Sharp-tongued physician Qin Wan’er moved faster than a striking sparrowhawk.
Although her lung meridians carried an old frost injury, she was still a genuine Rank 1 Peak martial artist who had practiced her family’s acupoint-seizing hand techniques since childhood. Before Lin Fan’s frozen fingers could tuck the gray paper packet back into his white silk cuff. Qin Wan’er crossed the six feet behind the counter in a single step and clamped her slender right hand around his left wrist like an iron shackle!
Twist—Crack!
“Let go of me, Sister Qin—augh!”
Lin Fan yelped as Qin Wan’er twisted his radial tendon upward, forcing his cramped fingers to spring open over the walnut counter.
Flutter.
The half-empty gray oil-paper packet tumbled out of Lin Fan’s palm and landed face-up on the polished wood. Spilling a pinch of dull, crystalline gray powder across the dark grain right beside the steaming teacup.
Qin Wan’er didn’t even need a silver needle to test it.
As a medical genius who had memorized three thousand herbs and toxins. Turning twenty, she needed only one glance at the crystalline gray grains—and the faint, acrid smell of scorched centipede shell rising from the hot tea—to recognize the substance on the spot.
Her pale face went white with fury, and the blue frost on her eyebrows bristled like ice needles.
“Seven-Step Heart-Rot Powder!” Qin Wan’er’s voice rang out cold and sharp enough to slice iron. “A forbidden underworld poison refined from rotten coffin moss and blister-beetle ash!
One cup dissolves the stomach lining in five breaths and freezes a martial artist’s heart meridians into stone!”
She wrenched Lin Fan’s arm higher so that all fifty townsfolk crowding the open doorway and street window could see the gray powder clinging to his fingernails.
“Lin Fan! Seconds ago you stood in my clinic bowing and swearing to the heavens that you wanted to save my father’s shop from Second Elder Gu Ba!” Qin Wan’er’s voice trembled with righteous outrage.
“Yet the instant I turned my back, you poured Seven-Step Heart-Rot Powder into my teacup?!”
Outside the open clinic window, an uproar exploded across Willow-West Street.
“Seven-Step Heart-Rot Powder?! That’s the same poison the mountain bandits used to murder the horse-caravan guards last autumn!”
“Mother of mercy! Look at the gray dust on his fingertips! If Little Nian from the Third Branch hadn’t shouted from the door just now, Doctor Qin would have drunk that cup without knowing a thing!”
“And to think every morning this Lin Fan walks down Central Street in white silk robes tossing two copper coins to beggars while preaching about benevolence and righteousness! Beneath that white robe, his heart is blacker than a coal pit!”
Blacksmith Zhao slammed his heavy iron tongs against the window ledge with a loud clang, glaring daggers at Lin Fan while thirty morning vendors pointed and spat into the snow.
Pinned by Qin Wan’er’s grip and surrounded by fifty furious pairs of eyes, Lin Fan broke out in a cold, oily sweat that soaked straight through the back of his white silk robe.
His heart hammered wildly against his ribs, and his mind spun at top speed to find a way out. If he admitted to poisoning a respected town physician in broad daylight. Even Second Elder Gu Ba wouldn’t be able to stop the Town Magistrate from throwing him into the iron mines for ten years!
Deny it! Lin Fan screamed inside his head. *Seven-Step Heart-Rot Powder turns completely colorless once it dissolves in hot water!
None of these ignorant street bumpkins know alchemy, and the powder on the counter is less than half a pinch!*
Forcing a look of wounded innocence onto his sweaty face, Lin Fan raised his free hand and cried out loudly:.
“Sister Qin! Neighbors! This is a terrible misunderstanding!
How could I, Lin Fan, ever harm a benevolent healer like Sister Qin?!”
He pointed frantically at the gray packet on the counter, lying through his teeth without blinking once.
“That isn’t Heart-Rot Powder at all! When I saw Sister Qin coughing from her winter lung-chill just now, my heart ached for her! That gray packet is a rare, secret tonic called Warm-Meridian Vitamin Powder that a traveling alchemist elder gifted me last month!
Because I knew Sister Qin is proud and always refuses expensive gifts, I secretly stirred it into her tea as a surprise to cure her winter cough!”
