Shadows Between Us (Stella and Sebastian) novel Chapter 112

Chapter 112

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“What’s in there, anyway?” Nathan couldn’t help but be curious after seeing Jake’s disgusted face.

Stella shot him a glance. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

She had someone reposition the cart so the crowd could get a clear view. The stench of decay slammed into everyone, and people instantly started retching and recoiling.

Stella, though, didn’t even flinch. She was calm from start to finish.

“Hand him the box.” Stella motioned to Nathan.

“I give the orders, you follow. Understand?” Stella lounged with her arms crossed, clearly not intending to step in herself.

Nathan didn’t know what to say.

‘So that’s why she asked if I was certified to practice medicine earlier,’ Nathan thought to himself.

“Give him a Vitalis Pill. If he won’t open up, just pop his jaw loose,” Stella said, her voice icy. The crowd instantly erupted in shock.

They thought, ‘A Vitalis Pill?

‘They’re really giving something that rare to this guy?’

Landen might be an old rascal most days, but when it came to serious business, he never messed around. He handed Nathan a pill without a moment’s hesitation.

Nathan’s face was serious as he twisted off the wax seal and popped the Vitalis Pill into the guy’s mouth.

There was a sudden, violent gasp, and the man who’d been barely hanging on suddenly snapped his eyes open, scaring the hell out of everyone.

“Y-You…” the big guy who’d been kneeling on the ground stammered, his voice shaking. When he saw his own buddy wake up, the brute’s face went sheet-white, like he’d just been caught in the act.

He dropped to the ground with a thud. Turned out, he was the one who’d smashed his brother’s leg, all just to squeeze money out of Herbal Haven.

He’d ignored his brother’s cries, refused to give him any medicine, and even let the wound rot in the blazing heat on purpose.

“Open the box,” Stella said lazily, not even bothering to look at the guy sprawled on the ground.

Nathan lit up, barely able to hide his excitement.

He’d been dying to know what was inside that box.

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Chapter 112

With a crisp snap, he opened it.

Nathan just stared, speechless.

His brain short-circuited for a second.

Landen leaned in, curious. “What is it?”

Then his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

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The folks standing nearby all jumped back, looking totally grossed out. Some even started retching right there.

Inside the box was a squirming pile of white worms.

More specifically, they were maggots.

“I… Ugh…” Nathan went pale as a sheet, especially when he saw those plump, squirming maggots.

Stella frowned, clearly annoyed, and held her hand over the box for a moment. Some powder slipped from her fingers into the box, but everyone was too busy retching to notice a thing.

“Dump them on,” Stella said coolly after she pulled her hand back.

“Dump…?” Nathan looked absolutely miserable. “Where do I dump them?”

Stella was speechless.

“On his leg,” Stella replied.

Nathan felt like half his soul was about to leave his body right there. His arms went rigid as a board, and he wished that box could be a thousand miles away from him.

With a loud dump, the maggots were poured straight onto the man’s leg for everyone to see.

“Spread them out evenly,” Stella ordered again. Nathan looked like he was on the verge of tears.

He just couldn’t do it with his bare hands, so he had someone fetch a stick from Herbal Haven and started poking the maggots around, slow and miserable.

Nathan gagged with every poke.

“I can’t believe I forgot about maggots!” Landen exclaimed. In traditional medicine, maggots were famous for their ability to clean out dead tissue.

He clasped his hands behind his back and bent down, totally fascinated by these plump little maggots.

Each maggot went to work on the man’s rotten leg, devouring the dead flesh at insane speed. Landen was floored by how fast they worked.

Normally, maggot therapy would take at least 24 hours to clean up a wound like this. But right now, it looked

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Chapter 112

like it wouldn’t even take five minutes.

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Turned out, Landen had underestimated them. In just two and a half minutes, all the rotten flesh was gone, leaving only bare bone exposed. The crowd was hit with a brutal dose of reality.

“Won’t that mess up anything else?” Caleb blurted out, stunned.

“Maggots only go for dead flesh. They don’t care about healthy tissue,” Stella explained lazily, giving Nathan a look to put the box next to the guy’s leg.

And just like that, each maggot, now nice and plump from their feast, waddled right back into the box.

Nathan didn’t know what to say.

He thought, ‘Just let me die already.

‘Right now. Immediately.

Maybe it was the Vitalis Pill kicking in, but the guy lying on the cart didn’t really feel any pain at all. He just felt light as air, like he was floating through a dream.

Stella glanced up at Landen, not saying a word.

Everyone else followed her gaze to the old white-haired guy. The moment Landen realized all eyes were on him, his hands moved faster than his brain. He instinctively clutched his trusty old cloth sack.

He shook his head like crazy.

‘I just got these, and I haven’t even had time to warm them up!’ Landen thought, freaking out.

Stella held out her hand, palm up, wordlessly.

Landen, looking utterly pitiful, fished out the little box of Vermilion Berries from his pocket, eyes brimming with tears, clearly reluctant to part with his precious stash.

Stella was speechless.

‘What a drama king, Stella thought, rolling her eyes.

She took out three Vermilion Berries and tossed them to Nathan. “Crush them up and put them on his leg.

Nathan felt less like a doctor and more like Stella’s personal gopher at this point. Honestly, he was starting to think she was just too lazy to bother doing it herself. ‘

Sighing in defeat, Nathan crushed the berries, all the while wondering, ‘Are these legendary Vermilion Berries from the Vermilion Coral really as magical as people say? Can they actually restore bone and flesh?’

“Ha, what a joke. So this is how Herbal Haven treats…” Miguel started to sneer, but he didn’t even get the word “patients” out before his face froze and a tidal wave of gasps exploded from the crowd.

Everyone’s eyes were glued to the man’s leg.

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Chapter 112

Every media camera snapped to attention, zooming in for the money shot.

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Right there, in front of everyone, new flesh began to miraculously grow over the exposed bone, slowly covering it up bit by bit. It looked straight out of a sci-fi movie, but it was happening for real, right before their eyes.

Everyone was in total shock.

People were left speechless, frozen in disbelief.

Stella just watched, bored. She’d seen this kind of thing since she was a kid, so all the drama from the crowd just seemed silly to her.

“This is unreal…” Caleb muttered, completely floored. With the whole thing being broadcast live, he could already see the Trent family’s stocks going through the roof and people lining up out their door.

‘What kind of crazy stroke of luck did the Trent family stumble into?’ Caleb thought, feeling jealous as hell.

He eyed Landen and Nathan like he wished he could swap places with them.

‘Talk about an effortless win,’ Caleb grumbled to himself.

Landen and Nathan exchanged a look with Caleb, catching the envy in his eyes. They just stood there in awkward silence, not knowing what to say.

Truth be told, they were just as lost as everyone else. They still had no clue what was happening.

If Landen hadn’t gotten a wild hair and decided to poke around in Nathan’s trunk today, he never would’ve bumped into Stella. No Stella, no Vitalis Pill or Vermilion Berries.

Without those, Herbal Haven and the Trent family would’ve been the ones taking the fall for selling fake meds and botching the patient’s leg.

And they wouldn’t be able to expose the Lopez family’s Remedy House for sneaking modern medicine into their so-called traditional medicine.

Seriously, this whole thing was a damn perfect chain reaction.

Landen and Nathan turned to stare at Stella, who was still standing there, cool as ever. Suddenly, as if an idea had popped into her head, she waved over the reporters and all those influencers with their cameras.

The moment she spoke, everyone was caught off guard.

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