General, you should rest now; the lady is even more ruthless.

As dusk fell, Nineteen finally decorated the General's Mansion to her satisfaction. She strolled around admiring it while fanning herself with a fan—truly impressive, just as I expected!

Twelve returned to the General's Mansion, and as soon as he entered, he saw Nineteen looking carefree, and couldn't help but yell at him.

"It's such a pity you didn't go, Nineteen. That Miss Jiang is really something. She was able to find me on the roof without any fighting skills, and she guessed my identity right away. She's almost as smart as our master."

Nineteen became interested and grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds to crack open: "Tell me about it."

He believed that Sixteen was smarter than them, but he certainly couldn't compare to their master, who was the smartest.

Twelve recounted the events of the afternoon in general terms, including his doubts.

Nineteen gloated: "Twelfth, you might as well add a stroke and change your name to Twelve Feet."

"why?"

"Because you can't figure it out, hahaha."

"You!" Twelve wanted to punch him, but she raised her hand, shook it, and then put it down.

He looked miserable: "I could wander around the palace and no one would even notice me. Who would have thought, who would have thought... I investigated carefully, and she really doesn't have any internal strength. Sigh, this person is too perceptive."

Shen Luo was engrossed in reading inside when he was somehow drawn to the conversation between the two people outside. Before he knew it, he had listened to the whole thing, and even after the two people outside had left, he was still savoring the conversation.

"Just a woman in the backyard," Twelve is exaggerating too much. He's probably just stupid and thinks everyone else is smart.

However, although Twelve's lightness skill is not as good as Nineteen's, it is still among the best in Nanyue. Is it possible that she has a master who is even more powerful than Twelve by her side?

Shen Luo was unaware that he had unknowingly begun to look forward to it. Just who was this Miss Jiang, whom he had never met and was about to marry?

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Midnight, Jiang Mansion.

Jiang Qiqi, who was fast asleep, suddenly woke up with a start. Her sixth sense told her that there was something unusual happening around her.

She didn't care about the saying "curiosity killed the cat," so she woke up Xiang'er, who was sleeping in the outer room, and the two of them went to the courtyard to check.

Sure enough, after searching around twice, Xiang'er found an unconscious man in black in a clump of flowers in the corner of the north wall of the courtyard.

In the pitch black, Xiang'er could only see a dark shadow. She held up her lantern and leaned closer to see a person covered in blood: "Miss, there is someone injured here, and he is bleeding a lot."

Jiang Qiqi glanced at the man; he was dressed in all black, his face was covered, and his fate was unknown.

She reached out and felt the man in black's pulse, then looked up at his eyes and found that he was only unconscious.

“She is injured, but not in life-threatening condition. Bring her in and place her in the side room.”

Fortunately, there were never any guards patrolling their backyard, otherwise, a masked man covered in blood would have had no way of explaining himself.

Xiang'er was deeply worried about her young mistress's hasty decision to save the man: "Miss, this person's origins are unknown. Could he be a bad person? Will we be in danger if we save him?"

A man in black in the middle of the night can't be a decent person, he might be a vicious womanizer or something.

The two of them were weak women, too weak to even kill a chicken. They couldn't defeat any martial arts expert. The guards in the mansion were even less reliable; they only patrolled the main house in the front, and no one cared about the fate of their backyard.

Jiang Qiqi understood Xiang'er's concerns, but she didn't hesitate: "It's alright, bring him in." Clearly, having a dead body in the courtyard seemed to cause more trouble.

"Yes, Miss." Xiang'er hesitated for a moment, but still did as her young mistress said.

After settling in, Xiang'er brought out the medicine box that was kept at home. Fortunately, Jiang Qiqi was usually in poor health, so there was a variety of medicines in it.

Under Jiang Qiqi's guidance, Xiang'er took off the injured woman's clothes: "Miss, she's a woman."

A female flower thief? That's quite novel.

Just by feeling her pulse, Jiang Qiqi couldn't tell how serious her injuries were.

The man in black had two deep knife wounds on his back, countless wounds of varying sizes on his arms, and an arrow wound on his right thigh. The wound from that arrow wound had turned black and festered, clearly a sign of poisoning.

To be able to escape with such injuries, and only be unconscious, Jiang Qiqi couldn't help but marvel at how this person's defenses were maxed out.

Following instructions, Xiang'er found a small jar, put a match inside, and applied it to the wound, miraculously drawing out the poisonous blood. After repeating this several times, normal red blood began to flow from the wound.

