The Poison Doctor's Unwanted Husband

The stench of blood was an insult to Jiang Wanzhou’s nostrils. It was a humid, suffocating night in the abandoned temple at the border of the Three Realms. The air smelled of rotting wood, damp earth, and the metallic tang of a recent m******e. Wanzhou stood in the center of the ruined hall, her snow-white robes untouched by the grime around her. She wore a veil of white silk over the lower half of her face, not to hide her identity, but because the dust in the air was utterly unacceptable. She was a walking contradiction. The world called her the Saint of Medicine, a legendary healer whose hands could pull souls back from the underworld. But beneath the pristine silk, veins of a deep, sinister purple crawled up her wrists, a constant reminder that she was also a dead woman walking. The Soul-Eroding Frost poison had been in her system for exactly three years. It was a slow, agonizing death, but Wanzhou had no intention of dying before she dragged the entire Imperial Court down to hell with her. She had a blood feud to settle, a chessboard to master, and absolutely zero time for nonsense. She was currently here to extract a rare, venomous herb from the temple's ruins to brew a temporary antidote. Instead, she found a man. Well, she found a problem sprawled across the shattered altar. The man was massive. Even lying in a pool of his own blood, his broad shoulders and muscular build were evident beneath the torn, luxurious silk of his dark robes. A golden jade crown, now cracked, had fallen beside him. He looked like a prince who had lost a very bad argument with a pack of wolves. Wanzhou’s eyes narrowed. She detested three things in this world: people who lacked seriousness, people who were noisy, and people who overestimated their abilities. The dying man slowly opened his eyes. They were bright, amber, and utterly devoid of the terror a dying man should feel. He blinked, stared at the pristine woman standing in the ruins like a ghost, and grinned. Blood stained his teeth. "Oh," he rasped, his voice a rich baritone. "An angel. Are you here to take me to the afterlife? Because I was hoping for a slightly warmer welcome." Wanzhou didn't blink. "You are bleeding on a 200-year-old lotus carving. Please move." The man—Lou Cheng, the infamous and wildly unpredictable Prince of the Northern Kingdom—blinked. He looked down at the stone beneath him, then back at her. His grin widened. "Forgive me, my lady. I didn't realize the floor had historical significance." He tried to shift, let out a sharp hiss of pain, and slumped back down. "Ah. It seems my legs have decided to take a leave of absence." Wanzhou sighed. It was a sound of profound, bone-deep annoyance. She took a step closer. Her boots didn't make a sound on the stone. She assessed him clinically. A stab wound to the abdomen, a poisoned blade—she could smell the Blood-Rot toxin from here—and several deep lacerations. "You're dying," she stated matter-of-factly. "The poison will reach your heart in a quarter of an hour. You have roughly ten minutes of consciousness left. Spend them quietly." She turned to walk away. She was a doctor, but she was not a charity. Every time she healed someone, she lost a bit of her own life force to the poison in her veins. She couldn't afford to save a stranger who had clearly offended someone very powerful. "Wait!" She stopped, her brow twitching. Noisy. "You're the Saint of Medicine, aren't you?" Lou Cheng called out, his voice laced with pain but stubbornly cheerful. "Jiang Wanzhou. The one who wears white, has a severe case of OCD, and hates everyone." Wanzhou slowly turned her head. "If you know my reputation, then you know I don't respond well to begging." "I'm not begging," Lou Cheng said, struggling to sit up. He leaned heavily against the altar, one hand pressed to his bleeding stomach, the other wiping the blood from his lips. "I am negotiating." "With what?" she asked. "Your life is forfeit. You have no gold, no men, and no leverage." Lou Cheng’s eyes sparkled. It was an infuriatingly handsome expression. "I have myself." Wanzhou stared at him. "I have no use for a corpse." "I'm not a corpse yet. I am Lou Cheng, the Ninth Prince of the North. I'm rich, I'm handsome, and I'm exceptionally good at killing people you don't like." He paused, wincing as he shifted his weight. "If you save me, my life is yours. You can use me as a shield, a sword, or..." He winked. "...a very devoted husband." The silence that followed was profound. Wanzhou felt a vein throb in her temple. Lacks seriousness. Check. Noisy. Check. Overestimates