For the time she had endured, an hour approximately, the physician who came was yet another person who had no idea of what ailed the bedridden man. The newcomer almost diagnosed it as mental illness, unable to be cured. For those without a core, usually, when it wasn’t a flesh wound, it was a trouble with their mind. The young physician wasn’t experienced enough to know beyond that. However, looking at the crown princess’s expressionless face and glancing at her colleagues that were avoiding her gaze, she rather tactfully admitted,

“This humble one doesn’t have the ability.”

“… doesn’t have the ability” repeated Seyran softly after her, looking at the scene in front of her.

Yenaigai was struggling again, still very much unconscious but battling with Shen Ai who was restraining his feet and Zhang Bei who was restraining his hands.

Hearing the groans escaping the young man, the physician bowed her head deeper, seemingly wanting to let it disappear into her neck.

Even when coming, it had been difficult for her to approach this patient. He was tossing, turning, and when she heard that others had already given him sedative with no effect, she refrained from adding more, fearing the risk of creating another problem entirely.

Seyran retracted her gaze and looked at the woman clad in white and pale pink clothes. The others had white and pale red, white and pale blue, white and pale yellow. This woman was the only one who had white and pale pink clothes. There was, certainly, some kind of significance behind these colors. A significance Seyran absolutely didn’t care, for none of them had been able to satisfy her. However, this particular one had firstly acted with confidence, like she knew everything; she had pinched Yenaigai here and there, drew blood, all this just to say in the end that she didn’t have the ability.

“Making me wait for a full hour and when there, daring enough to not even have the ability.”

The physician shuddered, cold sweats forming down her back. Her colleagues had their faces lowered, not daring to even witness it. She hadn’t assisted in yesterday’s events but had been told about them. Concerning this crown princess, she didn’t really have an opinion and being just a mere physician, she never dared disrespect her better in life. That she came here one hour after the calling wasn’t her fault.

“…This one doesn’t dare make the crown princess wait… This humble one was restrained… this humble one … was assisting the head imperial physician... All the physicians have been ordered to stay there … consort Ling and consort Liu are sick… their states-”

But Seyran wasn’t listening anymore.

“All of them, isn’t it? Come-” she had ordered in a clear, rattling voice and the two people guarding the door entered. Yue Meili and Tian Gu. “Help to lift him.”

Thus, in as many sheets as possible, the debating Yenaigai was draped with difficulty by the four guards, for they were trying their utmost not to hurt him.

“Lead the way”.

The young physician was stunned for a moment, before her palms began sweating, thinking that maybe, she just put the head of physicians in a difficult situation. How could her days be any good from now on? But looking at this crown princess, the latter was far scarier. Without any other alternative, she was the first to advance while Seyran followed and the guards holding Yenaigai were behind.

If those people won’t come to her, Seyran didn’t mind going to them. Let’s just see what skills they had to be so prideful!

Before the other physicians who had failed to diagnose Yenaigai could breathe a sigh of relief, their hope of silent retreat was squashed.

“All of you, follow” had said the voice thick with iciness.

Shen Ai had turned her head to look at them as if asking if she should really dispatch one of her guards to have them obey. Holding the man in check wasn’t easy for the four guards, if one still had to go and personally make those physicians move, the task would be even harder. Who knew if by then, they wouldn’t add wounds on the already battered body of the patient? How then, would the strange crown princess react? Did they dare think this far?

The six scared women knew better than to test the captain’s patience, and with trembling hands and feet almost turned jelly from fright, they hung their heads low and followed.

Huang too, gently flapping its wings, silently following after them. It debated a little with itself before timidly perching itself on Seyran’s left shoulder. Its heart beat heavily for a time and when a minute passed with neither the woman flipping her hand to chase it away nor water coming out of nowhere to fling it aside; it let its whole weight on her shoulder, quite at ease. Ah, less movement was good, how tired its poor body was! Now what would be even more wonderful was if the outside would be less chilly. The sun was already high but it was still too cold for the bird. Ever since meeting that giant wolf it was like cold installed itself on its body, following everywhere it went. Why? why! Shouldn't that thing went away with such agonizing temperature? At that time it had tsked loudly in a dissatisfied manner when Seyran had fainted before disappearing only it knew where. It should really spare other people its discontentment! So many hours had passed yet it still had to cool down... wait, no... it still had to heat up!

