In the Eastern Palace, the sound of smashing objects had barely ceased. Palace servants all lightened their footsteps, not even daring to breathe heavily.
The Crown Prince hurled a teacup to the floor, his mood as turbulent as a violent storm.
What nonsense about better medical conditions—if those imperial physicians truly had skill, why couldn’t they even perform acupuncture for pain relief?
His left hand was ruined!
The Crown Prince stared fixedly at his left arm, his expression extremely ugly. When evening meal came, he forced down a few bites before sweeping all the cups and dishes to the floor.
His left arm began to ache again with dull pain.
“Where is that Master Wang?” The familiar pain made the Crown Prince like a startled beast as he asked in a hissing voice.
His close personal attendant Wang Gui hastily said, “Reporting to Your Highness, Master Wang just arrived—”
“Quickly have him come in to give me acupuncture!” The Crown Prince urgently interrupted Wang Gui’s words.
Soon Daoist Mingxin arrived before the Crown Prince, and accompanying him as before was Head Eunuch Liu Chuan.
“Has Your Highness’s left arm begun to hurt?” Daoist Mingxin asked.
The Crown Prince’s expression was gloomy. “Why didn’t you come earlier, Master?”
Facing the Crown Prince’s interrogation, Daoist Mingxin’s expression remained calm. “Each person’s constitution is different, and the duration of acupuncture pain relief will vary. This commoner needs to determine the time interval between Your Highness’s initial acupuncture and the return of pain sensation, in order to facilitate subsequent treatment.”
The Crown Prince’s tone softened somewhat. “Please hurry, Master Wang. I cannot bear the pain!”
Daoist Mingxin frowned slightly. “You already cannot endure it? That shouldn’t be—this time interval shouldn’t reach that severity.”
The Crown Prince’s expression darkened.
“Master Wang, please proceed quickly with His Highness’s acupuncture.” The speaker was attendant Wang Gui, his tone suppressing dissatisfaction.
What was wrong with this person? How could the Crown Prince’s precious body be the same as anyone else’s?
Daoist Mingxin’s expression was serious. “I must understand the patient’s actual condition in order not to affect subsequent treatment.”
The Crown Prince’s expression twisted for an instant, as if hearing the sound of slaps to his face. Through gritted teeth he said, “Still bearable.”
As he spoke, he glared fiercely at Wang Gui.
You dog slave, why are you speaking out of turn!
Wang Gui dared not make a sound anymore.
Head Eunuch Liu Chuan was silent for a moment, then brought the box containing the golden needles before Daoist Mingxin. “May Master Wang begin now?”
Daoist Mingxin nodded slightly, his movements practiced as he inserted the golden needles into the Crown Prince’s left arm.
The pain gradually disappeared.
If during the first golden needle pain relief the Crown Prince had been too preoccupied with suspicion and the irritability brought by prolonged pain to notice much, this time he clearly felt the pain ease, finally making him realize Daoist Mingxin’s importance.
Looking at the elderly man with an immortal bearing, he asked with a thread of hope, “With a divine physician like Master Wang, can you not heal my left hand?”
Daoist Mingxin lowered his head slightly. “The human body is most complex—no one can determine how recovery will go.”
Not hearing what he wanted to hear, the Crown Prince grew irritable again. After Daoist Mingxin left, he kicked over a small stool.
The small stool flew and landed by the doorway, startling the Crown Princess who had just walked there.
Seeing the Crown Princess, the Crown Prince’s expression immediately turned cold. “What are you doing here?”
The Crown Princess’s heart tightened, but she still steeled herself to enter. “Is Your Highness feeling better?”
If she could, she would love nothing more than to stay far away from this madman, but she couldn’t.
How to deal with the Wuning Marquis Manor still hung on the Emperor’s single thought. If she paid no attention to the Crown Prince, it would undoubtedly make the Emperor even more displeased.
The Crown Princess walked before the Crown Prince, concern on her face.
Seeing this, the Crown Prince only felt disgust. “I said I don’t want to see you.”
