Prince Su's Mansion, in its dark dungeon, the air was thick with a sharp, overpowering stench of blood.
Jiang Yun was strapped to a table, his hands and feet bound with ropes.
No matter how he struggled, he couldn't move.
Lying there, Jiang Yun glanced at the jars and bottles around him from the corner of his eye.
The jars held green liquid, with bright red hearts, stomachs, and other organs inside.
Jiang Yun's heart pounded. He wanted to restore the Magic Power in his body as quickly as possible, but it was too late.
A creak sounded from above the dungeon, followed by the slow approach of footsteps.
Tang Wanxin wore a long red robe. Originally, it should have been white.
The bloodstains on it had dried and crusted over.
"Jiang Yun."
Tang Wanxin came to the table and tore open his shirt. Her slender fingers traced across his chest.
"When you destroyed the Tang Mansion a few days ago, you never imagined you'd end up in my hands, did you?"
Tang Wanxin's eyes gleamed. A touch of sickness marred her beautiful face. She stuck out her tongue, licked her lips, and said coldly, "I believe your heart will definitely be useful."
His heart?
Jiang Yun took a deep breath, glanced around the dungeon, and asked, "You captured all these people just to replace Prince Su's heart?"
Tang Wanxin said coldly, "How do you know?"
Jiang Yun drew a deep breath and thought, I read your Records of Animal Husbandry. It documented many of your experiments.
Tang Wanxin reached out and took a sharp little knife. She set it against Jiang Yun's chest and said slowly, "Is that so? Then you should understand what's going to happen to you."
Jiang Yun said in a low voice, "You'll cut open my chest, take out my heart, and give it to Prince Su."
"Exactly. Looks like you understand your fate quite well."
Tang Wanxin was already itching to get started.
She wanted to cut open Jiang Yun's chest and admire that heart up close.
Jiang Yun closed his eyes and said in a low voice, "Even if you do this, Prince Su still won't survive. You'll fail all the same."
"I'd guess that if you can't keep Prince Su alive, you'll die too, right?"
At his words, Tang Wanxin gave a cold snort. "You underestimate me. Ever since I embarked on the Method of Animal Husbandry, I stopped fearing death."
"The world calls Animal Husbandry an evil art. I'll prove to everyone that this is a great art that can save the world and bring blessings to all!"
Tang Wanxin raised her hand, the sharp little knife about to slice into his chest.
Jiang Yun shouted, "You won't succeed, because people's organs reject organs from other people!"
"I'd guess that before the people you gave new organs to died, they developed symptoms like fever, bleeding, and organ failure from infection."
After saying this, Jiang Yun closed his eyes. All he could do was pray that these words would save his life.
For a long while, no pain came from his chest.
Jiang Yun slowly opened his eyes. Tang Wanxin's hand was still raised, and she was staring at him in shock, confusion in her eyes.
"Rejection? Organ failure?"
Tang Wanxin had never heard these terms before. Her eyes grew colder as she said in a low voice, "Keep talking."
Keep talking about what, exactly?
Jiang Yun had been a Daoist priest in his previous life, not a doctor. He'd only vaguely heard of rejection.
He couldn't explain anything more in detail.
Jiang Yun could only take a deep breath and say, "Simply put, people are made up of cells. If you put someone else's organ into a body, the cells from both sides will reject each other."
Tang Wanxin stared at Jiang Yun in shock and asked coldly, "Have you also studied the Method of Animal Husbandry?"
"I know a little."
Tang Wanxin's eyes lit up with interest. "Then how can this rejection you speak of be resolved?"
Jiang Yun closed his eyes and said calmly, "You're not going to make me lie here on the table and explain it to you bit by bit, are you?"
"Sorry, I can't let you go."
Though Tang Wanxin was interested in what Jiang Yun had said, she wasn't about to take his few words at face value.
She didn't know whether what he was saying was true, so she asked, "Unless you can prove that what you've said is true."
Jiang Yun took a deep breath and said, "I can't prove it. Strictly speaking, this falls under the field of medicine."
"Medicine?" Tang Wanxin's eyes brightened slightly. "You don't think this is an evil art either, do you?"
"Of course not..." Jiang Yun felt a chill under her stare and went along with what she wanted to hear. "You're simply too far ahead of your time."
"If you'd studied medicine properly, step by step, who knows how far you could have gone."
That was what Jiang Yun truly thought.
After all, even in his previous life, with medicine so advanced, organ transplant surgery was still extremely dangerous.
And there were countless variables.
In a feudal dynasty like this one,
the most advanced medicine meant fetching traditional Chinese herbs.
In more remote places, people went straight to spirit mediums.
In such an environment, Tang Wanxin had jumped straight to organ transplants.
She'd taken a step far too big.
It was like other people were still figuring out how to send a Kongming lantern into the sky,
while she was already trying to build a rocket to the moon.
Wasn't that just asking for trouble?
Jiang Yun hadn't expected Tang Wanxin to be moved to tears by his words. Then again, she often was.
"I didn't expect you to be a reasonable person." Tang Wanxin sighed. "But I still have to take out your heart and try."
At her words, Jiang Yun couldn't help cursing her inwardly. I've told you all this, and you still don't think I'm worth keeping around? You're still set on cutting out my heart?
Jiang Yun hurriedly said, "Wait. There's still a way to deal with rejection."
"Hm?" Tang Wanxin furrowed her brows and asked coldly, "Let's hear it."
Jiang Yun took a deep breath. "You have to promise you won't kill me after I tell you."
Tang Wanxin shook her head. "I can't promise that."
Jiang Yun gritted his teeth and said, "The closer the family relationship, the lower the chance of rejection."
Jiang Yun didn't know much about medicine, but he knew that organ transplants depended entirely on whether the organs of both people were compatible. Family ties probably didn't matter much.
But someone was going to die either way.
Better to let someone from Prince Su's Mansion die first.
At Jiang Yun's words, Tang Wanxin's brows furrowed deeply. She said coldly, "Are you sure? Do you know that the Prince's close relatives are all..."
"Believe it or not."
With that, Jiang Yun closed his eyes, as if he were at her mercy.
Tang Wanxin paced back and forth in the dungeon.
At that moment, footsteps sounded outside. Xiao Jingyuan, dressed in fine brocade, slowly descended into the dungeon.
Seeing Jiang Yun still alive, he frowned. "Why haven't you cut out his heart yet?"
"He can't die yet," Tang Wanxin said gravely. "Heir Apparent, there may still be hope for the Prince!"
"Oh?"
Tang Wanxin said in a low voice, "But we need a heart. A royal heart!"
After Tang Wanxin explained, Xiao Jingyuan slowly nodded, thinking it made sense. "My father is of the royal family. Royal blood flows through his veins."
"It's only natural that the heart of an ordinary commoner can't be integrated with our royal bloodline."
Lying on the table, Jiang Yun heard this and felt a great weight lift from his heart.
Still, it wasn't surprising that people of this era would think that way.
"If that's the case, then there's no point keeping this man alive. Kill him." Xiao Jingyuan drew the long sword in his hand and walked toward Jiang Yun on the table.
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