An Understated Dominance Novel (Dahlia & Dustin) by Marina Vittori updated 2025-26 - An Understated Dominance Chapter 2623

Chapter 2623

As the rain gradually let up, the quarantine zone inside the wooden walls began to take shape.

Grace trudged through ankle-deep mud between the makeshift shacks. Her white skirt was long soaked in blood, and she didn’t bother wiping the herbal residue from the corners of her lips.

Holding a silver needle, she pricked a child’s blackened fingertip, squeezed out half a bowl of foul-smelling black blood, and quickly poured warm medicine into the child’s parched mouth.

“The third row of shacks still needs ten stretchers!”
She shouted, her voice hoarse and grating from nonstop yelling.

Not far off, golden light from Logan’s hands seared the festering wounds of a patient. Threads of gold light snaked through flesh, burning away squirming maggots. The old man being treated trembled in agony, but he clamped down on a stick, refusing to utter a sound. He saw the sweat pouring from the forehead of the white-robed immortal—hotter than his own blood.

The medical team moved faster and more precisely. Some guided wormwood smoke through clay pipes into cellars, purging foul air; others pried open the jaws of unconscious patients with bamboo sticks, feeding them honey-paste bit by bit; some knelt in the mud performing chest compressions on frozen children until weak breaths finally returned.

On a ten-meter-high ridge, Tristan stood beneath a temporary canopy.

Wearing protective gear, he watched Grace in the isolation zone, spinning like a top, his face blank and cold.

“My Lord, shouldn’t we go back? This place is cursed,” Milton muttered behind him.

Tristan didn’t reply. His gaze shifted to the soldiers running back and forth below.

The medicine boxes were nearly empty. Some soldiers dropped in the mud from exhaustion, gasping for air.

“Useless fools,” Tristan muttered, clearly displeased.

Since the plague mutated, both the infection and death rates had spiked. He’d rather kill the wrong person than risk one getting out—so he locked up everyone suspected of infection.

What he didn’t expect was Grace leading people from Pucheng to intervene.

If they saved lives, fine. But if they failed—well, they’d face the consequences.

Behind Tristan, thirty personal guards stood in perfect formation, not a speck of mud on their boots. They’d been ordered to remain at least three feet above the quarantine area, not even catching the wind that passed through.

As hours passed, day blurred into night.

After finally stabilizing the critical patients in the western shack, Grace stood up and swayed. She gripped a wooden post to keep from falling.

Logan handed her a flat cake, brushing her brow with a touch of golden light, easing some of her fatigue.

“There are more than two dozen mild cases on the east side,” he said quietly. The golden embroidery on his white robe was darkened with blood.

Night fell, and dozens of bonfires lit up the quarantine zone.

With the flames crackling, Grace directed soldiers to build a simple stove. The bitter scent of boiling medicine rose from pottery jars.

Suddenly, a convulsing woman lunged forward, nearly clawing Grace’s face. Logan held her down quickly. As golden light flowed into her, the woman slowly calmed, two streams of clear tears trickling from her clouded eyes.

Beneath the pergola, Tristan yawned.

He watched the hourglass slowly empty. It was already three in the morning, yet the lights in the quarantine area still burned like daylight.

Milton offered him a bowl of warm broth, trying to flatter him. “Your Highness, look at them—up all night, dragging themselves to the brink.”

Tristan took a spoonful and glanced at a soldier who had collapsed by the fire. Even while being lifted by his companions, he was still mumbling, “Medicine…” Tristan sneered.
“What a waste of effort.”

Just before dawn, the final bowl of medicine was fed to a patient.

Grace, leaning on a stick, managed to stand. The sky was just turning pale, casting a faint flush over her bloodless face.

Logan’s golden light had faded significantly, but he still forced himself to check the last shack.

The medical staff were scattered across the ground, too tired even to snore. Only the occasional cough showed they were still conscious.

Suddenly, someone knelt.

It was a young man with no hands. Using his elbows to brace himself, he bowed deeply in Grace’s direction.

One by one, more people followed—first the infected in the west, then the healthy in the east, and finally even those with mild symptoms who had only just regained their footing.

Over five thousand people knelt like waves rolling across the mud. The sound of kowtows echoed in the damp air. Mud splashed on their faces, but no one wiped it away.

“Long live the Princess!”

Grace didn’t know who shouted first, but the chant quickly grew into a roar.

White-haired elders raised bloodstained soil above their heads. Women lifted the swaddling cloths of their deceased infants. Children lay face down, bowing again and again like grown men.

Grace’s eyes filled with tears.

She tried to speak, but her throat was too tight with emotion. All she could do was slowly raise her hand and bow deeply to the crowd.

Up on the ridge, Tristan suddenly hurled the soup bowl to the ground. The sharp crack of breaking porcelain rang out.

He stared down at the kneeling crowd, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white.

Milton didn’t dare make a sound. One glance at Tristan’s face told him the prince’s fury wouldn’t fade any time soon.

Those people should’ve been kneeling before the emperor.

But now, they bowed to a woman.

To Tristan, it was a deeper cut than death.