Mu Xueshi fled with the silver coin almost as though he were escaping in defeat.
When he woke up, he found himself unexpectedly lying on the bed. Above him was a cute little face, looking at him with a serious expression. Mu Xueshi also felt that his wrist was being gripped by this little person, and every part of his body felt uncomfortable.
“What are you doing, Su Ying?” Mu Xueshi sat up.
Su Ying nodded solemnly and said loudly, “My medical skills are very brilliant. I brought Uncle Mu back from the dead.”
Mu Xueshi blinked, his face full of confusion.
Su Ying climbed onto Mu Xueshi’s lap, lifted Mu Xueshi’s arm with both hands, and raised it before Mu Xueshi’s eyes for him to see.
“Just now, I took Uncle Mu’s pulse. Uncle Mu had an incurable illness. Without me, Uncle Mu would never have woken up.”
Mu Xueshi laughed helplessly and immediately understood what Su Ying was talking about. Just now, he had been in such a hurry to switch into someone else’s body that he had forgotten his own body no longer had a soul inside it. Once he crossed into another person’s body, this body became nothing more than an empty shell of flesh, unable to wake up.
“Uncle Mu, is Su Ying amazing?” Su Ying hooked his arms around Mu Xueshi’s neck.
Mu Xueshi affectionately kissed Su Ying’s cheek and said with a smile, “Very amazing! How did Su Ying treat Uncle?”
Upon hearing Mu Xueshi’s question, Su Ying immediately climbed down from Mu Xueshi’s lap and began searching all over the bed and beneath it.
Mu Xueshi teased Su Ying, “Little imperial physician, how did you lose your treasure?”
Su Ying tilted his little head and huffed, indicating that he would definitely find it.
After a while, Su Ying’s little hand suddenly pinched an inconspicuous object on the bed. He held it up in front of Mu Xueshi and said, “Uncle Mu, look. It’s this.”
Once Mu Xueshi saw clearly what it was, he nearly fainted…
Su Ying even presented it to Mu Xueshi like a treasure. “Just poking with this needle alone doesn’t work. It has to be dipped in wine too. I’ve seen the imperial physicians in the palace do it. That’s how they treat people.”
Mu Xueshi looked at Su Ying with tears in his eyes and no tears to shed, then asked, “Where did you find this needle?”
Su Ying put his little hands behind his back and said loudly, “I’m not telling you.”
Mu Xueshi knew that if he kept pressing him, he would be the unlucky one, so he called outside.
“Qingya.”
Qingya pushed the door open and came in, smiling as she asked Mu Xueshi, “What instructions does Young Master Xue have?”
Mu Xueshi weakly raised his arm, pointed at Su Ying, and said, “Look at the needle in his hand and see where he found it.”
Upon hearing Mu Xueshi’s words, Su Ying ran off to another room in a flash. In her anxiety, Qingya chased after him, and soon a series of clattering sounds came from inside. It was unclear who had bumped into what.
“My Little Master, you mustn’t prick your hand.”
“All right, all right, this servant won’t look anymore. Little Master, please come out.”
“…”
After a while, Qingya came running out alone, panting as she said to Mu Xueshi, “This servant guesses… that is… that the Little Master stole it from the embroidery room. In such a large courtyard, only the embroidery room would have needles. The Little Master must have taken it from there.”
Mu Xueshi’s tears almost spilled from the corners of his eyes. The embroidery room… It couldn’t be a needle used for sewing shoe soles, could it? Mu Xueshi rolled up his sleeve and looked at the needle marks on it, feeling as though he could practically crawl inside them.
Retribution… Mu Xueshi let out a long sigh, then went off dejectedly to bathe, intending to wash himself clean from head to toe before secretly applying some medicine.
After dinner, Mu Xueshi sat alone beside the table, blankly thinking over everything that had happened that day. During the day, he had gone to the Grand Tutor’s Manor and seen that Wu Cai was already no longer human in appearance. He did not know how Wu Cai had gone mad. In the manor, the dead were dead and the mad were mad. How was he supposed to investigate this case?
At night, he had done something so foolish again. He did not know whether those two had mentioned what had happened earlier afterward. Judging by Yu’er’s appearance, he probably would not dare say anything again, right? Mu Xueshi then remembered how, after he had warned Yu’er not to refer to himself as Yu’er, Yu’er had kept trying to correct himself yet always slipped up unintentionally. He did not seem like someone scheming at all. The more Mu Xueshi thought about it, the more he regretted it…
Sigh… Mu Xueshi’s arm could no longer support his head, and he collapsed onto the table with a dispirited expression.
