Chapter 40
"So that's how it is, elder brother understands." Xue Jin'an watched with relief as the eldest prince quickly adjusted his expression, regaining the same smile as before. He then turned his gaze to the remaining two princes, repeating his usual concern.
The Fourth Prince felt a strange mix of unease and respect towards the First Prince, like a junior facing a half-acquaintance's elder asking him a question. When the conversation ended, he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Unfortunately, the princes present all had excellent hearing, and although the Eighth Prince had only just begun practicing martial arts and didn't have much fighting ability to show for himself, he was naturally gifted at reading people's expressions. In other words, the only one who met both the requirements of being bad at martial arts and lacking tact was the Fourth Prince.
Therefore, all the princes sensed the Fourth Prince's sigh of relief.
The Third Prince crossed his arms and silently chuckled.
The Fifth Prince immediately turned his head away, almost bursting out laughing on the spot.
The Eighth Prince, who had just begun to learn to control his expressions, immediately lost control, his facial features becoming unmanageable, and even the strands of hair facing the Fourth Prince were filled with incoherent thoughts.
Xue Jin'an couldn't help but glance at him. He, who had never been very good at understanding human emotions, could see this time that the Fourth Prince was "forced to perform".
Having survived an intense "family social" session, the Fourth Prince was patting his chest in satisfaction when he noticed the subtle shift in the atmosphere. Having been reprimanded by his father for speaking inappropriately before, he immediately became nervous and cautiously asked, "Did I say something wrong again?"
"No." Despite suffering two crushing defeats, the Crown Prince's deliberately lowered voice still sounded gentle, seemingly no different from before.
However, Xue Jin'an accurately positioned the corner of his mouth, clearly pressing it down by three and a half pixels, almost reaching the standard smile position.
However, the eldest prince quickly recovered, and when he began his routine conversation with the eighth prince, his smile returned to its original shape, differing from the initial one by only half a pixel.
Before the eldest prince and the third prince could exchange more than a few words, the third prince was already getting impatient. He reached up and scratched his neck, feeling itchy all over, and his skin was slightly red, whether it was because he had been lying on the ground earlier or because the new clothes were rubbing against his skin.
He kicked the fence in frustration. "You two can talk slowly. I'm going to ride a horse."
As he spoke, he headed straight for Wuyun Taxue. He had been eager to hunt this horse when it was still a puppy, and now that he saw how it had grown, he couldn't resist the urge to go for it.
The eldest prince immediately disregarded the eighth prince, hastily ending the conversation and quickly following after him. The Consort De had finally trained the horse well and brought it to its current state; she was now very fond of it and couldn't allow anyone else to have it.
"Third Prince!" The Third Prince's steps were too fast, and the First Prince had to raise his voice to stop him. His originally gentle and warm voice suddenly became hoarse and mocking, an unpleasant sound that every boy experiences during puberty, which shocked the Third Prince to his feet.
Even Xue Jin'an couldn't help but cover his ears, deeply understanding what it meant to have an "ear miscarriage".
The eldest prince cleared his throat, lowering his voice to make it gentle again, "The heir apparent of Prince An heard that we were going on an autumn hunt and gave me a fine steed, said to be an Akhal-Teke horse—"
"A Ferghana horse? Take me to see it!" The Third Prince immediately became interested and interrupted him impatiently.
"This way, you all come and take a look too." The eldest prince led the third prince inside, with the eighth prince following closely behind his third brother, and the fourth and fifth princes following behind.
Xue Jin'an walked at the back of the group. He clearly saw the First Prince's personal eunuch directing people to lead Wuyun Taxue away and hide it so that the Third Prince would not see it again. At the same time, he ordered people to drive all the horses outside back to the stables, both to prevent them from accidentally bumping into the nobles and to make it easier for the princes to look at and choose horses.
Now is the time for the horses to frolic. They have just come out and naturally do not want to go back. The eunuchs spread hay in the manger to attract their attention and successfully drove most of the horses back to the stable.
Incidentally, whether it was due to being overly enthusiastic or doing it on purpose, the personal eunuch took away the account book from the young eunuch of the Imperial Stables who was resting on the fence after relieving himself of his duty as a guide, and assigned him the task of spreading hay for the horses.
The young eunuch from the Imperial Stables paused, seemingly wanting to explain something, but after glancing in the direction the princes had left, he hesitated, closed his mouth, and silently went to the warehouse to fetch hay and get to work.
