He stood there, dumbfounded, "Am I, am I seeing ghosts?"
Gu Jiao hadn’t expected that in the time it took to buy cookies, she would be abducted on the street without anyone noticing, still clamped in someone’s arms around her waist.
This familiar posture, this familiar formula...
The fear of being dominated by a tossed pen surged through her again.
Gu Jiao maintained a cool expression on her petite face, deciding to drop her idol burdens and shout in the street, but as soon as she opened her mouth, a gust of wind rushed at her face, puffing her cheeks...
Gu Jiao was taken to Vermilion Bird Avenue by Long Yi.
Long Yi didn’t need to take a back door, nor a front one, he simply descended from the sky and landed in Princess Xinyang’s courtyard.
Gu Jiao looked at the courtyard full of purple and red flower buds, and the gates of her memory whipped open.
She had been here before.
It was the first mansion behind the orange trees, where she mistook the lady of the house for the tuberculosis patient described by the scholar and gave her a free consultation.
Yes, it was free, because no one paid her a consultation fee.
Strange, why had Long Yi brought her here?
Soon she knew the reason, for as soon as Long Yi set her down, she caught sight of Princess Xinyang sitting in the room.
Gu Jiao understood everything then.
No wonder when she saw Princess Xinyang in the palace, she felt an inexplicable familiarity; she had indeed seen her before.
So, the conversation she overheard that day near the underground martial arts arena in the restaurant was also between her and that female official.
The medication the female official went to buy from the Yan Country pharmacist at the martial arts arena was also for her.
But why was it a bottle of high-grade nutritional supplement?
Was the Yan Country pharmacist that incompetent? Not even a decent Protecting Heart Pill could be provided?
Naturally, Gu Jiao did not know that the high-grade nutritional supplement was called the Hundred Flowers Pill, bought by the crown prince’s consort from a Zhao Country swordsman.
The Hundred Flowers Pill was touted as magical, but in fact, it was just a blood and qi supplement; great for health maintenance, but it would be too much to expect it to treat myocarditis.
Yujin came to the door and gestured, "Miss Gu, please."
Gu Jiao entered the room with calm composure.
Any commoner girl who had been abducted and then met a princess of the realm would likely lose her composure, but not Gu Jiao.
Yet Princess Xinyang’s expression was tranquil.
In her hands, she held slips of paper with information scavenged from the teahouse among the common folk.
She laid the slips of paper out on the table, one by one.
Gu Jiao glanced over them briefly; they all concerned her.
It seemed Princess Xinyang was investigating her.
Princess Xinyang cut straight to the point, "Tell me, why did you approach me?" She glanced at Gu Jiao, the threat in her eyes evident, "You’d better tell the truth. My patience is limited; don’t force me to torture you."
A princess with quite tough methods indeed.
Gu Jiao was unafraid, "I think you might be mistaken, Princess, I had no intention of approaching you."
Princess Xinyang poured white pills from a porcelain bottle into a clean empty dish: "Is that so? Then what’s the story with this bottle of medicine? Don’t tell me you didn’t put it there."
Gu Jiao did not deny it: "Indeed, I switched out the medicine inside. But I will say again, you are mistaken, Princess. I was entrusted to visit Vermilion Bird Avenue to treat a patient with tuberculosis, but I entered the wrong house and, through a mix-up, mistook you for that patient."
Princess Xinyang looked at Gu Jiao and said lightly: "I don’t have tuberculosis."
Gu Jiao said: "I know, and the medicine I gave you wasn’t for treating tuberculosis. You have myocarditis, um... also known as heart disease. My brother also suffered from heart disease. Yours is not as severe as his; take your medicine carefully, and you could be cured in a few months."
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