He was lying on his stomach, but his eyes were dark and bottomless, like an endless abyss. From where I sat, I couldn't really read his expression at all.
After a few steps of treatment, his bleeding finally stopped, and I couldn't help letting out a quiet sigh of relief.
I picked up the disinfectant and said softly, "President Anderson, I'm going to disinfect the wound now. It might sting a little."
He just grunted, completely indifferent.
My hand trembled as I dabbed disinfectant over his back. Most people would flinch or tense up from the burn, but he didn't even twitch, as if the liquid had never touched his skin.
I stared at him, a little stunned. He really was different from other men.
If only his personality were better and he weren't so frighteningly unhinged, I wouldn't be this scared of him, or feel this much revulsion.
I took a deeper breath and sprinkled that fine white hemostatic powder my grandfather had formulated over the cleaned wound. Once everything was done, I wrapped his back carefully with sterile gauze.
"President Anderson, I've finished treating the wound. I'll write you a prescription, you can take these meds to help it heal faster."
For this moment, I honestly saw him as just another patient.
By now he had sat up, his gaze sliding over to me. I shrank back a little under that look and muttered, "If you're worried, you can also go to the hospital and ask a doctor there to prescribe you some antibiotics."
"I don't want to go to the hospital. You write it."
His deep eyes settled on me again. There was a stubborn, domineering edge in his voice.
I nodded, then realized I didn't have any paper or pen on me and turned to go back to my room.
He frowned. "Where are you going? Sit down."
I stopped mid-step and blinked at him. "President Anderson, I don't have any paper or pen. I need to get them from my room. I'll be right back."
He gave a short, dry cough, his tone and gaze both cool, as if mocking how slow I was.
"There's paper and a pen on the desk. Use that."
I turned my head and noticed there really was a set on the desk opposite us: a very high-end fountain pen and a simple stack of blank white paper.
I took the pen and scribbled out a prescription: anti-inflammatories, painkillers, and medicine to promote wound healing. When I finished, I handed the page to him.
Captian glanced over it but clearly didn't understand, so he told Ronan to go to the pharmacy and buy everything on the list.
When Ronan came in to take the prescription, he stared at me in open shock, eyes practically saying, Why are you still alive? How are you still walking around? Did the sun rise in the west today?
I ignored him and folded my arms, sitting down beside Captian.
"President Anderson, does it still hurt?"
He said nothing, but his expression was perfectly calm, basically telling me with his face that he felt no pain at all.
By the time Ronan came back with the medicine, his shoulders were slumped. I took the bag from him and smiled brightly.
"President Anderson, I'll go prepare the medicine for you."
He gave a small nod, and I ran out, clutching the bag.
Ronan looked at me, then back at Captian, and couldn't help running his mouth:
"President Anderson, you and her… She stabbed you, and you still want to keep her by your side?"
In his eyes, anyone bold enough to stab President Anderson once would definitely have the guts to do something worse in the future. Keeping a woman like that nearby was like keeping a time bomb. Better to deal with it early.
Captian turned his head and shot him a cold glance. His frosty voice carried heavy pressure.
"What I want to do is none of your business."
Ronan shuddered and shut up at once. "Yes, President Anderson, I was wrong."
Captian gave him another chilling look and said nothing more.
The air in the room seemed to freeze solid. Ronan stood off to the side, so tense he barely dared to breathe.
Then Captian pulled his shirt on again and said in a flat tone, "You can go now."
Ronan practically bolted out of the room, feeling as if a weight had been lifted. The pressure that came with being near President Anderson was too intense.
He really couldn't understand how some little girl could stab President Anderson and not only survive, but walk around unharmed afterward. Anyone else would already be dead. President Anderson was… far too lenient with this woman.
No, thinking back, that leniency had shown itself earlier. When that woman killed the king cobra, President Anderson hadn't blamed her at all. He'd even pretended not to know and quietly bought another cobra from outside to replace it.
So maybe President Anderson really had fallen for her so much that he no longer dared to touch her.
Ronan pressed his lips together, eyes full of complicated emotion.
On his way past the kitchen, he caught the scent of medicine. Under the warm yellow lights, he saw Rosy standing at the stove, preparing it.
Her hands moved deftly. She could mix and prepare medicine, she could kill a snake, she could stab a man, and she could brew a proper dose of treatment. In the old days, that would have made her… very different indeed.
She was very good at preparing medicine; she could handle venomous snakes, she could wield a knife, she could stand over a boiling pot of treatment. She was beautiful on top of that and most importantly, she had the rare ability to make President Anderson listen. She truly wasn't like any of the women before her.
No wonder President Anderson…
Ah. If she really ended up becoming his sister-in-law one day, Ronan would have to show her special respect, wouldn't he?
He watched her busy figure in the kitchen for a moment, then turned away, leaving the villa with a muddle of emotions churning inside him.
I stayed at the stove, completely unaware of Ronan's tangled thoughts. Halfway through preparing the medicine, nanny Alley suddenly appeared.
"So you know how to treat patients too?" she asked, surprised.
I glanced at her, remembering how she'd reminded me earlier, and warmth rose quietly in my chest. If she hadn't nudged me toward that idea, I truly wouldn't have known what to do.
"I do. I learned when I was very young," I said, smiling genuinely this time.
Nanny Alley hummed and said nothing more.
I wet my dry lips and lowered my voice. "Nanny Alley, thank you. If you hadn't reminded me earlier, I never would've thought of that. I don't even know what would have happened to me."
She chuckled and shook her head.
"It's not that the idea itself was so clever. It's because of who said it. If it were anyone else, do you think President Anderson would have forgiven them?"
I froze, at a loss for words.
"President Anderson really does care about you," she added, patting my shoulder, her expression hard to read. "That's why he was so pleased to hear you talk about a birthday present."
Her expression actually startled me. I forced a laugh and held my tongue.
He cares about me? How could that be?
When the medicine was ready, I poured it into a bowl and went back to his room.
"President Anderson, your medicine is ready."
He was sitting on the bed. At the sound of my voice, he couldn't help but lift his head to look at me.
My nerves instantly tightened. I avoided his eyes, forcing a sweet tone.
"President Anderson, please drink your medicine."
He sat at the end of the bed, making no move to take it.
The bowl was hot, and my hands were already starting to ache from holding it. My heart pounded when he still didn't move.
"President Anderson?"
After a moment, his thin lips parted.
"Feed it to me."
I thought about the large wound on his back. If he moved too much, it would pull the injury. It actually wasn't unreasonable for him to ask me to feed him.
I scooped up a spoonful, blew on it gently, and when it had cooled a little, held it to his lips.
The sharp, bitter smell of the medicine filled the air at once. His brows knitted faintly, a hint of disgust flickering in his eyes as the scent reached him.