Translator: Misty Cloud Translations Editor: Misty Cloud Translations
Reclining on a daybed, Nie Teng, whose face was covered in ointment, listened with closed eyes as the middle-aged man beside him reporting on the evening’s events.
“The two had planned on seizing the men that attacked Your Highness from the Feng Residence and never thought that this would happen. One of them is still kneeling out in the courtyard awaiting punishment, and we have summoned a doctor for the other whose injuries are severe.”
The middle-aged man cautiously recounted the events. Unsure whether His Highness was asleep or not, he listened carefully to his breathing. If only those two, who had gone without His Highness’s orders, had actually hauled someone back, things wouldn’t be so awkward. But forced to report a disgrace like this, he was unsure how His Highness would take it.
Hearing the report, Nie Teng quickly opened his eyes to glare at the middle-aged man and say darkly, “Did the Golden Core cultivator not spar against a mid-level martial cultivator? Are you trying to amuse me?”
“Your subordinate would never dare! But the Golden Core cultivator was truly injured. His sternum was cracked, and his injury is severe. As for what caused him to be defeated, your subordinate has already asked the physician if he was poisoned, and I trust that we will have an answer posthaste.” Having finished his report, the man quickly lowered his head, afraid to meet His Highness’ stare. Perhaps they had underestimated the Feng family. Not only had he and His Highness found themselves at the whim and will of the Young Miss Feng out on the road, now, here in Sun Glory, where they had thought that people were afraid to even sneeze around His Highness, who would have thought that the men of the Feng Residence would have sent His Highness packing with a busted lip?
Now, after this evening, a great Golden Core cultivator was defeated by the hand of a mid-level martial cultivator. Laying things out in this way couldn’t help but fill them with shame.
Anyway, this was getting out of hand. And it was all for just a girl. That made absolutely no sense to him! Why was His Highness so willing to let her drag him along like this? If he truly wished to have her, he could have dispatched someone to collect her and the events of tonight would have never happened. Why go to all this trouble?
And yet, despite his indignation and his frustration, he could only quietly stew on these things. Speak up? No, he liked living too much to do something as foolish as that!
After he had spoken, a silence filled the room as Nie Teng continued to lay motionless on the daybed with his eyes closed. What was going through his head?
Thirty minutes later, a doctor came walking in just as he was announced to the Crown Prince. Bowing with respect to Nie Teng, he said, “Your subordinate bows before His Highness.”
“Speak.” Nie Teng said tersely, his eyes still closed.
“Your Highness, your subordinate found this.”
He took a silver need from his cloak and showed it to His Highness who quickly opened his eyes to see what was in his hands. The man quickly explained, “This silver needle was found in Elder Lin’s dantian. He says that he felt his spirit suddenly constricted, so your subordinate examined his acupuncture points and found this silver needle there. To be able to pierce this point with such precision, whoever used this must be a medical virtuoso!”
Pausing, the doctor continued, “So, I am confident that Elder Lin did not lose at the hands of that mid-level martial cultivator. He was defeated by a skilled physician. However, according to their retelling, no one moved a muscle, so it’s unclear who threw this needle.”
To attack the Golden Core cultivator with a secret weapon like this and not be discovered, it goes without saying that not only was this person a trained master in the medical arts, their level of cultivation was in a realm all its own! And yet, what so badly puzzled them was that there could ever be such a skilled doctor in a little ninth-grade country like this. Who knows when they would ever come face to face with him?