He was looking at himself, Xue Jin'an was absolutely certain, and he looked away thoughtfully.
The Third Prince noticed the commotion and said with displeasure, "That's enough. It's their nature. If they want to be outside, let them be outside. If these few really go berserk, they can't do anything to us."
"But what if something happens..." The eldest prince made a troubled and hesitant expression.
The Third Prince chuckled, "These are my words. I will take responsibility for any consequences and will absolutely not make things difficult for my elder brother."
"Third sister, you're insulting me with those words," the eldest prince said helplessly.
Ultimately, due to the Third Prince's repeated insistence, the horses that had not returned were left on the horse farm, roaming freely.
All the dissatisfaction in the Third Prince's heart vanished when he saw the Akhal-Teke horse. He immediately ordered his men to untie the reins, open the stable gate, and let it out so he could ride it.
The eldest prince raised his hand to stop him and advised, "This horse is really wild and difficult to tame. It has driven all the other horses in the same stable out of the past half day and has taken up a place by itself. We don't even dare to get too close to feed it. We usually only give it half a grazing so that it doesn't have too much strength... With such a fierce nature, I'm afraid it would be bad if you forced yourself to mount it."
The Third Prince wasn't afraid at all; on the contrary, his eyes lit up as he listened, and he became even more interested. "Okay, I like the fierce one!"
He was saying this when he actually went over to train the horse.
"Wait!" The eldest prince ordered someone to bring over the tools commonly used for training horses. "You should at least bring one of these."
The Third Prince originally intended to say that it wasn't necessary, as he intended to train the horse empty-handed. However, as he spoke, he seemed to think of something and instead ordered someone to fetch him a horse saber.
He gripped the saber, tested its weight, swung it a few times, adjusted the position and size of the arm guard, and then leaped into the air.
Everyone thought the Third Prince wanted the saber for training horses, but little did they know he wanted it to cut the reins and free the horse.
Because the Akhal-Teke horse was unruly, the trainer deliberately made its reins very short so that no matter how much it thrashed around, it couldn't leave its confined space. Knowing that the Third Prince wanted to train the horse by force, the trainer dared not untie the reins and planned to let him train it in the stable.
Although the Third Prince would definitely be unhappy, this method is safe! They assumed the Third Prince was just there to experience life while training horses and didn't take it too seriously. As for if the Third Prince got angry and wanted to punish them, His Highness was here. This was Consort De's horse farm, so His Highness would surely not allow anything to happen here.
The eunuchs had a good plan, but they only knew that the Third Prince was reckless. They never expected him to be this reckless. It was one thing for a fourteen-year-old to want to train a half-grown wild horse, but he even wanted to perform a high-difficulty horse training show that ordinary horse trainers wouldn't even dare to dream of.
The Third Prince leaped from the top of the stable and landed on the horse's back. With a backhand slash, he cut the reins. Startled, the horse neighed and crashed through the stable, bursting out of the stable.
The horses clattered and neighed, a fierce battle ensued between man and horse. The horse kicked and leaped, then raised its entire upper body, trying to throw the man off.
With the reins cut, the Third Prince had no foothold, so he gripped the horse's belly tightly with his legs and pulled on the mane. When the horse's two front hooves touched the ground again, he used his saber as a whip to lash the horse's rump hard.
After another round of running and fighting, the Third Prince leaned down and pressed himself against the horse's back, holding onto its neck tightly to control its direction. After several such attempts, the Akhal-Teke horse finally became obedient and ran fast and steady amidst the Third Prince's hearty laughter.
"Giddy up!" The Third Prince, having trained the horse, did not stop at all, but instead increased its speed even more. The Akhal-Teke horse lived up to its name, accelerating at full speed and turning into a white shadow. The horse had already run several feet away before the afterimage on the spot slowly dissipated.
Helpless, the eldest prince ordered someone to chase after them and keep an eye on things, then turned around and led Xue Jin'an and the others to select horses.
In ancient times, horses were like carriages, and a spirited horse was like a luxury carriage. Few men could resist such a thing, not even a foal.
However, Xue Jin'an had already learned how to train horses by witnessing the Third Prince training them. As mentioned before, his human brain made him feel bored with doing things a second time, so Xue Jin'an had little interest in watching and choosing wild horses. After noticing that some eyes were seemingly on him, he randomly chose a horse and separated from the others.
The Fifth Prince noticed this scene and quietly slowed down. He stopped, claiming that he felt unwell and needed to rest. In front of the others, he took out a black pill and put it under his tongue, his mouth now filled with a bitter taste.
