MY PRINCE HUSBAND HAS SEVEN WIVES AND I AM HIS FAVOURITE!
Chapter 206: Something out of a dream

Chapter 206: Something out of a dream

The only thing in Hua Jing’s mind as she stepped into the wild field was a single thought: I need that antidote.

Everything else—her aching limbs, the hour of the day, the weight of the world—faded behind the sharp, unshakable urgency pounding inside her.

Zhao Yan needs me.

It didn’t matter that noon had passed.

It didn’t matter that her body still bore the exhaustion of days without sleep.

It didn’t even matter that she had no idea what the hell a Blackroot Lotus even looked like.

The old man had pointed down the slope, past the stream and into the trees.

So she went.

The field stretched like a sea of chaos. Grass up to her knees. Thornbushes snaking around every step. Plants in every shade of green and brown tangled together like they were in battle. The sun above had begun its slow descent, washing everything in a warm, golden haze.

Still, she searched.

Hua Jing pushed branches aside, got her sleeve caught on a thorn, yanked it free, stepped into a mud puddle, and still searched.

Nothing looked remotely like a "lotus."

She squatted beside one suspiciously lumpy plant and sniffed it.

Instant regret.

It smelled like something had died and come back to life only to die again.

Definitely not it.

She grumbled under her breath. "That old man sent me to die."

Her hair was sticking to her cheeks again, her brows furrowed so deep they could hold a river.

"First he insults me, then he makes me nearly pass out, then—then—this! What kind of evil herbal master sends a half-dead girl into the woods on a scavenger hunt for something he could probably pick himself?"

She kicked a stone. It bounced harmlessly into the grass.

She kept muttering as she marched. "Stupid old goat. Wrinkled windbag. If I ever make it back to the palace, I’m going to tell Zhao Yan to exile him. Straight to the farthest, coldest mountains. No tea. No herbs. Just goats."

A branch snapped behind her. She whirled around—nothing.

Just wind and leaves.

She walked faster.

"Pompous herb-hoarding lunatic. ’Let’s see what you’re made of,’ he says. I’ll show him what I’m made of. A thousand curses on his teapot. May all his stew be burnt and all his leaves be moldy!"

She was about to mutter another curse when a flicker of memory struck her like a whip.

Blackroot Lotus.

The words echoed from years ago.

A scene in a jungle. Her third drama role. A survival epic where she, playing the panicked noble lady, was lost in the woods with three other actors pretending to be desperate villagers. One extra had wandered off the set during filming and returned beaming, holding a strange, gnarled flower with black-purple veins running along the stem and leaf.

He’d called it Blackroot Lotus.

They’d all thought he was crazy.

Until the prop director chased him around the set yelling that he’d picked a real rare herb.

Her breath caught.

She spun around and looked more carefully now. Slower.

She moved plants aside, gently now, scanning the shapes, the veins, the colors.

And then—she saw it.

Half-buried in the soil beneath an overhang, its flower closed for the evening, but unmistakable.

"Yes!" she gasped, dropping to her knees.

With delicate hands, she pulled the root free. It resisted, clinging tightly to the earth, but she tugged, twisted, and finally—pop!—it came loose, roots still intact.

She didn’t waste a second.

She turned and ran.

Her legs burned, but the energy from the acupuncture still pushed her forward. The sun was now brushing the tops of the trees with orange fire. Shadows lengthened.

And then she heard it—

Footsteps.

Not one. Not two.

Multiple.

Crunching on the dry leaves behind her. Heavy, deliberate.

Her breath caught. Oh no.

She didn’t wait to see who it was.

She ran.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she climbed the hill, vaulting over roots and ducking under low-hanging branches. Her fingers gripped the lotus tight. She didn’t stop.

By the time she reached the top, her chest was heaving and her arms were trembling.

"Old man!" she gasped. "I found it!"

Gu Wei looked up from the pot he was stirring.

She shoved the plant at him. "Here. This is it. There are people coming. I heard them. Maybe four. They were climbing up the trail!"

He calmly took the plant and examined it.

"...Huh."

His brow lifted.

"You actually found it."

"I said I would!"

