Morning light seeped through the torn paper windows of the fishing village.
When Iris opened her eyes, a cold scent of sandalwood hit her first.
Prince Chen.
Mixed with bitter medicine.
Only then did she realize half her body was leaning into him, and her face was pressed hard against his right arm.
She looked up.
He was already awake.
Prince Chen sat against the headboard cushion.
The collar of his plain white robe was slightly open.
Bandage wrapped the skin near his collarbone.
Those peach-blossom eyes, usually both charming and lethal, held no smile now.
Only a controlled, almost cruel calm.
"Done using my arm as a pillow?"
His voice was hoarse.
Rough, like it had been ground over sand.
"Sorry."
Iris sat up fast.
She meant to apologize again.
Then Iris saw his right arm still held that stiff angle.
His fingertips had gone an unhealthy pale blue-white.
They trembled faintly.
"Your hand's numb?"
Iris reached out on instinct.
"Your blood vessels have been compressed too long."
"I can help you—"
The moment her fingers touched his skin, Prince Chen jerked his arm back.
Fast.
Too fast.
The movement was sharp, almost rigid.
"No need."
Two flat words.
He looked out the window and stopped looking at her.
"Ying Yi is outside."
Prince Chen braced a hand on the bed and stood.
The movement was slower than usual.
But that royal arrogance slid back onto him like armor.
"Change the dressing."
"Then pack up."
"We leave for the capital in fifteen minutes."
The room went quiet.
Prince Chen loosened his robe.
A strong chest came into view, marked with old scars.
He sat down on a stool.
His gaze stayed fixed forward, level and distant.
As if the person tending his wound wasn't Iris.
As if it were a medical tool with no feelings.
Iris tore off the old bandage.
The wound had begun to close.
Fresh pink tissue was growing.
Her fingertips brushed his skin again, unavoidable.
Before, he would've mocked her.
Or pinned her down with that aggressive stare.
Now he stayed silent.
"The wound's healing well," Iris said, forcing her tone steady.
"Take your medicine on time when you're back."
"And don't let it get wet."
"Mm."
Prince Chen answered once.
He stood and buttoned his robe again.
Slow.
Precise.
Elegant, and deliberately distant.
Iris felt that distance.
It sat wrong.
But she couldn't name why.
Fifteen minutes later.
When Iris stepped up into the carriage, her mind drifted for a heartbeat.
The tip of her shoe landed on an old patch of moss on the stone step.
Her foot slipped.
Her body tipped backward.
Right before she hit the ground, a cold, powerful hand shot out.
It locked around her waist.
Iris crashed into a chest wrapped in snow-white fabric.
Sandalwood rushed into her lungs.
Even through the thin cloth, she felt his muscles tighten in an instant.
Before she could steady herself, that hand released.
Too fast.
Like it had been burned.
Prince Chen didn't even look at her.
He brushed the hand that had caught her, casual and indifferent.
"If you can't even walk straight," he said, voice low and cold,
"stay here and fish."
Prince Chen boarded the carriage first.
His profile was cut from ice.
All business.
Not a trace of warmth.
The carriage didn't glide into the capital smoothly.
Less than ten li from the city gate, noise flipped the road on its back.
Gongs.
Cymbals.
And a kind of shrieking cry woven through it.
"My lord."
"It's the Hundred Gods Procession."
Ying Yi's voice carried a blunt disgust.
"Stop."
Prince Chen spoke suddenly.
He lifted the curtain and glanced outside.
"Get down."
Iris followed him off the carriage.
The scene hit like madness.
Cheap incense clogged the air.
A rotten stench curled beneath it.
Flags split the street into territories.
"Church of Eternal Life."
"Merciful Mother Sect."
"Thousand Hands Society," stamped with dense handprints.
Under every flag stood commoners with hollow eyes.
Hollow, and feverish.
At the roadside, an old man swung a wooden sword like a lunatic.
He sliced his own thigh until blood poured.
"With blood, I buy more years!"
The followers didn't help.
They rushed forward instead, fighting to smear that blood onto their foreheads.
Faces drunk on devotion.
"The Holy Child has descended!"
"Bless us!"
A ragged man shoved his skeletal little daughter toward a black-robed cultist.
The girl was seven or eight at most.
Fear filled her eyes.
She couldn't even cry.
The man clutched a talisman paper soaked in sweat.
He laughed like he'd lost his mind.
"I sell you and the whole family lives forever!"
"This is fortune!"
In the middle of the street, golden flower carriages rolled forward slowly.
Followers dropped to their knees like waves.
They kissed the mud crushed by the wheels.
Iris's gaze snapped to the lotus platform on the central carriage.
Three children sat there.
Six or seven.
Two girls, one boy.
They sat rigidly straight.
Their faces were coated in thick white powder.
Then a mechanical voice, silent for days, stabbed into her mind.
[Warning: Large-scale acute poisoning detected.]
[Target: Human sample (juvenile).]
[Toxins: Mercury, cinnabar, high-dose datura extract.]
The warning stayed cold.
Each line was a verdict.
This "miracle" was murder dressed in gold.
