A grandmother and granddaughter swap souls, causing chaos throughout the entire court.

All of Mother’s compassion, all her goodwill, and even her willingness to send the third wife to jail tonight were just a carefully crafted deception to lower their guard.

Her real purpose was to use Chu'er's blood to perform evil magic and completely destroy him?!

Zhong Tingyuan's eyes were wide open, and his eyes were filled with terrifying blood vessels.

He suddenly leaped out of the wheelchair, his half-body slamming heavily against the edge of the bed, and tightly held Zhong Shichu's bleeding little hand in his arms.

"Mother!" Zhong Tingyuan looked up, glaring angrily at Guoguo. "If you want blood, come at your son! Kill me or torture me, I'll take it all! Chu'er has already been beaten like this, please have mercy and let him go!"

Wen Jingxian was terrified.

Her legs gave way and she collapsed onto the cold brick floor, clutching her swollen belly tightly with both hands. Tears of despair streamed down her face, but she was too frightened to even utter a word of pleading.

Guoguo was startled by the way her parents were fighting so hard.

She quickly threw the knife back into the medicine box, waving her hands repeatedly, her voice rising several decibels in her haste.

"Don't get agitated! I don't mean to hurt him!"

Guoguo pointed to the darkened cane wound on Zhong Shichu's back and explained urgently...

"Look closely! His most serious injury isn't to his flesh, it's his spine! Those three lashes tonight have fractured the bone!"

Looking into Zhong Tingyuan's red eyes, her voice was filled with undisguised heartache: "This kind of injury, damaging to the bone marrow, will definitely fester and swell tonight, causing a high fever. His constitution is too weak; if he tries to tough it out, he absolutely won't make it!"

Guoguo held up the small wooden puppet with blood on its brow and presented it to Zhong Tingyuan.

Guoguo's cheeks were puffed out, and her eyes were a little red. "I know he's being sensible and saying it doesn't hurt, but how can an ordinary person endure the pain of a fractured bone? He must be in so much pain right now that he's about to faint!"

As Zhong Shichu lay on the tatami mat, listening to her grandmother's words, her tightly clenched lower lip finally loosened.

He was indeed in pain.

The excruciating pain that seemed to emanate from the very marrow of his bones felt like countless tiny saws were tearing at his nerves, causing him to break out in a cold sweat.

But he dared not shout, for fear of upsetting his parents and for fear that his grandmother would think he was a useless piece of trash.

But he never expected that his most vicious grandmother would see through his pretense at a glance, and even resort to supernatural means to shield him from the pain.

"I took his blood to transfer all his injuries and excruciating pain to this puppet! At the same time, I used the talisman array to repair his broken spine and torn flesh. Don't worry, I won't hurt him."

If someone else had said this, it might have been more convincing.

But ironically, it was the most fearsome old lady in the Marquis's mansion who said these words.

Zhong Tingyuan gritted his teeth.

He didn't believe it.

But reason was also pulling her in a frantic struggle—if her mother really wanted to kill Chu'er, she could have taken advantage of the situation at the Third House tonight to go with the flow, why bother to bring her back to Songhe Hall?

Wen Jingxian, slumped on the ground, stared blankly at her emaciated son on the bed, feeling as if her heart was being sawed back and forth with a dull knife.

It turns out that her Chu'er was enduring excruciating pain from broken bones!

The child was just smiling and comforting her, saying it didn't hurt. How much suffering must she have endured to learn to be so patient!

"Chu'er... my poor child..." Wen Jingxian stuffed a handkerchief tightly into her mouth, her sobs breaking in her throat.

Seeing the couple's heartbroken expressions, Guoguo felt a deep sadness in her heart.

She pursed her thin lips, silently concealing the emotions in her eyes.

Now is not the time to explain. Once my third brother stands up, full of energy, my parents will naturally understand.

She turned around and refocused her attention on Zhong Shichu on the tatami mat.

The talisman stained with the blood from her third brother's fingertips was stuck to the little wooden puppet's chest by Guoguo.

Then, she quickly formed hand seals, and as her fingers flew, faint glimmers of light flowed from her fingertips.

Guoguo muttered incantations, which exuded a majestic and mysterious Taoist aura:

"A spiritual light enters the meridians, and all pain dissipates!"

"A magical light locks in blood flow, wounds heal rapidly!"

"Golden Qi unites with bones, flesh and blood are reborn!"

"May all gods be above me, may pain dissipate and energy flow freely, may peace be restored instantly, so be it!"

As the last incantation fell, Guoguo put her index and middle fingers together and precisely tapped the blackened spine on Zhong Shichu's back.

A miraculous scene unfolded.

Chung Shih-chu's small body, which had been tense and trembling slightly from the intense pain, softened completely the moment his fingertips touched her.

The pain on his pale face visibly faded, replaced by disbelief and astonishment.

Guoguo didn't stop.

Although the pain had shifted, she noticed that her third brother still had two chronic ailments that, because they had damaged the root cause, could not be completely removed by the stand-in puppet alone.

One was a charred, lifeless burn on his left side, branded with hot tongs; the other was a two-inch-long, jagged, centipede-like scar on his grotesque thigh.

The skin and flesh in these two areas had long been completely necrotic, and the toxins had seeped deep into the tissue.

Guoguo took out the thin, cicada-wing-like knife from the medicine box again.

"Bear with it, these two bad patches of skin need to be cut off before new ones can grow," Guoguo gently advised.

Chung Shih-chu had just recovered from the shock of the pain subsiding when he turned his head and saw his grandmother holding a knife, the tip of which was pointed directly at his thigh.

His pupils shrank in fright, and his already pale face turned deathly white.

You want to cut meat raw with a knife?!

He instinctively wanted to shrink to the side, but his parents were still watching. If he moved away and angered his grandmother, his parents would definitely be punished.

Chung Shih-chu bit her lower lip hard, clenched her small hands into fists, closed her eyes, steeled her heart, and turned her head sharply toward the inner wall, holding her breath, preparing to face the excruciating pain.

A soft "hiss" sound of a blade slicing through flesh echoed in the quiet room.

Zhong Shichu froze, his eyelashes trembling wildly as he closed his eyes.

But... the expected excruciating pain did not come.

Aside from feeling something cold rushing across my legs and ribs, I didn't feel any stinging pain at all!

His tense nerves relaxed, and curiosity finally overcame fear.

He quietly opened one eye, slowly turned his head back, and glanced downwards.

Grandmother swiftly and incredibly quickly removed the charred flesh and gruesome scar from the body in a few strokes.

There was no gushing blood, only a faint golden light covering the smooth wound, which looked indescribably novel.

"what?"

Chung Shih-chu couldn't help but let out a very faint gasp of surprise, her big eyes blinking, forgetting even her fear.

Meanwhile, the substitute puppet placed on the small table is undergoing a chilling transformation.