Slender willows sway in the breeze

Chapter 148 The Marquis certainly knows how to train people.
The moonlight poured down on Jiuhua Pavilion like water, and Liu Sijun's fingertips unconsciously caressed the celadon teacup.

The mutton-fat jade pendant at Gu Changzhou's waist gleamed under the lantern, overlapping with a beautiful scene from her memory—three years ago, in the cold pool below the cliff, on the man's sweat-soaked chest, this jade pendant had pressed against her palm until it burned.

"Back then, you were afflicted with the Xuanji Hall's 'Entangling Gu'," she suddenly spoke, her voice trembling like the grinding of medicinal pills. "Why didn't you just take the Qingxin Pill I gave you?"

Gu Changzhou paused, the teapot in his hand moving slightly, the tea tracing an amber arc in the air: "How did you know?"

"The 'Heart-Piercing Gu' will devour your heart within twelve hours of entering your body, but you were clearly poisoned for three days at that time." Liu Sijun took out a plain handkerchief from his mustard seed pouch, inside which was wrapped half a dark red pill. "This is a remnant pill found in your old clothes. Someone replaced the cinnabar with blood-staining poison, turning the antidote into a death warrant."

The bamboo shadows outside the pavilion suddenly flickered. Gu Changzhou abruptly stood up, his black wide sleeves sweeping away the teacup, the sound of shattering porcelain startling the night crows.

The force with which he gripped Liu Sijun's wrist was astonishing: "When did you find out?"

“At the beginning of last month, as usual, I was taking the pulses of the concubines in the harem when I inadvertently saw it in the palace of Consort Xian.” Liu Sijun met his turbulent gaze. “The same substitution technique, even the patterns of the medicine residue were exactly the same.”

A night breeze carrying the fragrance of flowers swept through the pavilion, and Gu Changzhou suddenly groaned and let go.

Liu Sijun reacted quickly and caught his swaying body. When her fingertips touched the back of his neck, she felt something sticky—in the moonlight, she saw that her palm was covered in a dark red stain.

“Are you hurt?”

Liu Sijun abruptly ripped open his collar, revealing three claw marks shimmering with black energy that ran diagonally from his shoulder blade to his waist. "He was injured by an evil cultivator just now on Suzaku Street."

Before she could finish speaking, Gu Changzhou suddenly tackled her to the ground.

A bone nail, glowing with a green light, grazed the hair bun and pierced into the pavilion pillar, instantly filling the air with a putrid and foul stench.

Liu Sijun flicked out three silver needles with her backhand, and immediately a heavy thud was heard from the shadows.

"It seems someone doesn't want us to reminisce."

Gu Changzhou, panting, propped himself up, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth: "The man in black that Consort Shu saw today had a snake-shaped tattoo on his left wrist."

Liu Sijun's pupils suddenly contracted.

Memories surged like a tide—the night my mother breathed her last, the pattern of half a green snake was faintly visible on my father's sleeve!

Liu Sijun's fingers dug deeply into her palms, her blood surging in her throat.

She suddenly remembered that her mother held her hand tightly as she died, her eyes full of worry. At that time, she thought it was because her mother was worried about her.

Thinking back now, it's not just that. She probably already knew that Liu Shiyuan was the one who harmed her, but she couldn't cultivate and couldn't leave behind more valuable clues through other means.

Gu Changzhou suddenly placed his hand on her trembling shoulder: "This injury is fake."

Liu Sijun looked up in a daze, only to see him wipe his finger across the hideous wound, and the black aura twisted and receded as if it were alive, revealing the original skin.

They actually tricked her, an alchemist, into doing it.

"Wuji Tower is indeed full of hidden talents. Back in Laiyang County, you even asked me to refine pills for you before you would let me go to the Frozen Domain?"

Gu Changzhou thought to himself, "This is bad."

At that time, she had finally managed to keep the person by her side with those six hundred crystals, but she suddenly wanted to go to the Frozen Domain.

With her abilities, the chances of her being chosen by the sect are extremely high. She was afraid that once she left, there would be no chance to see her again, so she persuaded Kuang to promise to provide Wuji Tower with pills.

"What's wrong? Weren't you quite talkative just now?"

Seeing that Liu Sijun had initially been somewhat interested, but now looked cold and indifferent, Gu Changzhou really wanted to punch his past self a couple of times.

