Jin Siyu stared at her with bright eyes before suddenly leaning forward and pulling her into his arms, “Shao Yao, I never imagined that you would help me.” 

At this moment, his tone was filled with sincerity, the usual gentle yet distant feel he emits dissipated. One could tell from his voice that he is quite happy right now. 

Lazily lying in his arms, she smiled as she toyed with the gold button on his collar and said in a low voice, “Why wouldn’t I help you? I don’t remember the past, I only know that you are pretty good to me right now. You didn’t even kill me after I committed such a big crime, so it shows you still care about me. Naturally, I don’t want to see you so troubled. But I am just a woman so I don’t know if there is anything helpful in what I said.” 

Jin Siyu lowered his head, looking at her long feathered eyelashes, thick, fluttering, and docile, his lips unconsciously pulled into a smile as he gently caressed her long hair “No matter what, I am immensely happy just knowing you care.” 

Raising her head to look up at him, she said with a smile “Then I will give you lots of ideas every day, a bunch of useless ideas.” 

Bursting out in a laugh, he pinched the tip of her nose affectionately and said suddenly, “Shao Yao, Physician Ruan said the blood clot in your head has dissolved and that if your memory doesn’t come back in a bit then it would be hard to say when it would return. It could be 3-5 years or more likely many years later. You are alone right now with a body that requires extra care, let me take care of you.”

Let me take care of you.

The words were eloquent but their meaning was clear. She was silent for a while before she asked with a faint smile “You are willing to trust me?” 

Jin Siyu smiled and said “You too have sensed the fortress-like guard in this manor right? Don’t concern yourself with it, they are not targeted at you. I am a prince after all. Wherever I am, there will be a heavy guard presence. Moreover, this will help to safeguard you as well.” 

She smiled and leaned toward him without saying a word. Wrapping his arm around her, there was a tenderness in Jin Siyu’s eyes that even he himself hadn’t noticed. 

The towering suspicion had been slowly cut down after countless testing each day. All of his careful scrutiny and testing had all failed in front of her until it is difficult for him to even doubt her now. 

He had once suspected that she could be that person but she didn’t fight with all her might to save Hua Qing, nor did she attempt to do something to Kelie when she had the chance. In fact, her joy had been apparent when she saw  Kelie was getting better with each passing day. It is obvious that she truly believed what he said about Kelie. 

As for the news from Tian Sheng, he has been informed that a funeral had been held for Wei Zhi under Tian Sheng emperor’s decree with all the military forces paying tribute to him. He had sent his men to secretly dig out Wei Zhi’s grave. The grave had a complete corpse and the bone obtained from it was judged by the sorcerer to be a match to Wei Zhi’s age. 

The rumored Wei Zhi is drastically different from this gentle and beautiful woman. That youth might have had a gentle appearance but his actions are like thunderbolts. This indeed corresponded with his own impression of that youth when he met him briefly. 

Sometimes he wondered if he was too suspicious with these ludicrous thoughts. Even though this woman is exceptional but she is far from being a match to that legendary outstanding national scholar. 

She is just a Tian Sheng prisoner of war who lost her memory, it is a matter of course that he would take her for his own. 

He has never been as at this moment willing to believe her. 

Trust her, then he can take her in. 

The fragrance of the woman in his arms was faint, warm, and soft, causing his heart to beat wildly but there are still things he has to do. Hearing the sound of the wind gradually softening, he pushed her away reluctantly and said with a grin “I better open the window a little bit. If we keep them tightly closed like this and have the candle burning at the same time, we could get smoked out.” 

He went to open the windows, walking along the wall, and to re-lit the candle again. 

Where he was before, he always had his back to the bookshelves. He was first worrying over the political problems then his attention was all on the conversation with her so he never did notice what was behind the bookshelf. However, he is now heading towards the candles and is about to walk over to where the books are. 

The book of poems sitting on the daybed suddenly fell to the ground. 

She let out an “Oops.” and got down to pick the book up but the moment she bent down she abruptly let out a scream. 