***

Where they were now was actually the imperial’s health area. It was a grand yard that sheltered the sick members of the royal family. As such, the place was richly decorated and the right medicine and tools were almost never missing. The physicians there were the best of the country, carefully picked and selected by the head imperial physician herself. For the promising younger ones that she liked best and those that still needed learning, the lessons were almost always given by her –the head. Their talent, of course, was only for the imperial family to use, it could, however, be extended to those that said royal family bestowed its grace upon.

The area was divided into four departments. The flesh's department treated those without a core; it was specialized in treating flesh mostly but not only. Members of that department wore white and pink. The darker the shade, the higher the grade. The bones' department treated those with cores and without alike, specialized in bones injury. They wore white and red. The qi's department treated those with a core, specialized in ailment related to qi, their colors were white and blue. And finally, the poison's department treated mostly poison and had white and yellow colors. Each department had from six to eight members with at its head a chief department,  and her second.

There was also one who ordered all the four departments, the imperial head physician, the elder chief Yahui, clothed with white and black and her second, the chief in second Hua, .clothed with white and deep purple

The place was, indeed big yes, but almost never did the royal family come here to get treat. It was, most of the time, physicians that treated them in their royal courtyard. Exceptionally, if the patient was sick to the point where he needed to be isolated, or for whatever reason an imperial person decided to particularly make use of rooms here, were the usual circumstances that this health area welcomed its sick people. Mostly, it was a place where the physicians were further nurturing their knowledge, where they had the advanced tools and elements to practice, and experimented and where they brainstormed about difficult pathologies that they were handling at the moments, discussing different possible treatments for different sicknesses.

Even as rarely used as the beddings were, that didn’t change the fact that they were of the best qualities. Seyran, when she fainted the previous night, had been placed to the room at the Far East. The best of the best actually. It was a quiet place, isolated from others and under no specific department. That was the place where the imperial head physician herself treated her patients.

As they made their way over where everyone was supposedly assembled, they were greeted by the servants, who silently bowed their heads and made way.

The physicians' feet were quite heavy as they walked with dread. There wasn’t, even though the sun was already high in the sky, that thick –comforting- smell of herbal medicine that always lingered in the air of the place. No physician was experimenting, no one was fiddling with plants or blood, the novices ones weren’t scrambling here and there ordered around by their senior as usual. The long corridors were unusually silent as they passed them. Even the servants had nothing better to do than just stand there. The crown princess’s feet were without socks or shoes, not making much noise as they softly grazed the wooden floor. It was the crisp sound of her guards’ shoes reverberating in the silence that was further frightening, letting others know about their arrival.

***

“And now, did the sensation returned?” Asked the old voice of the head imperial physician, chief elder Yahui.

“Not at all” replied the husky voice of the bedridden man.

All physicians were in the Grand Room, even the different chiefs of departments. This room was actually where they usually had their monthly meeting. It was a vast place with a long table and many chairs around. But, the table with its chairs had been pushed a little further to make room for a bed that had been brought inside.

If one didn’t know one would think that some kind rare of extraordinary ailment preoccupied the man and an extraordinary medical treatment was being applied. Even the head physician was there when usually, she wouldn’t bother much about consorts, letting others tend to them. Besides the queen, who was the last patient that this imperial head physician went over to see? No one. The chief in second, Hua, was the one personally touching the man’s feet to see if he could feel; that actually was not an everyday occurrence.

The head of the imperial physician crouched down on consort Liu’s feet -the only living consort of the late queen Xian Xie.- seemingly to have a clearer look. The man came here since dark this morning when there were still only servants and some physicians on duty. However, no matter how much time passed, his problem found no solution, to the point where everyone was ordered to come and take a look. His feet, he had said, weren’t responding anymore. From his knees to his toes, he couldn’t move, having lost sensation there. He even had to be carried to come.

For everyone clear-headed enough, or a little more suspicious, this one obviously had nothing. What losing the sense of touch? Weren’t his toes, under so many stares, contracting themselves a little from time to time even though he was obviously fighting hard to have them stop doing so? Weren’t those same toes moving when one touched the inner foot with a feather? What the hell was he calling a strange reaction? As such, the chiefs departments and their seconds could only look at the scene in from of them with restrained patience. What else could they do, it was an order from the elder chief to have them gathered here. For others, even though they had their doubts, since the head imperial physician was here then the man was definitely sick! They had to observe and learn well from her, her method and her ways of doing things. 

