Chapter 89: 89

A few days after Anastasia woke up, she went out into the garden with a single servant, Mare, in disguise, by her side to accompany and protect her. And just as Michelle had guessed, a person wearing a mask over their face attacked her, but Mare easily protected her, punching the assassin in his chest, causing serious damage, forcing the assassin to flee. “My Lady, are you okay?” Mare quickly asked, in concern.

Anastasia nodded a bit, but she was clearly shaken up. She had never expected that Michelle’s guess could be spot on, and that the black market was targeting her. But she was also thankful that Michelle ordered the servants to protect her.

What she didn’t know was that the assassin who attacked her just a moment ago was none other than Michelle herself, to proceed with the plan to manipulate Anastasia.

So, at the moment, Michelle was crouching behind the wall of the Archduchy, holding her hand over her chest to feel for the damage. She had ordered Mare to hit her for real, so Anastasia couldn’t suspect anything, and since she didn’t use her spirit energy to protect herself, so Anastasia wouldn’t recognize her, Mare’s hit really knocked the breath out of her.

Nyxaroth was bubbling inside her body; he checked on her, and after a while saw a broken rib.

So, as Michelle took off her disguise mask, Nyxaroth contacted Cold Flame through the contract for him to come help pick her up.

Michelle herself didn’t think it was that serious, as she had received worse wounds during her life as an assassin, but since Nyxaroth and Cold Flame insisted on carrying her, she didn’t protest and let them.

While carrying her, the two made sure Anastasia wouldn’t see them, so she wouldn’t realize Michelle was wearing the same clothes as the assassin.

After putting Michelle in her bed, the two went to call the family doctor. At first, Michelle wanted to stop them since, as far as she knew, broken ribs had no treatment except resting for quite some time, if the broken rib wasn’t pressing on something or causing any other problems or damage to other organs; but thinking about the fact that she was in a different world, and the medicine was different, Michelle decided to see what the doctor would do and say about the broken rib.

So, soon, the doctor entered the room and saw her lying on her back, which made him arch a brow slightly. “My Lady, how are you feeling? Young Lord Nyxaroth told me you broke a rib on your outing. Will you let me check it?”

Michelle just nodded lazily, and the doctor walked over to her. And, to her surprise, he placed a stone on her chest and pressed a similarly looking one to his ear. “My Lady, please take a deep breath…”

Nodding a bit, Michelle took a deep breath, her chest rising slowly. Though she didn’t show it, she felt quite a bit of pain when she breathed, so deep breaths were even more painful. But she didn’t complain. She wasn’t really concerned about the pain. Her full attention was on something completely different. The stone on her chest and the stone by the doctor’s ear. Was that a stethoscope?

“My Lady, if your chest hurts as you breathe, please sit up…” the doctor said, and Michelle sat up. From the start, she knew that would help, but she wanted to check the doctor’s knowledge about broken ribs.

The doctor pressed the stone that was on her chest, before, to her back and listened to her breathing again before putting the stone away and looking at Michelle. “My Lady…” the doctor was himself clearly afraid of how Michelle would react to what he was about to say. “I need to check your rib cage…”

Michelle understood, since she herself was a doctor, so she readily agreed. “Go ahead…”

Being careful not to touch anything more than needed, the doctor pressed on Michelle’s ribcage and checked from her collarbone until he reached the fifth and sixth ribs. The fifth rib was fine, but had swelling around it, and the sixth rib was clearly damaged, having a weird crevice. Also, when the doctor touched that part, Michelle hissed a bit, frowning slightly.

The doctor traced the rib for a short moment to check if the rib needed correcting or if it could heal naturally, and then he stepped back. “You should rest for a few days, maybe even a few weeks. Also, when you sleep, don’t lie flat on your back. Try to sleep sitting up a bit, with something soft supporting your back.”

Hearing that, Michelle raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?” she asked. She knew the reason, but she wanted to know the reason that the doctor knew. She wanted to know if he just knew, from observing his patients, that in such positions the lungs hurt less, or if he knew why the lungs hurt less.

And the doctor pleasantly surprised her. “Human lungs are located a bit more in the back of your body, so when you lie on your back, you put pressure on them, and they then press on your ribcage, which will cause it to hurt more when you breathe. But if you sit up, your lungs will have more space to spread when you breathe, so your ribcage will be less strained.”

“Thank you, doctor!” Michelle smiled a bit. She was quite satisfied with what she found out. “I’ll remember your advice,” she added.

The doctor nodded as he turned to leave. But in front of the door, he stopped and looked back at Michelle. “My Lady, if you feel too much pain, or if you have trouble sleeping, send someone to me, and I will give you some painkillers or sleeping pills.” With that, he left the room and Michelle lay back down on the bed.

She didn’t care about the pain in her lungs and ribs as she breathed, because she was used to worse, but after a while, she still turned over, since the pain was annoying. But lying on the broken rib wasn’t too comfortable either, so she sat up and rang a bell by her bed, calling for a maid.

“How can I help you, My Lady?” the maid asked as she entered the room.

Michelle glanced at her and smiled a bit. “Bring me a bunch of pillows and blankets…” she said lazily as she rested her head against the wall behind the bed.

“Yes, My Lady!” the maid bowed her head a bit and quickly left the room. After a while, she returned with a few more maids, all carrying one pillow and one blanket. They put it around Michelle so she could rest her back on it. Then, they all left, leaving her to rest.

Staying alone in the room, Michelle decided to focus on trying to alter the shape of her spatial bracelet so she could use it as an incubator for the eggs. She sent her wisp of consciousness into a part of space far from where she kept the eggs, and then spread the wisp around along with both her soul and spirit energy. She then tried to alter it the same way as when she straightened the twists in the space, but that didn’t quite work, as the appearance of the space didn’t change in the least bit, only stretching a bit.

So Michelle decided to try just her spirit energy. But to no avail. Then, she tried soul energy, but that didn’t work either. Since harmony didn’t work, she decided to try using force on the space. And to her surprise, when she hit both her soul and spirit energy against the twist, the space shook a bit, and something changed. On the bleak ground started growing some grass, though just half-dead and miserable.

It still made Michelle happy, so she tried again, but nothing more happened. And that made Michelle frown. She didn’t know if it was that she could use one method only once or that she had done something wrong, but either way, she had to find out what was wrong.

Quickly, she tried again and again, but for a long time nothing happened, so she gave up on it for a while and decided to go rest for a bit. Maybe, after she took enough rest, she would be able to come up with a solution, or at least think of a reason why something so strange happened.

Retracting her wisp of consciousness from the spatial bracelet, she opened her eyes for a moment, and formed a small snowball in her hand, throwing it at the spirit stone illuminating the room. At the impact, the stone reacted and stopped shining.

Michelle wanted to sleep, but it was still early, so she just stared at the ceiling lazily. She didn’t even feel that lazy.

But after a while of sitting between the warm pillows and blankets, even though it was still long before evening came, she started feeling tired and slowly fell asleep, her head falling back to rest against the pile of pillows and blankets behind her.

Sleeping peacefully, she didn’t even care about Kieran’s plan, as she was basically no longer needed for it. To prove to her that he was trustworthy, he wanted to take care of the disappearance of the Sloan family’s artifacts with as little help from her as possible.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep