Xiao Ying, gazing at Ming Cheng as he winced over and over again as his wounds were cleaned, decided that he needed to further test the boundaries of what he could do.
His legs were covered with bandages, dangling off the edge of a stool in the centre of the Imperial Physician's office. Immediately through the door, there was a desk and a row of shelves, filled completely with books and scrolls. There was a small door tucked away behind the desk, where the occasional sound of rummaging and mumbles came from.
Next to it was a mostly empty area where a stool and a bed sat for minor consultations. There was a large door, stretching across the entirety of the left wall, off to another room lined almost entirely with beds.
If he wanted to help Ming Cheng, then he needed to do more than just participate in the nightly sessions between the child and the ghost of his dead mother. It wasn't enough for him to just sit around and spy on him.
If he didn't need to eat or sleep, then he would have all the time in the world to calculate a way to bring Ming Cheng all the way to the top.
And give him friends.
But first, Xiao Ying needed to test the capabilities of his position.
The keyboard had worked to make him speak through Ming Cheng's dead mother's mouth before, when her ghost was already present as demanded by the plot. If Xiao Ying typed something else out now, then it would mean that his interactions with Ming Cheng would be allowed to happen outside of plot mandated scenes.
"Don't wince," Xiao Ying typed out, deciding to begin doing the PR on Ming Cheng's image here and now.
If the child could prevent any image of pain from leaking out of himself here and now, then it would only help him later down the line when it was discovered that he was the son of the current Emperor.
Ming Cheng froze, his eyes widening as his body stilled. His pupils became blown and searching widely, from side to side, probably trying to seek out the ghost from the night before.
Xiao Ying gritted his teeth.
Ming Cheng was only a child.
Kids were weird, making up imaginary friends to play with and making up all sorts of stories about things they saw that weren't actually there.
Ming Cheng would have probably written off the entire ghost incident as some weird dream.
Of course he didn't think that it really didn't happen.
"I am the ghost. You promised to not speak of me," Xiao Ying then put down, to try and help Ming Cheng relax, if even a little.
His muscles were stiffening that wouldn't help him in the slightest with his recovery.
The palace physician was already having an inner monologue that Xiao Ying had written in. He was supposed to be internally marvelling at Ming Cheng's strength and general, disciplined disposition, the child not crying at the alcohol placed on his wounds and handling the pain as a hardened soldier would.
In one of Xiao Ying's drafts, there was a scrapped sequence of the physician testing Ming Cheng's body for faulty nerves that seemed to be not registering the expected pain from the alcohol, but as Xiao Ying kept watching, he realised that the one instruction that he gave Ming Cheng was prompting the scrapped sequence to play out.
The physician had opened up a drawer full of needles and was now talking Lan Chang and Ming Cheng through the sequence of testing that he was about to perform on Ming Cheng's body.
"I'm going to stimulate the pressure points of your body and you need to tell me if you feel those pressure points," he kindly explained, pressing the end of the needle with his index finger to test its point.
He kneeled down on the floor before Ming Cheng, one knee on the ground and facing the floor.
"Like a knight bowing a king," Xiao Ying mumbled out, the imagery that he had described in the scrapped graph fully shown in line and colour here.
Even the golden sunlight, pouring through the window, the light shifts flaking Ming Cheng on either side. Lan Chang stood behind him vigilant like a guard, with the physician kneeling in from of him.
The physician knocked the points of the needles lightly against Ming Cheng's skin, and the child replied in turn that he felt each and every stabbing point into his skin.
Little red spots made their way up his body at each and every test site.
Ming Cheng dutifully replied after each and every stab, indicating how perfectly well his nerves were working all the way through his body.
"Astounding! Lan Chang, the boy's discipline and strength against pain is admirable. He holds his pain as if he were a soldier!" the physician exclaimed with a giant smile on his face, "May I borrow him to-"
"No," she cut him off, a stern expression on her face.
"Oh well..." the physician trailed off, wandering into the side room near his desk, returning quickly with a small pouch in his hands.
"Change his bandages regularly and apply this poultice as you do so. You know what to do, Lan Chang," he advised, solely speaking to her as if Ming Cheng wasn't in the room.
Xiao Ying recoiled slightly, back into his chair to lean back and hold his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees.
The character of the physician had been pulled and changed here.
He was only meant to be a characterless, flat yes man, only here to praise Ming Cheng as an amazing, regal example of a human being, even when he was still a child.
There was no reason for him to be a predating, creepy old man who did his job well enough and had the skills to get ready of any potential bodies.
Xiao Ying needed to note down the change.