The Pampered Impostor Princess (VII)

After Jiang Xuefu reached the restaurant, she made another excuse and told Qi Mujing to wait for her there, then quietly went back alone to the place where she had been standing earlier.

In the crowd, the little girl stood in front of a lantern, happily sharing something with the boy beside her.

Jiang Xuefu watched the scene coldly. Heh, idiot.

"Bai Zhou, go bring those two to me."

"Yes."

Bai Zhou was the leader of the six shadow guards the emperor had given her when she first arrived at the palace. When nothing was happening, he usually stayed hidden nearby to protect her, and he answered to her alone.

Bai Zhou was highly efficient. Before long, he had tied the two of them up and brought them to an abandoned, empty house.

There, Jiang Xuefu sat in the only chair, twirling a dagger in her hand. The vicious look on her face seemed somewhat out of place.

"Tie them securely to the pillars."

She gave the order in an icy voice, nothing like a pampered seven-year-old girl.

Once they were tied up, Jiang Xuefu took the knife and slowly walked over to Jiang Xuefu. Ignoring her terrified and disbelieving gaze, she tore the rag from her mouth.

"Fu'er! What are you doing?!"

"What am I doing? Won't you find out in a moment?"

Wang Xiaolu, who was tied up nearby, had also worked the cloth free from his mouth. Seeing that her knife was already touching Jiang Xuefu's face, he hurriedly spoke up. "Stop! How can you be so vicious?! It wasn't enough for you to steal Xue'er's identity; now you're going to kill us too?!"

Smack!

Jiang Xuefu slapped him. "Shut up. For every extra word you say, I'll cut her one more time."

What she hated most was people saying she had stolen someone else's identity, yet this person had recklessly provoked her.

Tears streamed down Jiang Xuefu's face. She seemed unable to believe that the good sister she had once treated so sincerely had become like this.

"Fu'er..."

Hearing her voice, Jiang Xuefu turned around and pressed the cold, sharp tip of the knife against the girl's delicate skin. "Xue'er, I don't want to hurt either of you. But for every extra person in the world who knows this secret, I'm in that much more danger."

"If you have your reasons, I can promise never to tell anyone for the rest of my life, and never to seek out my family."

"But how can I trust you? Only the dead won't talk out of turn~"

After saying that, Jiang Xuefu took a small porcelain bottle from the pouch she carried and poured out two black pills.

"Bai Zhou, feed these to them."

Jiang Xuefu and Wang Xiaolu were bound all over and could only whimper in protest. But that little bit of strength was useless against Bai Zhou, and they could only watch helplessly as they each swallowed a pill.

"Gah! What did you feed us?!" Wang Xiaolu glared fiercely at her and retched, trying to bring it back up.

"Nothing much, just a deadly poison with no antidote. Before long, anyone who takes this pill will be unable to speak, their hands and feet will lose their strength, and their limbs will go limp. Their whole body will suffer as though ants were gnawing at it. It flares up once on the fifteenth of every month, right on schedule."

"Oh, but I forgot. You probably won't live to see the next attack."

She spoke lightly, quietly pressing harder with the knife against Jiang Xuefu's face. The tip broke the skin and turned red. Soon, the clean, snow-white face was covered in deep cuts and blood, its features so mangled they could no longer be recognized.

Jiang Xuefu's eyes widened in terror, anguish showing in them. But the poison had already taken effect, and she could not even cry out in pain. She could only endure it all helplessly, in despair.

Pain! It hurts so much! It feels as though countless ants are crawling densely through my body, mercilessly gnawing at my organs, flesh, and blood!

After quietly admiring the pair's miserable state for a while, Jiang Xuefu cheerfully wiped the blade clean with a handkerchief and handed it to Bai Zhou to put away.

"Bai Zhou, kill them both in a little while, then just find a cliff somewhere and throw them off."

She gave the order lightly, deciding two people's lives and deaths just like that.

At the edge of a cliff.

Bai Zhou held a child in each hand and was about to slit their throats and throw them down the mountainside. Wang Xiaolu, who had fainted from the pain, suddenly opened his eyes, a hard-won trace of clarity in them.

By now, the effects of the drug had mostly worn off.

While Bai Zhou wasn't paying attention, he used all his strength to bite the web between the man's thumb and forefinger. Blood ran from the bite as he shouted hoarsely and indistinctly, "Xue'er! Jump!"

It all happened in an instant. By the time Bai Zhou dealt with Wang Xiaolu, Jiang Xuefu had already jumped off the cliff, her fate unknown.

How similar the mother and son's fates were. One had fled into a dense forest, the other had jumped off a cliff, and in the end, both had vanished without a trace.

When she returned to the private room at the restaurant, Ling Chengfeng was already back. Two skewers of candied hawthorn sat on the table, the bright red fruit coated in amber syrup, looking incredibly tempting.

Seeing her return, Ling Chengfeng held one out to her. "Where did you go? Why were you gone so long?"

Jiang Xuefu ate one from the skewer he held. It was sweet, with a hint of hawthorn tartness, delicious and appetizing.

At Ling Chengfeng's question, she rolled her eyes. "Stop prying into this princess's business."

"Move your hand closer. I can't reach the ones at the bottom."

"Tch, Xiao Fu'er, are you ordering me around like a servant?"

Though Ling Chengfeng mocked her, he obediently reached a little farther over.

When only three were left, Jiang Xuefu took a handkerchief and elegantly wiped the syrup from her mouth, then gave Ling Chengfeng another order. "I can't finish it. You eat the rest."

Her tone was entitled and willful, yet neither Qi Mujing nor Ling Chengfeng thought anything was wrong with it.

She had been precious from birth and was meant to be doted on in every possible way. It didn't matter if she was a little willful.

By the time she returned to the palace, curfew had already passed, but the emperor had shown Jiang Xuefu special favor, allowing her to enter and leave the palace without being bound by curfew.

The underfloor heating was lit in the Splendid Palace. Unlike the freezing cold outside, it was as warm as spring, when flowers bloomed.

Dressed in moon-white nightclothes, Jiang Xuefu sat before a bronze mirror and let a maid remove the jeweled hairpins from her bun.

"You're saying you let Jiang Xuefu, a seven-year-old child, get away?"

Bai Zhou knelt on the floor with his head lowered and answered without the slightest hesitation. "I failed in my duty. Please punish me, Princess."

Jiang Xuefu drew a breath, suppressing the irritation in her heart. "Go to the Punishment Hall and receive your punishment."

"After you've been punished, send people to look for her. Dig three feet into the ground if you have to, but find her. Alive, I want to see her; dead, I want to see her corpse!"

"Yes."