The Cellular Resurgence took hours to complete, however, the herbal fumes still engulfed the empress's body. The seven soul shards began to move back inside Xuan Cheng as she rested for a second, taking a long breath.
'The damaged part is replaced, now the poison must be removed from her body before it starts consuming her organs again,' Xuan Cheng affirmed as she found the room free from her Elemental Embrace.
It was finally the turn for detoxification. It wouldn't be easy as Ocean Fire Poison had been running inside the empress for months and had infused itself with her blood to an extent that it would be impossible to completely get rid of it.
Zhao Ming knew it very well but if thought about it as he should, then he would have lost his mother in the days to come. He chose to believe Princess Cheng, the Poison master to cure his mother.
He waited patiently, his fist turning blue because he tightened way too forcefully. His eyes glanced at the handmaid who accompanied Xuan Cheng and noticed that Huan had fallen asleep. He ignored her and stayed still in his position as he had been earlier.
There was no sign of hunger or exhaustion in him, all one could notice was the extreme pressure that he felt upon his shoulder. There was no doubt that the person curing his mother was none other than the Poison master herself. But as suspicious as he was, he kept overthinking.
Xuan Cheng placed a crystal pearl in the air, a thread elongated from it, and reached for the empress, It extracted a nerve, thinner than a strand of hair, barely visible to the naked eye. The nerve then connected itself with Xuan Cheng.
She then crossed her leg and floated in the air once again, her eyes closed and her hand bellowed in the direction of the empress.
'The most tiring part begins...' Xuan Cheng mentally prepared herself. The TranquilBlend elixir and the nightshade and wolfsbane potion had started doing their job. However, it wasn't enough.
Slitting open the skin from various areas, Xuan Cheng began to evaporate the Ocean Fire Poison and with her cultivation skill, she began to form a crystal bead from the poison that accumulated above her head.
Before Xuan Cheng had started this process, Zhao Ming thought that the treatment was over only to end up guessing that it was just a beginning.
'No wonder she said it would take her a night and a day, it is already dawn,' Zhao Ming assumed the hour as his heightened hearing could hear the hourbell.
The Ocean Fire Poison was attacked from two sides, the poisonous flowers she fed the empress were eating it and replacing it and second, it was being evaporated only to become a crystal.
If she didn't evaporate it, the deadly poison would still linger around in the empress's body. Little by little, it began to rise in the air.Minutes passed like hours and hours passed like a century, Exhausting every ounce of her power, Xuan Cheng consistently stayed in her position without flinching or even blinking.
It takes a lot of patience to serve a person, may he be a close one or a stranger. Xuan Cheng as a princess never lived a carefree life after all. She constantly had to shed blood, sweat, and tears to achieve what she owned in present times. This included her cultivation which she was exploiting for the sake of the empress as if it never belonged to her.
Can't she regain it? Obviously, she can! But in the Capital City, it would be difficult to recover all her lost energy since the gloomy capital made her weak. She needed a place where all the seven materials existed naturally which is quite rare to find in itself.
Thus, she will have to create elixirs that might take her months, and she knew the dedication and time it needed was nothing to joke about. Unless she returns to her newly settled palace silently and remains laid low, she will not be able to create the elixir needed.
None of it mattered to her, as her focus wasn't to store the energy and abuse her powers like the evil cultivators otherwise what would be the difference between others and her. She felt obliged to cure and treat people. Maybe her struggles as a forgotten princess made her turn out that way.
Perhaps as her grandmother often thought, she might have been like any other princess in the capital city, living a luxurious and carefree life. She might have possessed the same arrogance and prejudice as other high-ranking women.
Zhao Ming stared at Xuan Cheng and his eyes were locked at the process, observing everything keenly. He had heard that there was no cure for the poison that was given to his mother and watching it being detoxified made it no less than a miracle.
He was highly impressed by Xuan Cheng's selfless efforts, in his heart, he could feel the weight of gratitude which made him euphoric. All he could do was pray to the Almighty for his mother's full recovery.
....
"The emperor hasn't visited me in days, I guess that imperial Nobel consort has again played some schemes against me," Consort Xin gritted her teeth as she leaned against the partition, eating red grapes.The maids dared not make any remark and simply stayed quiet while attending her cautiously.
"It has only been five days, Consort Xin, I guess you are lovesick already," a voice alarmed the maids and startled Consort Xin. She sat up straight dismissing the maids who were massaging her feet and feeding her.
Just as she fixed her composure, the Imperial Noble Consort appeared before her, a maid supporting her as she entered the chamber gracefully.
"Greetings Imperial Noble Consort..." Consort Xin's attitude changed and she sat on the floor, her right knee touching the floor and left one curled in, her hands clasped together at her waist.
"Rise up...your tone..it is as if I am bullying you," Imperial Noble Consort spoke as she sat down at the other side of the partition.
"You could have summoned me, why bother visiting me in person?" Consort Xin spoke acting like she was the most obedient and respectful Consort of the emperor.
"Drop the act!" Imperial Noble Consort's smile disappeared and was replaced by a furious expression.Consort Xin trembled and her maids who were already kneeling bowed their heads even lower.
"I had given you just one task...just one! And you failed to even do the simplest part of it?" Imperial Noble Consort threw her fist at the hard surface of the table that separated the partition.
"I don't know what you are talking about..." Consort Xin began to sweat profusely as she remembered what exactly the woman before her was trying to say.
"I asked you to make all the new concubines drink Datura essence but you failed to do your job. Now one of them is pregnant!" No sooner did the words escape from the Imperial Noble Consort's lips than Consort Xin fell to her knees.
Her eyes widened from shock and her lips fluttered, "I don't how this happened...I remember making sure that they all drank it," Consort Xin accepted to have remembered her task.
"It is the first time in eight years...The emperor doesn't know about it yet. Thanks to Consort Chun who kept a friendly relationship with all the new concubines, that whore didn't even let her maid know of it," Imperial Noble Consort's calmed a little.
"Then we are not sure if the fetus is stable..."Consort Xin stuttered, attempting to convince the Imperial Noble Consort to rely on possibility.
"You are smart, make sure she has a miscarriage and in such a way that she never opens her mouth to let anyone know what happened...Do it as soon as possible. It has been two months, it should be easy for you, right?"
"I..." Consort Xin was speechless, she may have stopped the concubines from getting pregnant but she never tried to kill an unborn child. It felt like a sin to her.
"If you cannot get the job done, I will make you drink it," she warned threatening her, Consort Xin raised her eyes in disbelief. Even the thought of it sent shivers down her spine.