The moon hung high in the center of the sky, and the insects chirped incessantly.
Qin Jiuye leaned over her desk, a cup of strong tea in one hand and a brush dipped in ink in the other. She appeared remarkably spirited.
After all, what could be more focusing or mind-clearing than spending the night poring over medical logs and reviewing past prescriptions?
In the past, when she followed her master on house calls, they would occasionally encounter strange and difficult ailments. If a single visit yielded no diagnosis, her master would apply himself further in the dead of night. Back then, she was young and couldn't handle the exhaustion, often dozing off by his side. When she startled awake in the late hours, she would see her master sitting alone by the table under a flickering lamp, flipping through the patient’s records while gnawing on his brush, scribbling "ghost talismans" on scraps of paper that she couldn't understand.
It was said that illness comes like a mountain falling, but leaves like peeling silk from a cocoon. Her master called this process "unraveling the threads."
It was slow work, but an indispensable procedure. Its purpose was to break free from the habitual thinking of a routine consultation, to review known information as objectively as possible, and finally arrive at the answer closest to the truth.
Having been mired in the Su Manor mystery for so long, Qin Jiuye knew that even without He Yuanzhou’s strange illness, she needed such a quiet moment in the deep of night to sort everything out.
There was no time like the present; tonight was the perfect opportunity.
However, perhaps only she knew the truth. When Lu Zican had asked her earlier why she wouldn't go back to rest for the night and insisted on staying at the Protectorate Office, the first answer that flashed through her mind wasn't this "official business." It was the look in the eyes of the youth leading the black horse as he watched her.
She didn't want to go back and face him.
At least, not right now.
Qin Jiuye shook her head and drained the half-cup of strong tea, forcing her attention back to the cluttered notes before her.
Though her conversation with Guo Rengui during the day had been brief, it had provided an incredibly important clue.
He Yuanzhou had been ill before, but had suddenly recovered without medicine after a period of time. Something must have happened during that interval. Judging by the symptoms He Yuanzhou displayed, Qin Jiuye had first suspected she might have inadvertently come into contact with some wild creature.
However, when she accompanied Lu Zican to see He Yuanzhou today, she had observed her closely and found no traces of insect bites or animal scratches. While she couldn't be certain about the parts of the torso covered by clothing, most injuries from animal attacks occurred on the limbs or face.
Furthermore, on the day of the initial consultation, she had carefully questioned Su Muhe. She asked if He Yuanzhou had ever left the manor or visited remote areas. At the time, Su Muhe had been somewhat evasive, but the answer wasn't hard to guess now. The incident on Sangma Street was likely He Yuanzhou’s first public episode, and quite possibly her first time leaving the manor since her "recovery." Before that, she likely had no opportunity to leave the Su Manor at all, let alone the city for more remote regions. Qin Jiuye had seen the state of the Su Manor with her own eyes; she doubted one could even find a common bug there.
Therefore, the possibility of He Yuanzhou contracting the illness from a wild animal bite was extremely low. Moreover, she had never heard of any animal bite that could produce a miraculous effect akin to a terminal lucidity.
Then what was it? What exactly was the thing that had turned He Yuanzhou into her current state?
Was it some kind of poisonous flower or herb? Or had someone passed the "sickly qi" to her? But if it were a plague, why were there no clues of a third patient in the city besides He Yuanzhou and the suspect, Li Qiao? Was it simply not time yet? Or was everything truly just a coincidence...
Qin Jiuye scratched her head as she thought deeply.
Before she had officially started her practice, she had traveled with her master to many villages stricken by plague. She was not ignorant of how epidemics developed and spread, but the current situation matched nothing she was familiar with.
She listed every strange illness she had seen with her own eyes or read about in medical texts, yet she found almost no symptoms that perfectly matched He Yuanzhou’s.
She felt as though she had landed on a deserted island where no human had ever set foot. The shape and full view of the island were hidden in a dense fog, her broken ship was grounded, and there was no way to sail back. She could only steel herself and press forward to explore.
Taking a deep breath, Qin Jiuye crumpled the densely packed notes into a ball and tossed them aside, spreading a fresh sheet of white paper on the desk.
Her master had taught her that a physician shouldn't focus solely on the word "illness." One had to carefully observe the patient's living environment, understand the people they interacted with daily, and ask about their recent activities. Deducing from these peripheral details often led to the answer closest to the core.
A blurry term flashed through her mind, and Qin Jiuye suddenly sat bolt upright in her chair.
*Prescription.*
Why did this word suddenly occur to her? Because today, while questioning Guo Rengui at the Su Manor, he had casually complained: *The Master has always been most concerned about the Old Madam, always going on about consultations and prescriptions...*
He Yuanzhou had not consumed anything unclean, nor had she visited the wilderness. Could the only variable be those so-called "prescriptions" sent to her?
But medicine was medicine. Even if all medicine contained a trace of poison, it shouldn't turn a person into such a half-human, half-ghost state.
The prescription... what kind of prescription was it?
A gap seemed to open in Qin Jiuye’s thoughts, and her consciousness began to surge uncontrollably in one direction. She suddenly realized something: the reason she recalled Guo Rengui’s mention of a "prescription" now was that today wasn't the first time she had heard those words.
Prescriptions were common in medical practice, but when people spoke of them casually, they usually used the term "formula" rather than the formal "medical prescription."
Qin Jiuye closed her eyes and thought back carefully, soon arriving at the beginning of it all. She quickly dipped her brush in ink and drew a vertical line down the center of the new sheet of paper.
Then, on the left side of the line, she wrote the word "Medicine," and on the right, she wrote "People."
The first time she had heard of a so-called "prescription" was in Xu Qiuchi’s carriage on the backstreet of Red Pheasant Quarter. At the time, the other party had used a tone of hearsay to mention that the Taoist Yuan Shuqing might possess a secret medicine. But judging from everything that followed, this person’s involvement in the whole affair was definitely deeper than imagined—perhaps even deeper than Qiu Ling, who was currently actively investigating the case.
She just didn't know if the Qiu brothers understood each other's motives, or if their attitudes toward this "medicine" were the same.
Having finished this thought, Qin Jiuye wrote Xu Qiuchi’s name on the right side. Then she moved her brush to the left and wrote "The Box" under the word "Medicine."
Although she had only heard the words "medical prescription" and never seen it with her own eyes, judging from the chaos at Treasure Mirage Pavilion that day, at least one prescription must have truly existed in Yuan Shuqing’s box. And that prescription had either vanished into the martial world during the chaos, or...
Qin Jiuye dipped her brush again and wrote "Li Qiao" in the "People" column, then wrote "Treasure Mirage Pavilion" on the corresponding right side.
If the bloodbath on Qingping Road and the chaos in Treasure Mirage Pavilion were driven by the same thing, then another person could not escape involvement.
Back on Qingping Road, Li Qiao was clearly also after the contents of Yuan Shuqing’s box. At that time, he was no different from the "hunters" who moved at the first sign of trouble in Treasure Mirage Pavilion; he was simply taking a desperate risk to cure the unknown, deep-seated poison in his body.
He had likely made countless similar attempts. It was only this time, because the contents of that box were so unusual, that he encountered an unprecedentedly powerful enemy on Qingping Road and ended up in her hands. If not for what happened later, they might have continued in peaceful coexistence until the three-month term ended, at which point they would have gone their separate ways to live in completely different worlds.
But after Qingyang Market, everything changed. Qin Jiuye saw that the chaos in Treasure Mirage Pavilion that day had a cause, but she wasn't a member of the martial world after all, and the information she could interpret was limited. Li Qiao was different. He must have discovered something, which was why he risked exposure to return to Treasure Mirage Pavilion.
He said he went back to the pavilion, and that the mysterious young master there forced him to consume something, which caused his sudden flare-up that night—yet also allowed his severe injuries to heal overnight. If the first half of his story was true, the mysterious young master’s actions must have had a purpose, and that purpose was bound to be closely linked to his identity and origins. She didn't believe that Li Qiao, having fallen into the man's hands, would truly know nothing about him. She was more inclined to believe that, for some reason, Li Qiao had not told her the full truth.
She had sensed this before, but she hadn't pressed him. Based on her understanding of human nature, she knew he must have had no other choice but to temporarily tie himself to a village doctor like her, and she had always kept the people and affairs of the martial world at a respectful distance.
But man proposes, and God disposes. In the end, she hadn't been able to escape.
She had avoided Qingping Road and Treasure Mirage Pavilion, but she ultimately couldn't avoid this ordeal with the Su family.
Qin Jiuye put brush to paper again, writing "Su Family" in the "Medicine" column and He Yuanzhou’s name in the "People" column beside it.
Judging by He Yuanzhou’s symptoms, she looked very much like Li Qiao if his condition had reached a dead end. But other than that, she could find no direct evidence to prove any of it. And based on her knowledge of Li Qiao, she had reason to believe he didn't know He Yuanzhou and had no connection to the Su family before she became involved in their case.
So what was going on with the Su family? Was He Yuanzhou’s illness just a coincidence, or was something invisible already quietly spreading throughout Jiugao, with He Yuanzhou and Li Qiao being only the beginning?
The oil lamp on the desk flickered. Qin Jiuye furrowed her brows and tightened her grip on the brush.
If these three events were actually the same thing, or at least the work of the same hand, then who was the person hidden behind it all? Was it the mysterious young master from Treasure Mirage Pavilion?
