Nene excused herself shortly thereafter, as she was far too busy with tending patients to chat with me for long.

  Instead, I limped my way into the main infirmary and looked for the numbered signs that pointed towards bed 14. There were many more people bustling around in this area, whether they were medics, nurses, or random maids who were helping out. Nobody bothered to stop me or ask what I was doing. It was hectic enough that nearly everyone was tunnel-visioned onto their main objective, and they couldn't be bothered to ask why a patient was wandering around aimlessly in the unit.

  It seemed like the sickest patients had been pced closest to the central hub.

  There were some frantic shouts from a healer who said they urgently needed an extra hand. A few more people ran to assist, and there were intermittent shrieks of pain from someone who clearly was not having a fun experience.

  I kept my distance from the chaos and pulled aside the curtain at bed 14.

  + + +

  There was an breathing machine on Miss Nelle's face.

  It was a magical device — the type that employed wind magic to deliver breaths of air every few seconds. We called it a 'mechanical lung' in the Kingdom of Galuterica, since it was a state-of-the-art medical device that was primarily used on critically ill patients who otherwise couldn't breath on their own. It was simir in concept to the ICU ventitor from modern-day earth, but the Galuterican version was significantly more primitive in its basic design.

  Needless to say, Nelle was completely unconscious.

  I really didn't know how to react. In the first pce, I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting, either. During the past four years that I spent employed in the Royal Pace, I was fortunate enough to have never experienced a major natural disaster of any kind, so it was a rge shock to see people that I recognized on the brink of life and death. It was difficult to even describe how I felt; my emotions felt like they were stuck somewhere inside of me, and they wouldn't come out of my throat.

  I sat down on a folding chair next to the infirmary bed.

  Hesitantly, I reached out to grab her hand.

  Was it guilt?

  Because I felt like I was originally responsible for this?

  I couldn't really pinpoint any other reason why I felt such a strong compulsion to see Nelle right away. This girl and I were just barely acquaintances — we almost never talked, I didn't know a single detail about her personal life, and we just happened to work for the same employer. She had been unlucky enough to be standing nearby yesterday morning when I ran away from Kang Jiesu, and I had essentially dumped my cssmate onto her to deal with.

  I should have known that anything Kang Jiesu touched was guaranteed to lead to tragedy.

  I already knew that he was a walking minefield.

  If I wanted a peaceful life, I needed to stay far away from him and the rest of my insufferable cssmates.

  However, I didn't think about the potential colteral damage at all.

  "I'll find some way to to fix this... somehow... maybe..." I faltered mid-sentence, cking the resolve to make it definite.

  + + +

  Outside, the commotion in the infirmary grew even louder as a rge entourage of people steadily filed in, crowding an already cramped room. At first, I ignored it since I had nothing to do with me. However, it only took a few seconds before I realized who it was.

  "Y-Your Majesty!" One of the medics stammered, "Thank you for visiting during this difficult time..."

  It was the King and his advisors.

  The medic, incidentally, was much too polite to demand that they all get out. Even though the curtains to Nelle's infirmary bay were closed and I couldn't see the main area, numerous feet were visible underneath the flimsy curtains. It was surely impossible for any of the nurses or healers to do any work with the sheer number of people obstructing traffic. However, none of the medics had the courage to risk offending the King.

  It was hierarchal stupidity at its finest.

  "How is the Prince of Xandu's status?" The King asked.

  "U-Unstable." The medic responded. "It fluctuates by the minute."

  Surely that should have been a hint that the King's entourage was preventing them taking care of the patients.

  "Archbishop," the King addressed one of his advisors. "Ask the Otherworlders if they could lend their healer for a miracle or two. It seems that we do not possess any potion or remedy that is potent enough to heal the Prince's condition."

  "Yes m'lord."

  I realized at this moment that my cssmates were here too, and this was part of the reason why the crowd was so rge. The King had apparently brought all of the Otherworlders along with him, and for the next five minutes, there was a chaotic jumble of Mandarin and Galuterican as countless voices tangled with each other in a long chain of telephone.

  All of the communication was being funneled between a birdkin who served as an interpreter and some kind of squawking bird that I couldn’t identify from sound alone.

  Incidentally, as soon as I realized that Hong Baiye and Kang Jiesu were present, I held completely still in Nelle's infirmary bay. I didn't dare touch the curtains, since I didn't want them to know that I was nearby. For all I knew, the Ice Queen could take control of me all over again and cause me to lose all self-awareness, and my childhood friend was an unpredictable entity who could cause a natural disaster simply by breathing.

  It was much better if I stayed as far away from them as possible.

  "我可以帮..." (I can hel—) Lu Liwang started to say in Mandarin, but he was immediately cut off by Hong Baiye.