There were still palace servants standing in attendance in the room. The Crown Princess felt somewhat awkward hearing these words. “Your Highness, this incident was purely an accident. You’re injured—my heart hurts even more than yours—”
“Bullshit!” Though the acupuncture had relieved the pain, somehow that string called reason in the Crown Prince became even easier to snap. “The one who’s injured is me, the one who had flesh scraped to treat poison is me, the one in such pain he can’t eat or sleep is also me—what face do you have to say you hurt more than me? Just because you have a mouth?”
First being assassinated, then the agony of having flesh gouged out, then being told his left hand would be crippled—it was already grievous and painful enough, and this lowly woman still came to say pretty words.
Did she really take him for a fool who would soften at a few coaxing words?
The Crown Prince’s expression was savage, his eyes bloodshot. He heard alarmed cries by his ear: “Your Highness!”
The Crown Prince came back to his senses, only then discovering that at some point he had grasped the Crown Princess’s throat with his right hand and pressed her against a vermillion-lacquered pillar. To the side was attendant Wang Gui with a panicked expression.
The other palace servants lowered their heads, not daring to make a sound.
Originally the Crown Prince was prepared to let go after regaining consciousness, but at this moment, the Crown Princess’s survival instinct overcame her fear. In her instinctive struggle, she bent her knee and struck the Crown Prince’s lower region.
The intense pain caused the Crown Prince to instantly lose reason, his eyes filled with madness. “Lowly woman, lowly woman…”
Wang Gui watched the Crown Princess’s eyes roll back, pacing in anxious circles.
“Your Highness, Your Highness must not—”
The Crown Prince, immersed in madness, kicked over the attendant who wanted to pull him back but didn’t dare.
Wang Gui scrambled up. Seeing that the Crown Princess had stopped struggling, he threw caution to the wind and hugged the Crown Prince’s legs. “Your Highness, stop quickly—the Crown Princess is nearly gone!”
In his panic and urgency, his voice was high-pitched and shrill, finally pulling back the Crown Prince’s rationality.
The bloodshot eyes regained clarity, and what met them was the Crown Princess’s distorted face with eyes wide open.
The Crown Prince shuddered and released his right hand that had been choking the Crown Princess’s throat.
Losing support, the Crown Princess slowly slid down the vermillion-lacquered pillar to the ground, her head tilted to the side without a sound.
The Crown Prince blinked, as if unable to believe the scene before him.
“Wang Gui!” He called out, his voice somewhat trembling.
Wang Gui’s whole body shook. “This slave is here.”
The Crown Prince pointed at the person on the ground. “Go check.”
Wang Gui acknowledged and cautiously approached, crouching down and reaching out to check the Crown Princess’s breath.
The Crown Prince stared without blinking, and saw Wang Gui’s hand, just as it approached the Crown Princess’s nose, recoil as if scalded, swiftly pulling back.
“Your Highness, the Crown Princess, she—she seems to have stopped breathing!” Wang Gui crawled over on his knees, tears and snot flowing together.
The Crown Prince retreated several steps and collapsed sitting on the bed.
Without the violent struggling sounds, the several palace servants in the room seemed not to exist. Only the Crown Prince’s gasping breaths and Wang Gui’s sobbing could be heard.
The Crown Prince couldn’t help but look at the person on the ground.
The Crown Princess lay on her side, her exposed face turned toward his direction.
Those were a pair of eyes opened to their utmost limit.
The Crown Prince withdrew his gaze as if pricked by a needle, looking at his right hand.
He had strangled the Crown Princess to death with one hand?
Even now, the Crown Prince still had a dreamlike feeling. He couldn’t remember how he had moved his hand, couldn’t remember how that murderous rage that made him lose reason had arisen.
His mind was completely blank. He even felt that the one who had acted just now wasn’t him.
Seeing the Crown Prince’s dazed expression, Wang Gui asked, “Your Highness, should we summon an imperial physician—”
“No!” The Crown Prince shouted, instinctively glancing at the Crown Princess.
After composing himself, the Crown Prince held onto the bed frame, clutching the gauze curtains tightly. “The person is already dead—what’s the point of summoning an imperial physician? Wang Gui, I leave the aftermath to you to handle.”
“Yes…”
And at this time, Daoist Mingxin, who was resting in the Eastern Palace, extracted an utterly ordinary-looking golden needle from his hair bun and blew on it near his lips.