The iron door groaned shut, the heavy seals on its surface glowing with a faint, sickly amber light that smelled of old parchment and stagnant power. Inside the chamber, the "Qi deviation" was no longer a theoretical medical term; it was a physical cacophony of snapping bone and tearing silk. Li Mei stood her ground, her boots clicking against the stone floor which was already stained with the remnants of the Prince's previous agonies. This was the "time-limited crisis" her father had once whispered about—the moment where the human soul is either anchored by medicine or eclipsed by the beast.
Prince Zhao was collapsed against a massive sandalwood bedpost, his hands clawing at the wood until splinters embedded themselves in his skin. His scent had shifted again, the winter mint now entirely consumed by a hot, predatory musk and the metallic ozone of raw, uncontrolled energy. Through her "Golden Finger," Mei could see—and smell—the path of the curse. It wasn't just in his blood; it was a corruption of his Qi flow, a jagged blackness that surged through his Governing Vessel meridian.
"Get... back," Zhao growled, his voice a guttural friction that caused the silk hangings to tremble. His shoulders lurched upward, the muscles knotting into shapes that were no longer human, and a fine sheen of silver hair began to sprout along the line of his jaw.Getty Images
Mei did not retreat. Instead, she moved into his personal space, an act of "immersion" that bridged the gap between healer and prey. The sexual tension was a tangible weight in the room, a magnetic charge that sparked as she placed a firm, cooling hand on his burning shoulder. He was a furnace of forbidden power, and for a heartbeat, the "Alpha" within him surged, his molten gold eyes locking onto hers with a hunger that wasn't entirely murderous.
"If I stay back, you die, and Chang'an falls with you," Mei whispered, her voice a sharp contrast to his bestial grunts. She pulled a seven-inch silver needle from her kit, the tip gleaming in the moonlight. "And I have a 'Golden Finger' for secrets, Your Highness. I won't let yours be buried in a grave".
She moved with the precision of a master film writer disassembling a scene frame by frame. With a flick of her wrist, she drove the first needle into his Fengfu point at the base of the skull. Zhao let out a roar that shook the very foundation of the palace, his body arching with a violent, rhythmic grace. The scent of burning Qi filled the air—a smell like scorched pine—as the needle acted as a lightning rod for the curse.
"Hold him!" Mei commanded the empty air, but it was she who had to throw her weight against his chest to keep him from thrashing. The physical contact was intimate and dangerous; she could feel his heart hammering like a trapped bird against his ribs, and the raw strength of his transformation threatened to crush her.
She placed three more needles in rapid succession along his spine, targeting the Jiaji points to stabilize the "power system" of his fluctuating form. With every strike, the silver fur seemed to recede, the bones clicking back into their human sockets with a sickening sound. The Prince's breathing slowed, though it remained ragged. He slumped against her, his head falling into the crook of her neck. The scent of winter mint returned, faint and cooling, mingling with her own scent of dried herbs and determination.
"You... actually did it," he rasped, his human voice returning, though it was heavy with exhaustion. He pulled back just enough to look at her, his dark eyes searching hers for "trust and interest".
Mei stepped back, her fingers trembling now that the "First Mission" was over. She wiped a bead of sweat from her brow, but her mind was already "analyzing" the next step. The needles had suppressed the beast, but they hadn't cured the poison. As the moon began to set, she smelled a new, hidden note in the room—a scent of lavender and arsenic that didn't belong to the Prince, but to the person who had poisoned him.
"This was just the beginning, Your Highness," Mei said, packing her silver tools away as the "cliffhanger" of the conspiracy began to take shape. "The beast is sleeping, but the person who created it is still very much awake in this palace".