Emperor's Cunning Wife

In the vast expanse of purple meadows filled with strange floras, the two silhouettes were remarkably striking and clear enough for her to distinguish their every movement. It's just that, despite her struggling trying to get the get closer and hear the rest of their conversation, her limbs were bound some kind of restraint. She was also unable to identify the man.

That man's figure was both familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time. She glossed around her memory and failed to come up with a hint.

It's too bad his face was covered by faint mist.

She tilted her head, when she spotted a flower wilted near her feet, but she didn't manage to continue her thought because the scenery puffed into a smoke.

Whoosh-

Everything evaporated into nothing. Her eyes were blinded by the sudden darkness.

"Help me…" A sound came from her behind. The air turned chilly and weird. Coldness clamped her shoulders travelling to her spine. Ning Lou's breath caught in her throat. Her brain wired and sprung in alarm. Her guts told her that there was something or someone behind her.

She swallowed the anxiety and forced herself to check out the cause of the shift in the atmosphere.

But in the middle of accomplishing her aim, a bloody hand clutched her throat out of the blue.

Badump-

Trailing the stranger's hand she saw a terrifying image.

There was a woman donned in the purple silk hanfu. Her hair was beautifully decorated with adoring jewels and gold. Her skin white as snow and hair luscious as the raven's feathers was tied into a bun.

However Ning Lou couldn't feel awe and admiration at all and instead she was filled with endless fear. She s.u.c.k.e.d a mouthful of air.

The woman's seven orifices was bleeding

And to make it worse, Ning Lou and she had uncanny resemblance or the body she took over, the original host to be precise. It is as if she was looking through the mirror and right in front of her was a stage with set props and her other self was trying to pass an audition of 'The Grudge'.

Chills…

Did she come to retrieve her body?

"Help me…" The woman once again called one. Her voice laced with need and helplessness. Ning Lou could also detect a slight anger and guilt in them.

Ning Lou tried to step back and was glad the restraint earlier was gone. The hand on her shoulders also slowly went its way on Ning Lou's throat dyeing her snow white neck in morbid crimson.

She flinched after sensing the abnormal degree of temperature the blood-stained hand was exuding. It was so cold, as if the hand was ice. The hair rising frost trapped her voice from saying anything.

"Help me…" and yet again Ning Lou heard the same plead from the bloody woman.

The once dark path was slowly stained from the blood spilling out from the woman.

Eventually her entire face and body was unrecognizable anymore.

"It's not my fault." Ning Lou gulped and leaned back trying to stay away from the woman's hold.

"Please help me…"

"It's not my fault. I don't know anything. I just woke up in your body." Ning Lou swatted her hand away, but her sudden decision turned things for the worse.

The woman's body flashed and flickered to her side in a blink of an eye. Her eyes shone with dangerous light.

"If you won't help me at all, I'll kill you and bring you to my grave." The words left her mouth. Each word was curdling with intense hatred.

Ning Lou was choked on the neck. She both gasped and grasped the seemingly dainty muscles covered in red but surprisingly not a budge nor was a sign of pain, her struggling effort was in vain.

"I-I…" She could only release muffled gasps as the grip on her neck became tighter. Her throat passageways had no more gaps. Red veins strewn on the whites of her eyes. The coldness invaded the deepest of her soul. She thought this was a dream but her senses were so lifelike. Every cell of her body screamed in anguish.

It was so cold. Her teeth chattered and turned pale.

She could see the faint white mist of her breath in the midst of her failing eyesight.

Her eyelids became heavier. The woman leaned in. The blood all over her had turned purple at some point. She issued a laugh, one would use in a villainous role.

Ning Lou's hands fell, sapped with strength.

Is this karma?

A clip of images flashed in her head. It was not hers, Ning Lou believed.

It was a room basked with candle lights flickering and gracing the four post bed in the center with light. The wind billowed, curtains swayed, and candled crackled.

Blood splattered on the wooden floor, dark and eerie.

A pair of purple eyes glinted behind the white curtains before chaos befell.

--

Standing beside the bed was Long, and beneath him was an old monk. The old monk was instructed to take Ning Lou's pulse and checked what caused her to faint.

His wrinkled hands pressed at the silk gauze placed above Ning Lou's fair wrist. After a minute, he rubbed bowed slightly at Long and proceeded to tell his findings with solemnity and graveness "Her pulse showed signs of extreme shock and…" he stopped and threw the extra person in the room a glance. Though the other person was a big benefactor such information was still s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e and too personal.

Jinlong narrowed his eyes and left the room for the two. However within the short moment of observing the inner turmoil swimming in the monk's eyes and his tone, he got a gist of where their conversation will be going.

