I'm Ugly, You're Blind - Chapter 4

6

As luck would have it, Song Lanting’s family lived in Yuezhou.

Wei Wuya’s territory.

He only told me after I boarded the carriage. Too late for regrets.

Besides, with a hundred taels at stake, I refused to regret it.

And surely the male lead wasn’t someone I could run into whenever I pleased. We wouldn’t meet.

The journey should have taken five or six days, but various incidents delayed us.

We reached Yuezhou about half a month later.

Song Lanting was frantic, afraid his mother could not hold on. The moment we entered the city, he ordered the driver to get home as fast as possible.

Then something else happened.

He seemed to be having terrible luck this whole trip. His bad luck seemed to be rubbing off on me.

Our carriage collided with another in the middle of the street. People and horses went tumbling.

Luckily, I jumped clear in time.

I had barely found my footing when urgent hoofbeats sounded behind me. I turned to see two horses galloping straight toward me.

There was nowhere to retreat.

Was heaven trying to kill me?

Right before reaching me, the horses reared and screamed. I stepped back, my legs gave out, and I landed on the ground.

Somehow, they had been stopped despite their speed.

I exhaled. Still alive.

Then I looked up and saw a familiar face.

Wei Wuya sat upright on horseback in white robes, his brows sharp, his eyes bright as stars.

“Are you all right?”

Only when I heard the voice did I notice the man in red on the other horse, equally striking.

He glanced at me, then turned toward Wei Wuya.

“Young master, do you know her?”

For some reason, I grew nervous.

Wei Wuya lifted his gaze, his voice slightly cold.

“No.”

He rode around the overturned carriage and left.

The man in red gave me a few smiling looks before following. Unless I was mistaken, he was Duan Yanche, a formidable martial artist and one of Wei Wuya’s most capable men.

Once they were gone, I looked for Song Lanting.

A servant was pulling him up. He limped.

Poor thing. Old injuries hadn’t healed, and now he had new ones.

“Are you all right?” I asked sympathetically.

He shook his head and replied irritably, “When I get home, I’m hiring a Daoist priest to tell me what’s wrong with my luck.”

The carriage was broken. The servant went ahead to fetch help, while I supported Song Lanting and walked slowly behind.

I looked around. Yuezhou really was different.

On the journey, we had seen displaced people everywhere, driven from their homes by famine and war. They were pitiful and desperate, even savage. Song Lanting had hurt his leg amid one such crowd.

Yuezhou might not have been dazzlingly prosperous, but its people smiled, had food to eat, and could afford whole garments.

Everywhere, it showed.

This place had a good ruler.

Suddenly, Song Lanting spoke.

“Liu Li, is that veil nailed to your face? No matter what happens, it never falls off.”

My hand paused on his arm. He had hinted at this before.

What had I said then? That my face would frighten him.

“You want to see what I look like?”

He nodded quickly.

“I never care about appearances. Besides, how could a delicate little girl like you scare me?”

I said nothing.

“If you don’t want to, forget it. I just thought we were friends now. What sort of friends have never seen each other’s faces?”

He had a point.

So I stopped, faced him, and pulled down my veil.

“Seen enough?”

The instant he froze, I put it back.

Then he laughed.

“That’s all? I thought it would be terrifying.”

…

At the Song residence, he took me straight to his mother’s room.

A medicinal smell rushed out when the door opened. I recognized so many different drugs that I frowned.

Madam Song looked even worse than I had expected, gaunt and bloodlessly pale.

While I took her pulse, Song Lanting paced anxiously.

“Liu Li, how is she?”

I signaled that we should speak outside.

Only in the corridor did I tell him the truth.

“She has some longstanding ailments. But the reason she’s this ill now is poisoning.”

He practically exploded.

I caught him and told him to lower his voice. More and more, I felt sheer luck was the only reason he had survived this long.

I kept it brief.

“I can treat her. The ingredients will be troublesome. After I give her acupuncture, I’ll write you a prescription. Go find what we need.”

…