Ye Jingchen was so absorbed in thought that he completely forgot he was still soaking in the bath.
The chill of early spring was strong. With his body submerged in hot water below the neck and exposed to the cold air above it, he instinctively moved closer to the source of warmth.
The jade surface was naturally slippery, and before he knew it, his neck had slipped off the jade pillow. In an instant, his whole body slid straight into the water.
The bathwater was not deep, but only when he was standing. Once he slid down, the water was enough to cover his mouth and nose.
Caught off guard, Ye Jingchen was forced to gulp down a mouthful of bathwater.
He instinctively struggled, and as soon as he moved, a pair of hands hooked under his arms and dragged him out of the bath.
“Cough, cough, cough…” Choked by the water, his throat was unbearably painful. After being saved, Ye Jingchen immediately burst into a thunderous fit of coughing.
Although he had been pulled out of the water, the person who saved him merely tossed him to the poolside and stood there with folded arms, looking at him.
Even though the other person wore a heavy mask and his expression could not be seen at all, Ye Jingchen still felt from those pitch-black eyes that Chenxi was laughing at him.
The words he had just used to bark at the palace attendant were still fresh in his mind…
“The water in this bath is so shallow it does not even reach this prince’s chest. How could this prince drown?”
That was a humiliating slap in the face, and fast.
Ye Jingchen felt as though he were coughing his lungs out, and at the same time, it seemed his face hurt even more.
Just then, a cautious female voice came from outside. “Your Highness, are you all right?”
Startled, Ye Jingchen sprang up from the ground like a carp and snarled, “I’m fine! This prince is still going to bathe. Do not disturb this prince!”
The outside went quiet, but then Ye Jingchen broke into another heart-rending fit of coughing.
As he coughed, he belatedly realized that he was naked all over, not even wearing underwear. His backside and private parts were exposed to the cold.
He had been seen completely naked!
Although his current body was only that of a child, Ye Jingchen still blushed with embarrassment.
“Turn around. Don’t look at this prince!” he ordered the dark guards sharply.
Chenxi was very obedient and immediately turned his back.
“Just now, this prince only wanted to play in the water. It was definitely not drowning. Do you hear me? I do not want a second person to know about this!” Ye Jingchen threatened fiercely.
But although his tone was harsh, he had not yet reached the age when his voice would break, so his voice still carried a childish softness. It sounded fierce, but also a little cute, with very little intimidation.
“Yes.” Chenxi’s voice was calm and unreadable, completely unconcerned with his master’s unreasonable behavior.
Although his master had seemed more irritable since falling into the water, somehow he did not seem as annoying as before.
Before, his master made it clear that he did not even regard dark guards as people. Now, in his master’s eyes, he was at least a person.
Could it be because he had saved his master in the Imperial Garden?
But he had saved his master many times before, and there had never been any change in how he was treated.
After thinking it through for a bit, Chenxi instinctively felt that this kind of thing was too troublesome, so he set the thought aside.
He was just an emotionless dark guard. All he had to do was do his duty well. Why think so much?
After personally choking on water, and especially with his throat burning like fire now, Ye Jingchen did not want to go back into the water, and did not dare to, for the time being.
He took his clothes, which were elaborate and complicated in style, and after quite a bit of fuss finally managed to get dressed properly. Then he hurried out of the side hall.
When he lay back down on the bed, Ye Jingchen felt utterly exhausted.
Not physically exhausted, but mentally.
Suddenly brought into a strange world, faced with an unfamiliar environment and unfamiliar people, his nerves were taut, and he did not dare relax even a little. Fortunately, he had the soul of a thirty-year-old, so he had at least some ability to endure it. Otherwise, he would surely have broken down.
Maybe only after falling asleep could he relax even a tiny bit?
Ye Jingchen fell into a deep sleep.
But in his dreams, he did not get the relaxation he wanted.