Actually, the Fifth Prince's claim of feeling unwell in his chest wasn't an excuse, but he didn't take it seriously. He was just pretending to be sick when he wasn't, and eventually, he would develop health problems from taking medicine.
He didn't want to eat it, or rather, he had never wanted to eat it before, but... The Fifth Prince's expression turned slightly sinister at this thought, which frightened the naive eunuch next to him, who had never seen the world, so much that he shrank his shoulders.
The Fifth Prince found a spot with an excellent view, crossed his arms, and stared at Xue Jin'an with an air of nonchalance, making no attempt to conceal himself.
The Fifth Prince had lost every time he clashed with Xue Jin'an, and he finally understood that Xue Jin'an was a blockhead. If you tried to be sarcastic or sarcastic with him, he could make you angry to death and then bring you back to life. In any case, you would not get the better of him.
It's better to be straightforward. Given Xue Jin'an's personality, even if he knows he's eavesdropping, he won't react much. If you ask him a question, he might even be able to answer you.
The Fifth Prince's strategy can be summarized as: use magic to defeat magic!
Xue Jin'an, who had indeed sensed his gaze and successfully deduced what he wanted to do from the character model calculations, said:
He truly had no intention of pursuing the Fifth Prince. For him, there was nothing he couldn't hear or see right now. If there really was, he could simply shut the Fifth Prince down manually. If necessary, he could also use physical means to format the Fifth Prince's brain so that he would never remember what happened today.
As for why he didn't just use scientific methods to format it—the Fifth Prince even has a connection password for Bluetooth, let alone anything else—perhaps he could open an application software and try downloading a universal key.
Oh, his magic power is too low right now, so he can't open the application? That's alright then.
Xue Jinan watched the horse in front of her eat quietly. It has to be said that although this horse is still a foal, it has a really big appetite. It eats three handfuls of grass in one bite. The long trough is meant for a stable of horses, but in no time it has finished half of the grass for the two horses next to it.
Soon, Xue Jin'an heard a weak heartbeat. A little eunuch carrying a bucket came over and added some feed. The horse, which had been frantically eating, suddenly stopped chewing and looked up at the two people in front of it. Its big black eyes on both sides of its face were a little moist.
I've heard that a horse's intelligence is about the same as that of a seven-year-old human. Xue Jin'an, who is also seven years old, reached out and patted the horse's neck: "You're welcome, eat up."
The horse was so happy that it even nudged his hand with its neck, and Xue Jin'an played with it for a while.
Just then, the little eunuch grabbed a handful of grass and fed it to the horse's mouth, saying, "This isn't your last meal before you're beheaded."
The horse seemed to understand, lowered its head, and happily began to eat again.
So it wasn't thanking him but thought he was being fed the Last Supper, so when it bumped into him earlier, it wasn't playing with him but... being angry and embarrassed?
Xue Jin'an paused, then slowly uttered a sound of sudden realization, "Oh~"
It seems he understands neither humans nor horses.
Xue Jin'an used a quick flashlight to clear away his emotional baggage, then turned around and, sure enough, found the eunuch from the Imperial Stables beside him.
His face was as white as paper, but his lips were a dark color, the color of insufficient blood supply to the heart, indicating that his battery health had dropped to 40%.
Xue Jin'an frowned as he looked at the number. Although he had known for a long time that this person's battery condition wouldn't last long, it was dropping a little too fast.
"You're going to die." Xue Jin'an was as blunt as ever.
“Indeed, Your Highness is right.” The little eunuch had already gotten used to his way of speaking. He chuckled and suddenly said, “Judging from Your Highness’s sword, do you like lotus flowers? I know some people in the flower room. There’s a twin lotus that’s blooming beautifully. If Your Highness likes it, I’ll ask them to send it to you.”
It is now winter, and the lotus blooming season has long passed. However, the palace has greenhouses where out-of-season vegetables and fruits can be grown, providing fresh vegetables and flowers for the masters and concubines of the palace all year round.
Xue Jin'an had no particular fondness for flowers; he neither disliked nor liked them. He honestly replied, "No—"
His words were cut short as Xue Jin'an heard the chaotic sound of horses' hooves approaching. At the same time, he detected a strange fragrance in the air. Without the masking scent of grass and trees, and amplified by the mixed bodily fluids, this pheromone-like scent became unprecedentedly strong.
