Chapter 122: Princess Consort, Please Don’t Pull Down Your Pants

"Stop standing there and help me lift this child at once!" Su Jingluo urged, her voice laced with an undeniable, stern authority. Her eyes flared with a fury that was quite intimidating to behold.

Seeing her persistence, the several shadow guards had no choice but to carry the young guard into Su Jingluo’s private chambers. She hurriedly tossed the bedding onto the floor to ensure the mattress was clean and ready.

Su Jingluo used her fingertips to press along various areas, asking the young guard where he felt pain. Most of his injuries were merely muscular aches from the fall, but his lower leg appeared clearly fractured. She instructed the other guards to go find some bamboo splints—sturdy and straight ones. One guard immediately rushed out to fetch them.

After her assessment, Su Jingluo reached out to pull down the young guard’s trousers.

"Your Highness, Your Highness! What are you doing?" The young guard clutched his waistband tightly, his face, pale from pain, suddenly flushing a deep, blood-red.

"Your leg is broken. How am I supposed to apply medicine or set the bone if you’re still wearing these tight night-patrol trousers?" Su Jingluo felt a mix of frustration and amusement. Did he honestly think she was trying to take advantage of him? Was this not how every physician treated a patient?

"But, but... a man and a woman must keep their distance," the young guard stammered, his face still burning as he clung to his trousers, even though he knew her reasoning was sound.

"Indeed, Your Highness. Perhaps we should take him away? Once dawn breaks, we can find a male physician to set his leg. We shouldn't trouble you with this," the other guards chimed in, echoing his sentiment. Su Jingluo realized that while she saw herself as a doctor, in this era, she was first and foremost a woman—a noble Princess—and these guards simply could not reconcile the two.

"Do you not wear undergarments beneath those?" Did people in this era not wear inner layers? If he had them on, what was he so afraid of? She wasn't trying to strip him bare. It was a leg injury; were they just going to leave it unattended? Su Jingluo was speechless at such ignorance.

"I am wearing them. But it still won't do," the young guard whispered, his face red enough to bleed as he endured the sharp, throbbing pain.

"Exactly, Your Highness. We have already committed a capital offense by entering your chambers. If this were to... how could he ever... No, it won't do. Tomorrow, we will take him elsewhere to find a doctor." The guards continued to mutter behind her back, clearly unconvinced.

"Please, just be quiet! The boy’s leg just broke. If we wait until tomorrow, it will be swollen and inflamed, making it impossible to set properly. He will be crippled for life!" The lack of medical resources in this place was already a headache, and this backward thinking was a guaranteed recipe for worsening his condition.

The room fell silent, though their eyes remained defiant, and the young guard continued to clutch his waistband for dear life. Between the agony and the embarrassment, his face cycled through colors like a traffic light.

Su Jingluo was at her wit's end. Was she really going to have to force him and rip his trousers off? She couldn't bring herself to do that, either. Distressed, she paced in circles, scratching her head, until her eyes landed on a pair of scissors in the sewing basket. A flash of inspiration struck. She grabbed the scissors and marched straight toward the young guard.

Had the Princess gone mad with her doctoring? Was she obsessed with his trousers? Was she going to finish him off if he wouldn't let her take them off? While the young guard was still caught in an internal struggle between survival and preserving his virtue, Su Jingluo had already started cutting from the hem of his trousers. Within moments, the pristine night-patrol pants were transformed into a pair of incredibly trendy, tattered rags.

Since he wouldn't take them off, Su Jingluo had no choice but to work around them.