"Miss, you're so clever. I thought I was supposed to suck out the venom with my mouth." She had seen the doctor do just that when the young master was poisoned by snake venom.

Jiang Qiqi corrected her thinking: "Saving people should be done on the premise of ensuring your own safety. You haven't studied medicine, and it would be bad if you accidentally got poisoned while taking drugs. This method is troublesome, but it's safe."

Xiang'er replied on the surface, "I understand, Miss."

My inner thoughts: Is Miss worried about my safety? I'm so touched, she cares about me.

After absorbing the poison, Jiang Qiqi simply disinfected the knife with fire and began to dig out the dead flesh next to the arrow wound. Perhaps due to the intense pain, the injured person woke up.

"Don't move," Jiang Qiqi said. "The arrow you were shot with is poisoned. I'm treating your wound."

"Who are you?" the woman asked warily from her bed.

“A kind person,” Jiang Qiqi said, her hands still busy. “You were injured and fell into my yard, so we brought you back.”

The man was silent for a moment, then slowly said, "Thank you." He then tried to get up, saying, "I won't drag you down with me. I'm leaving now; there are people chasing me."

Jiang Qiqi pressed down on her shoulders and patted her twice to help her lie down.

"Stay here for a few days. It's safe here. I've cleared some of the poison from you, but it's not completely gone. Do you have internal energy? Seal the blood vessels around your legs to prevent it from flowing into your heart."

The person moved slightly, probably realizing that their physical condition was not good, and then agreed with Jiang Qiqi's words. They took a deep breath, tapped their fingers twice above the wound, and obediently lay back down.

"Thank you, miss." This time the tone was much more sincere.

Jiang Qiqi continued what she was doing: "If the dead flesh here isn't cleaned up quickly, it will rot and your injury won't heal. Just bear with it, the conditions here are limited."

"Okay." After saying that, the man silently tore off a piece of cloth from his clothes and put it in his mouth.

Jiang Qiqi sliced ​​through her flesh piece by piece, and you could feel her body tremble with each cut, but she kept her mouth tightly gripping the tattered cloth, without uttering a sound.

Xiang'er watched in terror. With each stroke of the red-hot knife, she felt her liver tremble. The chopped flesh was thrown into a tea tray, some black and some still with streaks of blood.

However, both of them were unusually calm during the surgery. Xiang'er wondered if she was acting strangely. Her mistress was in poor health and now she had to do this kind of work. How could she, as her maid, not be able to help at all?

Thinking this, Xiang'er picked up the handkerchief beside her and said, "Little Miss, let me help you wipe your sweat."

Jiang Qiqi: What's that noise? Bang bang bang?

Turning around, I saw Xiang'er trembling like a leaf.

...I almost forgot that this little girl has never seen anything like this before.

Jiang Qiqi considerately told her to leave: "Xiang'er, go to the kitchen and boil a kettle of water for me."

"Yes, Miss!" Xiang'er felt as if she had been granted a pardon, dropped her handkerchief, and ran out the door.

Jiang Qiqi glanced at the person on the bed. Her pale face was covered in sweat, her body was trembling slightly, and she was biting a rag in her mouth. When she made the cut, she would occasionally let out a muffled groan, but it was extremely quiet.

What a resolute woman. Jiang Qiqi felt a surge of admiration and quickened her pace.

After treating the arrow wound on the leg, there were also wounds on the back and arms. Xiang'er treated these wounds, but her technique was so clumsy that the final result was that the other person was almost wrapped up like a mummy.

After all the bandaging was finished, Xiang'er went to the kitchen to cook some porridge to nourish the young lady who had been busy all night.

Jiang Qiqi looked at the mummy lying on the bed: "Who do you want to assassinate?"

The man paused for a moment, then looked at her again with wary eyes: "You really didn't want to save me. No one commanded me; this was all my plan. Do with me as you please."

She tilted her head back, looking completely resigned to her fate.

Jiang Qiqi laughed: "If I wanted to kill you, why would I save you?"

She took a sip of tea. "If I wanted you to talk, I would have a thousand ways, but I'm just chatting with you casually now, so you don't need to be too nervous."

This kid has put all their points into defense, right? They didn't leave any for intelligence.

The person on the bed paused for a moment, then realized that what she said seemed to make sense: "But who exactly are you? Why did you save me? How did you know I was going to assassinate someone?"