his abilities. Check. "You have three strikes against you," Wanzhou said coldly, reaching into her sleeve. "You are annoying, you are overly familiar, and you are a liability. I would rather let you rot." She pulled out a small porcelain bottle. Lou Cheng’s eyes tracked the bottle. "Is that the antidote? You changed your mind because of my irresistible charm, didn't you?" Wanzhou walked toward him, her steps slow and deliberate. She stopped just out of reach of his blood. "This is not an antidote. This is a highly concentrated compound of Senna leaf, Rhubarb, and a few... proprietary ingredients." Lou Cheng frowned. "What does that do?" "It will violently empty your bowels," Wanzhou said, her voice as flat as a frozen lake. "I call it the 'Cleansing Rain.' I am going to feed it to you. If you survive the poison, this will make you wish you hadn't. It is my way of telling you to leave me alone." She uncorked the bottle. The smell was pungent, herbal, and deeply unpleasant. Lou Cheng stared at the bottle. Then he looked at her. Then he looked at the massive stab wound in his stomach. "You," he said slowly, "are a very terrifying woman." "I prefer 'efficient,'" she replied. She expected him to flinch. To beg. To turn away in disgust. Instead, Lou Cheng laughed. A full, deep belly laugh that made him cough up blood. "You're magnificent," he gasped, his eyes shining. "Give it here. If I have to s**t my brains out to win a date with the Saint of Medicine, so be it." Wanzhou paused. Her hand, which was holding the bottle, hovered in mid-air. For the first time in a long time, she was slightly taken aback. The man was insane. Truly, deeply insane. "Why?" she asked, the question slipping out before she could stop it. "Why are you so desperate to live?" Lou Cheng’s smile softened. The manic, playful energy drained from his face, leaving behind a tired, raw honesty. "Because I have a debt to pay, too. And a kingdom to protect." It was the wrong thing to say to her. It struck too close to home. She didn't want to feel sympathy for him. Sympathy was a crack in her armor, and cracks could be exploited. She had a shadowy syndicate to dismantle and an Emperor to kill. She shoved the bottle into his hand. "Drink it. Then crawl out of here. If I see you again, I won't just make you sick. I'll make you a ghost." She turned on her heel and walked away, vanishing into the darkness of the night like a snowflake in a storm. For a moment, Lou Cheng sat alone in the ruined temple, the porcelain bottle heavy in his hand. He stared at the space she had just vacated. "Well," he muttered to himself, pressing the bottle to his lips, "she's definitely a morning person." He downed the laxative in one gulp. Three days later. The bustling city of Junlin. Jiang Wanzhou was buying medicinal herbs. She stood in the corner of the apothecary, carefully inspecting a bundle of rare ginseng. The merchant was sweating profusely, terrified by her cold aura and the sheer perfection of her white robes. She didn't touch anything directly; she used a pair of silver tweezers to examine the roots. "Excellent quality," she murmured. "I'll take two pounds." Just as she was paying, a commotion erupted outside. The sound of hooves, the clanking of armor, and the excited chatter of the crowd. "Make way! Make way for the Prince's Guard!" Wanzhou didn't even look up. The prince's guard. Which prince? She didn't care. Politics were a nasty business, and she preferred to stay entirely outside of them. She gathered her package and stepped out of the shop, her veil firmly in place. And then she froze. A massive, impeccably dressed man was sitting on a pristine white horse in the middle of the street. He looked healthy. He looked radiant. He looked... utterly shameless. Lou Cheng. He had found her. He was surrounded by a dozen heavily armored guards, all of whom looked like they could kill a man with a single punch. Lou Cheng caught sight of her snow-white figure standing in the doorway of the apothecary. His face lit up with a grin that could outshine the sun. He leaped off his horse with a theatrical flourish, his silk robes billowing behind him. "My savior!" he bellowed, loud enough for the entire street to hear. Wanzhou turned on her heel to walk away. In a blur of movement, Lou Cheng sprinted forward, his long legs eating up the distance between them. He dropped to one knee in the middle of the muddy street, blocking her path. The crowd gasped. The guards looked on in shock. "What are you doing?" Wanzhou hissed, her eyes flashing with cold fury. "Get up." "Not until you