Banter

Her words irritated the prince, but he still went on to explain what happened.

"So that's how it is. Well, he is a poison master after all. They should find out his whereabouts soon, then, they should just spy on him first, then let me go and have a talk with him."

The Crown prince had been listening to her, nodding at her words until the last part of the sentence, "You?"

Zhao Xing turned to him, "Well, if you send that silly brother of yours he'll probably blow everything up, I should go instead."

Did this lass underestimate his ninth brother? Zhang Zhengyang didn't care, "No, you're not going."

"But I think I'm the best candidate you have, see the old man is probably looking for his daughter...granddaughter or something, If I can kindly talk to him, he might help us, if we also promise to help him look for the girl he's searching for, what do you say?"

The Prince didn't bodge, still refusing her to go. "I won't be there, and we already agreed that you can't go out if I'm not watching you."

"....." "Then...then let that stinky brother of yours follow along, he's your brother, having him there is as good as having you there, no?"

"No." The Crown Prince said bluntly.

"Tch" Zhao Xing was annoyed. This was part of her task, she felt she had to be involved. If this world was watching her to make sure she helped the crown prince, wouldn't all the credit be taken away from her if someone else was to help bring the poison master back? All her hard work would be for nought.

In their dream! She wasn't going to let someone else take the credit. She'd find another way.

"The Emperor's birthday's coming up soon, be prepared since you'd be following me to the palace." Zhang Zhengyang said calling the girl out of her thoughts.

"Ah? When?"

"In a month."

"It's still a month away why tell me now?"

The Prince stared at her, "You're too silly, even if I told you, you wouldn't understand." The Emperor's birthday was no small matter, and one could use a few months or even a year, just preparing for gifts. She was asking such a silly question, was it that in her world they had no such thing, or was she just being the silly person she was.

"Tch, I won't argue with you, I have things to do, since you don't need me I'll be leaving." She said so and prepared to leave.

"You really lack the bearing and the elegance of a rich young, maybe I should really get someone to teach you etiquette." He said, as he dragged a book on the table to himself.

"Didn't you say I'm too silly? Give up then, that teacher would run away after a day spent with such a foolish student like myself." She threw these words as she walked away.

The prince chuckled at her words. Sometimes she made one think she was brainless, other times she would show how smart she was. It made one wonder what exactly was going on in her head, for it to work the way it did; on and off.

He looked at the scrolls the girl had intentionally left behind and smiled. He would no longer worry about giving her small tasks such as reading people's profiles and the likes. He thought maybe he should just let her tag along with him wherever he went and see if she does learn a thing or two. She didn't cause too much trouble, and knew how to act when they were outside. At least from the last time he took her to the tea house, she was really well behaved.

If Zhao Xing knew that she was inwardly being praised by the prince, her pride would have been flared. But at the moment she had other things to worry about.

As she walked out of the study, she had left those many heavy documents back, and felt her hands were free, she was happy, then she thought of the weird pictures that appeared in her mind before. She thought she was probably hallucinating. Thinking about this she tried to recall what those pictures were about. At that time they had been blurry, and didn't make sense at all.

As she tried to recall it, dizziness hit her and the headache of the previous morning came back. She stopped and held her head with one hand, she didn't want to recall anymore, but the more she tried to forget, the more the images imposed themselves becoming clearer and clearer. She saw a lot of thing; people she had never seen before, she saw fire, she saw people stealing doing a lot of bad things, she saw girls being kidnapped and even r*ped.

They were too much, and they all forced themselves into her brain. She couldn't move no matter how much she tried, the headache was unbearable, but her vision was clear, but it only saw those images. She thought it would go away after a while but it just kept on getting worse.

As she stood there without moving, the guards at the door to the study as well as servants that passed by, spotted her, with how weirdly she was acting, and couldn't help but come close.

"Grand Tutor? Grand Tutor?" A maid approached her and called out to her, but got no response. She noticed that the Grand tutor seemed to be in extreme pain, but didn't move, she proceeded to taping her to see if she would budge, to no avail, the scene scared her witless, she was at lost for words. She turned to the others present and calling, "Get a physician!"