Another man, consort Ling, seating by Liu’s head, was growing impatient now, as he crossed his hands over his chest. How long exactly were they supposed to continue to delay things, he asked himself, not for the first time? This one of Shanlin’s consorts had never been the most patient man; nevertheless, he was still the one who was always ready to obey. Having a core and not too bad at it for a man, he had quite the amount of pride. And so, when a servant came bearing the order from Shanlin to feign a sickness to have things being delayed here, he was quite miffed. Unable to refuse yet unable to execute. Where would he have the endurance to act to amuse others? Unwilling to ask help from the others, he rather had consort Liu’s one. Thus, he relayed the mission to Liu, to let him be the one. He may have never liked the man, but his acting was tolerable and at times, sounded genuine; that, he could give him.

Chief elder Yahui too, was growing bored of this. She looked towards the window to see how high the sun was in the sky and thought that she should maybe carry on a bit longer. Thus, she continued the charade of interrogating the bedridden patient.

For obvious reasons, when those two consorts who never as much as put feet in there came knocking, one could easily imagine the fishiness behind their intent. For chief elder Yahui, it had been all too evident. She was vaguely aware that it was all to refrain her from going to the crown princess’s side. However, the one those consorts were obeying was still the royal advisor. How could she just simply ignore that? It was a good thing that the second princess was a first-born, yet how many first born actually died from tragedy way back in history? Those kinds of things like the crown princess died from an illness; if every other member of the royal family said this, who would doubt? Power's struggles weren’t things one could simply meddle with, and while that was true, the reason why she played along was quite different. The old woman was actually boiling with anger. She was the head of this area, the respected Yahui, how dare that captain Shen Ai took her place of work and let that elder Jing treated her patient there, in her own reserved section. That was something her pride couldn’t easily take.

Between chief Yahui and elder Jing, there had always been a rivalry and while it was true that Yahui worked for the imperial family and elder Jing no, that was just because elder Jing had politely refused the previous queen appointment. Rumors outside had it that elder Jing was far better than anyone from the imperial physician, making Yahui want to tear something. With captain Shen’s move, was it that she thought this true?

“Are they still not back?” asked a soft voice of one of the physicians clad in white and pale pink. She was from the ‘flesh’ department and seeing as the heads were letting go of people by their age and experience, she should be the one to follow. But what to do, if six persons still hadn’t been able to save that man, how could she suddenly do the miracle?

“Shut up!” retorted another, not wanting to be disturbed, as she took in the different movements from second chief Hua, who was massaging the impaired feet. It wasn’t every day that they were permitted to learn under the head after all. While Hua was doing so, chief elder Yahui was asking the assistance what could have caused the problem from their opinion.

It was in this state of ideas exchanging that a servant came to interrupt.

Outside, another servant who had seen the crown princess’s party coming from afar had run to let the servant that had been by the door know. The latter had knocked on the door he was guarding, waited for the keys to be turned and relayed the information. He was then permitted to enter by the servant guarding the inside of the door, to once again, relay the same information directly to the head. Surprisingly, the head actually said,

“Keep the door locked. If she comes, let the princess know that this place might be dangerous and contagious, we all fear to be unable to contain the sudden disease if it was revealed to be severe.”

Many physicians’ mouths twitched at this blatant lie but who were they to talk? If others had the ability to slight the imperial family then they must seriously know what they were relying upon. Unrelated persons should just watch from afar! They could only sight in their hearts. When the fiery late queen’s mother was still alive, who would have been daring enough to slight anyone whose name started with Xian, let alone a grand-daughter?

The chief elder though was a little annoyed at this. She had whispered to those novices that they should take their time to heal that man but when the princess would be at the rope of her patience, they should treat him sincerely. Why was the crown princess here now?

How was she to know that from the very beginning, under the crown princess’s eyes, those people could only try their best without any falseness? Just who would have thought that their utmost was naught and they were completely unable to treat the person?