In the dream, he once again slid into the bath, but this time no one saved him. He sank to the bottom and felt suffocating pain, his body growing colder and colder…
Had he only just been reborn, and was he already about to die again?
If that was the case, why had heaven let him be reborn at all, just to toy with him?
When a person is on the verge of death, the desire to survive is strongest.
“I don’t want to die!”
“Don’t want to die…”
Ye Jingchen murmured.
“Chen’er, Imperial Father and Daddy will not let you die!
“Physician Zhang, hurry and find a way to bring down the Crown Prince’s fever! If anything happens to the Crown Prince, I will make everyone in the Imperial Hospital be buried with him!”
The Emperor sat at the Crown Prince’s bedside, looking at his beloved son, who was delirious with fever, and felt as though his heart were breaking.
All the imperial physicians on duty from the Imperial Hospital had arrived, along with the original palace attendants from the Eastern Palace and the Emperor’s own attendants, nearly filling the bedchamber to the brim. Everyone was in a state of panic and fear.
After all, His Highness the Crown Prince’s safety was directly tied to their own necks. If His Highness the Crown Prince could not make it through the night, then none of them would live to see the next morning.
As the main target of the Emperor’s fury, the other imperial physicians in the Imperial Hospital were all silent as cicadas in winter, with only Physician Zhang obviously drifting off in thought, his face showing confusion one moment and a tight frown the next.
When His Highness the Crown Prince woke during the day, he had clearly examined him, and everything had been fine. How could there now be symptoms of water accumulation in his internal organs at night?
Could it be that His Highness had drowned again?
But was that even possible?
If he really had developed a high fever from catching cold after a second drowning, then given His Majesty’s regard for the Crown Prince, everyone in the Eastern Palace might lose their lives.
“Did Your Highness go out today?” the old physician asked, kind-hearted and unwilling to see too many people die because of this, so his question was deliberately vague.
“His Highness did not leave the Eastern Palace. He only walked around the garden and spent the rest of the time in the bedchamber.”
The answer came from Fangfei, the Crown Prince’s senior personal palace maid.
What in the bedchamber could have caused His Highness to drown?
Could it have been the bath?
But the bath in the Eastern Palace was not deep, and there were palace attendants serving nearby. In theory, His Highness could not have drowned.
The old physician could not make sense of it, but with a matter of life and death at stake, he had no choice but to suppress his doubts.
“Your Majesty, rest assured. Before dawn, the fever will definitely break, and His Highness will certainly be safe,” Physician Zhang said steadily.
Before he became an imperial physician, Physician Zhang had already been known among the common people as a “miracle doctor.” After entering the palace, the Emperor had also seen his superb medical skill, and at those words, most of the worry in his heart eased.
“Your Majesty, there is still one hour until morning court. Since Physician Zhang says His Highness is fine, why don’t you go and rest for a while? Otherwise, your body won’t be able to take it,” the chief eunuch, Zhang Shunde, said opportunistically.
Having been awakened in the middle of the night and rushed to the Eastern Palace in a hurry, the Emperor’s body was indeed a bit worn out, but he was still deeply worried about his beloved son and afraid of another accident, so he said, “Then let me rest in the side hall for a while.”
As soon as the Emperor gave the order, Zhang Shunde immediately took several palace attendants to prepare the side hall. Before long, he came to invite the Emperor to move there.
The Emperor left, but the imperial physicians could not leave. Physician Zhang instructed the palace maids to soak cloths in cool water and place them on Ye Jingchen’s forehead to bring down his temperature. From time to time, he also had the palace maids feed Ye Jingchen some warm water, and he had the imperial physicians take turns taking Ye Jingchen’s pulse.
In this way, everyone in the bedchamber busied themselves for nearly an hour, and at last Ye Jingchen’s fever subsided, and he fell into a deep sleep.
Before going to morning court, the Emperor came to see Ye Jingchen, personally confirmed that his high fever had truly broken, and only then finally felt at ease enough to attend court.