Reborn as the Henchman Who Protects the Villain novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Hairpin

With the captain, Shi Wen reaches the cupbearer's cell, knocks poisoned tea out of the jailer's hand, finds the antidote in her hairpin and frees her little brother. Elder Han Zhuo arrives and accuses him of being the poisoner.

Shi Wen had about as long as one lamp burned to persuade a man who had killed more people than he had met.

"She dies at midnight," he said.

"Does she," said the Lord.

"The Discipline Hall will find her with cut wrists and a note in her sleeve naming your steward.

Case closed. Nobody ever asks who gave her the cup."

"You say the hour very confidently."

"I know Elder Han. He tidies on the same night."

The Lord studied him over the steepled tips of his fingers.

"If she is dead when you arrive," he said, "you will be the one under the plum tree."

"If she's alive, can I have the tree for something else?"

"Captain."

The door opened at once, and a man stepped in who filled most of it.

He was the captain of the Black Cloaks, thirty-five and broad, with a scar across his chin.

He had the calm face of a man who had never been surprised.

"Sect Lord."

"Take this one to the Discipline cells. Use my token.

A poisoning in the hall is a guard matter, and the Captain may inspect any prison after one."

"That rule is two hundred years old," said the captain.

"Then it should be rested," said the Lord. "Go."

The walk to the Discipline Hall took a long while, through black corridors lit by red lanterns.

The captain said nothing for most of it.

"I'm to stand where you stand," he said finally. "The Lord's words."

"Does he often send you to stand next to people?" Shi Wen asked.

"Not people he wants alive."

"That's very reassuring," said Shi Wen.

"It was not meant to be."

The cell block was cold and wet and smelled of lamp oil, which made Shi Wen's skin crawl.

A jailer with a ring of keys was carrying a clay cup down the corridor.

He stopped when he saw the token and the captain.

"The Elder sent tea for the prisoner," he said. "To calm her."

Shi Wen put his face over the cup and breathed in.

Lamp oil, and under it a flat green bitterness that no tea had ever had.

"That's very kind of the Elder," he said. "Drink it."

"What?"

"Drink it. He sent it. It must be delicious."

The jailer's face did something complicated, and the captain took the cup out of his hand and poured it on the floor.

The stone hissed.

Nobody in the corridor said another word.

The cupbearer was sitting on the straw in the farthest cell with her arms around her knees.

She was twenty-three, small, and grey-faced, and the red smear was still on her cuff.

When she saw Shi Wen's black cloak she pressed herself into the wall.

"I didn't want to," she said before he could speak. "I swear on my mother. He has my brother."

"I know," said Shi Wen.

"Nobody knows."

"I do. Where is he?"

Her eyes came up, wide and wet, and fixed on his face.

"The lower cells. He's twelve. Elder Han said if the Lord drank and fell, we would both walk out the same night."

"Did he give you anything for after?"

"A pill." Her hand went to her hair.

"In the pin. I was to swallow it when the guards came, and sleep a day, and wake free."

She pulled out a plain silver hairpin and held it in both hands.

Shi Wen turned it under the lamp.

The end twisted off, and inside lay one small black pill sealed with a drop of red wax.

The wax carried a thumb-sized seal in the shape of a mountain, pressed by a ring.

Shi Wen had seen that ring at the banquet an hour ago.

"That's not a sleeping pill," he said. "It's the antidote. He gave you the antidote so you'd be alive to be blamed."

The cupbearer started to shake.

"Captain," said Shi Wen. "How fast can you get a twelve-year-old out of the lower cells?"

The captain looked at the hairpin, and then at the jailer, who had gone grey.

"One moment," he said.

He walked away down the corridor.

Shi Wen heard a heavy door open, and a short conversation in which only one man did any talking.

The cupbearer sat very still and whispered a rhyme to herself.

Shi Wen slid the hairpin into his boot and pressed the cuff of his cloak over it.

The captain came back with a sleepy boy over one shoulder, a blanket round his thin legs and a raw red mark on his wrist.

"Is he hurt?" said Shi Wen.

"Hungry. Cold. Alive."

The boy yawned and said, "Sister?" and the cupbearer made a sound that Shi Wen would hear for the rest of the night.

"Kitchen of the Black Cloaks," said the captain. "Nobody looks for a child among guards. Cook owes me a favor."

"Then take her too."

"I am taking both."

They had nearly reached the stairs when Shi Wen heard boots at the other end of the block.

Six pairs of them, quick and even.

In front walked a man in the grey robe of the Discipline Hall, with a ring on his thumb.

Han Zhuo's face was grieved.

He had been grieved at the banquet too.

"Captain," he said, with great courtesy. "Why is one of my prisoners in your arms?"

He glanced at the jailer on the floor, and at the boy on the captain's shoulder.

"And why is my lower cell empty?"

"The Lord's token," said the captain. "A poisoning is a guard matter."

"I know the rule. I wrote half of it."

Han Zhuo's eyes slid past him, rested on Shi Wen, and stayed.

"Third guard," said Han Zhuo. "I looked at you for a long time tonight."

"I'm flattered, Elder."

"You were the only man in that hall who moved before the cup was raised."

Shi Wen felt the hairpin press into his ankle.

"I tripped," he said.

"Three hundred witnesses watched you cross six steps at a run. You knew."

Han Zhuo's smile came, soft and sorrowful.

"Only one person in the valley could have known. Seize him. The poisoner is standing in my prison."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend