Secret Recipe | Chapter 247 | Shoulders of the Mountains | Novela.app

After uttering those words by sheer instinct, Qin Jiuye found that something shifted in an instant. The burning tree and the boundless black water receded entirely. The lingering, cloying fragrance transformed as well—one moment it was the sweetness of freshly steamed sugar cakes from Bobo Street, the next it was the pervasive scent of herbs from Guoran Restaurant, until finally, it settled into a familiar scent from the depths of her memory. It was the warm aroma of an old camphor tree that had been baked by the sun all day. She opened her eyes and found herself standing in a courtyard. It wasn't large, but the sunlight was just right. A group of people sat beneath the old camphor tree in the center, seemingly chatting and laughing. She took a dazed step forward, and the people turned their heads to look at her. "What took you so long? A few more steps and the sun would have set," came Qin Sanyou’s voice. He was sitting on a stool, plucking vegetables, looking up with that familiar expression of huffing and puffing through his beard. "That’s just how she is. If you told her she’d dropped some silver, she’d run faster than a spooked donkey." Her Master was actually there too, half-reclining in a bamboo chair and waving a cattail fan, not even bothering to spare her a glance. "Is Shopkeeper Qin getting cold feet? We agreed on a crab feast; everyone has to have at least seven or eight, right?" Old Tang stood by a table makeshifted from wooden planks, pouring tea. The tea didn't look like much—it was half tea dust. Then, someone let out a startled cry and stood up amidst the clamor. "Where are the crabs? We just caught them, and you lot let them escape again. Whoever let them go, go catch them!" The crowd rose in a flurry, descending into a chaotic scramble; there seemed to be more people than crabs. Qin Jiuye couldn't help but smile, but then her smile faltered. *How strange. Why is Master here? Why is Old Tang here? And why is Qin Sanyou here?* In the next moment, the escaped crabs were caught and brought back, and everyone cheered again. Looking at the scene before her, she suddenly felt that nothing was strange at all. She moved her feet and sat down among them. The wind rustled the leaves behind her; everything was so real, so soft, so warm—like her own skin, reachable with a simple touch of the hand. Involuntarily, she surrendered to the moment, laughing along with them. As she laughed, the sound of light footsteps came from the room behind her. She turned to look and froze. "The crabs are here! Quick, make some room for me." A woman hurried to the table, crying out as she set down a steaming plate, then immediately blew on her fingers, which were nearly scalded. "Aunt Yang..." It took a long while for Qin Jiuye to murmur the name. Hearing her, the woman turned around, wiped her slightly reddened hands on her apron, and gave her cheek a playful, brisk pinch. "What’s this? It’s only been a little while, and you don’t recognize me anymore?" Yes, how could she not recognize Aunt Yang? But why did Aunt Yang look so young? Like a young girl, blushing when she laughed, bustling about to attend to everyone, looking so healthy and vibrant. Finally, she beckoned to Jiuye, secretly pulled a few fruits from beneath her apron, wiped them with a clean cloth, and pressed them into Jiuye's palm. Clutching the fruit, Jiuye opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Her nose and throat felt tight with a sudden ache. The steam from the crabs drifted through the air, and the surrounding scenery began to blur. The voices grew indistinct. She lowered her head, staring at the shadow at her feet. That shadow had not lengthened since the moment she stepped into the courtyard, just as the setting sun hanging on the horizon had not sunk a fraction lower. After an unknown amount of time, someone reached out and gently stroked her head. Then, as if coaxing a child to sleep, they lightly patted her back and whispered. "Jiuye, good child. You’ve suffered." The fruit in Qin Jiuye’s hand hit the ground. She could no longer hold it back, throwing herself into the other’s embrace and sobbing loudly. Since growing up, she had never cried like this. Perhaps it was because she knew she had no right and no time to cry like a child; she had to grow up, and grow up fast. Tears were useless; they couldn't buy a handful of rice, nor could they bring back her kin. She had so much to do; she couldn't waste time on something so futile. *But Aunt Yang, life is so bitter.* After crossing one mountain, there is always another. The road never seems to end. She felt so tired, so very tired. She just wanted to stop, to lie down, and never get up again. "Aunt Yang, I’m so tired. I don’t want to walk alone anymore. Take me with you. I want to be with you, I want to be with Grandpa, I want to be with everyone..." Aunt Yang’s hand was light and soft as she tucked Jiuye’s tear-dampened hair behind her ear. "But if you come with me, you won't see the people outside the courtyard." *Who is outside the courtyard? I clearly came alone...* In the next moment, the courtyard gate was pounded upon. She looked toward the door in terror, instinctively shrinking into Aunt Yang’s embrace. She didn't want to leave this place. She didn't want to leave this courtyard, or anyone in it. "Look, they are waiting for you." "But..." Aunt Yang gently wiped away her tears. As she had done countless times before, she curled Jiuye’s small hand into a fist and patted it softly. "Good child, don't be afraid. We will meet again. Just treat this as a dream. No matter how bitter or exhausting the dream is, once you wake up, everything will be fine." Something flowed out of her eyes along with her tears. The warm world around her began to melt in that instant. A moment later, a swallow broke through the blurring world and flew onto a branch. It stood atop the high tree, gazing at her, then opened its beak to emit a weak but sharp sound. That sound pierced deep into her mind, forcibly stripping the lingering fragrance from her body. Qin Jiuye snapped her eyes open, gasping for breath. Her lungs and throat, scorched by high fever, were dry and painful. After only a few breaths, she began to cough uncontrollably. Cold sweat had soaked her through. With every cough, the inner garment clinging to her skin pulled at every inch of her flesh and every pore. Her bones felt as though they had fallen apart, barely able to support her weight. The intermittent, sharp sound from the dream had not stopped. She struggled to prop herself up and looked toward the window, following the noise. A faint light glowed through the window, vaguely outlining a shadow—a small thing with folded wings and a pointed tail, hanging beneath the eaves of Tingfeng Hall. The cold wind howled outside. Winter was not yet over, and spring had not yet arrived. Why would there be a swallow? The final scene of her dream seemed to have crossed into reality. She was suddenly seized by an impulse—a reckless urge to seek out a result. There were traces of someone having sat by the bed, and the drugs were still wreaking havoc in her body, but she couldn't care about that. she tumbled off the bed, using the cold, hard floor to wake her remaining will. A needle-like pain shot through her heels as they hit the ground. Gritting her teeth, she stood up unsteadily and walked step by step toward the window. The old window frame had been nailed shut from the outside, but the decorative cross-lattice was old and broken. She reached out her numb fingers into the narrow gap, using her flesh as a tool, prying with force again and again. Wood splinters embedded themselves under her nails and sliced her fingertips, and blood welled out, but she did not stop until the gap creaked open, revealing a small hole. Cold wind poured into the room, carrying the distinct scent of winter woodsmoke. She breathed it in greedily, letting the chill spread through her body, then reached her hand through the hole toward the swaying shadow outside. A cold piece of iron fell into her hand. Trembling, she withdrew her hand and looked at her palm. A small iron swallow sat there, its beak half-open, staring blankly at her. Old Tang’s weathered face flashed unexpectedly into her mind. The messages of Tingfeng Hall were divided into three types: the Hall-Piercing Swallow, the Hall-Front Swallow, and the Returning Swallow. As if possessed, she used her blood-stained finger to touch the swallow’s head and gave it a forceful twist. The iron swallow’s head turned back, and a small paper scroll dropped from its beak. She unfurled the cool stationery. The handwriting was Old Tang’s—like the man himself, it was efficient and elegant, with a hint of wildness in the details. However, the content was clearly in Old Qin’s voice; the phrasing was unrefined, jumping from one thought to another, slightly rambling. But whether it was refined or not didn't matter at all. She had only read the beginning when her eyes began to sting. *Jiuye, my dear granddaughter.* Across the thin sheet of paper, her Grandpa called out to her. *Jiuye, my dear granddaughter. When one gets old, one always thinks of the past. While I haven't gone senile yet, I want to tell you about what happened before. Old Tang said he wouldn't charge me silver for this letter. I thought about it and decided it wasn't a bad deal, so I let him write for me.* *I am from Xinyuan in Quzhou. My parents passed away early, and my younger brother and sister were lost in a famine year. At fifteen, I joined the army with some fellow villagers. At thirty, I was fortunate enough to be appreciated by the General and entered the Black Moon. Ten years passed in a flash. The General treated me well; he valued my ability to find my way and gave me the responsibility of a messenger. But in the end, I failed him.* *The first half of my life seems to have been very long and exhausting, but when I speak of it in detail, this is all there is.* *After coming to Suiqing, I entrusted you to your Aunt Yang’s care. Little Chuanzi from the neighboring village, having heard some gossip, chased you to ask why you didn't have parents and said you weren't a true granddaughter of the Qin family. You came to me crying, and I was unprepared; I only felt that you, knowing the truth, had grown distant from me, and I failed to answer your question properly. I remembered that for a long time. Many times after that, I wanted to tell you, but I felt I couldn't open my mouth. So it has been dragged out until today.* *Jiuye, you will always be Grandpa’s own dear granddaughter, deserving of the best things in this world. The General was kind to me, but I didn't want you to be dragged into the fate of the Qiu family; that was the real reason I told you to stay away from the Protectorate. The road out of Juchao was so long, it could drive a person mad. Every time I felt exhausted and wanted to die, it was you who gave Grandpa the courage to live on. Without you, I might not have made it out of those mountains.* *I regret leaving my hometown, I regret not picking up that message tube, and I regret living so dishonorably all these years after deserting the Black Moon.* *But I have never regretted saving you.* *You are Grandpa’s sun, moon, and every shining thing. I miss you when I see you, and I miss you even more when I don't. Every day I think of you, I feel full of strength. No matter how bitter the work, how long the road, or how hard the silver is to earn, it is all nothing.* *So Jiuye, my dear granddaughter, regardless of whether I can stay by your side in the future, you must live well, live with all your might, and live in your own way.* Tears rolled onto the letter, just as her heart felt dampened and wrinkled. This iron swallow had actually been hanging under the eaves of the west wing all along, but its whistle-like beak had been facing north. When the north wind wasn't blowing, it huddled quietly in the shadows of the eaves; it was no wonder she hadn't noticed it despite entering and leaving Tingfeng Hall several times. *The swallow turns its head to hope for spring, while in the cold dwelling, the white-haired elder is gone.* She had often thought that her life was a never-ending series of partings. Before she could truly possess anything, Heaven was constantly making her lose. But until this moment, she finally understood that her Grandpa had never left her. He was hidden in the cold wind, the sunlight, and the dust; he lived in the corners of nightmares she couldn't escape, in some void, and in the depths of her soul, coming to her side only when she truly needed him. The departed Qin Sanyou could not know what Ding Miao had done or said to her, yet he had easily broken through everything, standing up to protect her in her most helpless moment, pulling her out of the bottomless abyss. Love is the universal panacea. The most brilliant schemes in this world cannot withstand a sincere heart and a moment of true emotion. Qin Jiuye looked up. The world outside the small hole was grey, cold, dim, and desolate. The bitter winter was far from over. This was the world she lived in. The long dream had passed; the old days could not return. But since she had stood up, she would not easily fall again. Her eyes were dry and aching; besides sweat, she could not shed another drop of tears. But her vision was clearer than ever before. At this moment, no slanderous words could block her ears, and no dust or illusions could blind her eyes. All the truths of this world resided in her heart, enduring forever like every moment she had deeply loved and been loved. There was less than an hour until dawn. The servant delivering soup and food would not appear for a while; she would have a rare moment of clarity. Qin Jiuye gripped the iron swallow and sat cross-legged on the floor, facing the window. She had already extinguished the Hidden Infant Incense that hadn't finished burning in the warm bed curtains, but the strange fragrance could not dissipate immediately. She had no herbs to concoct medicine, not even a single acupuncture needle. All she could do was rely on the cold and pain to stay awake. The cold wind blew into the room through the small hole, raising goosebumps on her skin. The exposed wound on her head turned from numb to slightly painful. Amidst this slight shivering, she gently closed her eyes. *Anything that can be used as medicine has toxicity; anything toxic can be used as medicine. All things in the world have two sides; it all depends on how one cleverly utilizes them.* This was the principle her Master often droned on about, and it was her conviction for survival in this desperate situation. Hidden Infant Incense would stir the desires in one's heart and trap them in illusions, but at the same time, it could awaken certain memories. Distant, buried memories that one was unwilling to recall but had to face. The faint, strange fragrance transformed once more into the scent of wild lilies. Qin Jiuye opened her eyes and found herself back in the ancient, deep mountains of Juchao. Above her was a sky thick with dark clouds and black mist. The air smelled of rain and earth. She found herself lying at the bottom of a pit, and when she tried to move, she realized there were other cold, stiff things beside her limbs. In the next moment, lightning flashed across the sky, and she finally saw her surroundings clearly. She was lying in a mass grave, amidst a pile of cold corpses. Hoarse, desperate voices echoed in the pit. Where were there stones that could speak? It was nothing more than the desperate cries of the dying. She struggled to turn her gaze, wanting to see more, but her eyes met only an endless mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. The thunder receded, and the lightning flashed again. She saw a head peek over the edge of the massive pit—a face covered in mud, its features blurred. The figure hesitantly climbed down into the deep pit, took her onto his back, and stepped out of that grave of corpses one pace at a time. At the last moment before leaving, she looked back at the giant pit. There indeed seemed to be a thin, weak blade of grass trembling in the wind. The rain grew heavier, and her vision became increasingly blurred. *How strange. Why did that grass look as if it were growing out of a dead person? And do the flowers that bloom and the fruits that grow from death symbolize life or death?* Qin Jiuye snapped her eyes open. Her sweat-soaked clothes pressed against her skin in the cold wind, the bone-chilling cold bringing her mind back to its place. She blinked and looked at the flower stand before the window. The last look in her memory overlapped with the scene before her. She had broken the previous empty flowerpot, so Ding Miao had placed a new flower there. She hadn't been in the mood to look at it before, but now she examined it closely. In this season in Jiugao, only tiny moss flowers bloomed in the cracks of the courtyards, but after enduring the frost, they had withered rapidly within a day, turning into a grey-brown clump. She struggled to stand up and reached out to touch the withered, decayed stems and leaves. A strange thought suddenly flashed through her mind. *Moss... I remember I once brought some moss out from that cave deep in Juchao...* Suddenly, a hand reached out from the side, holding the bamboo tube she used to collect herbs. "Careless and negligent. I’ll punish you by making you wash your Master’s smelly socks for an extra half month." Qin Jiuye looked up blankly along that hand, only to see a face she should by no means be seeing at this time. "Master..." That bamboo tube shouldn't be here, because she was clearly trapped in Tingfeng Hall by Ding Miao. Master shouldn't be standing here talking to her either, because Master was dead. Yet for some reason, she didn't find this situation strange at all, just as she hadn't felt any inconsistency in her dream earlier. She was already in hell. Whether it was a dream she couldn't wake from or the far shore of the River of Forgetfulness, nothing could make her feel fear anymore. "What are you dazing for? Do what you need to do." Master spoke again. Qin Jiuye steadied herself, wiped the cold sweat from her palms, and reached out to twist open the bamboo tube from her memory. The contents of the tube rustled as they fell out. Besides the moss that had withered into a small clump, there were also the corpses of several small insects. That’s right. She remembered that when she was in the Chuanliu Courtyard’s infirmary, she had organized the strange flowers and herbs she brought from Juchao. This moss had been eaten by woodworms; besides the insect corpses, the rest was unrecognizable. She had been somewhat annoyed at the time, thinking she had simply failed to preserve it properly and wasted her effort. She hadn't thought further—for instance, why there were no living insects in the tube, only dead ones. Her fingers tightened as she murmured to herself. "It’s because it’s toxic. The moss I gathered was toxic. But why would moss be toxic?" "The mountains and waters of Juchao are unique. Perhaps it was another kind of toxic herb you’d never seen before. Because it looked similar, you must have mixed them up." A strange woman’s voice sounded. Qin Jiuye turned her head in shock, only to see a woman in a blue dress appear behind her at some point. She was gently waving a waist fan made of a withered lotus leaf, her features carrying a familiar sense of languid passion. Qin Jiuye didn't recognize that face, but she recognized the fan in her hand. "This disciple of mine has a very good nose, but her eyesight is poor. She always likes to pick up strange things and bring them back." Her Master leaned against the bed, "slandering" her. Xu Qinglan looked at her with a light smile, as if asking: *Is that so? Did you truly misjudge it?* "But this looks just like ordinary moss? Except the color is a bit off..." Qin Jiuye stopped mid-sentence, suddenly stunned herself. She murmured in disbelief, "Don't you think this greyish-white color looks familiar?" She had definitely seen this greyish-white color somewhere, and in a very important scene... "It is indeed familiar. However, not many people have seen this thing. You’ve asked the right person." A head full of braids leaned toward her at some point. Before she could react, he had already begun searching his person. The copper bells on his braids jingled with his movements. After a long while, he finally walked up to her holding a small treasure gourd and pulled her hand toward him without a word. Qin Jiuye looked down. A few greyish-white grains the size of rice fell into her palm. It was Yefuzi. As if pulled by an invisible thread, this time, she instantly noticed the details she had failed to perceive before. In fact, aside from that unusual greyish-white color, didn't this thing look exactly like bamboo rice? The truth seemed about to be unveiled, yet there was still one final layer of thin gauze that she couldn't break through. If Yefuzi was the fruit of the Sea Yellow Bamboo under certain specific environmental conditions, why would those ancient texts describe it in other forms? And the Sea Yellow Bamboo had existed in Juchao for a thousand years; it wasn't some rare, hard-to-find thing. Why had none of those predecessors noticed its similarity to Yefuzi? "Didn't you go to the Su family’s medicinal garden? Did that Su Muhe only pull radishes for you?" Master’s voice sounded again. Qin Jiuye looked up in a daze, and Su Muhe’s medicinal garden appeared before her eyes. Her gaze swept over those withered herbs, and her fingertips began to tremble. Finally, she slowly closed her palm, as if clutching a massive secret. Legends of Yefuzi had been recorded long ago, so why had no one seen Yefuzi for a hundred years afterward? If the nine-leaf divine herb in the mass grave was indeed Yefuzi, why would something Zuo Ci searched for everywhere happen to appear in that mass grave? It was because the secret to defeating the malignant disease was hidden within the disease itself. The two were mutually reinforcing and counteracting. On the day the disease vanished, Yefuzi would also cease to exist. The map of Juchao that she had gripped and examined thousands of times unfolded before her eyes. If she remembered correctly, the place where she and Jiang Xin'er had climbed ashore after falling into the water was the site where the Black Moon Army had last been stationed, and the