Saved Him, Now I'm Obsessed - Chapter 5

“Please wait a moment. I’ll gather the necessary items for the examination.”

‘I need to pull myself together. One wrong move and grandfather and I could both perish in an instant.’

While pretending to pack, I whispered so only grandfather could hear:

“No matter what, say you know the treatment method, but don’t directly explain how to make the medicine. Say it’s complex and difficult, so you have to do it yourself. Also say the medicine can’t be taken all at once, but must be taken in small doses over a long period.”

I didn’t need to explain that this would buy us some time to extend our lifeline. Grandfather seemed to understand my intention, nodding with a grim expression.

Given that he had accidentally used the word “Your Highness,” I wasn’t at all surprised when the carriage headed towards the imperial palace, as I had expected as much.

Before we reached the palace, the stern-looking old man introduced himself to us inside the carriage.

He said his name was Simons, and he worked as the head servant of the First Imperial Prince. The noble person who was unwell referred to the Imperial Prince. He cautioned us not to forget our manners while diagnosing and treating him.

Grandfather and I nodded with tense expressions.

Though I haven’t lived a very long life, it was my first time entering a palace directly.

And not just any palace, but the one where the Emperor lived. I had tried to imagine how large the interior might be from seeing the outer walls, but the scale far exceeded my imagination. Even after passing through the palace gates, we remained in the carriage for quite some time.

Partly due to the darkness, but also because I was too tense thinking my life hung by a thread, I didn’t even think to look around properly as I followed the head servant Simons.

In the room he led us to, a frail child lay buried in a massive bed, groaning in pain. The child looked so delicate I hesitated to even touch him with a finger.

If Simons hadn’t told us beforehand, I would have thought this was the 4-year-old Prince Daniel rather than the 6-year-old Crown Prince Ian.

His small frame, even tinier than others his age, looked all the more fragile sunken into the vast bed. His pale face drenched in cold sweat made him seem as if he might crumble at any moment.

My mind, which had been racing to figure out how to survive until we entered the room, now creaked to a halt like a waterlogged wooden door.

All other thoughts vanished, leaving only the wish that the small, fragile-looking child before me would no longer suffer.

The child reached out towards me with his eyes closed. It was a desperate plea for help, like someone drowning and flailing for rescue.

I quickly approached the child, kneeling by his bedside. I clasped his hand. Though that alone couldn’t alleviate any pain, I held it tightly as if in prayer.

Though the child didn’t open his mouth, I heard his voice screaming for help in my ears like an auditory hallucination.

I brushed back the hair plastered to his forehead with sweat using my cold hand. Then, as if making a vow to myself, I said:

“I’ll protect you…”

At those words, the child opened his eyes and looked directly at me. His pale blue eyes reminded me of a vast lake. As if hypnotized, I couldn’t take my eyes off his face.

“Jane…”

Whether or not I had told this child my name before didn’t seem important.

I witnessed the astonishing sight of those blue eyes suddenly changing to red, as if drops of red ink had fallen into them.

Seeing my shock, Simons standing behind me let out a deep sigh. The Crown Prince’s eyes turning red. That was the reason they had to secretly call for an apothecary.

The healers called for treatment had tried bleeding Ian, sticking needles in various places, cutting his hair, and even wearing bird-headed masks while imitating bird cries to drive away the illness. But far from curing him, none of them even knew exactly what the illness was.

Ian was burning up as if in a heated cauldron and suffering as if his entire body was being stabbed with skewers.

Up to this point, each healer had rattled off every disease name they knew. Strange disease, measles, beriberi, scurvy, smallpox, and one healer even nonsensically suggested puerperal fever.

However, no one could explain why his lake-blue irises suddenly turned blood-red.

“He has a fever, but no rash. The whites of his eyes are red, but not severely. No signs of jaundice either. I checked his body and found no wounds or traces of insect or snake bites. No discoloration or bleeding in the mouth. It doesn’t seem to be from external injury or poisoning.”