"Ah!" A scream pierced the entire horse farm, followed by chaos. A cacophony of sounds filled the air. Someone shouted, "Help! The horse is out of control! The Third Prince has fallen off!"
"Oh no! All the horses have gone out of control!"
...
The noise behind him was too chaotic for Xue Jin'an to discern from such a distance. He strode towards the center of the accident, and the little eunuch also hurriedly ran off in that direction.
Was it ultimately aimed at the Third Prince? All the evidence seemed to point to that, but Xue Jin'an felt something was missing.
For example, why did that little eunuch from the Imperial Stables, who was almost dead, come to him and say such ambiguous things? What is the symbolism of the lotus flower?
Xue Jin'an ran his fingertips along the lotus mark on the sword hilt. He knew nothing about the mark; the only connection he had with it was the Fifth Prince—the Fifth Prince?!
Xue Jin'an paused, and almost simultaneously, a startled exclamation came from behind him, "Fifth Prince!"
He turned his head and saw the Fifth Prince clutching his chest, his face contorted in pain, and collapsing to the ground, only to be caught by his bodyguard eunuch who was quick to react.
The personal eunuch, his face filled with shock and disbelief, muttered under his breath, "How could this happen at this time..."
He didn't say anything more at this point, but instead hurriedly pulled out a thin bamboo tube, no bigger than a finger, from his chest, poured out a red pill, and was about to feed it to the Fifth Prince.
Just as the red pill was about to be fed to his mouth, the Fifth Prince suddenly swung it away, and slipped and fell to the ground due to his unsteady movement.
His expression was one of extreme pain, and the veins all over his body were bulging and throbbing, as if some living thing was wriggling inside him, which looked terrifying.
Actually, it's quite possible. After all, the Fifth Prince was using Gu to create a heart ailment, so it's normal for his blood to be mixed with something, right? In the novel, whether it's those who manipulate Gu worms or those who are controlled and affected by them, none of them have clean blood.
The Fifth Prince clutched his clothes tightly to his chest, collapsing to the ground without daring to be helped. His jaw was clenched, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. He was breathing heavily, his expression becoming dazed, but he kept saying, "I...won't...eat! Let...me...die!"
"I don't want to... I want to live... I want to die... Let me die..." He mumbled incoherently, his lip movements were also a jumbled mess and hard to read. The little eunuch was sweating profusely, but the Fifth Prince resolutely refused to let him get close.
Rather than simply being in so much pain that you lose your mind, it's more like an animal stress response.
The Fifth Prince's reaction had already answered Xue Jin'an's suspicions, and what followed was confirmation. He turned around and headed towards another crime scene.
He didn't intend to interfere with the Fifth Prince. There weren't many people here, and the Fifth Prince himself had refused to take his medicine. He didn't want to rashly meddle in the code that concerned other people's lives, especially since the other side was in such chaos. The Third Prince had fallen from his horse, and all the horses had gone mad. It sounded like a bad situation. He had to verify the answer before the Third Prince died.
However, at this moment, perhaps the Fifth Prince's survival instinct prevailed, and he actually called out Xue Jin'an's name.
"I'm here." Xue Jin'an's voice assistant was activated. He turned his head and found that the Fifth Prince was actually in a daze and was unconsciously calling for help.
Xue Jin'an, I don't want to die.
He didn't want to die.
Xue Jin'an received the idea he was conveying.
Without pausing, Xue Jin'an walked over and, under the watchful eyes of his personal eunuch, used the most time-saving, labor-saving, convenient, and quick method provided by the data to kick the Fifth Prince in the chin, flipping him over.
The Fifth Prince rolled his eyes and remained motionless.
"He's in hibernation." Xue Jin'an didn't sympathize with the Fifth Prince for a moment, and immediately turned and left, heading towards his pre-arranged destination.
The situation on the Third Prince's side was incredibly chaotic. The intense, almost unbearable heartbeats, the boisterous voices of people, the clatter of horses' hooves... all sorts of sounds were intertwined. Even with Xue Jin'an's most powerful brain, after listening for a while, he still couldn't sort them out or match the people together immediately.
It's so noisy that it's affecting the normal use of other functions. After all, the human body is different from a mobile phone. The sound, camera, and other features of a mobile phone are independent on the panel and can be used together or separately. However, the five senses of a human are interconnected and even form the brain. If one sense is affected, the other senses will also be affected.
Xue Jin'an walked slowly and quietly, and by the time he reached the center of the incident, he was just one step away from being silenced. He scanned the area with his high-definition camera but did not see the little eunuch.
