Inside the Hundred-Herb Clinic, Lin Fan writhed on the flagstones as the Seven-Step Heart-Rot Powder burned through his stomach like liquid frost.
“Master! Save me! My heart meridian is turning to ice!”
Terrified that Gu Changsheng might grab another teapot and pour a second cup down his throat, Lin Fan didn’t dare stay in the clinic another second. With black blood still dripping from his nostrils onto his ruined white silk collar, he scrambled backward on all fours, vaulted clumsily over the low wooden counter. Kicked the rear alley window open with both boots.
Crash!
Wooden shutters splintered as the Second Branch’s prized nephew-in-law dove headfirst out the back window and landed face-down in a three-foot drift of dirty alley snow.
Inside the black iron ring on his thumb, Master Yao Chen cursed a blue streak.
Every single day I spend on your finger takes ten years off my afterlife! the old Pill Sovereign roared inside Lin Fan’s head. *Hold still, you moron!
If I don’t burn three months of your meridian qi right now to ignite a furnace-purge inside your stomach, your heart will freeze solid before you reach the end of the lane!*
Hiss—boom!
A scorching thread of borrowed pill-fire flared inside Lin Fan’s abdomen, forcefully burning away three full months of his hard-earned Rank 1 Mid cultivation base to neutralize the blister-beetle toxin. Vomiting a mouthful of black slush into the alley snow, Lin Fan clutched his aching belly and limped away. Fast as his trembling legs could carry him, his Protagonist Luck Halo cracking from 88% straight down to 78%.
[ DING! CHOSEN ONE SUFFERS SEVERE CULTIVATION BACKLASH! ]
* Target : Lin Fan (Frost-Pine Town Chosen One)
* Damage Taken : Swallowed own [Seven-Step Heart-Rot Powder];.
forced to burn 3 months of meridian cultivation.
to survive!
* Luck Halo Drop : 88% -> 78% (-10% CRACKED!)
* Plunder Reward : +50 DP! (Current Balance: 560 DP)
* Gu Nian Stats : Darkening Meter 17% -> 16% (-1% DROP!)
* Daily DP Income : +550 DP/day -> +600 DP/day!
Out at the front window of the Hundred-Herb Clinic, Blacksmith Zhao and the fifty townsfolk burst into loud cheers and laughter as they watched Lin Fan’s boots disappear out the back window.
“Look at that white-robed rat run!” Blacksmith Zhao guffawed, slapping his thigh. “If it had really been ‘vitamin powder,’ why did he jump headfirst into the alley snowbank bleeding black from his nose?!”
“What a blessing that Patriarch Gu and Little Master Nian walked over from next door in time!” Widow Zhang cried, nodding vigorously. “Otherwise poor Doctor Qin would be the one lying on the floor right now!”
Inside the clinic, however, Gu Changsheng was not looking at the back window.
His sharp gaze was fixed squarely on twenty-four-year-old Qin Wan’er.
When Qin Wan’er had spun around and wrenched Lin Fan’s wrist upward a minute ago, the torn gray packet had burst open right beneath her nose. Even though she hadn’t drunk the tea, a stray wisp of the airborne Seven-Step Heart-Rot dust had been drawn into her lungs when she shouted at Lin Fan.
To a healthy Rank 1 Peak martial artist, inhaling half a grain of airborne powder would only cause a brief sneeze.
But Qin Wan’er was not healthy.
For three long winters, she had suppressed a lethal mass of Cold-Furnace Alchemy Frost inside her lung meridians using sheer willpower and bitter herbs. That tiny spark of Yin-cold Heart-Rot dust was the final straw that broke the dam!
Cough—cough!
Qin Wan’er swayed violently behind the walnut counter. Her slender fingers gripped the edge of the wood so hard her knuckles turned chalk-white, and she coughed a mouthful of crystalline, frost-white blood onto her pale blue sleeve!
Crackle... hiss.
In the span of three breaths, the temperature around Qin Wan’er’s body plunged twenty degrees.