He turned the plant slowly in his hands, then looked at her—eyes narrow, face unreadable.

"Most people who come here wouldn’t know Blackroot if it was braided into their hair," he muttered. "And yet you..."

He didn’t finish the thought.

"I brought it," Hua Jing snapped. "Now where’s the antidote? And where is the prince?"

Gu Wei opened his mouth—but she silenced him with a glare.

"I don’t want riddles. I want answers."

He looked at her for a long moment. Then—

His head tilted.

His eyes shifted to the trees below the hill.

The sound of footsteps had grown louder. Closer.

Hua Jing turned slowly toward the trail.

Her heart was racing.

Fear coiled in her stomach like a cold rope—Is it Pei Rong’s men? Have they found me?

But then—

Another feeling rose beneath the fear.

Something deeper.

Something impossible to control.

A pull. A flicker.

Her chest tightened—not in fear.

In hope.

Something was coming.

Or someone.

And the one name in her heart echoed like thunder in her ears.

Zhao Yan.

The air was no longer moving.

Even the wind, which had teased the trees just moments ago, had fallen still.

Hua Jing stood at the edge of the hut, breath shallow, heart lodged somewhere between her ribs and her throat. Every part of her felt suspended—every sense sharpened and dulled at once.

She waited.

The old man, Gu Wei, still had that unreadable expression on his face. And he looked at her now with something almost amused... almost regretful.

He tilted his head to the side and said, softly, "You’re quite something."

That was all.

And yet the weight of it landed like thunder in her ears.

She blinked, confusion flickering across her face. "What...?"

Then—

A sound.

Footsteps.

Louder now.

She turned slowly, as if anything quicker would cause the moment to collapse.

From the steep hill’s edge, a head appeared.

Then a shoulder.

Then—

A figure.

Upright. Walking.

Solid.

Real.

And everything inside her broke.

The breath she hadn’t realized she was holding came out in a strangled sob. Her knees weakened. Her hands opened, letting everything fall—her blade, her pack, the roots still clutched in her fingers. It all hit the ground with a soft thud, forgotten in an instant.

Because there, climbing toward her, bathed in the warm gold of the setting sun—

Was him.

Zhao Yan.

Alive.

Walking.

Breathing.

His face was more gaunt, his skin slightly pale, but his eyes—those eyes—were sharp. Focused. Burning with the fire she remembered. The weight of a thousand burdens in a single stare.

He hadn’t seen her yet.

He was speaking quietly to the two men behind him—Wei Ling and Deng Mi. She recognized them, barely, their silhouettes familiar even in shadow.

She wanted to run.

Wanted to scream.

Wanted to cry and laugh and shout curses to the heavens for playing with her heart like this.

But her body would not move.

She could only stare—like a woman who had stumbled into a dream too delicate to touch.

Her vision blurred as tears spilled freely down her cheeks. She didn’t even try to stop them.

Her lips parted.

But no sound came out.

And then—

He stopped walking.

Zhao Yan’s body went still, mid-stride.

Something had shifted. His head turned slowly, like he’d felt something. Like a tether had tugged at the edge of his soul.

His eyes scanned the hilltop.

And when they met hers—

He froze.

The words he’d been speaking caught in his throat.

Wei Ling, at his side, stopped short. Deng Mi’s brow furrowed slightly.

There was silence among them.

And then Zhao Yan’s voice, soft as wind over water, broke the stillness:

"...Hua Jing?"

He said it like a prayer.

Like the name itself hurt to speak.

She could see the disbelief in his face. The ache. The exhaustion. And the hope that bloomed, raw and unguarded, in his eyes as he looked at her.

Her lips trembled.

"I thought you were dead," she whispered, voice cracking.

He stepped forward.

Only one step.

And that one step shattered something between them.

She ran.

The exhaustion, the dizziness, the cold—all forgotten.

Her feet moved like she’d been set free from a cage. The earth was soft beneath her, her hair flying around her shoulders as she sprinted the few steps down the slope.

She still could not believe this was real and only when she got closer could she get the closure she so needed

This was like something out of a dream

"Zhao Yan—!"