Iris's scalp tightened.
"That's acute heavy metal poisoning," Iris said, voice tight.
"Mercury's hitting the brain."
"They're dying."
She moved.
Prince Chen grabbed her wrist and yanked her back.
"Let go!"
"They're about to die!"
Iris snapped around, rage burning in her eyes.
"You're a prince."
"You're just standing here watching?"
"Are you going to save those 'golden children,'" Prince Chen said with a cold laugh,
"or the girl being sold by her own father?"
"Or will you tell a few thousand lunatics their gods are liars?"
His eyes were cruel with clarity.
"Do you think they'll thank you."
"Or burn you alive as an offering."
"Get in the carriage."
Prince Chen's voice went arctic.
His gaze turned away.
He didn't spare her another shred of warmth.
"I won't."
Iris tore free.
Doctor's instinct surged through her like fire.
So did something more basic.
Human instinct.
She lunged toward the children waiting to die on that carriage.
Before her foot could land, wind sliced past her ear.
Ying Yi appeared like a shadow with no light.
An arm locked around Iris's waist, brutal and unyielding.
She was lifted clean off the ground.
Dragged back into the carriage.
Iris fought hard.
Her nails scraped across Ying Yi's cold armor.
It didn't matter.
All she could do was watch that bloody spectacle shrink into a red dot.
Bang.
Iris was thrown onto the padded couch.
Her bones shook with the impact.
Before she could sit up, the carriage shot forward like an arrow.
It tore through the frenzy.
It shoved the gongs, the screams, and the sin outside the curtain.
"You're all sick!"
"You let people die!"
Iris shouted, eyes burning red.
Tears trembled at the edge, refusing to fall.
The carriage ran for a long time.
The silence inside turned grotesque.
Prince Chen kept reading case files.
Expression calm.
As if none of it had happened.
Iris sat in the corner with her eyes closed.
Neither spoke.
The air pressed down until it felt hard to breathe.
Only after she forced her emotions back into place did he close the file.
"This is the capital," Prince Chen said.
No rise.
No fall.
"No."
"This is Great Yan right now."
Iris opened her eyes slowly.
Confusion and anger tangled together.
"So what."
"You nobles."
"You officials."
You just watch the people suffer and do nothing?"
"Nothing?"
Prince Chen looked up.
Mockery curved at his mouth.
"If I told you the people feeding these cults…"
"are the very same people at the top."
What would you say then?"
Iris stared.
Shock cracked across her face.
"That's impossible…"
"Cults are everywhere in Great Yan now," he said, voice heavy.
"They drain the people dry."
"They bleed believers for money."
"They live in luxury."
"And they want immortality."
Prince Chen's gaze sharpened like a blade.
"Just now, there were at least thirty hidden watchers around us."
"You dared to rush in."
"You would've been shot to death instantly."
Iris went still.
Thirty.
That number crushed the heat of her fury into bone-deep cold.
Guilt surged so hard it stung.
She tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
So that violence wasn't cruelty.
It was saving her life.
"Do you know why I was assassinated and took an arrow?" Prince Chen asked.
His tone stayed flat.
The threat beneath it did not.
"Because I touched their slice of the cake."
Iris clenched her fist until her palm hurt.
That guilt made her nose sting.
She said nothing.
She only turned to the window.
For the first time, Iris understood.
This world was rotten to the core.
The carriage entered the capital.
"My lord."
"Su Residence."
Ying Yi's voice came from outside the curtain.
Prince Chen tossed a heavy pouch into Iris's lap.
"Take it."
"Go home."
"Stay put."
"Stop meddling."
His voice returned to its usual coldness.
"This money will cover you for a while."
"Eat."
"Drink."
"Have fun."
"Or start a small business."
Iris stiffened.
Disbelief flashed across her face.
"What are you saying."
"The job's done, so you're kicking me out."
"You think I'm useless now?"
Prince Chen's grip tightened around the folding fan.
"Following me is walking into death," he said, voice hard.
"You really don't know that?"
"You almost died back there."
He met Iris's eyes.
Fire.
Unyielding.
That hard mask on his face wavered for a split second.
"Don't look down on me."
Iris weighed the pouch in her hand.
Her tone turned cold.
"I'm taking this."
"Saving someone like you."
"This is my medical fee."
She straightened her spine.
That stubborn, ruthless edge flashed in her eyes.
"But I'm stepping into this mess."
No matter what."
"If you don't like it."
"I'll do it my own way."
"I'll examine bodies."
"I'll solve cases."
Iris looked at the pouch.
Then she smiled.
Not at the money.
At Prince Chen's eyes.
And in that moment, she understood why he'd been distant all morning.
It was protection.
Prince Chen watched her refuse to back down.
Something like satisfaction flickered through him.
He looked away.
He hid the curve that almost reached his mouth.
"Do what you want."
"But take care of yourself these next few days."
Prince Chen adjusted his sleeve.
That untouchable arrogance returned.
"If you die in the Su family before I summon you."
Don't expect me to collect your corpse."
He paused.
His voice sank lower.
"In a few days."
"I'll come pick you up."