Visible rime-ice crept up from her collar along her neck, turning her lips a frightening shade of violet-blue and coating her dark eyelashes with white frost! Her knees gave out beneath her, and she slid down against the front of the medicine cabinet, shivering uncontrollably as every breath sounded like broken glass rattling in her chest.
“Doctor Qin!” Blacksmith Zhao’s cheering stopped instantly at the window. “What’s wrong with Doctor Qin?!
Did she get poisoned too?!”
Just then, a shrill, crowing laugh cut through the crowd outside the clinic door.
“Hahaha! Out of the way! Let a real physician look at her!”
Pushing rudely past the vegetable vendors came a thin, goat-bearded man in a greasy brocade vest wearing round brass spectacles. It was Apothecary Wang, the chief shopkeeper of Second Elder Gu Ba’s rival Pill Hall on Central Street. Who had been lurking at the corner of the lane waiting for Lin Fan’s scheme to succeed!
Apothecary Wang peered over the threshold at Qin Wan’er’s frost-covered eyebrows and clapped his hands together in undisguised glee.
“Oh, what a tragedy! What a pity!” Apothecary Wang crowed loudly so the whole street could hear, shaking his head with fake sympathy.
“Everyone step back!
That isn’t just Heart-Rot dust—the shock of the fight has completely ruptured Qin Wan’er’s three-year-old Cold-Furnace Alchemy Backlash!”
He pointed a yellowed fingernail at the blue frost spreading across Qin Wan’er’s cheeks.
“Look at the frost on her eyebrows! Her twelve lung meridians are freezing solid from the inside out! Once Cold-Furnace frost reaches the heart meridian, not even a Rank 2 Alchemist from the Prefecture Guild can save her without at least one thousand silver taels worth of Three-Hundred-Year Fire-Ginseng!”
Apothecary Wang pulled a pre-written deed out of his greasy vest and waved it in front of the shivering young woman on the floor.
“Girl, your father’s clinic doesn’t even have ten taels of silver left! If you don’t want to freeze into an ice statue before noon, put your thumbprint on this transfer deed right now! Hand over the Hundred-Herb Clinic and the Jade-Dew Pill Recipe to our Second Branch Pill Hall.
I’ll beg Second Elder Gu Ba to give you a bowl of warm charcoal water so you can live as a crippled mortal!”
Shivering against the cabinet, Qin Wan’er bit her frozen lower lip until it bled.
Even with icy agony stabbing through her lungs and her vision blurring at the edges, she glared at Apothecary Wang and forced the words out between chattering teeth:.
“Get... get out... Even if my lungs freeze to ice today...
my father’s clinic... will never belong to thieves like you!”
“Stubborn little fool! In five minutes you won’t even be able to lift your thumb!” Apothecary Wang sneered, folding his arms as he waited for the cold to break her spirit.
“Nobody in Frost-Pine Town has Three-Hundred-Year Fire-Ginseng!
Who in this poor alley could possibly save your lungs now?!”
“Grandpa Fu,” Gu Changsheng said calmly without even turning his head. “There’s a noisy fly buzzing in the doorway and letting cold air into the room. Close his mouth for a minute, will you?”
“Right away, Young Master!”
Standing six feet tall with his newly healed Rank 1 Mid spine, Grandpa Fu took one long stride to the threshold. Reached out with a calloused hand carrying eight hundred pounds of force. Pinched Apothecary Wang’s cheeks together like a pair of iron tongs before shoving him three yards back into a snowbank!
“Mmph! Mmmph!” Apothecary Wang flailed in the snow with his spectacles crooked on his nose, unable to utter another word.
Grandpa Fu planted his boots squarely in the center of the doorway, pulled out his heavy black-iron abacus, and clicked three iron beads across the frame with a cold glare at the street.
“Anyone who wants to watch Young Master treat a patient may stand quietly outside the window,” Grandpa Fu announced in a resonant voice that made the gossips straighten up at once. “Anyone who barges into a sickroom waving fake deeds and shouting curses will be billed fifty silver taels for disturbing a physician’s peace!”
Beside the window, Blacksmith Zhao gave a hearty thumbs-up. “Well done, Butler Fu! That greedy quack Wang was making my ears ache!”