agree to my proposal!" Lou Cheng declared, looking up at her with an expression of pure, unadulterated adoration. He held a massive, ornate gold chest in his hands. He opened it. It was full of flawless, blood-red rubies, each the size of a pigeon's egg. "Jiang Wanzhou," Lou Cheng announced dramatically, his voice carrying over the murmuring crowd. "You saved my life. As per the ancient laws of the North, a life debt must be repaid with the greatest honor. Therefore, I, Lou Cheng, Ninth Prince of the Northern Kingdom, offer you my hand in marriage!" The silence was deafening. Wanzhou stared at the rubies. Then at the kneeling, grinning i***t. Then at the crowd of thousands of people who were watching them. "I saved you from a stab wound, not a dragon," she said through gritted teeth. "And I didn't save you. I gave you a laxative." Lou Cheng didn't flinch. "A magical laxative. It healed my soul. And my stomach." "I will kill you," Wanzhou whispered, the threat dripping with sincerity. Lou Cheng leaned forward, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Look, I know you're a busy woman with a blood-soaked revenge to execute. But you're currently being tracked by the Emperor's secret police, you have three assassins within a fifty-meter radius, and you look like you haven't eaten a proper meal in weeks." Wanzhou’s eyes widened slightly. She had been careful. How did he know? "The man in the blue robes," Lou Cheng said softly, pointing with his chin. "He's been following you since the apothecary. I can have my men tear him apart, or you can marry me, and I can legally declare war on anyone who looks at you wrong." Wanzhou felt a headache blooming behind her eyes. "I refuse," she said, stepping around him. Lou Cheng smoothly shifted his knee, blocking her again. "I'm a very rich prince. I have a private library full of ancient medical texts, a hot spring infused with healing herbs, and a kitchen that can make any cuisine you desire. Also, I don't snore." "I don't want a husband," Wanzhou said flatly. "I want you to disappear." "I can be very quiet," Lou Cheng offered. "I can just hover in the background. You won't even know I'm there." "You are six-foot-three and you were just screaming my name in the middle of a market." "I was expressing my devotion." "I will poison your tea." "I like tea." "I will put snakes in your bed." "I like snakes." Wanzhou closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to stop herself from committing a public murder. The Soul-Eroding Frost poison pulsed in her veins, a sharp reminder that she didn't have time for this. She didn't have time for a loud, reckless, ridiculously handsome prince who smelled of sandalwood and chaos. She had to find the cure. She had to kill the Minister of War. She had to protect the remnants of her fallen family. She didn't have the luxury of entanglements. Yet, as she looked down at the man kneeling in the dirt, his amber eyes filled with a strange, unwavering loyalty, she felt a flicker of something she hadn't felt in years. Annoyance. Yes, definitely just annoyance. She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a vial. "Fine. If you want to be my husband, prove you can survive being my husband." She tossed the vial. Lou Cheng caught it. "What's this? A love potion?" he asked, his grin returning. "Wolfsbane extract. It will paralyze your vocal cords for an hour," she said coldly, turning and walking away. "If you can't speak, I might actually be able to tolerate your presence." She expected him to be furious. She expected him to give up. But as she walked away, she heard the distinct pop of a cork, and the sound of him drinking the vial. "Delicious!" he yelled after her, his voice already starting to slur. "I'll see you at dinner, my love!" Wanzhou stopped. She turned around. Lou Cheng was still kneeling in the street, surrounded by his guards, grinning like an absolute fool. His voice was rapidly fading, but he was pointing at her, then pointing at his heart. She watched as his head drooped, the paralysis taking effect. Despite herself, the corner of her mouth twitched beneath her veil. He's an i***t, she thought. A complete and utter i***t. And yet, she found herself pausing. She found herself wondering what it would be like to have someone so fiercely devoted to her. No. It was a trap. It was a distraction. She turned away, forcing herself to walk faster, trying to leave the ridiculous prince behind. But as she disappeared into the crowded streets of Junlin, the image of his amber eyes and his foolish grin lingered in her mind like a stubborn stain.