Leng Yue had been the one to press Emperor Ji into coming. How could she simply leave without having verified Feng Jiu’er’s identity?

She clenched her palm and at last forced down the fury burning in her chest.

“Fine!” she said coldly. “I will go out. But if you cannot heal my adoptive father, be prepared for me to tear this Tianji Hall apart.”

“Do you have that capability?” Feng Jiu smiled faintly — and truly, it was a smile of pure mockery.

“You—” Leng Yue genuinely wished she could rush forward and choke the life out of her. How dare she mock her for overreaching!

“If you want her to examine you, then go outside and wait. Stop making a commotion.” Emperor Ji’s patience had well and truly run out. Either she saw the physician or they left.

Leng Yue was dead-set on staying and yet insisted on quarreling with Feng Jiu — he had grown thoroughly exasperated with the whole affair.

Leng Yue knew her conduct today had been poor again. She had been controlling herself all along — it was just that, for reasons she could not explain, every time she saw Feng Jiu’er, she lost control.

That was right. She was Feng Jiu’er! Nothing in this world would make Leng Yue believe otherwise!

At last, Leng Yue withdrew from the room and pulled the consultation room door shut behind her.

Feng Jiu’s expression turned somewhat sober as she looked at Emperor Ji’s legs: “Sir, is it your legs you have come about?”

Emperor Ji was, in truth, still somewhat reluctant. He had no wish to display his most damaged and vulnerable aspect before another person.

He hesitated for a good while before, at last, he gave a nod.

“Then sir, please try not to move. I must first examine the tendons, sinews, and bones of your legs.”

Feng Jiu rolled up Emperor Ji’s trouser leg, and could still feel a subtle, involuntary resistance from him throughout.

This leg had been maintained in rather decent condition — not as well as the veiled consort’s, whose leg had been kept in better shape owing to the many attendants devoted entirely to her care. But Emperor Ji was different.

Emperor Ji had likely endured considerable hardship in his earlier years, and even more so in the early days when he was building the Heavenly Venerate Sect.

Feng Jiu had, at one time, held a measure of respect for this elder — that had been before Emperor Ji had aligned himself with Ye Luosha to have her killed.

As for the present, toward someone who was ever watchful for an opportunity to take her life, the fact that she had not already taken her revenge was already remarkable enough.

Now her fingers rested on Emperor Ji’s leg, following the lines of the muscle downward.

The reason she had said his leg was maintained well was that there was still muscle upon it that had not completely wasted away. He had clearly also had someone perform long-term massage and physical therapy.

As she examined him, her expression was utterly focused — careful, thorough, and exacting, without a trace of personal feeling.

After the muscle examination, her fingers moved across the meridian pathways where any remaining function might still exist. Following that, she probed with silver needles.

Emperor Ji had long since accepted the reality of his condition. His legs held not the faintest response.

Yet at the moment Feng Jiu’s silver needle entered the Foot Gate acupoint at his ankle, one of Emperor Ji’s toes seemed to give the slightest, most imperceptible twitch.

Just that one brief motion — so swift that Emperor Ji himself wondered if his senses had deceived him. But Feng Jiu had seen it clearly.

The meridians in his legs had not fully died. There was still… just the faintest, smallest possibility of recovery.

“Did you feel anything?” she asked in a flat, measured tone. Flatter than usual, and even carrying an undercurrent she herself had not consciously chosen — a thread of something veiled and enigmatic.

Emperor Ji had not noticed, because it was far too faint — entirely in keeping with the bearing of a physician who held no personal feeling toward her patient.

“Just now… there was what seemed like a small twitch.” His voice came out hoarsely, and only upon speaking did he realize that his own voice could sound so rough.

It seemed, after all, that he had not been entirely without expectation. No matter how calm the surface of his heart appeared, the anticipation held down by his subconscious could not be fully suppressed.

He still wanted his legs to heal, did he not?

All these years, and not a single physician had detected this remnant of a functioning meridian. Now that Feng Jiu had found it, she could not yet say whether that discovery was his fortune — or his misfortune.

Because she had not yet decided. Had not yet resolved whether she would heal him — or whether she would… destroy what remained entirely.

The silver needle’s tip hovered at another acupoint, yet Feng Jiu said in an unhurried tone: “Let me insert the needle at the same point as just now. Pay close attention — is there still any feeling?”

The needle was already aimed at Emperor Ji’s acupoint. Only this acupoint was not the same Foot Gate point as before. It was… the Gate of Death.

No more than a finger’s width from the Foot Gate, less than half a finger’s breadth away. But Emperor Ji would never be able to feel the difference — that section of his leg held no sensation at all.

With this one needle, that last remnant of living meridian would be gone forever. Even if someone discovered it at a later time, that meridian would be beyond all hope of recovery from this day forward.

All it would take was for her to drive the needle in — without mercy.

The needle tip rested at the very point of the Gate of Death meridian. In all her years of practicing this technique, Feng Jiu had never once made a mistake.

She would not miss. As long as she pressed it down, Emperor Ji’s legs would never heal for the rest of his life.

She thought of that day on the battlefield, badly wounded, when she had encountered him and Leng Yue.

She thought of how she had naively believed she had found allies, only for this ally to deliver a blow that had nearly taken her life.

She thought of Feng Yinan, who had taken an arrow trying to save her and been stabbed by Leng Yue — of Yinan, who could still only sit in a wheelchair even now.

All of this — every last bit of it — was their doing.

Within her heart, hatred surged like a tide turned over. Not only her own grievance, but Yinan’s as well.

One needle — and that debt could be repaid in part!

She wanted revenge!

The needle tip pierced the skin. Emperor Ji felt nothing at all, only watching with detached calm as it all unfolded.

Yet on Feng Jiu’s brow and her palms — sweat had gathered, drenched through.

She was afraid. Terrified in a way she had never felt before.

She had never harmed anyone like this. She was a healer. Her duty was to save lives. Yet she was now using the very identity of a healer to… cause harm.

She held a silver needle over a patient — and her intent was not to heal, but to destroy.

Then, with a sudden force, something seemed to pass through the very tip of her heart.

She had almost forgotten, just now. She was a physician.

And he — he was the closest kin still living in this world to the Ninth Imperial Uncle and Mu Mu. Their blood uncle…

Emperor Ji, seeing that she had paused and not moved, furrowed his brow: “Sir…”

The needle tip turned. Just a short distance from before, at a different acupoint — it drove down with force.

Pain!

Whether it was from the force or the depth of the insertion, even a man of Emperor Ji’s formidable endurance instantly changed color.

“Sir—” The next instant, Emperor Ji’s expression changed even more drastically.

His breathing became labored, his large hand clenching in an involuntary spasm, fingertips trembling beyond his control.

Pain — he had felt pain just now!

Were these two legs of his not entirely without sensation? Yet just now — he had felt pain!

His legs… his legs had sensation again!

Which meant his legs still had hope — there was still hope, was there not?

He still had a chance to leave this wheelchair. He still had a chance to stand on his own two feet again — did he not?