  "Exchange!" Hong Baiye cut in abruptly in with broken phrases of Galuterican. "Want. Exchange."

  The King's advisors gnced in between each other.

  Hong Baiye was clearly demanding compensation for any assistance that they provided. While it was rather heartless to withhold medical aid given the circumstances, this type of Machiavellian approach to negotiation was not completely unexpected. If anything, when I considered the fact that the ice queen was very likely the mastermind who had caused this entire 'accident' to begin with, I could sort of see that perhaps she had plotted this sequence of events in order to win additional concessions from the Kingdom of Galuterica.

  However, was it really the right choice to burn social capital in exchange for tangible rewards?

  "We have already accommodated many of your requests..." One of the royal ministers tried to say. "In fact, we have given several gifts to your colleagues, so we would hope that you would be able to reciprocate our goodwill."

  "No. Exchange." Hong Baiye repeated stubbornly, not even waiting for a transtion.

  The Galuterican party continued to whisper among themselves.

  The Prime Minister ventured a guess towards Hong Baiye's ck of cooperation:

  "Perhaps they're upset that only a few of them have received individual gifts," he muttered to the King. "I suspect the dy may be offended that she has not received a tribute, and she may want an individual gift of her own."

  The King waved his advisors off with a flourish of his hands.

  "Give them what they want," he said with irritation. "The Prince of Xandu must be saved regardless of the cost."

  + + +

  While this debate continued between both sides, the curtains to bed 14 suddenly pulled open a small crack.

  I really hadn't done anything to draw attention to myself, but someone had apparently decided to pull the curtains apart for no reason at all. It was really obnoxious, in the sense that it had to be coincidence — there were over thirty beds in the infirmary, so the chances of randomly choosing this particur infirmary bay was only around 3% — but my stomach immediately sank.

  Why?

  Why did this keep happening?

  I couldn't understood.

  It was Kang Jiesu's face — the guy that I absolutely hated the most out of all my cssmates.

  We stared at each other for maybe ten seconds.

  "没想到你会在这儿" (I didn't think you would be here).

  I just wanted to disappear.

  + + +

  The Archbishop seemed to notice that Kang Jiesu stepped away from the rest of the group. He reached out to tap my cssmate's shoulder, trying to politely guide him back, but Kang Jiesu firmly resisted any directional signals from the chief negotiator of the Kingdom of Galuterica.

  "Mine." Kang Jiesu spoke in heavily accented Galuterican, pointing at me.

  The Archbishop gnced over my childhood friend's shoulder, and then he sighed when he saw who he was pointing at.

  "Yes, I know," the Archbishop said. "We already discussed this earlier. The maid is yours."

  Kang Jiesu didn't quite seem to understand what he was being told. There was some kind of miscommunication from the nguage barrier, or at least he seemed to think that the Archbishop was refusing his request.

  "Give back. Mine."

  "We already made her yours. The matter is fully settled."

  There was a certain degree of impatience in the Archbishop's voice, as if he was already tired of repeating himself. Evidently, Kang Jiesu had been bothering him about this issue for a while already, and they had negotiated something during the time that I had been unconscious. If I recalled from the prior night, he had repeated that same phrase at least three or four times with the burly guard who had shackled me, so I couldn't imagine exactly how many times he had said that stupid sentence with other Galuterican officials that he had encountered. However, for whatever reason, Kang Jiesu didn't seem to understand that his request had already been granted.

  As far as I could tell, it seemed like I was going to be reassigned as Kang Jiesu's maid again.

  The Archbishop strode over to me impatiently, as if he wanted to resolve this misunderstanding as fast as possible.

  Without warning, he suddenly pulled apart the side of my gown and exposed my stomach.

  I was wearing a thin cotton shift that was essentially a hospital gown for patients. It separated along the sides like a bathrobe and was fixed with a little bit of string, which generally made it as skimpy as the Galuterican equivalent of underwear. The overall purpose of the attire was so that the healers in the infirmary could get easy access to their patient's injuries, but it could expose quite a lot of skin with a few simple maneuvers.

  I hadn't even looked that carefully at myself ever since I woke up, but I could see right now that there was some kind of weird-looking curse symbol on my lower abdomen that definitely was not there before.

  It was in pin view of Kang Jiesu and the Archbishop of Galuterica.

  They stared at it for a good moment or two.

  "Yours." The Archbishop said matter-of-factly, pointing at the magical tattoo.

  Kang Jiesu appeared rather clueless.

  It was a mark of ownership.

  My face immediately paled upon recognizing the symbol, and I yanked my clothes out of the Archbishop's hands in order to cover myself shakily.

  This couldn't be real. It couldn't be real.

  I couldn't accept this.

  ?