Either way, the servant’s heart was once again light without any burdens. With his ready-made reply, he returned to his place, waiting for the princess and her party to come, to relay that exact message with that exact same tone full of worry. But who knew that the moments these words left his mouth, the crown princess would unreasonably reply, without even properly looking at him,

“Break the door.” Saying so, she moved aside a little to have the task done.

“That…” stammered the man-servant, not knowing how to answer, exchanging worry glances with the other servant by his side. One had to remember that usually, the health center was a place where no one came in with weapons, how then, could it be dimmed alright to go around breaking doors? The chief elder had asked them to let the door closed, while the crown princess wanted them to open it. They were between a rock and a hard place.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

The guards, having heard the command, but as dumbfounded as those servants, could only glance at their captain. The other one frowned at them. What were they doing asking her the permission when the princess had already given an edict?

Tian Gu was fast to return to her senses, between them all, if one had to point to the one who would follow orders without batting an eye no matter the content, it would be her. Yenaigai was once again motionless, so holding him was easier on them. She let his feet’s area that she was holding, letting the other three adjusted their position to better hold him, then she proceeded by taking out her left sword.

The servants steeled their hearts and stood in place, deciding to obey their previous order no matter what.

“This servant pleads crown princess to think thrice… this place… is dangerous.”

“The crown princess’s body is of gold, how can we let her be affected? We plead crown princess to reconsider” joined the other, without faltering.

Tian Gu frowned. She was ordered to break the door, not hurt people. Shedding blood here was still forbidden.

“Move or die” came the emotionless voice of Seyran without mercy, like a death sentence, hanging in the air.

‘How deaf can you be?’ thought Huang. ‘She is very serious you know’ it advised, albeit in its heart.

The unsheathed blade glittered, reflecting the light as the guard’s stance holding it became decisive. The servants understood that the latter had every intention to move in order to kill them. Who would be foolish enough to resign his life just like this, to stay still for others to slay? As she moved her right foot to take support, they hurriedly moved aside and when the sword landed, the door burst opened in a shattering sound akin to thunder. The bewildered servants who had fallen flat on the ground had yet to return to reality, so fast had that been that it didn’t seem genuine at all. With stammering tongues and sweat-drenched backs, they kneeled to the crown princess’s suddenly dreadfully scary form, all the while alternating between apologizes and thanks for the princess’s belligerence to have spare their lives.

Seyran didn’t pay them any attention as she stared at the light wooden powder that was created from the commotion. Tian Gu moved and displaced some scattered debris with her feet, to let the crown princess pass. Bowing her head in respect while the other advanced past her.

The two wooden doors were sliced open and collapsed just like that, like a piece of cake. Just like that. If that sword had fallen on his body... Between the scattered messes, there were pieces with spots of red, and standing not far from those were the bleeding servants that were keeping the doors from inside. If he had kept on standing,.. the younger servant shuddered, not daring to pursue this line of thought and once again apologized to the crown princess. The crown princess’ personal guards were still the crown princess’s personal guards he thought. At another level entirely.

Scraps or the broken doors were lodged in the physicians that weren’t too far from them. The chief elder hadn’t thought it would be like this and before she thought deeply, the intruders were already inside the room.

The leading woman’s hair wasn’t trimmed, and, without any hair ornament, it was left to freely cascade down her back; her simple light blue clothes, the special clothes of the health center, were the ones that had been put on her after she collapsed, not indicating her rank at all. They were, even more, slightly wrinkled in some places. Yet there was nothing ordinary about her in any way. Her blue eyes contained iciness as she looked over the gathered people in the room; just standing there, one could really understand what it meant to have an imperial bearing when looking at her. Even clothed like a sick person without shoes and her hair down, with just a glance, she was able to let others felt what was called the royal pressure. A feeling that let others know when they should obey.

The people made room for her, as she advanced further into the room. The chief elder had already gotten up and followed others in bowing her head to salute. Consort Ling had stood up from his chair too to bow, only consort Liu was still bedridden.

“Your loyal subjects pay their respects to the crown princess. May crown princess lives a thousand years,” echoed throughout the room. They may not be sure about her identity since many couldn’t recognize her, but for certain, those were the symbols of the four principal clans on her guards’ clothes.

