no differently than a house cat or a weed in the corner of the yard.
Later, Lu Wan drew a short-life fortune slip at the temple. Master Zengjia said his fate carried ill omens, and if he didn’t accumulate merit and virtue, his short life could not be changed. This left his mother deeply worried.
Thus, Meng Guangshen sent him to the temple to train.
From then on, Lu Huating became Master Zengjia’s disciple. At dawn, he joined the young monks in chanting sutras and striking the bell. At night, he cleaned the golden Buddha statues. During the day, he gathered and buried the bodies of the starved and homeless. Master Zengjia would stroke his head with fatherly warmth, and in return, Lu Huating respectfully bowed his head and wore the sandalwood prayer beads given to him, never once taking them off.
He thought that this dull but peaceful life would continue until his coming-of-age ceremony when he would shave his head and become a monk—perhaps for the rest of his life.
But then war broke out in Chu. The Li family began raising troops and inciting rebellion.
Because Lu Wan was pregnant and in poor health, she stayed at the old Huaiyuan residence. Lu Huating returned home to take care of his mother.
Inside a small tile-roofed house, he discovered a loose brick in the wall. Hidden within it was his eldest brother’s bloodstained robe, carrying the faint scent of a beast-attracting fragrance.
When Lu Wan woke up, he served her medicine.
When she slept, he knocked on every wall and floor tile in the house.
That was how he found Meng Guangshen’s study and, inside, a few surviving letters from his long correspondence with a noblewoman of the Xie family—letters that had not been destroyed. They revealed that before Meng Guangshen left Chang’an, he had already been engaged to a woman of the Xie clan.
The pieces fell into place in his mind.
The hidden study housed a fortune that could rival a nation’s treasury.
Yet, in that very house, Lu Wan lay under a patched-up thin quilt, her belly swollen with pregnancy. The cheapest medicine sat on the table. At her side were embroidery pieces she worked on to supplement the household income. And beneath the bed were the small savings she had painstakingly set aside for her husband and children.
Because she knew nothing of Meng Guangshen’s true identity, she became the perfect cover.
Before this, as the wet nurse for Li Xuan and Li Huan, Lu Wan had entered the palace three times with Madam Li and spoken with Princess Changping to receive rewards. Even the princess—who had searched every corner of the empire for the fugitive from the Lu family—never imagined that the man hiding as a humble tutor in the Li household was the very husband of this young and impoverished wet nurse.
At this point, the only person Lu Huating could turn to was his master.
So, he crossed mountains and rivers to return to the temple and told Master Zengjia everything.
Master Zengjia poured him a cup of hot tea.
By the time he regained consciousness, his head throbbed, and his surroundings were suffocatingly dark and cramped. Outside, he heard the synchronized and emotionless chanting of monks.
Then, he realized where he was.
He was inside a coffin.
And the sounds outside were the monks performing a ritual for the dead.
The answer was simple—Master Zengjia was one of Meng Guangshen’s people.
Outside the coffin, monks stood in a circle, pressing their palms together in prayer. Their lips moved in silent recitation, beads of sweat dripping from their faces under the heat of torches. They paid no mind to the sounds of his struggle inside the coffin.
Master Zengjia presided over the exorcism ritual. A single tear rolled down his cheek before he threw a torch onto the coffin.
The moment the flames ignited, cries of shock erupted all around.
Because the burning coffin had been forced open.
The boy inside climbed out like a vengeful specter, sending everyone fleeing. He snapped off a broken wooden plank and drove it into Master Zengjia’s throat.
His master was the first person he ever killed.
That night, the temple was engulfed in flames.
Killing a master was an unpardonable crime. But he did it to ensure that word never reached Meng Guangshen.
Thinking of Lu Wan, Lu Huating trudged through the snow, one step deep, one step shallow, all the way home.
There, he found Li Huan, still clad in armor and drenched in sweat, holding Lu Wan in his arms and angrily demanding, “What took you so long?”
His mother had just given birth to a baby girl.
But the newborn was completely blue, silent, and still connected to her mother by the umbilical cord.
Lu Wan had clearly suffered a premature and difficult labor. Her pale hand hung limply by her side.
They cut the umbilical cord. Li Huan, struggling to hold her steady, rushed outside, mounted his horse, and galloped toward the physician’s clinic.
Meanwhile, Lu Huating held his newborn sister in silence.
Every few moments, he would shakily reach out a finger to check her breath.
That breath grew fainter and fainter.
And Lu Huating had no strength left to ride a horse.
That was the first time the lovesickness poison afflicted him.
He could only watch as the baby in his arms slowly lost her warmth.
In the snowy night, in countless nightmares, his will to live gradually faded, while his hatred deepened.
He still felt trapped inside that coffin—drenched in sweat, struggling with all his might, yet unable to break free. That suffocating, burning hatred choked him like unseen hands, threatening to drown him in darkness before suddenly vanishing.
But this dream was different.
Through the chanting, a breeze stirred.
It snuffed out the flames, pushed open the coffin lid, and let the daylight in.
And as he gasped for breath after surviving the ordeal, he saw something divine for the first time—like the miracles described in the sutras.
A figure in a blue dress walked toward him from a hazy distance, ethereal as the wind.
…
Exhausted from acupuncture, Qun Qing crouched down, sweat soaking her eyelashes as she pulled out the six needles.
She saw Lu Huating open his eyes, gazing quietly at her dress hem as if lost in thought.
Then, unexpectedly, he reached out and gently touched the fabric, leaving behind a trail of bloodstains.
Just as she was about to speak, his body suddenly convulsed.
She froze for a moment.
It wasn’t a mistake in her acupuncture.
The lovesickness poison had flared up.
She pressed down on his arm, but Lu Huating turned away, gripping her wrist—and then, with sudden force, pushed her away.
She was thrown back so hard she fell onto the floor, knocking over a candlestick.
Lu Huating had already turned sideways. Qun Qing reached for the medicine, but before she could touch him, he pushed her away again.
Frustrated, she grew angry, grabbed him by the collar, and pinned him down with all her strength. Then, she slapped him across the face.
Their breaths tangled in the narrow space between them.
That slap seemed to wake him up.
He looked at her, black eyes reflecting the candlelight—disheveled and surprised.
She thought, perhaps he had never been slapped before.
But there was no time to dwell on that. She pressed him down, shoved half a pill into his mouth—
The cold scent of sandalwood filled the air.
It was the last half of the Hanxiang Pill.
Lu Huating lowered his lashes and swallowed.
His lips brushed against her palm.
“Are you feeling any better?” Qun Qing asked after a moment.
Lu Huating barely managed to sit up. He gave a faint, indifferent smile. “It’s not that easy for you to kill me.”
To his surprise, Qun Qing suddenly grabbed him by the collar. Her gaze was icy, but her voice remained calm.
“Here’s the Hanxiang Pill. Hand over the evidence that Lin Yujia claimed I’m a spy.”
Lu Huating still held her weakness in his hands. She had to seize this chance to take it back.