Chapter 243: The Fall into the Lake
This novel is translated and hosted on BCatranslation
“Quick! Go to the lake! Find him, hurry!” Madam Xu screamed, her voice trembling uncontrollably. She could barely stand, shaking violently as she led a group to search by the lake.
“Yan Shu, Yan Shu…” Madam Xu cried desperately, calling out as they looked.
Jiang Yun Jin felt a chilling cold seep into her bones. She was frozen with fear. “Where is my second brother? Where is he? Tell me! Why are you just crying?!” Little Lu Zheng Yue, barely a few years old, wailed for his brother, his voice full of desperate longing.
Jiang Yun Jin was trembling all over, the terror in Madam Xu’s eyes flashing through her mind repeatedly.
“Young Master!” Suddenly, a heart-wrenching cry echoed from ahead. “The Young Master is in the lake! The Young Master is in the lake!” A maid pointed, sobbing, towards the water.
On the calm surface of the lake, a figure floated, its outline stark against the water.
Madam Xu only glanced at it once. Her blood surged to her head, making her whole body go limp. She couldn’t utter a word, only managing a pitiful wail as she crawled forward, appearing almost insane.
When Lu Yan Shu was pulled from the water, his breath was faint, his skin pale. His swollen belly lay on the ground, face ashen, with a grotesque wound on his forehead.
Jiang Yun Jin hesitated. She hadn’t seen the wound on Lu Yan Shu’s head when she left. He must have hit his head when he pushed her to safety.
Jiang Yun Jin’s fear deepened. Madam Xu, usually a dignified noblewoman, was now utterly undone. “Save Yan Shu, save Yan Shu, where is the doctor…” she sobbed, frantic with worry. The usually composed Madam Xu was now almost losing her mind.
“He’s not breathing…” a servant checked Lu Yan Shu’s pulse, then fell to his knees, crying. “The Young Master was reading somewhere, definitely not by the lake. He was at the stone table in the woods! I only left for the time it takes to burn an incense stick! How did he fall into the water?” Lu Yan Shu’s personal servant cried out.
“Miss Jiang, why are you also wet?” someone asked immediately.
Jiang Yun Jin shook with fear. [Lu Yan Shu is dead, Lu Yan Shu is dead…]
“There are signs of a struggle by the lake, and there’s a handkerchief in the water. It seems…” a guard inspected the scene and looked at Jiang Yun Jin.
“It looks like someone fell in, and Young Master Lu tried to save them.”
Upon hearing this, Jiang Yun Jin nearly jumped. “I didn’t, I didn’t!”
The boy she had once been proud of was now a burden. “Then why do you have moss on you? Why is there lakeweed in your hair? Why is your handkerchief in the water?” Lu Zheng Yue cried, his small voice filled with anger and grief. “My brother, my brother saved you!”
“He saved you, why didn’t you call for help? Why did you hide?” Lu Zheng Yue, mad with grief, ran at her, a small whirlwind of fury. He was only a few years younger, but his anger gave him the strength to pin her down and hit her.
Jiang Yun Jin burst into tears. “I was just too scared, I was just too scared…”
“I didn’t want to hurt him, I was just too scared…” she sobbed, terrified.
He was her fiancé, the pride of her life. He was a prodigy, the pride of the capital. She didn’t want to hurt him. But he sank into the water and died, and she couldn’t bear the blame.
Jiang Yun Jin’s mother hurriedly pulled Lu Zheng Yue away. Madam Xu, pale-faced, held her son close, trembling. “Quick, quick, hold Yan Shu upside down, get the water out…”
“Press his stomach, make him vomit the water…”
“Please, save my son. My Yan Shu… He’s a good boy, kind and gentle. He’s still a child, his life hasn’t even started…” Madam Xu was sobbing.
Servants took turns holding Lu Yan Shu, shaking and running with him, one after another, until they were exhausted and collapsed. When the royal doctor arrived, Lu Yan Shu was blue-faced and not breathing. The doctor, full of regret, sighed, “The Young Master has no pulse or breath.”
“If you had been a bit earlier, he might have been saved,” he added with a sigh.
Jiang Yun Jin, eyes red, stared at the doctor. [Earlier… just a bit earlier?] She looked at Lu Yan Shu in panic. [He… he…]
“Why didn’t you call for help? He saved you, why didn’t you call for help?” Lu Zheng Yue’s small voice was filled with heartbreak. “You said one word, just one word, and he wouldn’t have died…”
“I want my brother, give me back my brother…”
“He risked his life to save you, why were you so heartless? Just because you were scared, did it have to cost him his life? He saved you, how could you do this?” Lu Zheng Yue sat on the ground, murmuring to himself.
Jiang Yun Jin hid behind her mother, looking at everything with terror. Moments ago, Lu Yan Shu wasn’t dead…
She cried silently. She was just too scared…
Jiang Yun Jin looked at everything in front of her in panic, not daring to meet Madam Xu’s eyes. Madam Xu, who had no daughter of her own, had treated her so well…
Well enough that she couldn’t face her anymore.
Countless guards took turns trying to save Lu Yan Shu. Madam Xu had cried until her voice was hoarse, her eyes vacant, kneeling on the ground.
Water kept coming out of his mouth, but he didn’t wake up.
Madam Xu knelt on the ground, hands clasped, her shoulders trembling, eyes filled with tears. “Please, gods above, please save my son. I will give anything in return.”
“He is not yet ten years old, his life has barely begun. I will trade my life for his.”
“I will trade my next life, and the life after that, to be a servant, or fall into the animal realm, in exchange for Yan Shu’s safety.”
“Please, gods above, he is a kind-hearted boy. He saved someone, he shouldn’t end up like this,” Madam Xu pleaded through her sobs.
“Please, save Yan Shu. I don’t want anything else. Just let him be safe and healthy…”
“Please…”
“Save Yan Shu.”
“Please, save Yan Shu…”
This novel is translated and hosted on BCatranslation
She kept bowing, the jade pendant in her hands clinking against the ground.
Suddenly, the wind picked up.
Jiang Yun Jin, tears blurring her vision, looked up at the sky. She seemed to see a golden light, or maybe it was nothing…
When she came to her senses, she heard a choking sound: “Cough, cough…”
“Cough, cough…”
Madam Xu, her forehead already bleeding from her bows, staggered towards Lu Yan Shu.
The servants laid him flat on the ground, and he coughed violently, spitting out more water.
Madam Xu cried and laughed, clasping her hands together in thanks. “Thank you, Buddha, thank you for your blessing…” She laughed and cried like a madwoman.
After his choking fit, Lu Yan Shu regained his pulse and breath, but he remained unconscious for three days. When he woke up, he only remembered pushing Jiang Yun Jin to safety, not the wound on his forehead.
He was paralyzed.
The once promising prodigy was now a helpless cripple.