Jin Siyu had just made his way over, narrowed his eyes, and saw a bit of black hair poking out from behind the bookshelf. 

His eyes flashed, after casting a glance in her direction, he reached out a hand and dragged the person out. The person is dressed in the servants’ clothing but he didn’t recognize the face. 

“Who is this? Why is he hiding behind the bookshelf?” She asked with fear in her voice. 

His face stone-cold, Jin Siyu clapped his hands and in a few minutes, the butler rushed in, his expression turning to one of alarm when he saw the unconscious person on the ground, “Your Highness, he is the new study boy, but why is he still here?”

Jin Siyu stood coldly with his hands behind his back, a trace of suspicion flashed across his eyes, “A rule was broken, you know what to do?”

“Yes, Your Highness.” The butler sighed inwardly, he knew that His Highness had shown up at the study early today. It is easy to guess that this kid must’ve hid himself when he wasn’t able to get out of the study in time and ended up unconscious for some reason. He silently cursed the kid for being dumb. He would’ve been better off offending His Highness right in the beginning instead of staying put and committing a death-worthy offense. The study is where His Highness deals with the bulk of his top confidential matters, death is the only punishment if someone ended up hearing some secrets. 

Waving a hand at the two guards behind him, the butler signaled the guards to drag the study boy out. 

“Wait.” 

The butler immediately motioned the guards to stop when he heard her voice. He knows that she is the most popular person in front of His Highness right now so he doesn’t dare to offend her in the slightest. 

“Where are you taking him?”

Stealing glances at Jin Siyu, the butler remained silent. 

Seemingly already gotten the answer from the silence, she frowned and looked at Jin Siyu, “Your Highness, this study boy didn’t break the rules. You came to the study an hour early today. He was probably cleaning the room at the time but ended up hiding out of fear of offending you. Just now when the assassin broke in, he must’ve discovered him at the same time he discovered me and knocked him out…he, doesn’t know anything, isn’t that right?” 

Jin Siyu didn’t say anything. He understood the meaning of her words– that this servant didn’t purposefully linger in the study and when he started to discuss the political matters with her, the servant was already unconscious, he didn’t hear any of it. 

He glanced over at the servant with an air of indifference. Every person who entered into the manor in recent days, regardless of their background, they are being monitored closely and constantly tested. Only those who have passed all the tests can be used. Therefore, if this study boy had attempted to take her away or touched the secret passage behind the bookshelf, then what awaits him, would’ve been a one-way ticket of no return. 

But neither of that happened.

In fact, she was the first one to discover this person. 

Seeing the earnestness in her eyes, he knows that this woman is especially soft-hearted, so she would of course ask mercy on this person’s behalf. 

“That being the case, he can be spared of death, but he can’t escape punishment.” He said nonchalantly, “Thirty boards, it will improve his memory.” 

(For those of you who have seen Chinese palace dramas, these “board” punishments should be fairly familiar. Those being punished are usually put on a bench face down and the guards will smack the person’s backside with wooden boards. Depending on how much force the guards use, on a good day, this sort of punishment will cause a person to be bedridden for a good while. On a bad day, thirty boards will take a person’s life…especially if it was used on a female. Even if some don’t die on the bench but they can still die from their wounds later. So even though it sounded like Jin Siyu was merciful and decided to spare the study boy’s life but in reality, everyone knew there was still a chance the study boy could die if he wasn’t super healthy and lucky enough to make it through.)

 She sighed but doesn’t say anything more. Jin Siyu thought for sure she would plead some more so he was a bit surprised when she didn’t push the matter. Seeing his surprise, she explained, “You have your rules, you have already done a lot on my account.” 

Impressed, Jin Siyu smiled, his mood improving even more as he eagerly pulls out the black and white chess pieces “Let’s play chess.” 

All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com

By the way, there was a comment from last week from a reader that made me realize there might be some confusion on the assassin part. There was no assassin. Zhi Wei had purposefully triggered the trap in order to mislead Jin Siyu into believing that an assassin had come and tried to take her. 

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