Reaching the threshold of door, he turned back and closed the paper screen but not before receiving a heavy stare from the man he had his eyes on. He lightly returned an indifferent one as the gaps between the doors disappeared.

Long withdrew his sight from the door. His temples had faint signs of irritation. Just minutes passed from entering their designated courtyard; he crossed paths with the person from the palace. He should have expected the man's presence during this crucial moment but the timing was wrong.

"Benefactor, you wife's pulse showed signs of poisoning. Are you not aware?" His old eyes containing vicissitudes of life informed Long of the unfortunate matter.

"Pardon? Poison? She's poison?" Long took a step back, disbelief and fear written with exaggeration all over his form. Though he knew why the findings resulted according to what the monk said. It must be from the night he slipped inside the brothel and forced her to take a poisonous pill. Honestly he forgotten about this matter as the female never showed symptoms in the span she was in the brothel, so when the monk delivered his words, he was one part surprised the rest of the parts was only done for show as he knew the person surname 'Qin' was still eavesdropping on their exchanges.

The monk nodded and chanted 'Amitabha', "Benefactor should look for a more experienced physician on this matter as this old one is not knowledgeable enough to prescribe you with the treatment."

Long exhaled in relief inside. The monk not knowing what poison it was will lessen that person's suspicions. Long rushed towards Ning Lou's sides and gripped her hand with concern. His voice filled with anguish echoed inside the small room. "Wife…Wife…"

Long pretended to cry while thinking of a way to order on a way to order his men around of the antidote because judging from the days, three days from now the poison's effects will be at its peak.

The monk could not help but pray for the woman's recovery.

While, on the other hand, Jinlong did not feel any particular emotion towards the noises. His mind was still hollowed by that woman's earlier reaction before she fainted.

As if she knew him…

How could that be possible? Regarding the faces of every single person he encountered and even those of least important, he remembered and engraved them in his head. Her face was not one of them. He was sure of this conclusion therefore could it be…

"Wife!" stunned by Ning Lou's sudden action, Long nearly stumbled back.

The woman touched her neck and assessed every part of signs of broken skin ignoring the presence of the two people in the room.

Her dream of the red room was particularly horrifying than any horror movie she watched. It was so vivid and gruesome. Vile from her stomach showed signs of leaping out of her throat. She pressed the urge to vomit and cupped her mouth.

"Is there something wrong?" Long immediately recovered from his stance and asked her wellbeing or particularly if she felt some similar symptoms from the poison.

Ning Lou finally noticed two additional guests in the room and shook her head. "No."

Her mind immediately recalled the she was currently posing as a wife of a merchant surnamed Su from Zhou.

"Tell me honestly if you feel something wrong." In an angle the old monk couldn't see, Long pressed her hand and gave her a glare.

Ning Lou bit her lips before replying to his sudden threat, "I had a nightmare and that's all." Exhausted and beaten she dropped her hands to indicate the wearisome experience.

"Is there anything else?" Not satisfied by her response, Long once again pressed her hand and added a few more ounce of strength.

Ning Lou wrinkled her forehead, "Husband should I feel something wrong?" her tone was laced with grievance. She reckoned her hand would have bruised after this.

"Benefactor should not be angry with your wife." The monk intervened. He presumed that the man was overcome with intense emotion.

Long looked at the woman unaware of her impending doom. He leaned towards her before enveloping her figure in his embrace.

The monk withdrew his gaze from their intimacy and looked elsewhere.

Without the monks' eyes, Long inched his mouth in the woman's ears.

Although she was agitated with his constant changes in mood that was more troublesome than a woman in her period, Ning Lou restrained the impulse to kick him off.

Long opened his mouth and informed her of a grave matter.

Ning Lou stiffened in his arms when she heard his reminder. On the night she met Long Feitian, the latter seemed to slip something inside her system and if she didn't remember it wrongly, Brother Long said- 'What you took was poison I made, which means beside me no one has the antidote.'

There was a ticking sound of a clock in her head indicating her time left.

She hugged her Brother Long in return with strength greater than his. It was to release her successive frustrations. She again recalled the unpleasant realization that not only was her criminal group had doppelgangers in this era but so was that guy who placed her multiple times in jail after the raid in Country M.

There was a sound of someone opening the door and the light tap of someone's soles on the wooden floor. Ning Lou was curious of the intruder's identity.

She looked up and unconsciously drew a mouthful of air.

Mumbling incoherently, she questioned no one in particular, "Am I still dreaming?"

Because right in front of her was person she feared the most.