Through it all (a ten miles of peach blossoms fan fiction)

Chapter 18

"No, you can't go there" Ye Hua said as he angrily paced the bedroom in Peach palace.

"I want to" Bai Qian replied stubbornly from her perch on the bed. She hated being yelled at especially when the yell sounded more like a calm statement of fact.

"The last time you went ..."

"That is why I'm asking you to go with me" She interrupted, she knew where that sentence was going.

"No." He replied.

"It's just a hall, Ye Hua. I don't want a hall to have power over me"

"I won't let you!" He replied, his voice getting higher with each word.

"Ye Hua, be reasonable. I've lived in Xiwu for almost a year, I can't avoid the hall of beautiful youth forever."

"Yes you can" He replied then walked back to her, took her hands and quietly said "I'll burn down the hall if you go near it" before kissing her and leaving.

Bai Qian started to call out to him but he'd disappeared, without eating his breakfast. It was supposed to be a quiet day, the one day  he spent in seclusion every week to cultivate, she'd selected today to ask because he was more agreeable on the days he was cultivating. She sighed and picked up the food from the tray, she hadn't expected him to respond so violently to the idea of her going to the hall of beautiful youth but she was determined and she knew how to convince Ye Hua.

Nai Nai brought A Li in a few minutes later, as she was finishing up Ye Hua's breakfast. Putting the argument out of her mind, she hugged her son and they decided what they wanted to do for the day. She was reading with A Li when she was hit by a wave of dizziness and an unnatural desire to sleep, she shook her head vigorously and asked Nai Nai for a cup of tea. She felt the weight on her mind increase and fought against it; realizing she wasn't going to win she called out for Ye Hua as the cup slipped from her hand and she crumbled to the floor.

Ye Hua had been too angry to go into his seclusion room so he had gone to Zichen hall to calm himself down. That was where a hysterical Nai Nai and a wailing A-Li found him, the only thing that stopped him from running to Peach palace was A-Li, he sent the little boy to sleep with a quick spell, handed him over to Jia Yun and cloud jumped with Tian Shu and the still hysterical maid.

Bai Qian looked like she was sleeping when they got there. Ye Hua picked her up and laid her on the bed before seating beside her. He held her hand while Nai Nai explained the situation.

"Qian Qian doesn't eat much, she probably just fainted"

"Your majesty, she ate your breakfast." the maid cried

Ye Hua looked up sharply, it was well known in the nine heavens that he was in seclusion every seventh day. Alarm bells went off in his head, someone was trying to hurt him and he let them get Qian Qian. Again. He hoped whatever was in the food was not deadly as they waited for the medicine king.

He was going to make sure whoever was behind this paid. His mind began to spin as a strategy began to form. If there was something in the meal and it had been meant for him, there might be a trap in the seclusion room or in Zichen. He sent Tian Shu off alone to look throuhg both places as the medicine king came into the hall. Wanting some peace to think so he put Nai Nai to sleep, set up a privacy barrier around the hall and cast an illusion spell to mask the hall. He sent Jia Yun to fetch his third uncle and waited for Tian Shu.

"Your majesty, she's sleeping. She must have eaten a sleeping potion" The medicine king  said

"Can you wake her up?" Ye Hua asked

"A sobering bath will help but she will have to sleep through it. Luckily she is very strong and her cultivation is burning through the poison faster than others would have"