But that seemed contradictory. If he already possessed the prescription, why go to the trouble of snatching things from Treasure Mirage Pavilion?
Or was the thing he made Li Qiao swallow different from the prescription in Yuan Shuqing’s box? Then what was it that He Yuanzhou and the Su family had taken?
Her thoughts were a mess. The brush, saturated with ink, dripped, leaving a black spot on the paper. Qin Jiuye sighed and, with a flick of her wrist, drew a turtle under the "People" column.
Although she didn't know who this "thousand-year-old turtle" was yet, she was certain that if this person didn't possess great power, they at least held a significant position in the martial world. Furthermore, they were extremely patient and skilled at planning; otherwise, they couldn't have remained submerged for so long without leaving a single trace.
The ink blot spread. Qin Jiuye stared at the black spot, her heart suddenly skipping a beat.
Perhaps there was one more person.
Qin Jiuye’s brush hovered over the "People" column, yet she hesitated to write.
She remembered that when she left Treasure Mirage Pavilion that day, she had clearly encountered Qiu Ling galloping past on his horse in Sangma Street.
At the time, she thought he was supervising a murder case, but looking back, he hadn't stopped at the scene. Instead, he had headed toward the direction of Qiongwei Alley, where she had just come from. There was only one possibility: he was also rushing toward Treasure Mirage Pavilion.
Why? Why would a martial world gathering that had existed peacefully with the authorities for years cause a newly appointed Protector to race there? It was as if he knew the chaos that was about to erupt at the gathering, which was why he arrived at the scene immediately.
Not only that, if she remembered correctly, while she was waiting at the Su Manor’s side gate for her consultation, the martial world doctors had also mentioned that the Su family’s reward for a consultation had been facilitated by Qiu Ling.
Being ordered to take office, returning to Jiugao to oversee murder cases, following clues to uncover the Su family’s secrets... his involvement in all this didn't seem unreasonable. But it was precisely because everything was *too* reasonable that it gave her a strange feeling. Why return now, and not earlier or later? Why was it the Su family that had trouble, and not the Bai or Liu families? It was as if an invisible hand had sent him back to Jiugao at the perfect time, specifically so he could roll the boulder of events step by step in a certain direction.
After hesitating for a long time, she used the slightly dried ink to write the name "Qiu Ling" on the paper.
Who was really behind the Su family? Was the transfer order from the General of the South truly just a coincidence? During the years the eldest son of the Qiu family was away from the capital—studying at the academy, practicing martial arts at Kunxu, risking his life in the army, and joining the General of the South—was it truly all just to trade military merit for an official post later? With such a bright future, why not go to the capital? Why return to Jiugao?
Gently setting down her brush, Qin Jiuye stared at the names on the paper and fell into deep thought.
She was just a doctor, after all, not an expert investigator. Perhaps for her, the best way to get closer to the truth was to figure out exactly what was wrong with He Yuanzhou.
Currently, she had two cases she could study: He Yuanzhou and Li Qiao. Whether the latter would end up like He Yuanzhou was still unknown. She could only guess: the reason he hadn't rapidly deteriorated into He Yuanzhou’s state might be because of the original poison in his body.
She had seen cases of "fighting poison with poison" before, but most ordinary people's bodies couldn't withstand such a method that killed a thousand enemies at the cost of eight hundred of one's own. But people of the martial world were a different story. She had seen Taoist masters obsessed with refining elixirs of immortality who were riddled with cinnabar poisoning yet lived for over a decade while coughing up blood. She had also seen martial arts experts with shattered meridians who, after consuming lethal poison, could fight for three hundred rounds.
However, the end for these people was, without exception, a "miserable death."
Thus, while there were many strange occurrences in the martial world, in the end, they could not escape the eternal themes of birth, old age, sickness, and death.
Humans do not have bodies of indestructible vajra; it is simply that their time has not yet come. Where, then, was Li Qiao’s limit?
Thinking of this, Qin Jiuye suddenly felt a pang in a corner of her heart, as if pricked by something.
She was aware of her emotion, but she felt an inexplicable dread toward the true reason behind it.
Perhaps it was because she dimly knew that He Yuanzhou’s illness was likely incurable. If that were the case, then Li Qiao’s illness...
When they had first gathered at Listening Wind Hall, the youth had once asked her a question with feigned indifference: *Does Big Sister have any illnesses she cannot cure?*
Looking back now, had he already had a premonition then? That moment of silence had stemmed from that very thought.
And she had the audacity to call herself the Grand Manager in front of him. If she couldn't even save her own worker in the end, what could she possibly promise anyone else?
The emotions that had previously settled began to surge again. Qin Jiuye instinctively reached for the teapot to pour another cup of strong tea, only to find it empty.
Right then, a sudden knock sounded at the door.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
***