“A surprise tonic for my cough?” Qin Wan’er laughed coldly, her fingers tightening on his wrist. “Do you take me for a three-year-old child who doesn’t recognize blister-beetle ash?!”
“High-grade alchemical tonics often use roasted medicinal insects as a catalyst!” Lin Fan argued loudly, trying to fool the townsfolk outside the window who didn’t understand pharmacology. “Everyone on Central Street knows my reputation!
Why would I pay thirty silver to clear your rent and then poison you?!
You’re slandering my good intentions because of a child’s wild shouting!”
Outside the window, a few gullible peddlers hesitated, glancing from the stamped parchment on the counter to the steaming teacup.
“Wait... he did put a rent paper on the counter...”
“Could it really be some strange medicine for a cough?”
Standing behind the walnut counter with her fingers still clamped around Lin Fan’s wrist, Qin Wan’er nearly laughed aloud in sheer disbelief at the man’s shamelessness.
“A rent paper?” Qin Wan’er reached over with her left hand and flipped the red-stamped parchment around so the morning sunlight hit the bottom corner. “Look closely at the bottom of this sheet, everyone!
There isn’t even a clan registrar’s seal or a pawnshop thumbprint on it—it’s a blank rent form torn off a study desk!”
Lin Fan’s eyelid twitched violently, but he still stubbornly raised his chin. “The pawnshop clerk was busy at dawn and forgot to stamp the corner! That doesn’t change the fact that my Warm-Meridian Vitamin Powder is a priceless tonic!”
At that exact moment, a slow, cheerful clapping sound echoed from the clinic doorway.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
“Well said! Truly moving! Even the storytellers at Boss Qian’s teahouse couldn’t make up a tale half as touching as Young Master Lin’s!”
The crowd around the threshold parted automatically as Gu Changsheng strolled into the Hundred-Herb Clinic with his hands tucked casually into his sleeves. Flanked by eight-year-old Gu Nian in his yellow bunny slippers and six-foot-tall Grandpa Fu holding his black-iron abacus.
The moment Lin Fan saw Gu Changsheng’s calm, smiling face, his stomach gave a violent phantom cramp from last night’s graveyard trauma. He instinctively tried to jerk his arm back, only to find Gu Changsheng already standing right beside him.
“U-Uncle Gu!” Lin Fan stammered, his voice pitching high as he tried to back away. “What are you doing here?!”
“We live right next door, Nephew Lin,” Gu Changsheng said warmly, reaching out and clapping his broad right hand squarely onto Lin Fan’s shoulder.
Thud!
Gu Changsheng didn’t even use his belt. He simply let his eight hundred pounds of Rank 1 Mid Blood Qi sink three inches through his palm.
To Lin Fan—whose meridians were still weak and dehydrated from purging his guts out all night—that friendly pat felt like a thousand-pound millstone dropping straight out of the sky onto his collarbone!
Crack!
Lin Fan’s knees buckled inward with an audible pop. Both of his boots slammed into the flagstones, pinning him upright on the spot so he couldn’t budge a single inch.
“Since I’m your elder by a generation in the clan, Uncle Gu has to praise you in front of all the neighbors today,” Gu Changsheng said. Turning toward Blacksmith Zhao and the fifty townsfolk outside the window with a bright, genial smile. “Did everyone hear what Young Master Lin just said?
That gray powder he dumped into Doctor Qin’s teacup is a priceless, rare tonic called Warm-Meridian Vitamin Powder!”
Gu Changsheng looked down at the pale, trembling Lin Fan and shook his head with a sigh of deep admiration.
“Look at Young Master Lin’s pale face and the bandage on his forehead, folks! Even when he’s injured and coughing himself, he tried to give his own precious vitamin powder to Doctor Qin in secret! Can our Third Branch and Doctor Qin let such a saintly young man sacrifice his own health for others?”
“Of course not!” Grandpa Fu boomed from the doorway, clicking his iron abacus with a righteous nod. “A sick man needs his own medicine most!”
“Exactly!” Gu Changsheng beamed, reaching over to pick up the steaming porcelain teacup from the counter with his left hand.
He swirled the hot tea gently so that the last gray grains of Seven-Step Heart-Rot Powder dissolved completely into the liquid. Then brought the rim of the porcelain cup right up to Lin Fan’s trembling lips.
“Since this Warm-Meridian Vitamin Powder is a rare treasure gifted by your master to cure winter weakness, Doctor Qin wouldn’t dare be so greedy. To drink your tonic,” Gu Changsheng said in a warm, fatherly voice while his eyes gleamed like cold steel. “Come, Nephew Lin.
Open wide. Uncle Gu will personally help you drink every single drop of your own vitamin tea so everyone on Willow-West Street can witness its miraculous healing effect!”
Lin Fan’s pupils shrank to the size of needle points.
“N-no! Wait! I don’t need to drink it!
My cough is already fine—mmph!”
Before Lin Fan could clamp his teeth shut, Gu Changsheng’s right thumb and middle finger pinched the hinges of Lin Fan’s jaw with eight hundred pounds of irresistible Rank 1 Mid grip strength!
Click.
Lin Fan’s mouth popped wide open like a landed carp’s.
Without spilling a single drop onto the floor, Gu Changsheng tilted the white porcelain cup and poured the entire serving of hot, Seven-Step Heart-Rot tea straight down Lin Fan’s throat!
“Gulp—glug—cough!”
Gu Changsheng clapped a helpful hand under Lin Fan’s chin and tilted his head back once. Making sure the whole cup went all the way down into his stomach before releasing him and stepping back two paces.
“There we go,” Gu Changsheng said pleasantly, setting the empty teacup back on the walnut counter. “Not a single drop wasted. How does your master’s Warm-Meridian Vitamin Powder feel, Nephew Lin?
Pretty warm in the belly, isn’t it?”
For two seconds, Lin Fan stood frozen in the center of the clinic with his hands clutched around his throat.
“You... you made me drink it...” Lin Fan wheezed, his eyes bulging so wide the red veins threatened to burst.
“That’s a full dose of Seven-Step—”
He caught himself half a word before shouting Heart-Rot Powder, and slammed both hands into his mouth, trying desperately to gag and force the tea back up!
Inside the black ring, Master Yao Chen nearly jumped out of his ghostly boots.
You suicidal half-wit! Yao Chen roared inside Lin Fan’s head. *You brewed that Heart-Rot Powder with double blister-beetle ash this morning so it would take effect in five seconds instead of seven steps!
Don’t stick your fingers down your throat—it’s already in your stomach meridians!*
Blargh—hiss!
A terrifying sound like sizzling acid echoed from inside Lin Fan’s chest.
In front of Qin Wan’er, Blacksmith Zhao, Widow Zhang. All fifty townsfolk watching through the doorway and window, Lin Fan’s face turned from ghostly white to a deep, mottled indigo-black in three heartbeats flat!
Pfft!
Two streams of thick, pitch-black, foul-smelling blood spurted straight out of Lin Fan’s nostrils and splattered across the front of his spotless white silk robe!
“Aaaargh! My stomach! My heart meridian is freezing!”
Lin Fan dropped to his knees on the flagstones, clawing wildly at his own collar and rolling across the floor as black foam bubbled from the corners of his lips!
Outside the window, the entire street gasped in unison.
“Black blood from the nose! That’s the exact sign of Seven-Step Heart-Rot Poison!” Blacksmith Zhao roared, slamming his fist on the sill.
“What vitamin powder?!
The shameless rat really was trying to murder Doctor Qin with deadly poison!”
[ DING! CHOSEN ONE SWALLOWS HIS OWN POISON! ]
* Event : Lin Fan forced to drink his own [Seven-Step.
Heart-Rot Powder] in front of 50 witnesses!
* Public Status : “Saintly Young Gentleman” mask shattered in.
Willow-West Street!
* Immediate DP : +50 DP Counter-Plot Bonus (Balance: 510 DP)
* Daily Income : +500 DP/day -> +550 DP/day!
However, just as Lin Fan rolled toward the back wall shrieking for his Ring-Grandpa to save his life. Qin Wan’er—who had been standing right over the spilled gray powder on the counter—suddenly gasped and clutched her own chest!