V2: Chapter 143: Poisoning
How strange, why does my palm hurt so much?
Gael was puzzled. Although it only lasted a few seconds, the pain was indescribable.
"Your Highness Gael?"
Gael finally came to his senses. He touched the back of his head, his whole reaction was blank. "Ah, okay, okay, it's alright, Miss Liang Di. You didn't mean it. You even kindly picked up my handkerchief. There's no need to apologize, really."
Liang Di smiled gently, lifted her skirt, and bowed to Gael. "Thank you for your understanding, Your Highness. Well.... I'll go back now. I had a very happy day. Thank you for spending so much time with me."
After saying that, Liang Di got into her carriage.
Gael looked at his hand. His palm no longer hurt, but there was a very strange feeling. He felt a numbness in his arm. At first, it was only his hand and wrist that were numb, but now it had spread to his entire forearm.
"Strange…"
There were no wounds on his hand, so why did it hurt so much? He'd only been touched by Liang Di; a delicate young lady like her wouldn't do anything to him. This was strange.
Could I really be hallucinating from overwork?
Finding these doubts, Gael returned to the palace.
The first thing he did upon returning was, as usual, to chat with Doris for a while.
Gael pushed open the door to Doris's study.
Doris was wearing gold-rimmed glasses, flipping through a book on rose cultivation. She didn't even look up when Gael entered, her eyes fixed intently on the book.
"You've come."
"Mother, I've come."
Doris's tone was filled with displeasure. "Did you go to see Liang Di again? I told you, stay away from her. She's not a good person."
Gael felt utterly helpless.
“Mother, I don’t want to disobey you, but Father forced me to go. If I don’t go, he’ll be unhappy.”
Doris was silent for two seconds, then sighed heavily.
“You can just pretend. He told you to go, so you really will?” Doris’s gaze finally left the book, her sharp eyes fixed on Gael. “Could it be.... you.... you really have some wicked thoughts about that Liang Di?”
However, her anger hadn’t fully erupted before it was completely extinguished the moment she saw Gael.
Almost instantly, Doris’s face turned deathly pale, as if she had seen something extremely terrifying. The book in her hands fell to the ground with a dull thud, mirroring her current mood.
“Gael!” Doris cried out.
Gael was startled by the shout. He was completely bewildered, not understanding why his mother was suddenly so agitated.
"Mother, what.... what's wrong? Mother, I know you don't like Liang Di. Even though I asked her out, I never truly loved her. I did all this for Father's sake..."
Before he could finish, Doris interrupted him.
"Shut up!"
Doris's face was completely drained of color. She walked towards Gael and grabbed his arm. "Where did you get this? Who did this to you? No, no..."
Asking was pointless. It must have been Liang Di. This level of poison would be fatal if not treated immediately.
Doris looked at Gael again and saw that the poison was already almost reaching his chest.
"I told you, don't have contact with Liang Di!" Doris screamed, her emotions breaking down. "Now look what happened!"
Gael was in a daze. He felt dizzy, his mother's image blurred, and three Doris flickered before his eyes.
“Mother....” Gael’s breath grew weak. “I think I’ve caught a chill, I have a fever, my head is so dizzy, I think....”
Before he could finish, Gael collapsed to the ground, and Doris knelt down beside him.
“Gael!”
“Gael!”
A buzzing sound filled Gael’s ears, his mother’s voice gradually fading until it disappeared completely.
When he awoke again, he was lying in bed, covered with a thick blanket. Turning his head, he saw Doris sitting beside him.
“Mother…”
Ah, why is my voice so hoarse and strained?
Gael tried to speak, but his throat burned with a sharp pain, as if someone had slit his throat.
Ah, perhaps I really had caught a fever; my throat hurt so much.
Gael tried to sit up, gently moving his arm, and a piercing pain spread throughout his body.
"Ugh!!"
His throat was hoarse, and he couldn't make a sound. Gael frowned, his face contorted in pain, trembling. This pain was worse than any injury he had ever suffered.
"You're awake?!" Doris's tired face finally brightened. She stood up from the chair and sat on the edge of the bed. "Gael, don't move around too much right now."
"Mother, I... I.... a fever, a cold... Is it... serious?" Gael said almost every word; he couldn't form a complete sentence anymore.
Doris placed her index finger on Gael's lips. "Don't speak now. For the next few days, you need to speak as little as possible and move as little as possible, understand?"
Gael was confused.
It is just a bad fever and a cold; why is she so worried?
Doris noticed the doubt on his face. She thought for a moment, opened her mouth, and finally said, "You don't have a common fever or cold, nor are you just chilled. It's not a problem with you personally, it's..."
She drawled, "...someone poisoned you. You're currently poisoned, but it's alright, we've already given you the antidote. You've been unconscious for a day and a night."
Upon hearing this, Gael's eyes widened slowly. He thought for a moment but couldn't recall any oversights. Whether it was eating or contact with others, he hadn't eaten any food that hadn't been tasted by servants, nor had he come into contact with any dangerous people, and he had no wounds.
Who poisoned me? How?
Doris didn't tell the king about Gael's condition because she knew it would be useless. The king wouldn't listen to her; that arrogant and selfish man would only believe his own deductions. Moreover, he held women in utter contempt. Although Doris was Queen, the King had only married her out of lust—because of her undeniably beautiful face.
Doris wanted to complain, to tell Gael that she had stopped him from seeing Liang Di, but she swallowed it all back.
It was too late to say such things now. Gael was bedridden, unable to get up, and would need a very long time to recover, even if his bodily functions didn't fully return. He might even suffer serious aftereffects, such as infertility and extreme weakness—conditions that couldn't be cured even after the poison was neutralized.
Fortunately, Gael returned in time, saving his life. Had he been any later, the poison would have reached his heart, and there would have been no hope.
Doris realized something: Gael listened to her, but he listened to the King even more. The King also bore some responsibility for Gael's current predicament.
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