Chapter 4
Alvina forcefully dragged Diana to the bridal chamber. She yanked open the curtains and led Diana to an inner room, pointing at the man lying quietly on the bed. "You cost the Russell family a fortune! If you dare show any disgust toward Rupert, I'll have you dragged out and fed to wild dogs!"
Diana approached the bedside.
The man lying there was Rupert Russell—her husband whom she had yet to meet.
His appearance was beyond her expectation—his face was grotesquely disfigured, with flesh turned outward and covered in burn scars, features too blurred to distinguish. His chest barely rose and fell.
Indeed, he appeared to be near death.
Diana lifted his eyelid to check his pupils, which responded extremely slowly to light. From a medical perspective, this was certainly a deeply comatose vegetative patient with declining vital signs.
But Diana frowned. Something wasn't right. It was too textbook.
All these symptoms matched the most typical case studies—so standardized they seemed... deliberately fabricated.
She withdrew her hand, her gaze falling on the various medical devices and medications arranged on the bedside table.
Diana picked up one of the bottles, removed the stopper, and brought it to her nose for a gentle sniff.
Her expression instantly darkened.
This drug could react with specific enzymes in the human body to create a powerful neural inhibitor, perfectly replicating the indicators of deep coma or even brain death in a short period.
And those so-called nutritional fluids at the bedside were actually death warrants. They contained another component—minimal in dosage, but once it reacted with this drug in the body, what was fake death would become real within two weeks.
This method of murder would likely evade even a forensic examination.
"What are you staring at?! Some country girl who thinks she knows medicine? Stop being lazy! I'm warning you—if anything happens to him, you'll be the first to pay with your life!" Seeing Diana examining the medication, Alvina immediately grew suspicious, raising her voice with a caustic tone.
Diana placed the bottle back in its original position. Ignoring Alvina's scolding, she simply pointed to the vital signs monitor beside them, which was flashing with data.
"That outburst of yours just triggered a response in the patient."
Alvina froze, instinctively looking at the equipment. She couldn't understand the curves and numbers, but Diana's confident manner sent a chill through her, afraid that Rupert might wake up.
Diana calmly explained, "In his condition, any strong light, noise, or emotional outbursts like yours could stimulate him."
"The sedative you're giving him contains benzodiazepines. Normally, they're calming, but for a special patient with intracranial hypertension like him, if the dosage isn't precisely calculated, it can stimulate the central nervous system and have the opposite effect."
"What nonsense are you talking about?" Alvina was bewildered by the string of unfamiliar terms, but refused to back down. "I'm following the doctor's instructions for his medication!"
"Which doctor?" Diana stepped forward, her gaze fixed directly on Alvina.
"What doctor would recommend this medication for a patient with intracranial hypertension, respiratory depression risks, and possibly other medical history? Even if you're desperate for him to wake up, you shouldn't take such risks."
Alvina's face turned deathly pale.
Wake up? If Rupert woke up now, everything she and Cruz had done would be exposed!
She had come to establish her authority, to intimidate her new daughter-in-law, but Diana's few sentences had left her cold with fear. She couldn't understand how Diana—a girl raised in some backwater—could know these things!
"You... you poor fool, you know nothing!" Alvina spat the insult, but her confidence had evaporated. She took the bottle Diana had examined. "I'll call professional medical staff tomorrow. In any case, behave yourself and take good care of him!"
Afraid Diana might discover more problems and suspect her, she dropped this threat and hastily departed.
The spacious bridal chamber fell silent again. The coldness on Diana's face faded, revealing exhaustion.
She turned, and her first action was to check the bathroom. She unlocked the door and pushed it open. It was completely empty, with nothing but water stains on the floor.
The tall man had long disappeared.
The windows were tightly shut, and she had locked the door from the outside. How could a grown man simply vanish into thin air?
Diana's gaze darkened. The Russell family seemed even more intriguing than she'd thought.
She didn't dwell on it further. Near the door in the corner was her suitcase. She opened it and took out a palm-sized, silver-white metal cube.
She pressed a tiny button on its side, and the metal cube expanded, extending several flexible mechanical arms and a hair-thin probe with a soft blue light at its tip. A virtual screen projected onto the wall.
This was part of the medical robot she had developed: a miniature medical analyzer, her most treasured possession.
Many components of the medical robot were still unstable, but this miniature part had already passed countless verifications and trials.
Diana expressionlessly rolled up her sleeve, exposing her fair arm. The probe gently pierced her vein, extracting a drop of blood. The medical analyzer ran, and seconds later, displayed the results.
[Detected: Powerful aphrodisiac with neural paralytic inducing heart attack symptoms. Optimal detoxification time remaining: 1 hour.]
Diana's gaze turned ice-cold. Wade had truly gone all out as Leila's accomplice, sparing no expense.
Diana retrieved a small metal pill box from a hidden compartment in her suitcase, containing several sealed transparent vials.
She took one, then extracted a small bottle of odorless dark liquid from another hidden compartment and added two drops to the vial.
The mixture turned a light amber color. She injected the solution into her body, and the residual heat and palpitations subsided at a perceptibly rapid rate.
After completing this, Diana turned her attention to her vegetative husband on the bed. She approached the bedside and, using the same method, extracted a blood sample from the man's arm where an IV catheter was inserted.
The data refreshed again, and this time the results made Diana raise an eyebrow.
[Detected: Compound neural inhibitor. Blood routine, electrolytes, cerebrospinal fluid indicators abnormal, severely inconsistent with clinical signs. Unknown toxin detected, analyzing... analysis failed.]
How had Rupert been poisoned with something so strange? The miniature analyzer was connected to the most intelligent and comprehensive AI database, capable of analyzing most unknown toxins and toxin variants in the world, yet it failed?
Combined with the misused medications and nutritional fluids in his system, it seemed more than one faction wanted him dead.
Diana glanced at the bottle of dark medicine in her hand. It was a legacy from her mentor, capable of neutralizing most neural toxins in the world—a true lifesaving trump card.
She hesitated only briefly before slowly pushing the remaining medicine through the IV line into Rupert's body. In the current situation, she needed a powerful ally to overturn the game being played by both the York and Russell families.
The enemy of my enemy can be a temporary partner. Helping him was helping herself.
Having done all this, the aftereffects of the drug, physical exhaustion, and mental strain all surged up at once. Diana could no longer hold on. Her body sank, leaning against the cold bed rail as she fell into a deep sleep.
...
Diana was awakened by the subtle feeling of being watched. That gaze, though devoid of emotion, carried such an aggressive pressure that her eyes snapped open.
Her first glance was toward the bed. The man covered in burns still lay quietly, with no change in the monitor readings. It was as if everything she had done last night had been merely a dream.
Diana frowned, about to rise and check again. The sensation of being scrutinized grew stronger and clearer.
Slowly, she turned her head.