The others hearing this also panicked.

The noise attracted the attention of the Crown Prince, but before he could get out of the study to see what happened, Xiao Chen, at the door reported. "Master something has happened to the Grand Tutor."

Hearing this, Zhang Zhengyang was surprised, she just left here not long ago and shouldn't have gone far, what could have happened to her along the way? He thought this but his feet had already rushed outside.

When he came out he saw the girl standing with her back facing him, nothing seemed to be wrong except the fact that she clutched her head tightly with a hand. Some of the female servants around her called out to her even taping her, but she still didn't budge.

He didn't dare waste time as he picked up his pace. Arriving he clutched both shoulders and lightly shook them.

"Grand Tutor!" He shouted, but there was no response, this made him panic. "Grand Tutor!" he turned to the servants around him. "Where's the physician?"

They were all suddenly in a panic, as people ran here and there. They all knew that the prince indulged on this woman that was titled 'Grand Tutor', placing great importance on her.

They had a feeling that if anything happened to her things wouldn't go well for them.

The prince held Zhao Xing close as he checked her temperature. It was normal. Her eyes were open, but unfocused. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth tightly shut, her other hand that wasn't clutching her head was tightly clenched. One would either feel she was dead, or suffering extreme pain.

The Crown Prince helped her close her eyes, and carried her to his study and placed her on a bed in the side room. He was at lost on what to do, he had never been in such a situation before, neither has he seen anyone with such symptoms before.

He called out to her a few times while hasting his people to quickly get the physician. It was at that moment he realized he didn't know her name, if he knew her name and called out to her, would she hear him?

The last time she had said she was surnamed Zhao, just like the Zhao household ancestral hall they had taken her from. So was it her real surname or not? He felt he was too incompetent. No matter what this little girl had been sent from her own world and had come all the way here to help him. He hadn't treated her so well and had called her useless, but she was still diligent and helped him anyway.

Even if she helped because she wanted her life to get back to normal, he could still feel how honest and kind she was, to the people around her, such a person that was most probably well-loved and spoilt at home, was brought here into his manor, his life that was full of ups and downs.

If anything happened to her today, he would really blame himself.

He stood there for a while watching her. Soon her maids, Nuo Nuo and Lan'er made it to the study side room.

"Crown prince." They both greeted. Their eyes drifted to the girl who lied on the bed with a painful expression on her face, and their hearts sank.

They had served her for almost a month now. In the manor, they were the closest to her, with her they had gossiped, laughed and played together, seeing her like this made their hearts very uncomfortable. Their real master was here, so they tried to maintain a calm expression.

The Crown Prince nodded, sitting on stool place beside the bed, he turned to them and asked in calm and soft tone, as if trying not to disturb Zhao Xing, "Did she ever complain about having headaches?"

The two firmly shook their heads, "Reporting to Master, Grand Tutor has never complained to us about having headaches or any other pains." Nuo Nuo said.

"Then did she eat anything weird or stay under the sun for a prolonged amount of time?"

"Master, Grand tutor has never liked being exposed to direct sunlight and always stayed under pavilions when she went outside. If she wanted to walk around she would rarely do so when the sun is high up. The Grand tutor doesn't like to walk too much either."

"Then tell me how she ended up like this?"

The two maids were at lost for words. They also wish they knew, they didn't want anything to happen to their cute master, who always made them laugh.

The Physician arrived at that moment, Zhang Zhengyang didn't question them anymore, and quietly waited for the physician to check her pulse.

"The young lady has been undergoing a lot of stress, causing her to be weak, and eventually breaking down, she is currently asleep..." The physician explained that she would be needing a lot of rest, and prescribed medicine for her to take.

Hearing it had been caused by stress, Zhang Zhengyang felt a pang of guilt in his heart. He thanked the physician and let Xiao Chen attend to him, he was prayed not to speak of the girl's existence to anyone.

The Prince waved his hands at the two maids that awaited his instructions, "You two come look after your mistress." He said as he stood up to leave, he took one more look at Zhao Xing, before leaving. "Take good care of her." He emphasized.