Inside the quiet clinic, Gu Changsheng walked over to. Qin Wan’er was slumped against the medicine cabinet and knelt down on one knee so she didn’t have to strain her neck to look up at him.
Right beside him, eight-year-old Gu Nian trotted over in his yellow bunny slippers, carefully carrying the quilted bamboo basket in both hands.
Even though the clinic floorboards were dusted with frost from Qin Wan’er’s leaking lung-chill, the Tomb-Iron soles and soft yellow lambswool of Gu Nian’s bunny slippers kept the boy’s toes completely warm. He set the bamboo basket gently on a low stool beside his father’s knee and unfastened the quilted cotton cover with nimble little fingers.
“Gu... Patriarch Gu...” Qin Wan’er whispered weakly, her teeth chattering so hard she could barely speak as white frost misted from her lips.
“Thank you...
and Little Nian... for exposing Lin Fan just now... Please step back...
My Cold-Furnace frost is leaking out... If it touches Little Nian’s hands, he’ll catch a winter chill...”
Hearing that this young woman was still worried about giving his son a chill while her own lung meridians were freezing solid, Gu Changsheng felt a genuine warmth rise in his chest.
No wonder Gu Nian had remembered her jar of frostbite salve for an entire year. In a town full of fair-weather bullies, Qin Wan’er had a heart of pure gold.
“Don’t worry about Nian’er catching a chill, Doctor Qin,” Gu Changsheng said with an easy, reassuring smile as he unlatched the bamboo basket and lifted the lid off the double-walled porcelain thermos. “Our boy is wearing lambswool bunny slippers today, and we didn’t come empty-handed.”
Whoosh!
The moment the porcelain cork came off the thermos, a rich, golden cloud of steam rolled out into the cold clinic air.
It wasn’t the acrid, choking smell of burned pill-ash or bitter bark. It was the warm, mouth-watering fragrance of wild cliff-honey, aged mountain fire-ginger, red winter jujubes, and flaw-free Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng fused to 100% perfection by [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box]!
Wherever that golden steam drifted, the frost crystals hanging in the air melted into warm droplets on contact.
Outside in the snowbank, Apothecary Wang stopped flailing and stared through his crooked spectacles in disbelief as the rich medicinal aroma drifted past his nose.
“Wait... that fragrance...” Apothecary Wang’s jaw dropped open.
“Why does a bowl of kitchen ginger soup smell purer than a top-grade Yang-Warming Pill?!”
Gu Changsheng poured a full bowl of the glowing amber [Fused Honey-Ginger Detox Soup] and held it steady with a silver spoon.
Beside him, eight-year-old Gu Nian set the basket down, pulled the freshly washed white handkerchief out of his pocket, and held it out toward Qin Wan’er with both small hands.
His ears turned slightly pink under his yellow wool scarf, and he looked sideways at the medicine cabinet the exact way he did whenever he felt shy.
“Here, Big Sister Qin,” Gu Nian said in a quiet, earnest voice. “Wipe your mouth first, and then drink the bowl while it’s hot. Last winter your frostbite salve smelled like rotten turnips, and my hands still got better.
Dad’s honey-ginger soup smells ten times better than your bitter grass, so you won’t freeze.”
Qin Wan’er looked at the clean white handkerchief held in the eight-year-old boy’s small hands, and then up at Gu Changsheng’s calm, steady eyes as he held the steaming porcelain bowl to her lips.
She was a physician herself. She knew better than anyone that a three-year-old Cold-Furnace Alchemy Backlash mixed with Seven-Step Heart-Rot dust could never be cured by a bowl of household ginger soup.
Yet looking at little Gu Nian’s hopeful black-gold eyes and the bright red cloth flower pinned to his yellow smock. Qin Wan’er couldn’t bring herself to refuse the child’s kindness in what she thought were her final moments.
“Thank you... Little Nian,” Qin Wan’er whispered softly, taking the handkerchief to dab the frost-blood from her chin before leaning forward to take a sip of the warm golden soup from Gu Changsheng’s spoon.