At 5:45 AM the next morning, before the pale autumn sun had even cleared the eastern watchtowers of Sky-Crown City. Auntie Qin walked into the bustling lanes of the Capital Imperial Herb Market carrying two large woven bamboo baskets on her arms.
Behind her walked Big-Hammer Tie and four burly South Canal dockworkers pushing a wooden handcart, ready to haul back the month’s supply of dried spirit-ginseng, blood-replenishing angelica. Star-dew grass for the four hundred children at the newly opened Gu Family Peace Orphanage and the free neighborhood clinic.
Yet the moment Auntie Qin stepped onto the white marble flagstones of Herb-King Street, she noticed that the entire market had gone deathly quiet.
Every single wholesale pharmacy and medicinal pavilion along the half-mile avenue—from the smallest dried-root stall to the gilded five-story Hundred-Grass Hall—had pasted an identical, crimson-bordered Royal Alchemy Guild Edict across their front pillars!
When Auntie Qin walked up to the counter of her usual supplier, old Shopkeeper Chen hurriedly lowered his head and pushed her silver deposit pouch back across the counter with trembling fingers.
“Physician Qin, please take your silver and leave quickly!” Shopkeeper Chen whispered, glancing nervously toward the center of the street. “At midnight last night, the Royal Alchemist Guild and the Eastern Palace issued a joint blockade order!
