Before Ye Jiuge boarded the horse carriage, she turned around and said remorsefully to Wan Ziyang, “I apologize for being too impetuous and involving you in our conflict. As a result, you have offended the Crown Prince. I am truly sorry.”
In reality, Ye Jiuge did not feel apologetic in the slightest. Since she planned to make Wan Ziyang her ally, naturally, she needed to ensure that her enemies became his enemies as well.
“Implicated or not, it does not matter,” Wan Ziyang said and shook his head. In any case, he did not see eye to eye with the treacherous Crown Prince, who always executed grandiose deeds regardless of whether he was capable of achieving them successfully.
“However, when all is said and done, the Crown Prince is the Crown Prince. If he means to give you a hard time, I am afraid that you will be at a disadvantage.” Wan Ziyang was truly worried for Ye Jiuge.
“So what? It does not faze me that he is the Crown Prince. Even if he were the emperor, if he dares to provoke me, I will let him have it without any hesitation.” Ye Jiuge’s red lips curved. Her phoenix eyes were impenetrable. Her aura was inconspicuous, yet also similar to a raging inferno that one could not look at directly.
Wan Ziyang was astonished. He had an inexplicable feeling: this assertive Ye Jiuge was much more intriguing than those sweet and delicate ladies from noble houses.
“Be careful on your way back. If you encounter any problems, feel free to approach me.” Wan Ziyang used to dislike dealing with troublesome issues. However, he really wanted to help Ye Jiuge.
“Thank you very much.”
Ye Jiuge smiled and bade him farewell. As soon as she sat down in the horse carriage, Zi Shang’s chilly voice rang out beside her ear, “Don’t tell me that this brat has taken a liking to you.”
“You are reading too deeply into it. Not everyone has objectionable tastes like you.”Ye Jiuge rolled her eyes. Even she felt her stomach turn when she looked at her face covered with black scars. Zi Shang was the only one who found her attractive.
“You are not allowed to insult my taste,” Zi Shang said in an aloof manner.
This was one of those rare moments when Ye Jiuge did not mock him at all. Although her appearance was more grotesque now, she still felt slightly pleased that such a handsome demonic man was defending her.
“By the way, when you hit the Crown Prince earlier, what did you take from him?” Zi Shang asked.
“You have sharp eyes. I merely collected a little interest from him.”
Ye Jiuge turned her hand around with her palm facing upwards. A dark green jade ornament rested in the center of her fair-skinned palm. It was carved with an auspicious image of a dragon and a phoenix. Its dark green color seemed to be gleaming, similar to a pool of crystal-clear water. The moment someone laid eyes on it, they would know that it was no ordinary object.
“There is something unusual about this jade ornament,” Zi Shang suddenly said.
“What is odd about it?” Ye Jiuge looked at it carefully. Other than its high-quality appearance, she felt that there was nothing special about it.
“Try to press the eyes of the dragon and the phoenix simultaneously,” Zi Shang said.
Ye Jiuge followed Zi Shang’s instructions and pushed them.
She heard a click. The jade ornament split open at the center. To her surprise, a piece of rolled silk as thin as a cicada’s wing was hidden inside.
Ye Jiuge unrolled it to have a look and was immediately shocked. She did not expect to find a piece of map portraying a topography with mountains and rivers. It was clearly an incomplete treasure map.
If this were the case, it was not surprising that the Crown Prince had hunted down the Ye Clan. As it turned out, he had already obtained one half of the treasure map. He was still missing the other half, which belonged to the Ye Clan.
“What a stroke of luck—you have truly defied the odds.” Zi Shang was really impressed by Ye Jiuge’s good fortune.
The Crown Prince hid the treasure map in the jade ornament and carried it with him every day. He must have thought that the most dangerous place was the safest place.
He would have never been able to foresee that he would bump into an opportunist like Ye Jiuge. Without realizing it, she had taken the jade ornament away from him.
“You flatter me, you flatter me!” Ye Jiuge beamed, showing her teeth.
Although she was not very interested in the treasure map, as long as she thought about the Crown Prince’s distress and rage once he discovered that he’d lost the jade ornament, she felt ecstatic.
Since Ye Jiuge had managed to gain an ally and steal a precious jade ornament, she returned to the Zhilin Residence in an excellent mood.
