Chen Ning slowly approached Chu Shaobai in the quiet atmosphere.

“Empress, you…… Don’t touch the needles on his body.” Imperial Physician Zhang couldn’t help but advise.

“I know,” she softly said.

She was very close to Chu Shaobai now. She was close enough to see each of his eyelashes. She was close enough to see his chest faintly rise and fall.

Yes, Imperial Physician Zhang did not lie to her. Shaobai was indeed alive.

But, he was just alive.

She did not see any life in him. She did not get any familiar feeling from him. Her eyes landed on his right hand. That hand was just bones wrapped in leather. It looked unspeakably awful.

Once, his fingers were slender and graceful. She always remembered that he had used that hand to hold an ice flower that was so beautiful that it shouldn’t exist in this world. He had held it carefully and excitedly as he ran over to give it to her.

“Do you like it? Smell it. It smells nice.”

“That’s strange. How can a flower carved from ice smell?”

“This is the Ice Fragrance that you want. It’s the Snow Lotus that I got from the snow mountain.”

His clear voice still sounded in her ears. But the person who gifted her the Ice Fragrance had turned into a living dead person.

Chen Ning tightly bit her lips. She didn’t let her tears fall.

She still remembered that the first time she saw him was in Chu Shaoyang’s hall. Among everyone’s contemptuous and disdainful gazes, only he looked at her differently. He smiled at her, like flowers blooming in the spring breeze.

But that young man who smiled like a spring breeze was lying motionless on the bed, allowing her eyes to roam over him. His eyes were closed and he turned a blind eye to her.

Perhaps his eyes that were brighter than the stars in the sky could no longer open again.

Chen Ning suddenly got a chill. She threw this terrible thought to the back of her head.

“Imperial Physician Zhang, doesn’t he have a sword injury? Why…… did he become like this in just a few days? He…… He can’t hear, see, or feel anything. Why is he like this?”

She turned around and asked Imperial Physician Zhang with a trembling voice.

Imperial Physician Zhang sighed. He shook his head. “Replying to Empress, this old official has practiced medicine for decades and cannot say clearly why Jingan Wang suddenly…… would be like this. Empress is right. He only had flesh wounds. Although the sword hurt his lungs and he lost a lot of blood, it is not life-threatening.

“This old official had sutured his wounds and fed him tonic. With this old official’s experience, he should recuperate for a few days and be fine. But this old official can’t think of why Jingan Wang’s condition suddenly changed. He not only didn’t get better, but got significantly worse.”

He paused and looked ashamed.

“This old official has used tried all solutions, but it’s like a stone sinking into the sea. None had the slightest effect. Jingan Wang’s high fever is not receding. Originally this is not some serious illness, but no matter what medicine he is fed, he will spit it all out. He does not eat or drink and lost a lot of blood. That’s why he is so thin.

“It’s not a problem if he is just thin. This old official can slowly cure him. But the thing that makes this old official the most helpless is that he has completely lost consciousness. No matter what this old official does, he does not wake up. He…… He……”

Imperial Physician Zhang hesitated and looked at Mochuan and Chen Ning. He stopped talking.