The Third Prince’s brows drew together, and Mu Xueshi’s heart tightened with them.
“You revealed your identity?”
Mu Xueshi immediately waved both hands. “No! I… I wouldn’t dare!”
The Third Prince studied his panicked face, unable to understand why he was so nervous. He set down the book in his hand and asked calmly, “Then why did you go out?”
Mu Xueshi instantly pointed at the scroll in his hand. “Hey, what’s that? Let me see. Can I? I’m really interested…” His face even lit up with exaggerated excitement.
The Third Prince handed it over. Mu Xueshi blinked and pretended to read with great enthusiasm, when in reality his mind had gone completely blank and he had not taken in a single character.
“Found the punishment meant for you?” the Third Prince asked mockingly.
Mu Xueshi continued pretending to read with relish, nodding as he praised it. “Very good. Excellent writing. Great book!”
The Third Prince gave a cold snort, picked up the brush beside him, and used the handle to flip directly to the page containing the punishment for Mu Xueshi’s offense.
Mu Xueshi froze. Only then did he realize this scroll had been brought out specifically for him. He hurriedly widened his eyes and studied the few large characters on the page, reading them over and over. Many were unfamiliar, so he had to guess from the context and structure. Eventually, he worked out the gist of it: this page explained how liars were punished.
“Pulling out the tongue… splitting the lips… What does that mean? Don’t tell me…?” Mu Xueshi asked, stammering.
The Third Prince indicated the explanation below. Mu Xueshi had no idea why his reading comprehension had suddenly become so excellent, but this time he understood the entire passage. A liar’s tongue would be clamped with an instrument and pulled outward until it tore. For the other punishment, hooks would be fixed into both corners of the mouth and dragged to either side until the mouth stretched almost to the edges of the face, then held there for three days and three nights.
Mu Xueshi swallowed hard and instinctively touched the corners of his mouth, already imagining himself with a grotesque bloody grin. His reaction amused the Third Prince enormously. He had to admit that the darkness hanging over his mood since last night had been swept away.
“I’ll tell the truth. I did go out. I… went to the Second Prince’s residence to warn him.” Mu Xueshi’s face had gone paper-white, and he had already dropped to his knees.
“Warn him about what?”
At this point, Mu Xueshi had abandoned any hope of bluffing his way through. He might as well confess. Besides, no matter how badly this body ended up mutilated, it was not really his face anyway.
“I wanted the Second Prince to be careful and keep a close watch on Su Ying, so nothing bad would happen to him…”
The small amount of good humor the Third Prince had just recovered vanished instantly. Angry though he was, he did not immediately move to punish Mu Xueshi. Instead, he asked coldly, “How did you know Su Ying was the Second Prince’s son?”
“I…” Mu Xueshi almost claimed that his memories had returned, but then the Third Prince might start asking about other things. He had no choice but to tell the truth from beginning to end.
“That day when you went out, I went through every book in here that I could understand because I wanted to learn more about this place. That’s how I accidentally knocked over the bookcase and then blamed it on one of the servants… I couldn’t sleep at all last night either. After you left, I searched through the books for a long time, and that’s how I found out that Su Ying and the Second Prince live in Yuanhui Palace…”
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