Ye Qingcheng did not see that Xiao Wangye had been watching her intently since he arrived.
He watched her collapse to the ground, unconscious, then struggle to her feet to identify someone, and then lose her strength and fall back down.
At first, veins bulged on his forehead, but then his heart grew colder and colder, as if he had fallen into an abyss.
Xiao Wangye, feeling somewhat lost, took Ye Qingcheng from the physicians who had not seen anything. He placed his hand on her neck, feeling the beat of her blood.
Still alive.
The scene was incredibly quiet, and the surrounding people held their breath, watching the silent man.
He closed his eyes, embraced Ye Qingcheng, but then pushed her away to someone else.
His face returned to its placid state, and his sharp gaze spun his wheelchair towards the pinned Dr. Wang.
"Wang Daocheng, what is your purpose again?"
Wang Daocheng laughed heartily and said, "Your Highness, I originally didn't intend to do anything."
"It can only be said that that woman discovered things at an inopportune time, wasn't it?"
A surge of internal force struck him. Wang Daocheng did not dodge, and a clear palm print was imprinted on his chest.
A trace of blood trickled from Wang Daocheng's lips, but he still wore a smile. He sighed, "Your Highness, I didn't say anything wrong. As long as you listen to me, you will understand."
"I was harmed by the barbarians since childhood. My parents did not wish to live a life of shame and left me behind. After I grew up, because of them, I was separated from my wife," he murmured. "So I always wondered if there was a way to make them less arrogant, to make them taste what it means to wish for death over life."
"Now I have found a way, Your Highness. As long as you also use this method, I guarantee you can defeat all your enemies."
Wang Daocheng uttered strange rhythms from his throat, and those wounded soldiers stiffened, their eyes wide open, their bodies filled with a rigid strangeness. They climbed out of their beds one by one, crawling on all fours like beasts, making strange sounds.
Wang Daocheng chuckled muffledly, while Xiao Wangye continued to watch him with a cold expression.
He did not comment on Wang Daocheng's actions, nor on his experiences. It was as if all that was happening was insignificant.
Wang Daocheng tried to gauge his expression. Seeing that he was unmoved, he chuckled again. "You are not tempted, are you?"
Wang Daocheng's voice changed again, sounding almost like a mouse's. Ye Qingcheng, who had been sleeping, suddenly trembled her closed eyes.
Wang Daocheng sighed, "To speak of the Princess Consort, she is truly a remarkable woman. I, Wang, have never seen a woman with such great strategic depth. If she were awake, perhaps she would also agree with my philosophy."
"Turning living people into dead ones, that is your philosophy?"
Xiao Wangye whispered, "Utterly laughable."
Wang Daocheng tried to entice him, "These are just some test subjects. I guarantee you that the finished products will become even more powerful and will obey completely."
"Nonsense!" a clear shout rang out. It turned out that Ye Qingcheng had circulated her internal energy, which had largely counteracted the soporific drug Wang Daocheng had administered, and she had woken up. She coughed a couple of times, her eyes fixed on Wang Daocheng.
"Do you dare to honestly say where you got this method? You probably rushed out to be a pawn without even knowing the purpose of the person behind it!"
"I researched this method myself—"
A hint of coldness emanated from Ye Qingcheng. Her eyes were like ice, and her demeanor was frigid. Disregarding her shaky condition after just waking up, she walked to Wang Daocheng, who was pinned down. Using a silver needle, she lifted the man's chin and disgustedly took a piece of cloth from someone else to stuff into Wang Daocheng's mouth.
"Let me guess, you must have heard that person say they had such a method, and then you used it on yourself, right?"
"You see those people you control are like people who have lost their minds, but perhaps that person promised you that you wouldn't become like them, and you only gained the ability to control them."
"Let me think, why are those people under your control? Did they eat something they shouldn't have, or touch something they shouldn't have?"
"It's not that simple. You just lightly scraped their wounds with your fingernails, and within a few days they became like this, right?"
Ye Qingcheng maliciously continued to speculate in his ear, "You think you've gained a magical ability, but have you ever considered that you haven't become like them yet, and that person simply wants to control you, not wanting you to become a 'dead person'?"
Wang Daocheng's face turned pale. He didn't understand how Ye Qingcheng could guess so many things correctly.
His body began to tremble, and his face showed a look of terror.
"Hmm, let me find it."
Ye Qingcheng quickly used something to peel away Wang Daocheng's clothes. After hearing Ye Qingcheng's words, the surrounding soldiers pressed Wang Daocheng down even more firmly, ensuring he couldn't move.
Beneath his clothes, a body with the lower half of a corpse and the upper half of a normal human made the soldiers nearly flee.
Ye Qingcheng's gaze swept over him, from front to back, and then stopped on his left rear shoulder.
She took a silver needle and pointed at that spot.
"Once the thing inside here is removed, you will become a monster who wishes for death over life."
"It suits your ideals perfectly, doesn't it?"
Ye Qingcheng disgustedly threw away the silver needles that had touched Wang Daocheng, wanting only to wash her hands.
Wang Daocheng whimpered and tried to reach for Ye Qingcheng, but he was firmly pinned down by the soldiers' weapons.
Ye Qingcheng warned them, "His blood, flesh, even his fingernails, could contaminate a person."
Some soldiers began to vomit, and the soldiers pinning down the wounded soldiers and Wang Daocheng all had sallow complexions, wishing they were farther away.
Ye Qingcheng lowered her eyes and took a rope, intending to end it herself.
"What are you doing?"
Xiao Wangye stared at her. Ye Qingcheng said helplessly, "Who knows if he put something on me."
"So I'll protect myself first," Ye Qingcheng said, tying her hands with her mouth and hands.
"Then, Your Highness, what should be done with these people?" asked a soldier with a pale face.
Xiao Wangye remained silent for a moment, only looking back at Ye Qingcheng. Ye Qingcheng said nothing.
Her eyelashes were like still branches. Finally, she said, "That stone on his shoulder needs to be dug out."
Before the surrounding people could calm down, she added, "But it might not be curable."
"What do you mean?" Xiao Wangye looked at her as she turned away, unwilling to face him.
"It means that when the situation was not yet serious, embedding this kind of stone into the body would allow them to regain their sanity and their bodies would not deteriorate."
"But if the stone is removed, as long as they are infected, they will become something that... devours people."