A Mountain Spirit’s Schemes - Chapter 2

Though Lord Wang had made me his attendant, he never actually saw me.

He spent his days away on official business. I could hardly lure him closer when he wasn’t there.

Yangzhou was the last stop on his tour. After resting for two days, he set out for the capital with the beauties he’d gathered.

We had barely left Yangzhou when the assassins came.

Our party had just stopped at a relay station to rest when masked men surrounded it in a black tide.

Whoever they served, they had the nerve to attack an official relay station. They certainly caught Lord Wang off guard.

Cold blades clashed. Candle flames flickered in and out.

The seven beauties had never seen anything like it. Their faces drained of color; they looked pitiful.

Unfortunately, Lord Wang had no intention of saving them.

Before I’d even turned around, their screams had dwindled to echoes.

Sheltering behind him, I watched his men fall one after another. Warm blood spattered my clothes, sticky enough to turn my stomach.

How frighteningly fragile an ant’s life was.

I smiled and put a hand at Lord Wang’s waist.

He dragged me along as he cut a path through the attackers. But the pursuit never slackened, and before long we were trapped on a steep cliff.

I stood behind him like a spectator, looking down at the approaching assassins and wondering what they would say to one another.

Lord Wang spoiled my little fantasy before it even began.

He didn’t want to ask who had sent them. He didn’t care to curse them with his dying breath, either.

He simply seized me and leaped off the cliff, staking our lives on the unfathomable pool below.

It was early spring. The weather had begun to warm, but winter’s cold had yet to loosen its grip.

The water below cut like a knife stripping flesh from bone. Every stroke deadly.

Already badly wounded, Lord Wang ought to have had almost no chance of surviving the plunge.

Yet he did.

Lord Wang was remarkably hard to kill.

He had wounds in his abdomen and leg. Freezing water covered most of his body, driving its chill through his injuries and into his bones. What little color remained in his pale face vanished.

Even then, he didn’t lose consciousness. He hauled me ashore.

The waxing moon rose in the east and poured its light over him without restraint.

He lay panting on the ground. Each breath clouded white, then dissolved into the night.

Perhaps it was the severity of his wounds, but his usually forbidding face was drawn into a frown. He looked less hostile, more vulnerable.

I rather liked him that way.

I caught his right hand and tried to drag him toward a nearby cave.

Through clenched teeth, he told me to leave.

“The assassins will be here any moment.”

Using his sword to prop himself up, he pressed a jade pendant into my hand.

“I’ll draw them away. Run toward Xuzhou while you can. Give this to the prefect. He’ll find you somewhere to go.”

The jade was excellent. But no piece of jade appealed to me half as much as Lord Wang.

I shook my head and insisted we would live or die together.

Annoyed, he called me a fool.

I had no patience for arguing. I used my power to knock him unconscious.

Before the pursuers arrived, I found a secluded cave in the nearby hills.

The mountains were bitterly cold at night. Claiming I meant to drive the chill out of him, I caught several desire snakes and caused him to be poisoned by them.

I knew their venom would cloud his judgment. I used it anyway.

To conceal what I’d done, I scraped my palms and shoulder, pretending I’d been injured while saving him. By the time Lord Wang woke, the venom was taking effect.

I feigned alarm. He saw through the act and coldly asked why I was only now pretending to be afraid.

Back in the forest, I’d seen men and women meeting in secret. I copied their behavior, thinking it might put Lord Wang off his guard.

He didn’t fall for it, so I dropped the act.

“I’m meant to enter the palace and serve His Majesty. Surely you don’t intend to take someone destined for the emperor?”

That was what I said. I had no intention of letting him leave. He was badly injured, and under the influence of the venom I’d arranged for him to receive.

“Your origins are unknown. Naturally, I must remove any potential concern for His Majesty.”

That night, I used the venom to bring about a sexual encounter between us. It was not a choice he made freely, unaffected by a drug.

Afterward, I had finally transferred my first batch of spores into his body.

…