Little Pink Starfish

The Bleached Bones That Made the Princess Ache

“You passed out on the road,” Xiao Wei said, then asked softly, “Do you remember who took you out of the Book Pavilion courtyard?”

Gu Xinglang shook his head. His mind was a complete blank.

“Then…” Xiao Wei lowered his voice further, “did you see how those two mamas were killed?”

“I didn’t see them,” Gu Xinglang replied. “It wasn’t the princess… right?”

Xiao Wei shook his head, though he silently wondered if the princess would be hurt to know that in Gu Xinglang’s heart, she was either fierce or downright ruthless.

“There was an assassin in the palace?” Gu Xinglang tensed and tried to sit up, but his body gave out halfway and he collapsed back onto the bed.

Xiao Wei set Yu Ziyi down gently and pressed on Gu Xinglang’s shoulders. “Don’t move, Prince Consort. You need to stay lying down.”

“Where’s the princess?” Gu Xinglang asked anxiously. “Did she go after the assassin?”

Xiao Wei twitched a little. So in the prince consort’s mind, the princess was either violently deadly or… heroically deadly? Could they not just be a normal couple?

“She’s okay?” Gu Xinglang asked again, worried.

“She started a fire and hasn’t come back since,” Xiao Wei said truthfully, lowering his voice. “I don’t know where she went.”

Gu Xinglang’s anxiety increased. “Where would she go?” After setting fire to the imperial palace—a major act of rebellion—how could she just wander off?

“Prince Consort,” Xiao Wei said, still holding him down gently, “don’t worry about the princess yet. There was blood on your hands.”

Gu Xinglang froze and raised his hands with effort. They were clean—no sign of blood at all.

“I wiped them for you,” Xiao Wei explained. “The Emperor and Jingzhong were both there earlier. If Jingzhong had seen the blood, he would’ve stirred up trouble.”

“There was blood on my hands?” Gu Xinglang asked in confusion.

Xiao Wei nodded. He had checked—there were no wounds on the prince consort’s hands. That blood must’ve belonged to someone else. “Could it have been the assassin who brought you out of the Book Pavilion?” he asked.

Gu Xinglang still shook his head. He couldn’t remember anything beyond Xiao Wei carrying him down the stairs.

“Xiao Gu?” came a familiar voice from outside.

“The princess is here,” Xiao Wei said, his whole body lighting up with relief as he ran to the door. He hadn’t realized just how much her presence grounded him until she’d disappeared for half the night.

As Yu Xiaoxiao was about to push open the door, Xiao Wei opened it from the inside. “Xiao Wei,” she greeted with a wave. “You okay?”

Xiao Wei stepped aside to let her in, glanced at the nervous eunuch waiting on the steps, and quickly closed the door behind her. “I’m fine, Princess. The prince consort just overexerted himself.”

“Overexerted?” Yu Xiaoxiao walked to the bed and looked at Gu Xinglang’s pale face, frowning. “What were you doing?” She touched his forehead. No fever. That was a relief. “What’d you do—fight a few hundred rounds with someone?”

As she spoke, she began checking his body from top to bottom, finally pulling up his pant legs to examine his ankles.

Xiao Wei had been standing with his back to them. He turned around just in time to see her inspecting Gu Xinglang’s feet and hurriedly lifted the candle from the table to give her more light. “Princess, is the prince consort’s injury okay?” he asked quietly.

“You said the imperial physician already examined it,” Yu Xiaoxiao said, “What did he say?”

“Physician Zhou said the injury is stable,” Xiao Wei replied.

Yu Xiaoxiao unwrapped the bandage. A thick scab had formed, resembling a grotesquely swollen slug latched onto Gu Xinglang’s ankle.

Xiao Wei held up the candle closer. “Is it alright?”

Yu Xiaoxiao looked at the cracked edge of the scab and asked, “Xiao Gu, did you walk?”

Gu Xinglang shook his head. Even standing still made the injury throb unbearably—there was no way he could’ve walked.

Xiao Wei opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. The cobblestone path where they’d found Gu Xinglang wasn’t close to the Pavilion. How had he gotten there?

“Did anyone touch your injury?” Yu Xiaoxiao asked.

Knowing Gu Xinglang wouldn’t remember much, Xiao Wei explained what had happened while he was unconscious. He finished with a guess: “Maybe the assassin carried you out, but couldn’t finish you off with so many people around, so he just ditched you?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Gu Xinglang said. “If they wanted to kill me, they would’ve done it at the Pavilion. Why bother carrying me away?”

Xiao Wei had to admit—it didn’t make sense.

“We’ll ask him when we catch him,” Yu Xiaoxiao said, checking the scab. It was slightly cracked, but the tendons underneath were intact. That set her at ease. “When I see him, I’ll beat him up to make it up to you.”

Xiao Wei suddenly felt bad for the emperor. This was an assassin who broke into the imperial palace and set fires—and yet, the princess only cared about her husband. Not a single word of concern for the emperor.

Yu Xiaoxiao rewrapped the bandage neatly. “Anywhere else feeling off?”

“Just tired,” Gu Xinglang said.

“He had a headache earlier,” Xiao Wei added quickly.

Yu Xiaoxiao turned her attention to Gu Xinglang’s head again.

“I’m fine now,” Gu Xinglang said hastily.

In her mind, Yu Xiaoxiao suddenly saw the bleached skull from her past life—the one with the long metal spike driven into it. Her heart clenched. She reached out and gently cupped Gu Xinglang’s head in her hands. “Why did it hurt?” she asked softly.

Gu Xinglang wanted to sleep—his body was heavy with fatigue—but he forced himself to stay alert. “It just hurt a little. But I’m fine now.”

“Ah…” Yu Xiaoxiao let out a breath. She’d felt nothing when she saw the bones of the brutal empress’s consort in her past life. But now, seeing Gu Xinglang lying here—alive and breathing—she couldn’t help but wonder how much it must’ve hurt back then… when he was being executed, limb by limb.

Gu Xinglang rarely saw real emotion on Yu Xiaoxiao’s face, but now he could tell—she was sad. “I’m okay,” he said with a small smile. “Really, I’m fine. Probably just tired. A good nap will fix it.”

“Was it from the trip to Ruyun Mountain today?” she asked.

Gu Xinglang shook his head quickly. “No, Xiaoxiao.” He didn’t even care that Xiao Wei was still in the room. He reached out, took her hand, and said in a low voice, “When I recover, I’ll take you rabbit hunting. We’ll catch lots and bring them home.”

Yu Xiaoxiao leaned in and kissed him gently on the forehead, her eyes crinkling with a smile. “Okay.”