old site where thousands of infected people were buried. Those Juchao mountain folk had told her: the nearby land had become a wasteland after the war, with only crazed mycelium remaining in the soil. Later, she had entered the depths of Mount Ming and found that almost only Cyathea trees could be seen there, and they were much taller than those outside, looking exceptionally terrifying. At the time, she hadn't taken the mountain folk's words to heart, thinking such a spectacle was the result of temperature, terrain, and moisture. But thinking about it now, she knew that possibility was minuscule. Perhaps the saying "land cursed by God" was not without basis. She had been too arrogant, to the point of ignoring this possibility: something terrible had entered that land, causing only those specific plants to survive in that area. Whether it was the greyish-white bamboo rice produced by the Sea Yellow Bamboo or the faded moss in that cave, they all had one thing in common: they had been eroded by the blood of those who had contracted the Secret Formula. The Juchao of those years had been a river of blood; the blood of the infected seeped into the soil and spread, indirectly poisoning everything, just like Su Muhe’s medicinal garden, which became barren. Aside from a few types of resilient fungi and Cyathea trees, only a few surviving Sea Yellow Bamboos remained. Whether it was moss, honey mushrooms, or Cyathea, they had no seeds; they would never produce the so-called "Yefuzi." And bamboo rarely flowers, let alone produces fruit. To survive the poison of the Secret Formula and then flower and fruit was even more difficult. Thus, twenty years later, she had only managed to wait for those few grains of Yefuzi at the Baoshen Pavilion. In that case, the person closest to the answer was actually Su Muhe. It was just that he had dealt with precious medicinal herbs since childhood, and his thinking was limited by that, causing him to repeatedly hit a wall at the edge of the truth, unable to break through this final layer of window paper. What Su Muhe should have planted in the medicinal garden was not spiritual ginseng or snow lingzhi, but resilient wild grass that could be found anywhere by the roadside. The final piece of the puzzle was finally in place. Qin Jiuye’s fingers loosened, and the bamboo tube in her hand fell. "Yefuzi is not the seed of any specific flower or herb. Any seed of a plant that can survive, bloom, and fruit in soil eroded by the Secret Formula—even if it is a mere weed—can be called Yefuzi." The bamboo tube hit the floor, but it made no sound. Qin Jiuye looked down. Her feet were empty; there had never been a bamboo tube. She looked up again. The figures of those deceased people vanished like smoke. She was alone in the room with its doors and windows tightly shut. The gate of life is the gate of death; the gate of death is the gate of life. Qin Jiuye stared at the scattered, withered moss flowers on the ground. A smile finally appeared on her face, pale from the torment of illness. If Ding Miao knew that the inspiration for her enlightenment had been personally provided by him, one wondered what he would feel. After all, even she hadn't expected that the answer she had sought so bitterly for so long would finally come to her right under the enemy's nose, in an unexpected moment. Predecessors had failed to climb the high mountain even by burning their lives, yet they had used their flesh and blood to build a staircase. And it was precisely because she was able to stand on the shoulders of the mountains that she was able to glimpse the ultimate answer. *** | Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | 钵钵街 | Bobo Street | A street name in the story. | | 果然居 | Guoran Restaurant | A restaurant name. | | 穿堂燕 | Hall-Piercing Swallow | A type of messenger device/classification in Tingfeng Hall. | | 堂前燕 | Hall-Front Swallow | A type of messenger device/classification in Tingfeng Hall. | | 燕回头 | Returning Swallow | A type of messenger device/classification in Tingfeng Hall. | | 黑月 | Black Moon | A military unit or organization Qin Sanyou belonged to. | | 新垣 | Xinyuan | A place name. | | 曲州 | Quzhou | A place name. | | 海黄竹 | Sea Yellow Bamboo | A specific type of bamboo mentioned in the discovery. | | 桫椤 | Cyathea / Tree Fern | A type of ancient plant. | | 蜜蕈 | Honey Mushroom | A type of fungus. | | 野馥子 | Yefuzi | The legendary medicinal seed/ingredient. | | 秘方 | Secret Formula | The toxic substance/plague at the center of the plot. |