Chapter 234 – The Foolish Prince Consort’s Farming Struggles – Poisoned (17)
That whole night, Uncle Gao was terrified the men in black would return, so he didn’t dare shut his eyes. Tian Xiao was the same.
As for who slept the heaviest—it was Bai Tang. And who slept the most soundly? That would be Baili Luo. The former was exhausted, the latter content.
Early the next morning, Baili Bin looked like he’d seen a ghost when he saw his imperial brother in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, personally cooking—and doing it with surprising skill.
“A gentleman keeps away from the kitchen.” Even if they were stranded in the wilderness, Uncle Gao would never have let His Highness do such things.
Uncle Gao stepped in. “Master, allow me.”
Baili Luo replied, “You go about your own tasks, Uncle Gao. This is for Tang Tang.”
He didn’t stop what he was doing and continued preparing the meal with focus.
Baili Bin was filled with envy. His brother had never cooked for him—not even poured him a glass of water!
As Baili Bin watched longingly, Baili Luo walked past with a tray of fragrant breakfast. He instinctively reached out, like he used to when they were kids, but got a smack on the hand and quickly drew back.
Baili Bin whined, “Brother, I want some too.”
Baili Luo said, “Uncle Gao making yours. This is for your sister-in-law.”
All Baili Bin could do was watch his cold, heartless brother walk away with a tray of delicious food. He’d fought all night too—he was tired and hungry, okay?
Back in the room, Bai Tang was still curled up, asleep.
Baili Luo picked up a warm towel and went over to gently wipe the boy’s face.
“Mm~~”
The boy frowned. The warmth against his face stirred him from sleep. His soft voice was raspy, “What’re you doing~?”
“It’s time for breakfast.”
Only he could see his little wife like this—drowsy and full of charm. Baili Luo was immensely glad he’d brought breakfast himself and not sent Uncle Gao in.
The boy lazily twisted around in bed, refusing to get up.
“If you don’t get up soon, I’m going to eat the delicious pine nut pastries myself.”
Chuckling, Baili Luo reached behind the boy and scooped him up from bed.
Bai Tang rubbed his eyes. His raised arm was covered in bruises—blotches of blue and purple that looked especially alarming.
Baili Luo gently caressed the marks with tender affection, a smile tugging at his lips that he couldn’t quite hide.
“What?” Bai Tang followed Baili Luo’s gaze and, upon seeing the marks on his own body, quickly covered his face. “It’s all your fault! How am I supposed to face anyone like this?”
And it wasn’t just his arms—his neck had them too. It had gone from him giving his husband hickeys to his husband planting them all over him. Ugh…
Baili Luo helped Bai Tang into his clothes. “Then don’t see anyone,” he said. Just stay hidden behind me forever.
“Hmph, dream on,” Bai Tang snapped back without thinking.
He tried to push Baili Luo away to get out of bed, but the moment his feet touched the ground, he nearly collapsed.
Oops. Oops. His legs were just weak, that’s all.
Baili Luo had been watching him closely and caught him in time, preventing his wife from making intimate contact with the floor.
“I’m sleeping alone tonight. We’re done,” Bai Tang huffed, both embarrassed and annoyed, turning his head away in a pout, refusing to look at Baili Luo.
“I was wrong,” Baili Luo said sincerely. (And I’ll dare to do it again next time.)
“Hmph~” Bai Tang didn’t reply to the apology, but obediently stayed curled up in his husband’s arms, waiting to be fed.
Meanwhile, Qiu’er, who had accidentally picked up on the male lead’s inner thoughts, muttered, “D*mn it. I knew he was up to no good from the moment he showed up in the first world. Two-faced bastard—pretending on the outside, scheming on the inside.”
Xiao A quietly jotted down notes: Noted. Useful lesson.
…
Elsewhere—
Ji Zhong stumbled back in disgrace. Of the ten men he’d brought with him, only two had survived.
He shouted furiously, “Bring that woman to me!”
Didn’t Lin Xiaoshuang say Baili Luo had become a fool? A fool with that kind of skill?
Last night, he’d practically walked through the gates of hell. He was lucky the other side had given up the chase—otherwise, he and those two subordinates wouldn’t have made it back alive.
Lin Xiaoshuang was dragged out of the side room. Faced with Ji Zhong’s interrogation—and Ah Qi’s blade pressed against her neck—she trembled and stammered, “Gao Luo was really a fool. Otherwise, why would I have found someone else to marry in my place? Who would want to marry a fool…”
From Lin Xiaoshuang’s confession, Ji Zhong picked up on several key points and made his own deductions. Baili Luo had indeed been mentally impaired before, but had likely recovered recently. Otherwise, Lin Xiaoshuang wouldn’t have referred to him as “Gao Luo.” It seemed those around the Seventh Prince had given him a new name to protect his identity.
Secondly, that boy named Bai Tang—he hadn’t seen him among the group last night. And during their escape, Baili Luo’s group hadn’t pursued them. Judging by that, Baili Luo must really care about the boy. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have given up the chance to capture a live enemy just to protect him.
In that case, Bai Tang was the perfect target.
Using the information Lin Xiaoshuang provided, Ji Zhong found the old matchmaker and began investigating Bai Tang’s identity, hoping to find a weakness to exploit.
To his surprise, he actually uncovered Bai Tang’s background by following the clues.
Three years ago, Bai Tang had been the youngest son of Bai Peng, a third-rank official who was executed for corruption and bribery. Back then, the entire Bai family was sentenced to death. Who would’ve thought one had slipped through the cracks?
Ji Zhong came up with a cunning plan. He dispatched a large number of assassins to kill Baili Luo and Baili Bin, while simultaneously reporting Bai Tang’s situation up the chain of command.
