Solitary Confinement and Borrowed Stones to Polish Jade

This time, Prince Duan was truly throwing caution to the wind. He couldn’t care less about Princess Royal Helena’s fury, and as for her running to the Emperor to complain?

Hmph...

Would he care?

Before storming off, Prince Duan shot a cold glance at the opulent Princess Royal Residence—every bit as grand as the imperial palace—and sneered: "Sooner or later, she'll torch this palace herself."

He dumped a row of corpses at Princess Royal Helena’s gates and swaggered away with his men. When Helena got the news, rage overwhelmed her so badly she fainted right then and there.

"Imperial physician! Quick, call the imperial physician..."

The imperial physician originally meant for Prince Duan’s Manor was intercepted by the Princess Royal’s household. When Prince Duan returned home and learned of it, he smashed a rosewood stone table in rage: "This is outrageous!"

His disappointment in the Emperor deepened yet again.

"You reap what you sow." Serena was sure Princess Royal Helena herself wouldn’t stoop to snatching the imperial physician, but her servants, used to swaggering around, saw nothing wrong with intercepting Prince Duan’s doctor the moment their mistress collapsed.

"Go tell Tianyu to send a few imperial physicians to Prince Duan." Serena never hid anything from Little Dumpling; she knew he understood everything, even if he couldn’t express it yet.

Left Shore nodded, then glanced at Feng Jin rolling restlessly on the bed before asking, "Has the Ghost Hall man still not cracked?"

"His mouth is tight. Getting him to talk won’t be easy." Serena frowned, growing more anxious.

It was inconvenient being on someone else’s turf—interrogating a prisoner meant always worrying about the host.

"I’ll give it a try." Left Shore cared most about Feng Jin’s health; with the culprit right in front of him, there was no way he’d let this chance slip by.

"People like him are tough as nails, stubborn to the core. Even under torture, he might not tell the truth." Serena had seen Ghost Hall operatives resist interrogation before—Gray Old Man had to use all sorts of drugs just to get a little useful information out of one.

"When it comes to treating illness, a tiny mistake in medication can have disastrous consequences. You can’t be too careful." Even though she’d studied traditional medicine and was pretty good at it, she was still far from the top doctors of this era.

If a Ghost Hall doctor tampered with a prescription, she might not even notice. That’s why Serena wouldn’t risk using torture—getting a flawed prescription could end up hurting Feng Jin instead.

"There’s still no news from Jiangnan. Even if Dr. Guile gets the message and rushes over, it’ll be at least a month." Left Shore was restless and uneasy.

A month was far too long. If anything happened in the meantime, for Feng Jin’s sake, they’d be at the mercy of others.

This feeling was pure hell.

"We’ll try both approaches. We can’t let the Ghost Hall guy go—we have to break him eventually." Waiting for Dr. Guile is just a backup; if they could get a method now to lure out the larva inside Feng Jin, that’d be ideal.

"Torture?" Left Shore looked up. Serena thought for a moment, then shook her head. "Better not. This is Prince Duan’s Manor. It’s not convenient for us to act here."

"You have a plan?" Left Shore asked.

Serena nodded. "Borrow a remote little house from Prince Duan, far from everyone else. Seal it up so no sound escapes, day or night. Then make it pitch dark inside, so it’s always night for whoever’s locked in there."

"Solitary confinement?" Left Shore knew this method well—he’d spent plenty of time locked up during his own training as a kid.

"Something like that," Serena replied, but with an upgrade: "Put a big wooden barrel in the room, tie up the Ghost Hall guy, blindfold him, and toss him inside. He’ll have no sense of time. Each day, just give him thin gruel and water—enough to keep him alive, but nothing more."

The first step to breaking a prisoner is always to smash their mental defenses—then you start prying out answers, one by one...

"Worth a try." Left Shore stood up, about to go handle it, but Serena reminded him, "Go to the Crown Prince’s Manor first and settle Prince Duan’s business."

They had to cling tightly to Prince Duan’s support—here in Lyndaria, they still needed him to keep the Princess Royal in check.

Left Shore paused, didn’t look back, but nodded to show he’d heard Serena.

Serena never hid anything she did in Lyndaria from Ninth Royal Uncle—he might be far away in Eastlyn, but he always had a perfect grasp of the situation here.

"The stone from another mountain can polish your own jade." Ninth Royal Uncle had worried Serena might end up shackled in Lyndaria, but she’d already flipped the whole game.

"Serena’s luck is just unreal—she saves a random kid, and it turns out to be Prince Duan’s only son. With that child in hand, Prince Duan has no choice but to play along." Vincent Su was amazed. He hadn’t expected Serena to help Lyndaria’s Prince Titus so much without even using their own people.

With Prince Duan on their side, the Princess Royal didn’t stand a chance—even with the Emperor backing her.

"Luck is part of strength, too. Even if you had luck like that, you couldn’t hold onto it." Without medical skills, even meeting Prince Duan’s son wouldn’t have helped.

Likewise, if Serena didn’t have a healer’s heart, she wouldn’t have helped a stranger’s child. Most people would’ve chosen self-preservation, not risking themselves for a kid in such a dangerous mess.

"Uh…" Vincent Su was left speechless, swallowing his retort.

Ninth Royal Uncle was totally lovestruck—he saw nothing but good in Serena. Vincent had no intention of pulling a Storm Cloud Bu and landing himself in Liancastle.

"How’s it going in Liancastle?" Of course, the moment you mention something, it happens—just as Vincent was teasing Storm Cloud Bu and Liancastle, Ninth Royal Uncle asked about it.

Vincent Su hemmed and hawed, dodging the question, but Ninth Royal Uncle immediately realized Storm Cloud Bu must’ve made trouble again. "Speak."

"Storm, Storm Cloud Bu has gotten mixed up with Ghost Hall." The moment Vincent finished, he ducked his head, not daring to meet Ninth Royal Uncle’s eyes.

Before Storm Cloud Bu left for Liancastle, Ninth Royal Uncle had warned him a thousand times not to get involved with Ghost Hall or Liancastle’s affairs—just observe, gather intel, and find out the mysterious aunt’s identity. But...

In order to finish the mission quickly, Storm Cloud Bu actually risked direct contact with Ghost Hall and managed to infiltrate their ranks, becoming one of them.

Infiltrating the enemy is one thing, but Ghost Hall is packed with monsters—Storm Cloud Bu’s move was reckless to the extreme!