Mu Xueshi’s face blanched in shock. Forgetting everything else, he hurried forward to see what had happened.
But the Third Prince suddenly released a burst of inner force, striking Mu Xueshi and sending him flying backward until he crashed against the edge of the lake.
“What happened?” Mu Xueshi asked, his lips trembling.
Staggering in the water, he tried to swim toward the prince again. But when he caught sight of the prince’s face, he froze—the color of it was nearly identical to the purplish bruising that had spread across his own arm earlier.
It was the color of poisoning.
A thought struck Mu Xueshi like lightning. He stopped a few paces away and asked anxiously,
“Did you… absorb the poison from my body into your own?”
Although the Third Prince clearly felt unwell, he was far from death’s door. Hearing Mu Xueshi’s question, he struck the surface of the water heavily with his palm.
At once, a towering pillar of water surged upward from Lingzi Lake, rising like a wall and completely blocking Mu Xueshi’s view.
Mu Xueshi no longer cared about anything. He plunged straight through the watery barrier.
But by the time he emerged on the other side, the Third Prince had vanished.
Only the cold spray of water poured down over him, leaving him drenched like a soaked stray.
Through the roar of the falling water, Mu Xueshi thought he faintly heard the prince say one phrase—
“Utter wishful thinking.”
Then the curtain of water swallowed the sound.
Mu Xueshi stood alone in the lake, pale as a ghost, as if his soul had left his body.
Strangely, the pain throughout his body had completely disappeared.
When the poison had first erupted, he had hated the Second Prince with all his heart. The man had promised there would be no suffering—yet the agony had been so unbearable that Mu Xueshi had nearly wished for death.
But the moment he hated the Second Prince the most was not when the pain peaked.
It was when the Third Prince learned the truth and looked at him with that cold, distant gaze.
Mu Xueshi had never truly had a friend since childhood. He didn’t know what friendship was supposed to feel like. All he knew was that he had already grown unable to live without the Third Prince.
Though they had only spent half a month together, Mu Xueshi had already grown deeply attached to that life.
He had slept on soft mattresses for more than ten years without missing them once. Yet after merely a dozen days on a hard wooden bed, he had come to rely on it.
He needed companionship—like someone who had been deprived of oxygen for years suddenly breathing fresh air.
The Third Prince was not talkative, nor did he ever indulge in Mu Xueshi’s playful antics. Yet what the prince gave him was something Mu Xueshi had never received before.
When his birthday came in the past, not a single person around him had ever given him even a small card. Not even a simple blessing.
The Third Prince might be cold by nature, but whenever Mu Xueshi showed even the slightest discomfort, the prince would immediately summon the imperial physician.
Thinking of this, Mu Xueshi’s chest tightened unbearably.
On impulse, he climbed quickly out of the lake and rushed ashore, determined to find the prince.
Even if the Third Prince punished him, he would accept it willingly.
And if the prince truly had been gravely injured just now, Mu Xueshi would gladly bear those wounds himself again.
But the moment Mu Xueshi reached the shore, darkness suddenly swallowed his vision.
His head drooped heavily, and he collapsed.
Su Ruhan looked down at the breathtakingly beautiful face of the person in his arms and curled his lips into a faint smile.
Sure enough—the nose, the eyes… they resembled “that person” in his memory to some degree.
The Third Prince must have known he was nearby. Otherwise, how could he leave such a stunning beauty behind without concern?
With that thought, Su Ruhan tore a strip of silk from his sleeve and gently covered Mu Xueshi’s face.
Futile Devices Scans 
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