Now what? Many physicians asked themselves, stealing glancing at their chief elder. One ordered to have the door locked when hearing the other was coming. This should be considered as disrespecting ranks, right? Consequences should follow, right?

“Who is in charge?”

“It is this one,” answered the chief elder as she lifted her face, no anger or apprehension on it whatsoever, as though everything was quite normal. She let her eyes roamed behind Seyran to look at the novice physicians that were avoiding her gazes. Her face maintained a courteous smile as she politely reminded, “This place is still in an examination and we are still unable to decide if consort Liu should be isolated for further examination, to not let the disease spread.” She bowed, “begging princess to avoid the filthiness of this place.”

Seyran’s gaze surveyed the entire room. Ignoring the one who talked as though the other was but air, she asked instead.

“Are all the physicians there?”

“Yes” answered the chief elder her smile growing warmer as more anger formed in her. When was the last time that she was not given face at all? And in front of so many people.

Turning to the guards, the same crown princess said,

“Let him lie on the bed.”

The chief in second bowed and reminded,

“That… consort Liu is still…” he is still on the bed.

The other physicians, chiefs aside, didn’t have the rank high enough to talk as they wish in the princess’s presence and at this instance, they were quite pleased with the fact. Who wanted to be the one to annoy this person when her eyes were clearly promising murder?

Seyran looked at the supposedly bedridden man

“Out.” She had said in the deafening silence.

Consort Liu remained frozen on the spot, not knowing how to respond at that exact moment. It was Ling who, with all the respect he could muster given that he didn’t like humbling himself much, had replied for him.

“That, I’m afraid, brother Liu can’t get up. He can’t feel his feet anymore.”

Seyran’s gaze fleetly rested on the person’s exposed legs from knees to toes.

Thinking that he still had been someone who had weighed in this princess’s mother’s heart, Liu fast beating chest calmed down a little and he had a sorry smile on his face as he looked at her, expressing some polite apologizes for his state. Consort Liu used to be the late queen Xie’s consort after all. Just in consideration for her late mother, surely, she wouldn’t make things too difficult for him. That belief was also one of the reasons why he had accepted to play along with Ling’s idea.

How though, was Seyran supposed to remember things like those when her last ruthless life was still the fresher things in her memory?

“Break his legs,” had she said actually, instead of the awaited polite comforting words he had believed she would utter.

Was she serious, Liu thought, or was she waiting for him to move so that she would call off his bluff? Even if he didn’t have that much to remember about this person, at the very least, he knew that it was someone he had never slight or disrespect. Certainly, there should be no enmity. She was mainly trying to let the others clearly see the lie he was convinced, then, he shouldn’t move all the more, or else what face would he have left in front of all these novices?

Wasn’t it just too naïve of him to think like that? Would have said Huang to him had it heard his nonsense. The woman clearly didn’t have the patience to play along and refused to waste time. Instead of just moving him, she was breaking him, shouldn’t that open his eyes?

Liu had steeled his heart and refused to budge. He watched with weary eyes as Tian Gu, lift the sheath of her sword and aimed at his exposed legs. He blanched a little seeing that Seyran still hadn’t ordered the other to stop.

“I offend” had softly whispered the guard slamming the sheath on both feet. A loud crack resounded followed by the aged consort’s howls.

Ling had unconsciously taken a step back, his face white with disbelief.

‘Oh, now you feel!’ thought Huang with schadenfreude, flapping its wings. This little animal too wanted to have its human companion treated rapidly. That was a companion of misery that it had shared some days with after all. ‘Isn’t she kind, she actually healed you!’

“Again”

As soon as the words were said, the sentence was applied. The sheath was once again connected with the man’s genuinely impaired feet now, as he kept on crying and begging.

“Again”

Another crack and he fled from the bed with difficulty, landing painfully on the floor. The man could only cry helplessly, whimpering as no more strikes were applied. It didn’t bleed much externally, but who couldn’t see that the bones were thoroughly broken. He didn’t even have the force to cry anymore. There was no more masterly bearing in his appearance. Not that of the highly respected consort of the late queen anymore. Just a broken thing full of tears and snots. Having no core and being someone who had always had things going his way, when had he ever received this kind of treatment?

“Lead him out.”

