He Saved the Heir, Then Won His Heart novel · Chapter 4 of 56

Chapter 4: The Strips

At six in the morning the doctor read the foil strip under a desk lamp and stopped talking.

She turned it over and read the back, then opened the little paper insert Xiao Chen had found tucked in the sleeve.

Shen Yan sat beside him in an oversized borrowed sweater, hands tucked between his knees, jumpy and pale.

Shen Yan had slept for two hours and woken ashamed of everything.

"Where did you get these?" the doctor asked.

"My stepmother. Mrs. Shen." He said the name carefully. "She said they were vitamins for my constitution. I took one every morning since I was fifteen."

"Five years."

"Yes."

The doctor set the strip down on the desk, very gently.

"This is not a vitamin. It is a blocker laced with a wolf-spirit depressant. It keeps the heat from coming, and it also keeps the wolf asleep. Taken daily for five years, it wears down the nerves that carry scent, mood and heat. In an adult it would be slow poisoning."

Shen Yan did not say anything.

Xiao Chen put his hand over the boy's cold one on the chair arm and left it there.

"Is the damage permanent?" he asked.

"He has been buying cheap street tablets since the winter, which is the only reason he is not worse. They were weak and diluted, and they let the old drug wash out a little. His body has been fighting its way back." She looked at Shen Yan. "That is why your first heat came now. You are finally clean enough to have one."

"Is that good?"

"It means you are alive under all of it." She smiled for the first time. "But the rest of the drug is leaving all at once. Expect sudden heats this week, several of them, without warning. They will be strong and they will be short. You must not be alone for them."

"He won't be," said Xiao Chen.

The doctor's eyes slid to him and stayed for a moment.

"Mr. Xiao, when did you last take your own blocker?"

"Six months ago."

"Then I would plan your week carefully too."

She sealed the strips in an evidence bag, took blood from Shen Yan's arm, and wrote the report in triplicate while Xiao Chen watched every line.

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