Just as she walked into her room, she caught a whiff of a very faint smell of blood from a corner beside the door. She looked down promptly and saw a tall, slender figure wearing ninja garb slowly materializing in the corner. His beautiful face was deathly pale. It was Ye Yu, who had been gone a long time.
“What happened to you?” Ye Jiuge quickly went over to help him up.
“Eldest Miss, I have found Ye Ruyi. You should go and save her at once,” Ye Yu said with great difficulty. Then, he pressed a piece of bloodied white cloth into her hand.
“Stop talking and let me examine your injury.” Ye Jiuge checked Ye Yu’s pulse. Her expression became grim.
There was a cold sensation within Ye Yu’s body. His five viscera and six bowels were displaced, and there was a gash on his stomach. The white cloth bandaging his wound was thoroughly soaked in blood. His condition was critical.
Ye Jiuge used her Lightning Fire Needle to hit the acupressure point on his abdomen. After that, she stuffed several pills into his mouth to strengthen his vitality. Although Ye Yu’s wounds stopped bleeding after he consumed the pills, he remained unconscious.
The area beneath his long eyelashes was purple. His dry lips were cracked and discolored, while his breath was extremely erratic. If only Ye Jiuge had the Nine Transformations Resurrection Elixir in her possession. Ye Jiuge knew that Ye Yuxuan had a treasured bottle of it in his Elixir Production Furnace. However, if she were to ask him for it, he would never agree.
Ye Jiuge had no choice but to ask Zi Shang for help. “Zi Shang, can you make me invisible?”
“Of course, as long as you kiss me twice!” Zi Shang replied nonchalantly.
“Damn you. Didn’t you only ask for one kiss last time?” He had such gall to rip her off. He was too shameless!
“That’s right. I offered it to you cheaply in the past. It serves you right for not accepting my offer back then.” Zi Shang looked as if he pitied her loss.
F*ck you! “If you ask for two kisses, I’ll give you two kisses.” She could not afford to delay treating Ye Yu’s wound any longer. At worst, she could pretend that a dog had bitten her.
“Bitten by a snake,” Zi Shang corrected her solemnly. She should not get the wrong idea.
“Whatever.” Ye Jiuge stood up and said, “I want to head to the place where Ye Yuxuan keeps his Elixir Production Furnace. You should make me invisible now.”
“Alright. It will be in effect for an hour!”
As soon as Zi Shang finished speaking, Ye Jiuge felt a mysterious energy envelope her body. She dashed out of her residence. All of the servants she met along the way ignored her.
Ye Jiuge reached Ye Yuxuan’s Elixir Production Room without a hitch. Although many sentinels were guarding the surroundings, because it was still daytime, the windows of the Elixir Production Room were open for ventilation. Ye Jiuge flitted in through a window.
The Elixir Production Room was extremely spacious. There was a bronze Elixir Production Furnace in the center, and rows of wooden shelves near the walls. On the left side of the room, there were different kinds of medicinal herbs, while there were finished elixirs to the right.
Ye Jiuge could not find the Nine Transformations Resurrection Elixir on the wooden shelves, so she started searching for hidden compartments, swiftly knocking on the floor tiles and walls of every corner. At last, she discovered a compartment hidden behind a wooden shelf.
When she pulled it open, as expected, she spotted a row of small, delicate porcelain bottles. Other than the Nine Transformations Resurrection Elixir, there were also quality medicines, such as Century-old Ling Zhi Powder, Tian Mountain’s Snow Lotus Elixir, as well as other elixirs that could clean the marrow and relocate the nerves.
When Ye Jiuge saw these medicines, her pupils dilated immediately. From what she could recall, her grandfather had left these Century-old Ling Zhi Powder and Tian Mountain’s Snow Lotus Elixirs for her mother, whose body had always been frail. Her grandfather had spent a great deal of effort to produce these two bottles of medicine to prolong her life.
When her mother had been extremely ill, Ye Yuxuan had given her all of the precious Spiritual Elixirs in the residence to save her life—or so the story went. His devotion to his wife had moved many hearts in the capital.
It had never occurred to Ye Jiuge that he had replaced these genuine medicines with fakes and hidden the elixirs, which could have saved her mother’s life, in this secret compartment.