Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Long-Distance Feeding the Convicted Official in the Imperial Prison

After that dramatic vow, Xie Yu Chuan heard no reply.

The silence gnawed at him.

Had he been rude? Had he crossed a line? Had he offended the deity with his reckless “serve for life” like an idiot who didn’t know how big the sky was?

No one had told him the Xie Clan’s household god was a woman. Her voice sounded young—calm, and faintly amused.

And of all people, he was the one who could hear her.

Lucky, yes.

Also terrifying.

He sat in the cold and tried not to spiral.

Upstairs, Tu Hua wasn’t thinking nearly that hard.

She leaned toward the stairwell and listened as the Xie family spoke in low, urgent voices about Qiu Suan fleeing to the palace.

First Madam Zhou sounded strained. “Yu Chuan is still in the imperial prison. I don’t know if his life is safe. He just came off the battlefield—he’s still badly injured.”

Old Madam Xie squeezed her hand. “He’s a blessed child. He’ll be fine.”

Tu Hua’s fingers paused above her phone.

Badly injured?

She typed, “Are you hurt?”

In the imperial prison, Xie Yu Chuan had been resting with his eyes closed. When the Household God’s voice brushed his ear again, joy flared so fast it almost hurt.

He tried to answer.

A cough tore out of him instead.

Blood splattered his hand.

His vision swam. He didn’t even manage to send a reply before his breath collapsed into ragged wheezing.

Tu Hua waited.

Nothing.

She stared at her screen. “Xie Yu Chuan? Hello? Did you pass out on me?”

The system cut in, brisk as ever. “Ward is burning with fever.”

Tu Hua sat up. “A fever?”

Battlefield to prison. Open wounds. Damp stone. No medicine. No rest.

In ancient times, a high fever wasn’t a sickness. It was a death sentence with paperwork.

She tore through her medicine box until she found fever reducers.

A blister pack. A small miracle.

“Okay,” she muttered. “I have meds. Now how do I throw them across a thousand years?”

The system answered like it had been waiting. “For small items, use Photo-Send. For larger items, use File-Transfer.”

Tu Hua exhaled, half laughing. “Of course that’s a thing.”

She grabbed a sheet of paper, popped tablets free, folded them into a neat packet, and set it on the desk. Then she grabbed a bottle of mineral water from the bar, twisted it open to break the seal, and screwed it back on.

She arranged both like she was staging evidence.

Then she asked, “So I take a photo and send it?”

System, unfazed: “Information will be delivered to the ward’s consciousness. Physical items will be delivered beside the ward.”

Tu Hua didn’t bother typing. She sent a voice message instead.

In the imperial prison, Xie Yu Chuan forced his breath steady and rasped into the air, “I… I’m fine.”

A moment later, her voice—clearer than before—rang softly by his ear.

“Xie Yu Chuan? I’m sending you medicine to reduce your fever. Take it soon, okay?”

His hand went cold.

Then his palm grew heavy.

Xie Yu Chuan looked down and froze.

A small white paper packet sat in his hand as if it had always been there.

He stared at it until his eyes stung.

All doubt evaporated.

This wasn’t madness.

This wasn’t coincidence.

The Xie family’s household god had truly appeared.

Tu Hua’s voice came again, practical as a nurse and twice as bossy. “Did you get it?”

His voice shook, low and hoarse. “I received it. It’s in my palm.”

Relief came out of Tu Hua sharper than she intended. “Good. Pills are in the paper. Water’s in the bottle. Twist the cap and take them. If the fever doesn’t break, you can take another dose every two to three hours—no more than two pills each time.”

Xie Yu Chuan swallowed hard. “Thank you for your mercy, deity.”

He waited, heart hammering, terrified the silence would return.

Instead, her voice came back—light, almost cheerful.

“No big deal. Taking care of you is what I should do.”

The heat behind his eyes shocked him more than the fever.

A grown man, in chains, nearly crying over medicine.

He opened the paper packet. Inside were tiny pills, bean-sized, more than a dozen.

He took two.

Then his gaze fell to the bottle by his leg.

A transparent vessel—slim, steady—filled with clean water without a speck of impurity.

He had never seen anything like it.

He twisted the cap.

It opened easily.

For a moment he forgot how to breathe.

He remembered the pills at the last second and swallowed them with two careful sips—because water like this was precious, and he wouldn’t waste a drop even when his throat burned.

Then, because he had apparently lost all dignity sometime around “miracles delivered to my hand,” he twisted the cap on and off three more times just to be sure it was real.

“This… is astonishing,” he murmured, holding the bottle like a treasure. “Perfect for marching.”

The imperial prison was cold and damp, but his heart burned hot.

He lay down with the bottle clutched to his chest and finally—finally—fell asleep.

He wasn’t alone anymore.

Not long after, outside the imperial prison, the sound of an imperial procession rolled in like thunder.

A jail official rushed to greet them. “This humble official bows before Your Majesty!”

“His Majesty will personally interrogate criminal official Xie Yu Chuan. Bring him out!” an imperial bodyguard snapped.

The torture chamber was lit too brightly.

A figure in bright yellow stood before the instruments, gaze falling on Xie Yu Chuan like he was a problem to be solved.

After a long silence, Emperor Long Qing spoke, voice low.

“I hear your Xie family deity has manifested. Tell me—how do you think I should deal with you?”

Bound to the rack, Xie Yu Chuan didn’t even lift his eyes.

He answered with a cold laugh.

What did it matter?

Whether the manifestation was real or not, the emperor wanted it destroyed. The divine seat in the Xie household was a thorn in the sovereign’s heart—left there, it would keep festering.

Even if he couldn’t kill the Xie family outright, he could break what held them up.

The sovereign’s gaze turned darker, colder.

Elsewhere, Tu Hua was already rummaging for more supplies—anti-inflammatories, wound ointment, anything she could spare. If he had injuries, infection was the next killer waiting in line.

She opened her phone to send another batch—

The option failed.

Tu Hua stared. “What?”

System answered immediately. “Ward Xie Yu Chuan is undergoing punishment and is unconscious. Supplies cannot be delivered.”

Tu Hua’s blood went cold.

“He’s being tortured again?”