Grandfather listened quietly to the symptoms I relayed, then asked in a calm voice:

“Were there any other unusual symptoms?”

That question wasn’t directed at me. It was asked of Simons, who had introduced himself as the head servant.

Grandfather was quite a capable apothecary.

He knew not only common diseases but also endemic diseases found only in certain countries. He even studied things that were hard to classify as diseases, like witches’ curses.

He studied diseases and patients so intensely that he sometimes seemed like a madman. The reason grandfather and I couldn’t settle in one place and moved between many countries was because of his academic fervor.

The diseases created by different environments, herbs that only grew in certain regions, and the treatment methods developed by local people’s wisdom kept grandfather constantly on the move.

So when it came to rare conditions, no one could match grandfather. I felt relieved by grandfather’s reaction.

The fact that he asked “There must have been other unusual symptoms” rather than “Were there any other unusual symptoms?” meant he had an idea of what the illness might be.

If he could guess the condition, he likely knew the treatment method as well. I let out the breath I’d been holding. The fact that grandfather could save this child suffering in pain reassured me.

The head servant seemed to have difficulty answering, repeatedly stroking his long, luxurious white beard without saying anything.

“Even if it’s a symptom that’s difficult to speak of, you must tell me. Only then can I make an accurate diagnosis.”

“I’m not sure how to explain this, but… His Highness seemed to be able to see the future. If he said someone would fall down the stairs, without fail someone would fall. If he said someone would visit, truly someone would come. If he said it would rain on a clear day, it would certainly pour.”

I looked at the head servant with disbelieving eyes. I’d heard of witches who could divine the future or saints who received divine revelations to see what was to come, but it was hard to believe this small child had the ability of foresight.

“It was also His Highness who told us to find the blind apothecary on 17th Street. I found it hard to believe His Highness’s words at first. We called in skilled healers for examinations, but none of them could even guess what His Highness’s illness might be. But seeing how you, the blind apothecary His Highness mentioned, immediately grasped the nature of the illness… it seems His Highness truly can see the future.”

He added, gesturing towards me with his chin:

“I didn’t even know this little one’s name, but His Highness called her ‘Jane’ right away.”

Grandfather nodded and said in a calm voice:

“That’s only natural. This isn’t an ordinary illness. It’s both a blessing and a curse. And there are no longer any people left in the Calovanian Empire who can recognize these symptoms.”

“What do you mean? Explain so I can understand.”

“To put it simply, His Highness’s condition is a divine illness.”

“Hup!”

I barely managed to stifle the scream that tried to escape my mouth with both hands. A divine illness! Even if the Crown Prince could foresee the future, to call it a ‘divine illness’!

Chills ran down my entire body.

To dare diagnose it as a ‘divine illness’ when we had a razor-sharp blade pointed at our throats! It seemed grandfather intended for his granddaughter and himself to be buried side by side somewhere in the palace.

Sure enough, the head servant spoke with an angry face:

“How dare you…”

Grandfather shrugged at those words and said:

“I see you didn’t like my phrasing. It’s also called ‘Prophet’s Agony’ or ‘Prophet’s Fever’.”

Ah, really! Grandfather must have lost his liver along with his eyesight.

Even though he gradually softened the term ‘divine illness’ with different words, the head servant’s contorted face showed no signs of relaxing. My heart shrank just as much.

Unable to see my and the head servant’s expressions, grandfather spoke in a nonchalant tone:

“It’s not that special. Prophets appear everywhere. Especially in the Stefan Kingdom, which was called the divine nation, many such people were born from ancient times. I believe the Emperor’s mother also hailed from there. So it’s not at all strange that His Highness the Crown Prince has come down with a divine illness.”

It’s true that the Stefan Kingdom had an unusually high number of prophets. There’s even a story that the small country transformed into a proper kingdom not because of soldiers fighting on battlefields, but because it was a nation beloved by God.

When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem

This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Synopsis:

“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”

Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.

Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.

While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the  Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…

Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.

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