Gu Changzhou's fingertips, glistening with a bluish hue under the moonlight, covered the fabricated wound once more: "Xuanji Hall has planted Blood Fiend Arrays in seven markets. If I hadn't had Commander Su issue a warning in the streets, how could I have forced them to activate the backup array eyes?" He lowered his gaze to the jade bracelet on Liu Sijun's wrist, where the shadow guards' tracking incantation faintly flickered. "Just like if you hadn't deliberately had Nian Shuang deliver false information, how could the Empress have activated Xuanji Hall's hidden agents planted in Yangshou Palace ahead of time?"

Just as Liu Sijun was about to speak, the commander of the Xuan Snake Guard suddenly let out a muffled groan.

The Xuan Snake Guard is a branch of the Shadow Guard, and its combat strength is among the best in the entire Shadow Guard.

Everyone turned to look and saw a spiderweb-like pattern of bloodstains on his neck—the very Heart-Eating Curse that the Evil Suppressor had inflicted while apprehending the wanted criminal!

“Stand back!”

Liu Sijun raised his hand and sprinkled out the Qingxin Powder. The moment the powder touched the skin, black mist rose up.

She tore open the commander's clothes, revealing a dark red talisman on his chest that was identical to the one used by the assassin, except that the snake tattoo had three gold lines at the end.

Gu Changzhou's sword scabbard slammed heavily against the bluestone slab: "Night Shadow, lead men to surround the Imperial Pharmacy." He stared at the fading golden threads and sneered, "Consort Shu is quite generous, even using the imperial bestowed gilded sand to draw spells."

Upon hearing this, Liu Sijun's pupils contracted sharply.

The gilded sand needs to be mixed with the blood essence of the royal family to take shape, and this tattoo is clearly... Suddenly, she felt a burning sensation from the mustard seed at her waist, and the communication jade slip she took out showed small golden characters—it was actually a secret order from Cai Yanpei, the Grand Elder of Yougu Palace!
"The thing beneath the icy pool has awakened."

Gu Changzhou glanced at the contents of the jade slip, his expression changing drastically. "Three years ago we were..."

His words abruptly stopped, and he suddenly pulled Liu Sijun into his arms.

An arrow gleaming with green flames pierced his left shoulder, exploding into a cloud of poisonous mist as it embedded itself in a pavilion pillar.

The twelve Xuan Snake Guards instantly formed a battle formation, but upon seeing the figure emerging from the mist, they all knelt down: "Greetings, Your Majesty the Empress!"

Phoenix-patterned palace shoes clattered against the green tiles as the Empress, holding a gilded crossbow, slowly approached: "I had no idea that Marquis Molin and Alchemist Liu had such a relationship."

Her nail-painted fingers traced the crossbow mechanism. "Meeting here in the dead of night, could it be that you're plotting something?"

"Your Majesty, please be careful what you say." Liu Sijun crushed the antidote pill, and a prescription stamped with a phoenix seal appeared in the blue smoke. "On the ninth day of last month, Xia He, a young lady from your palace, came to collect three qian of blood dragon's blood." She pointed to a spot on the prescription. "However, the inventory records from the Yangshou Palace's storeroom for that day show that the blood dragon's blood supply has not decreased at all."

The Empress's expression changed slightly, and she suddenly turned the gilded crossbow towards Gu Changzhou: "The Marquis certainly knows how to train people, even me."

Before she could finish speaking, she suddenly staggered and grabbed a pillar, revealing the same spiderweb-like bloodstains behind her ear as those of the Xuan Snake Guard commander.

"It seems Xuanji Hall didn't tell you that the gilded sand will backfire when it encounters blood essence." Liu Sijun put the poisoned silver needles into his pouch. "If the array's core isn't found within half a quarter of an hour, your face will probably need a new layer of skin."

A deafening roar suddenly came from afar, and a blood-red pillar of light rose from the southeast.

Gu Changzhou snatched the gilded crossbow with a swift motion. As the arrow pierced the air, a scream of the Consort Shu could be heard from within the beam of light.

The jade bracelet on Liu Sijun's wrist shattered with a crack, revealing a fragment of the Wuji Token hidden inside—the very half that she had taken from Gu Changzhou three years ago!
"So you had this planned all along!" The Empress stared at the merged Wuji Token, then suddenly burst into maniacal laughter, "What a brilliant two-birds-with-one-stone strategy! Using me to test the array's core was a pretense; the real purpose was to test the medicine for His Majesty!"

Two more chapters to be added