Chapter : 755

The performance was complete. He had not only given her a plausible theory for the boy’s illness, but he had also presented a unique, miraculous method of treatment that only he could provide. He had established himself as the sole possessor of a key to an impossible lock. And he had done it all while feigning a humble, tragic powerlessness.

He had laid a trail of perfect, glittering breadcrumbs, and he had made her believe that discovering the path was her own idea.

Sumaiya stood in the center of the room, her arms crossed, her expression a storm of conflicting emotions. He could see the awe in her eyes, the wonder at the beautiful, elegant theory he had spun. He could see the fierce, burning compassion for the dying child. And he could see the cold, hard spark of a new, dawning resolve.

She had watched him save the weaver’s son. She had seen him face a monster in the jungle to retrieve a cure that everyone else had dismissed as a myth. She had witnessed his quiet, daily miracles in this very room. Her faith in him was no longer just a feeling; it was a conviction, as solid and unshakeable as a mountain.

He was not a madman. He was a genius. A genius trapped by the rigid, stupid conventions of their society.

She looked at him, slumped at his desk in a pose of theatrical despair, and then her gaze turned towards the distant, glittering lights of the city’s upper districts. He had built the bridge of logic. Now, she would be the one to walk across it. The seed had not just been planted; it had taken root, and it was already growing into a fierce, unbending tree of purpose. He had shown her the way, and now, he knew with absolute certainty, she would move heaven and earth to clear the path.

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The seed Lloyd had so carefully planted lay dormant for two days. It was a period of tense, quiet waiting that tested the limits of his patience. He and Sumaiya continued their work at the clinic, the unspoken subject of the Qadir heir hanging between them like a heavy, charged curtain. Lloyd played his part to perfection, maintaining the facade of the resigned, brilliant-but-powerless healer. He sighed dramatically while reading his texts, he stared wistfully towards the upper city, he was a walking, breathing portrait of frustrated genius.

Sumaiya, for her part, was a silent, coiled spring of contemplative energy. He could see the fierce debate raging behind her dark, intelligent eyes. She was weighing the risks, calculating the odds, and wrestling with the immense social and political chasm that separated their world in the Lower Coil from the gilded, inaccessible world of Lord Qadir. She knew that to act on his behalf would be to expose herself, to risk her own carefully guarded anonymity, to step out of the shadows and into the blinding, dangerous light of the court.

The catalyst, the final push she needed, came on the third day. It arrived in the form of a small, insignificant tragedy, the kind that played out a dozen times a day in the slums of Rizvan.

A young woman, a fish-gutter from the docks, burst into the clinic, her face a mask of pure, hysterical terror. In her arms, she carried a small bundle of rags, from which a child’s thin, reedy wail of pain emanated.

“Doctor!” she cried, her voice cracking. “Please! It’s my son! He’s burning! The fever… it came so fast!”

Lloyd and Sumaiya moved as one, their partnership a seamless flow of practiced efficiency. Lloyd took the child, a boy of no more than three, while Sumaiya gently guided the weeping mother to a stool.

The boy was limp in his arms, his skin radiating a terrifying, dry heat. His breathing was shallow and rapid, and his eyes were glazed over with the delirium of a raging fever. Lloyd placed him on the examination cot. He didn’t need his [All-Seeing Eye] for this. This was a common, brutal enemy: a swift, aggressive infection, the kind that could claim a child’s life in a matter of hours.

While he began his physical examination, Sumaiya was already at work. She moved with a calm, focused urgency, her hands never still. She crushed fresh willow bark into a fine powder. She mixed it with cool water and a drop of a mild sedative herb to form a thin paste. She soaked a strip of clean linen in the mixture.

Lloyd finished his examination. “His fever is dangerously high,” he stated, his voice a calm anchor in the mother’s storm of panic. “We must bring it down, and quickly.”

Sumaiya was already there, holding the prepared poultice. “Ready, Doctor.”

Chapter : 756

Lloyd took the cool, damp cloth and gently laid it across the child’s forehead. He then took another and began to gently wipe down the boy’s small, hot limbs. It was a simple, ancient remedy, but it was often the most effective.

For the next hour, they worked in a silent, intense ballet of healing. They administered a few drops of a fever-reducing tonic. They continued to cool the boy’s body with the herbal compresses. Lloyd, under the guise of checking the boy’s spiritual energy, placed a hand on his chest and channeled a tiny, invisible thread of Fang Fairy’s power—not lightning, but a pure, soothing coolness—directly into the child’s system, a subtle, supernatural boost to the mundane treatment.

And it worked. Slowly, painstakingly, the fever began to recede. The boy’s frantic breathing eased into a calmer rhythm. The delirious, glassy look in his eyes faded, replaced by a sleepy, lucid gaze. The immediate crisis had been averted. The child would live.

The mother, who had been watching the entire process with a desperate, silent prayer, finally broke down into sobs of pure, overwhelming relief. She fell to her knees, attempting to kiss Lloyd’s hand, but he gently stopped her.

“There are no saints here,” he said softly. “Only a mother’s love and a little bit of knowledge. Take him home. Keep him warm. Make sure he drinks plenty of clean water. The fever is broken, but he will be weak for a few days.”

After the grateful mother and her now-sleeping child had left, a profound quiet settled over the clinic. Sumaiya stood by the window, her back to him, staring out at the grimy street.

“You do that every day,” she said, her voice a low, wondering murmur. “You perform these small, quiet miracles. You save lives that the world has deemed worthless. And you ask for nothing in return.”

“It is my duty,” he replied, the words of his persona now feeling almost natural.

She turned to face him, and the look in her eyes was no longer one of debate or uncertainty. It was a look of absolute, unshakeable conviction. The final piece of her internal puzzle had just clicked into place.

“No,” she said, her voice ringing with a new, hard clarity. “It is not your duty to let your genius rot in this slum while a child of a great house dies because of pride and ignorance. It is an insult to the gods. It is an offense against life itself.”

The seed had not just taken root; it had blossomed into a tree of righteous, furious resolve.

“I have watched you,” she continued, taking a step towards him, her presence radiating a power he had not seen since the jungle. “I have seen what you can do. Your theory about the Qadir boy… it is more than a theory. You know it is the truth. And you know you can save him. Don’t you?”

Lloyd met her gaze, his expression unreadable. He gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod.

That was all she needed. Her resolve hardened into a diamond. “Then it is settled. The pride of Lord Qadir is a fortress. But no fortress is impregnable. Every wall has a gate, and every gate has a key.”

She straightened to her full height, the humble attendant vanishing completely, replaced by a woman of immense, innate authority. “I will be your key, Doctor. You say the doors of the great houses are closed to you. I will open them.”

“Sumaiya, you don’t know what you are suggesting,” he began, playing his final card of feigned reluctance. “To petition a man like Lord Qadir on behalf of a slum doctor… they will laugh at you. You will be disgraced. You could lose your position, your home…”

“I am willing to risk it,” she interrupted, her voice cutting through his protests like a blade. “Some things are worth risking everything for.” She gave him a small, fierce smile. “Besides, you are forgetting something. I am not just a humble attendant. I am an attendant who has the ear, and the favor, of her lady. And my lady has the ear of the Queen. Lord Qadir may be a lion, but even a lion bows to the will of the palace.”

The final piece of his plan, the part he had only dared to hope for, had just been handed to him. She wasn't just going to knock on the door; she was going to use the power of the royal family as a battering ram.

“Do not worry, Zayn,” she said, her voice softening, filled with a fierce, protective determination. “You just continue to perform your miracles here. I will handle the politics. I will be your advocate. I will make them listen. I swear it.”