Ling saw that this wasn’t going too well and had no intention of staying in the same place as this princess any longer. He bowed deeply and accepted the task, after all, he was the one who had brought Liu here.

Seyran had no intention of stopping him. With servants helping, both consorts were seeing out, and Seyran hadn’t cared to know who they were, to begin with.

The following silence was almost saying to the physicians, now you have no other patient to treat. What else can they do but obey?

Yenaigai was laid down on the bed, his feet and hands bound to its corners in case he struggled once again.

Shen Ai retrieved one of the room's chairs from a corner and put it near Seyran. She sat there, the captain stood behind her while the other guards took place in front of the broken door. Huang left his perch to fly and rested on one corner of the bed to look at the bedridden Yenaigai more closely.

As she swept a glance around the room, Yue Meili was quite delighted at the frightened sight of many of them actually. ‘Served them right’ she thought. Weren’t these physicians quite haughty usually, unwilling to even look at her wounds? Who ask them to fuss over it, just look and do a quick treat, no one had to know; but no, they just had to refuse, impolitely one should add, always emphasizing how their hands were to treat the royals only. Here, take a good look and deal with this royal for me to see!

As long as no disaster was befalling on her head, Yue Meili was quite happy.

Chief elder who had no control whatsoever of the situation anymore could only cough a little to regain a semblance of countenance and asked,

“What ailed him?”

The seated woman frostily replied,

“You ask me, who should I ask?”

That… to treat, she still had to know some of the circumstances but would the other cooperate? One of the physicians who followed Seyran went and softly whispered all that she knew to the head chief. The latter frowned.

“Is it that the person really had no core before?”

“I have no answer for that.”

“May we probe then?”

“He is here for that.”

Chief elder motioned with her head for the head of qi’s department. The woman clad in white and deep blue moved forward, and saluted the crown princess, before directing herself to the man on the bed. She exposed his wrist to the air and put two fingers on it, infusing qi and letting it ran inside his body with her eyes closed.

The physicians in the room were tense and filled with worry and fear. Those who had been injured had already wrapped their wounds with the clothes they had cut and were staying as far away as possible from that princess’s side. They weren’t those who angered her, why should they be those receiving the brunts.

The chief elder wanted to ease the tension a little and said,

“Crown princess should rest her worries. Whether with or without a core, we, the imperial physicians will treat this person to the best of our possibilities. Certainly, his days are still far from being numbered,”

With her talent, who was it that she would have difficulty to treat? The late queen’s grave wounds due to battle and others illnesses were all personally cured by her. What could ail this simple servant that she couldn’t treat? It was just that she didn’t want to lower herself to treat the person!

“Such a good, assured speech. In that case, another failure may not do.”

The person hadn’t look at her as she talked. Her gaze was still on the bed, watching as the qi’s department chief fiddle with the hand of her patient. In the end, was her sentence a threat or not? Chief elder Yahui wasn’t sure but chief in second Hua still took a step away from her superior.

The one who was examining Yenagai frowned a little. She first thought that when she would infuse her qi, his meridians would be atrophied, blocked, having never been put to use. But it actually wasn’t the case. Sure, it didn’t feel like his meridians were used in a long time but the passage was actually quite smooth. Letting her qi arrived towards his navel, below, where his core should be, she actually felt some resistance. Probing a little more, gently, she understood that it had actually been destroyed. She could only sigh. Damaging one’s core was done to make them suffer. It was usually applied to traitors of the country and was rarely treated afterward. This one though had had some treatments it seemed, for there were still some traces of that all around the dantian. But even so, there were also more recent damages on the core, one could only wonder how dreadful that pain had been from the little she could probe without hurting him. Let alone that they still didn’t know how to repair a cracked core, but for it to be damaged at this point…

She reported,

“He used to have a core… But it had been almost completely destroyed.”

As she was saying this, her fingers still blue with qi were still on the man’s wrist. As she kept on probing to judge the real extent of the damages, his eyes opened wide, completely white and he started struggling. The qi’s department chief retreated some steps, surprised. She was the ablest when it came to manipulating her qi in others’ body for medical use, he shouldn’t have felt anything!

The chief elder was still unfazed, for she had already expected this answer.

“May we check under his clothes?”

“He is here for that”, repeated Seyran still looking at the man.

