Qinghe worked at the guest-room table after the meal. She opened her medical notebook to a clean page and wrote the date, dose, and list of ingredients. Yan sat across from her, watching the blue cup catch the lamp light.
“Start from when you lifted it,” she said.
“The taste was cool, then the qi settled. I felt calm before Muo asked for another sip. When he asked, the request seemed reasonable faster than I expected. I noticed the pull and said no.”
“Did the pressure make it harder to think?”
“No. It changed how the request felt. My mind stayed clear. The System reversed the part that would weaken my spiritual independence. The calmer circulation remained.”
Qinghe wrote that down as Yan’s report, not as a measurement. “I can verify the pulse and that you repeated the ingredients accurately. I can’t verify the spiritual change on my own.”
“That’s fair. One dose tells us what happened to me. It doesn’t mean I can guard anyone else from mind influence.”
She added the limit in the margin. “And it doesn’t mean the hall should give this to every keeper because you liked the calm.”
