"Raise it a little higher. Pull your clothes down. Good, don't move. Why did you close your eyes?"
"I'm... a little scared. Mr. Murphy, please be gentle."
"Don't worry, it'll be over quickly."
Murphy held a syringe in his hand, looking somewhat amused at Sophia's tightly shut eyes and the way she had turned her head away. "How old are you, and you're still afraid of injections?"
"Being afraid of injections has nothing to do with age!" The queen desperately turned her head away, wishing the shoulder about to be jabbed was not her own. "Please hurry..."
Murphy smiled, disinfected Sophia's fair shoulder with a cotton ball, then abruptly pressed the syringe against it.
A high-pressure jet instantly injected the medicine into her body. The queen only had time to let out a soft hum before Murphy had already pulled the syringe away.
"All right, it's over."
"That fast?" The queen was a little surprised. "I barely felt anything."
"..." Though that did prove his injection technique was superb, for some reason, it sounded a little unpleasant to Murphy's ears.
"Hmph, you're happy too soon," Murphy said. "Once a week, six more weeks of continuous injections before it takes permanent effect. But the results should show up now."
As Murphy spoke, he pulled Sophia's small hand over, took out an ultraviolet flashlight, and shone it on the back of her hand. "How is it? Do you feel anything?"
The queen shook her head.
"It normally wouldn't take effect that quickly, but we added some potion ingredients to it."
"All right, Your Majesty. You can go for a walk now."
At noon, Sophia walked along Sky Street. She was still holding an umbrella, but now she carefully stretched her hand out from under it, then tossed the umbrella aside and