The room wasn’t particularly cold, but heating tools had been ordered to be brought to the far corner of the room and unnecessary people had been chased away.

“Leave, all of you,” had said the chief elder. “That patient would be handled by the chief departments.” She was aware that the princess had brought him here for everyone with the ability to look, whether novice or seniors she didn’t care as long as they could heal him. But how could novice be of any use here, they were just sands in her eyes at the moment, fretting at this princess’s side and not even having a physician’s bearing.

Bowing their heads, said unnecessary people saluted the crown princess in a chorus, and left, heaving a deep sigh of relief to their chiefs’ annoyances.

In the fast warming room, Yenaigai’s clothes were once again peeled off, his wounds looked at. His physical wounds were obviously well treated, but upon close examination, the head could still say that even though those were knives ' wounds, there were indications that they had been visited by insects.

As she saw those people mimicked the others who had failed before, Seyran still maintained her expressionless face. However, this time, she refused to have any more objects inserted in him, let alone drew out his blood. For the poison’s department chief’s relief –as well as the others-, there was still a little vial containing some of his blood that her subordinate had drawn previously. And even though it wasn’t as plentiful as she’d like, she made do with it, using it with parsimony.

“Limit the tests to the more common insects” had advised the head.

The testing was done in the same room as well, on the big table that was around the corner. Seyran had her back to them, not supervising, her vision field never leaving the one on the bed. That lift some of the pressure the chiefs' department were feeling. After all, the ones whose stares weren’t leaving them were just captain Shen Ai, it was far more tolerable. In the meantime, the flesh’s and bones’ chiefs departments redid the bandages with all the care of the world, having inspected but found nothing worrying about his body. Bruises and cuts maybe, but no bone was broken, a little twisted at most, but had been taken care of too.

His white eyes with no sign of life were worrying though. He was once again motionless and if one didn’t see his chest slowly lift and fall, one would fear it was a corpse.

Sometime later, one of the tests reacted. The red ants’ poison. It wasn’t a deathly thing so the chief in charge could breathe in relief. That poison mostly caused some illusions for a couple of days and was eliminated by the metabolism. It was something that was habitually seen on small children for adult knew better than to play with these things. 'Was it that this small poison coupled with the broken core caused a bigger reaction?', discussed the chiefs. Would giving him the red ants’ antidote suffice? The core would still be broken but would he go back to normal?

“He is poisoned,” reported the chief elder.

As she thought again she said to herself, so what if she didn’t know. It was, in the end, just a servant, if he died then he died, but Seyran’s voice rang in her ears cutting those thoughts.

“Poison you say. Considering your high abilities, he must live of course. Else, what’s the point of having you around?” They made her wait, let them not regret their decision.

This time it was actually a clear, undisguised threat that they all understood. He lived or the head dies, or was it that they all die?

A little commotion had risen by the door. The royal advisor had come and asked to be permitted the entry. Chief elder had seen her coming and almost smiled at her sight, however, who would have thought that the three guards would stand still, not making room for her to pass?

“No one enters.” Had said Seyran when the other physicians left the room and since she didn’t specify an exception then, of course, no one enters meant that even the royal advisor had to stay outside.

Shanlin had rushed here after hearing the misfortune that befell consort Liu. If the man was still alive after her elder sister passed, that was of course, because they had a good relationship. Mistreating that person so, wasn’t this airhead of a princess afraid to anger her? But she couldn’t even see the person that she was already blocked at the entry. It would be unsightly to fight here. That aside, the other was still the crown princess. And so, boiling with ire, the royal advisor could only wait.

***

At the other side of the palace, the bearers of tradition weren’t idle enough to wait for anything and had taken things into their own hands. They had already sent a servant to request some experts to come and examine the corpse of the ‘crown princess’ while interrogating the Min family, and that small official who recognized Min Shan that night. Earlier, it had been reported to elder Shen that chief elder Yahui couldn’t come over, and the new leader of the bearers of tradition had brushed that fact aside. It wasn’t like elder Shen held that much trust in that person. If she didn't want to come, let it be.

While others, were doing the examination, elder Shen was personally present, in the mean time elders Yue and Tian were the ones personally interrogating the people.

When the bearers of tradition were acting by themselves instead of delegating one could only think that results would be fast to come.