Mingyi

A hand dragged Halun down from the grunting horse. His earlier raw wounds on the back burned raw and sharp, an agony akin to being flayed alive.

He expected to be hurled down onto the ground in his helpless state. Instead, another two hands reached out to settle him on someone's back.

Just his luck, he cussed. He should have sought the shamans out for a blessing before leaving Taotang. Maybe they could have also warned him of his encounters with the Simurg. Assassins were a given.

His ego bruised by the number of him blacking out in a day. Now they treated him like a heavy sack to be carried around when he couldn't move. Never had he suffered such indignity.

"He has wounds on his back," an unknown man spoke.

A sense of relief swept over Halun — the speaker didn't have a Xirong accent when speaking the common Central Plains language. He wasn't stuck with the Simurg.

Maybe Yinyue rescued him.

His nose sniffed at the earthy horse smell of musty hay, dung, and gamey leather on his clothing. He reeked of horse.

The fragrance, sweet, bitter and earthy smells from a mix of several medicinal herbs, rushed forth from the creaking door. The air, now thick with the scent of dried herbs, carried the smell of ginseng, licorice, and other herbs, covered up the horse smell on him.

He relaxed a little. His captors were not sending him into those musty interrogation dungeons.

His ears could make out at least two persons including the one carrying him.

"Caught yourself a match?" Another man spoke.

What the hell? Halun may not like women, but he didn't care for men. Then he realised the sounds of footsteps didn't match the direction where the voice came from.

"I'm not interested. He's a prince of another state."

That was Yinyue's voice. He couldn't hear her footsteps at all. Why the heck was she even using so much effort to mask her footsteps?

"Yeah…you know, at your age, most girls are engaged. And besides…"

Great, Halun thought. If his luck was bad, it has grown worse. Which man wants to marry a powerful woman who can kill him with a single blow? The ghostly face didn't appeal to him.

"Another state. Not possible."

Who wanted to be her match? Halun wanted to scream, but his body didn't obey any responses from his mind.

"There's no such thing as impossible. Alliance—"

No, don't encourage her, Halun thought as panic set in. He knew that if the Dayan Empire proposed an alliance marriage, his father may agree. Even if it meant sending a prince over to Dayan.

"Mingyi, if not for my grandfather, I would wring your neck," she cut the man off.

Halun wondered if his ears deceived him.

Mingyi, an infamous Ghost Physician, is one of the few highly regarded physicians whom the royals sought for treatment of rare ailments. He picked whoever he wanted to treat and once he decided on whether to treat, his mind wouldn't change even with threats.

"Stop using corpse poison and you can do it," Mingyi said.

The mention of corpse poison made Halun curious. Corpse poison was an insidious poison, infamous in the region.

Anyone who ingested corpse poison didn't live for a month. After ingestion, the vital organs of the victim will begin a slow, agonizing rot within. The first stage is the corpse-like appearance, as the body channels blood into the vital organs for self-preservation.

Yinyue reached the first stage of poisoning, judging by her look and her faint lingering fragrance of death, which he smelled.

Halun wondered why she used corpse poison. Other milder poisons could also mask pulse and create pallor without long-term damage.

Could she be like him, with some form of natural poison resistance?

"The deputy marshal and the deputy chief physician from the capital came after I returned from the battle of Luoran… if I look well, what do you think will happen?" Yinyue said.

Of course, Halun thought. His ruling family was bad enough, but the ruling family of an empire, far bigger than the Taotang state, would be far worse with power struggles.

In Taotang, his half-brothers formed factions and alliances with other half-brothers for the throne. They could still tolerate less powerful half-brothers. Unfortunately, none of them tolerated him because of his mother's Xirong blood.

Unlike them, the Dayan Grand Princes killed all of their half brothers and sometimes their families. Even the current ruling Emperor, Yinyue's father, killed all his half-brothers, only leaving a sister.

"Still attracts opportunistic assassinations."

"Better than hidden ones which come at full force and skill," she replied. "I'll let them whittle their money away."

Halun liked that idea. It was evil. Assassins cost a lot of gold, especially when hired to kill a prince.

"He can go on that bed."

Someone threw him onto something soft. The impact reverberated through his body, knocking the air out of his lungs. He gasped with his eyes snapping open.

What greeted him were chaotic flashes of colors which transformed into the wooden ceiling of a canopy bed.

A sore stiffness gripped his neck when he tried to sit up. He grimaced and flopped down. An unrelenting, dull, persistent pain radiated from the base of his skull down to his shoulders each time he moved.

"Careful now," an unfamiliar voice spoke from the corner where he couldn't turn his neck to look at. "Don't work your neck for nothing."

Halun narrowed his eyes and recalled his ordeal of being slung across the horse like a sack.

"What happened to my neck?" He rasped.

Each time he almost awoke, he felt the side of a hand hit his neck, sending him back to the pitch black emptiness. Was it the cause of his stiff neck?

He shuffled himself to the side, attempting to turn using his body, but the pain made him give up. Being on a bed, not some torture rack, still didn't comfort him.

"Well… my bodyguard needed to make sure you can't …um…hijack his horse," Yinyue replied.

Halun narrowed his eyes. Hijacking a horse was the worst reason to justify his suffering and limited movement. If he found out who that damn bodyguard was, he will give him a good dose of his own medicine. He wanted to see how the bastard enjoyed having his own neck almost severed.

Halun gritted his teeth and told himself to calm down. Nothing beneficial came from acting in anger. He needed to gather his thoughts and figure out the new environment in case he needed to escape again.

"The neck injury won't be permanent. He only hit the meridian points, not the bone," the man named Mingyi replied.

Mingyi walked in front of Halun. Halun glanced at the matured man dressed in a cotton weaved gown which merchants often wore. No wrinkles appeared on Mingyi's face, yet his unruly grey beard and untidy long wavy grey hair tied back made him look old.

"Who are you?" Halun feigned ignorance. He must not let them know he overheard their conversation.

"Your highness, this commoner before you is named Mingyi," Mingyi introduced himself following the formal etiquette of addressing royalty.

Halun nodded as a courtesy.

"I'll leave you to fix him up," Yinyue said.