Sure enough, he escaped in the chaos. Xue Jin'an wasn't surprised at all, nor did he pay attention to the little eunuch's whereabouts; he was a man destined to die anyway.
He walked toward the horses.
The people Consort De left at the horse farm were quite reliable. In just a short time, the situation had been brought under control. Each eunuch held one or two lassoes and tried their best to hold back the raging horses. The effect was quite successful. At least the First Prince's men were able to take this opportunity to carry out the Third Prince, who was covered in blood and looked disheveled.
As for the Akhal-Teke horse, it was already dead, its body violently cleaved in two, and judging from the wounds, the murder weapon was a saber.
The Third Prince's condition was neither good nor bad. On the one hand, he was mentally stable, and most of the blood on his body was horse blood, which Xue Jin'an could tell from his heartbeat. On the other hand, his lower body, especially his right leg, was a bloody mess and twisted in an abnormal position.
The Akhal-Teke horse went berserk very suddenly. Caught off guard, the Third Prince was thrown to the ground and rolled twice before unfortunately rolling under the horse's hooves. He had tried his best to avoid it, but his right leg was still trampled and broken.
Then, it's unclear whether the Akhal-Teke horse's madness startled the other horses, or if other horses already had problems, but it triggered a chain reaction. All the nearby horses went mad. Those grazing peacefully in the stables suddenly started frantically ramming into the walls and doors, while those outside reared up and ran wildly, chasing after the Third Prince and trampling him.
The horses that the Third Prince had offered to let them roam freely have now become the biggest obstacle to his escape.
Fortunately, after being injured, the Third Prince decisively used his saber to slay the Ferghana horse. He channeled his inner strength into the saber, which allowed him to split the horse open with brute force. Blood drenched him from head to tail, and the mad horses, probably intimidated by his ferocity, paused for a moment.
The eunuchs who had obtained the lasso immediately began to attack. The Third Prince rolled left and right, swinging his saber wildly. Although he inevitably took a few kicks, he eventually got out.
The first thing the third prince said after being carried out, grabbing the first prince, was, "I... I can't feel my legs..."
The eldest prince grasped the third prince's hand. "Third prince, everything will be alright! Where is the imperial physician? Why hasn't he arrived yet?" Someone had gone to fetch the imperial physician when the accident happened, but he still hadn't come.
It seems something unexpected has happened.
Sure enough, the person sent to fetch the imperial physician returned, his face filled with fear, and whispered in the eldest prince's ear, "Your Highness..."
Xue Jin'an didn't read what came next. He walked to a horse that had collapsed from exhaustion, temporarily stopping the eunuch who was about to draw his weapon to kill the horse, and squatted down to grasp the lasso rope.
[USB connection successful! Please select connection method: transfer photos/transfer files/charge only]
Xue Jin'an wanted to check the horse's condition, so he naturally chose to transfer the file with the widest access permissions, and a red exclamation mark immediately popped up.
[Warning! This device poses a high risk. A virus is attempting to scan your device. Your security software is currently in antivirus mode.]
[Virus removal successful! This device can be accessed safely.]
Something shocking happened.
In everyone's eyes, Xue Jin'an held the lasso rope and concentrated for a while, then suddenly punched the horse's belly. The mad horse, which was still struggling wildly even though it was exhausted, immediately vomited a pool of black, unidentified blood. Then the crazy scarlet red in its eyes faded, and it became completely quiet.
The atmosphere at the scene froze eerily for a moment. Someone said in a trembling voice, "Yes, it's 'pulse diagnosis by suspension'! They're actually using a lasso rope to diagnose a horse's pulse by suspension!!"
"My God!" Exclamations rose and fell.
Xue Jin'an slowly typed out a question mark: "...?"
What made him even more puzzled was that just as he was about to get up to find the next horse, the imperial physician had not arrived for a long time. In desperation, the eldest prince's eunuch came to him and begged him to treat the third prince.
Even if he really is a doctor, isn't he a veterinarian? Is it really okay for him to treat people? Hmm... humans are advanced animals too...
Xue Jin'an remained silent for a moment, then opened his browser, found the doctor Chang, described the situation, and successfully obtained an answer.
A moment later, Xue Jin'an picked up the saber and said to the hopeful Third Prince, "He needs to have his leg amputated."
"What amputation?" The eldest prince was stunned.
Xue Jinan: "It means cutting off everything below the waist."
With a "snap," the half-dead Third Prince sprang to his feet.
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