Everyone gets tired eventually. Baili Luo and Baili Bin only had a few people on their side. Ji Zhong had countless assassins and a variety of tricks. He refused to believe he couldn’t kill them both. Once the court sent people down and the Seventh and Ninth Princes were already dead, he could pin the blame on Bai Tang.
The royal family executed his entire household, so he spent years tracking down the missing Seventh Prince to take revenge.
Ji Zhong’s plan looked perfect on paper—but he underestimated Baili Luo’s strength and overestimated his own.
He sent out a large number of assassins, but Baili Luo had already reconnected with his personal shadow guards.
When the two forces clashed, Ji Zhong’s side was nearly wiped out.
If brute force didn’t work, then he’d go for something more insidious.
Ji Zhong ordered his men to poison the village’s well. As long as Baili Luo’s group drank the water, they would surely die.
As for the villagers? Ji Zhong didn’t care whether they lived or died. As long as he achieved his goal, their lives were meaningless. In his mind, they should feel honored to be buried alongside the princes. If anyone was to blame, it was Baili Luo and Baili Bin.
…
During dinner, Baili Bin took out yet another assassin who had tried to sneak in.
“Brother,” he complained, “when are we going back to the palace? These people are so annoying!”
Baili Luo didn’t even look up, too focused on picking food for Bai Tang. “Here, eat more.”
“We wait.”
“How long are we going to keep waiting?” Baili Bin grumbled, shoveling food into his mouth. “They just keep coming one after another. It never ends.”
“Why don’t we just change locations?”
“Are you scared?” Baili Luo looked at him with a half-smile, half-smirk.
Ever since he was a child, Baili Bin had idolized Baili Luo. How could he stand being doubted by his big brother? He slapped his chest confidently. “Me? Scared? No way!”
He picked up a teacup and, pretending to be bold and heroic, was about to down it in one gulp—when Bai Tang suddenly stopped him.
Bai Tang leaned over his rice bowl, sniffing it left and right, then stood up from Baili Luo’s lap.
“What’s wrong, Tang Tang?” Baili Luo asked.
“It’s weird. The food smells strange,” Bai Tang replied, his keen nose detecting something off.
“What’s weird about it? I think it smells great,” Baili Bin said, taking a deep whiff. The aroma was rich and fragrant. He lifted the teacup again, just about to drink it, when Baili Luo knocked it to the ground.
“Brother~!” Baili Bin cried, full of grievance. What now? Are you not even letting me eat Uncle Gao cooking anymore?!
Baili Luo never underestimated Bai Tang. Bai Tang’s sense of smell was incredibly sharp, and he had an exceptional ability to identify herbs and medicinal substances.
“Where’s the problem?” Baili Luo asked.
“It seems like… everything.” Bai Tang couldn’t pinpoint it exactly—it just felt wrong.
Even though Bai Tang couldn’t explain, the system could.
Qiu’er activated its scan function and analyzed everything on the table.
“Tang Tang, it’s Hongyan Zui,” the system reported.
Hongyan Zui was a poison used by the royal court of the previous dynasty to frame and eliminate consorts. Once ingested, it made the victim appear drunk when the effects kicked in, and eventually, they would die in their sleep. The recipe had supposedly been lost after the fall of the previous regime. And yet—someone had managed to recreate it.
For something this rare, Xiao A was very interested. He secretly took a bit of water from Baili Bin’s cup and began analyzing it in his data bank.
“I thought it’d be some legendary poison,” he muttered. “Turns out, breaking down Hongyan Zui is easy—just eat some croton seeds to induce diarrhea and flush it out.”
Qiu’er was shocked. “!!! I’ve read a lot of books—you can’t fool me! That’s the antidote? Just like that?!”
Xiao A: “Just like that.”
Bai Tang carried the food outside and called over the chickens from the coop to eat it.
Not long after, the two chickens that had eaten the food began wobbling like they were drunk, staggering as if they could fall over any second.
“They were trying to drug us with a sedative to knock us out? And then what, kill us?” Baili Bin scoffed. “Those assassins really are dreaming.”
Bai Tang pressed his lips together and communicated with the two systems mentally. “Can you trace the source of the poison?”
It didn’t take long before Xiao A responded, “It’s in the village well at the entrance.”
Baili Luo said, “It’s not a sedative.” If it were just a sedative, that would’ve been too simple—and all of them were trained martial artists. A sedative would hardly be effective. If it were him, he would’ve just used poison—it’s more efficient.
Bai Tang nodded. “We bought our rice long ago. The vegetables were grown by Uncle Gao. If there was a problem, he would’ve noticed.”
They controlled their own supply of firewood, rice, oil, and salt. The only thing that came from outside was…
“Water!” Baili Bin and Tian Xiao exclaimed in unison.
Just then, there was a loud knock on the front gate.
UncleGao went to open it. The village chief stood outside, looking anxious.
“Uncle Gao,” he said, “can we borrow your cart? The Lin family’s son—no idea what happened to him—he’s acting drunk, talking nonsense, and even hit his wife. We finally tied him up, but now his face is turning purple, and it looks serious. We want to take him to town to see a doctor.”
Madam Lin was waiting outside. She was pacing anxiously, and before the village chief could finish, she rushed forward, dropped to her knees, and kowtowed to Uncle Gao. “Please! Lend us the cart! Take Xiaohan to see the doctor!”
Though Madam Lin could be unpleasant, Bai Tang couldn’t bear to watch someone lose their life—especially since this disaster had started because of Baili Luo.
He stepped forward and said to the village chief, “Let me take a look. I might be able to help him.”