In a daze, Mu Xueshi seemed to hear the door open. He suddenly lifted his head and saw a familiar figure.
Although he had repeatedly warned himself to remain calm, Mu Xueshi still could not suppress the speed of his heartbeat.
“You… you’re back…”
The Third Prince said nothing and walked straight past Mu Xueshi toward the inner room.
Mu Xueshi felt uncertain. Like a little cat, he silently followed behind the Third Prince. When they reached the inner room, he served the Third Prince by helping him remove his outer robe, leaving only the stone-blue changshan beneath.
The Third Prince turned his head and saw Mu Xueshi’s jewel-like eyes staring straight at him. When Mu Xueshi realized the Third Prince was looking back at him, he quickly dodged his gaze and looked down at the floor.
“Today, how did your conversation with Noble Consort Yu go?” Mu Xueshi asked tentatively.
The Third Prince answered calmly, “Noble Consort Yu and I only discussed affairs of state. We did not speak of anything else.”
Mu Xueshi felt a little uncomfortable again. He had clearly said so many stirring words there, yet the Third Prince had skipped over them all. He wondered whether, when the Third Prince had gone out alone in the past, he had done intimate things as well, only to hide them from him after returning.
“Really? You didn’t speak anything else at all?”
The Third Prince said calmly, “No.”
Mu Xueshi’s head grew hot. All the panic from earlier vanished, replaced by thick anger.
“Why are you lying to me?”
The Third Prince glanced sidelong at Mu Xueshi. “Where is this coming from?”
“I… I sent a servant over to eavesdrop. You clearly said I was stupid, and you were intimate with Noble Consort Yu. You… you didn’t refuse at all.”
“Is that so?” The Third Prince looked straight at Mu Xueshi.
A trace of grievance and unwillingness spilled from Mu Xueshi’s beautiful eyes. It was not that he truly cared about what the Third Prince had done earlier; what made him sad was the Third Prince’s attitude now.
Seeing Mu Xueshi’s little mouth pressed tightly together, his face full of jealousy, the Third Prince’s tone softened considerably.
“Whether you’re stupid or not, don’t you know that yourself?”
“Stop talking.” Mu Xueshi’s voice was trembling a little. “I know you’ve disliked me for a long time. I still have that much self-awareness.”
Helpless, the Third Prince pulled Mu Xueshi into his arms and rubbed his face as he asked, “Where did all that courage you had when you were seducing me just now go?”
Mu Xueshi froze, staring at the Third Prince with wide, frightened eyes.
“You…”
“What about me?”
Mu Xueshi’s tongue tangled as he said, “Since… when… when did you know… it was… it was me…?”
“From the moment you came over.”
“This…” Mu Xueshi instantly flushed bright red, his whole body like a ripe persimmon.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
The Third Prince raised an eyebrow, his gaze turning dangerous as he looked at Mu Xueshi. “I haven’t even questioned you about why you secretly tested me, yet you are questioning me first.”
Mu Xueshi pouted, stretched out his arm, and held it in front of the Third Prince with a pitiful expression. “Look, I was pricked like this. Are you still going to argue with me?”
The Third Prince looked utterly unmoved.
“I was humiliated by you into becoming someone both foolish and clumsy, and I suffered so much useless anger. Can’t you forgive me this once?”
The Third Prince gave Mu Xueshi a look of refusal.
Mu Xueshi buried himself miserably in the Third Prince’s arms and murmured, “Then what do you want me to do? You aren’t really going to throw me out, are you?”
The Third Prince stroked Mu Xueshi’s hair, his eyes filled with a deep smile.
“That, I won’t. You can make up for your mistake. If I am satisfied, naturally you can escape this disaster. If I am not satisfied, I will tell Noble Consort Yu what you did.”
“No!” Mu Xueshi abruptly lifted his head and looked at the Third Prince in terror. “If you tell him, I’ll lose so much face! Say it, how do I make up for it?”
The corners of the Third Prince’s lips curved proudly. “I was quite interested in those things you did to me tonight while in Yu’er’s body. Why don’t you do them again? I prefer watching you do it.”
What! He had to seduce him all over again? Mu Xueshi immediately cried out, “No, I won’t…”
“Then I will have the servants tell Noble Consort Yu what happened tonight.”
“Don’t, don’t tell him. I’ll try. I’ll try, all right… Wuwu… I knew you weren’t anything good, and sure enough, it’s true. Why… why am I so unlucky today…”
Futile Devices Scans 
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