The wooden shelves of the Seventh Ward medicine room annex were as bare as a plucked chicken.
Rows of empty baked-clay jars stood in the gloom, their cork seals scattered across the floor like dry leaves. The sharp, bitter scent of wormwood and bitter pine-resin was gone, replaced by the stale smell of damp limestone and cold iron.
Apothecary He sat on his three-legged stool, an unlit pipe clamped between his yellowing teeth, glaring at a crumpled merchant supply order notice on his counter.
“Every single sprig,” the old healer spat, his voice like gravel grinding in a mortar. “Every bundle of Nine-Leaf Salve. Every pound of Bone-Strengthening Lichen. Bought up at three times spot market price by Grand Fortune logistics wagons before dawn.”
He slammed his gnarled fist against the wood.
“Young Master Zhao bought the entire quarterly herbal harvest from the south valleys! The outer medical pavilions don’t have enough balm to treat an infected hangnail, let alone the burns on your palm or the turning to stone in that stone-veined giant’s knees!”
Lin Ke stood in the doorway, his leather satchel of spirit stones resting against his hip.
His right palm was hot, the skin tight and itchy beneath the stiff willow-bark bandage. Without regular applications of anti-inflammatory herbs, the micro-fissures in his glass spirit veins would scar improperly, permanently restricting high-hum throughput.
And Meng Shan’s massive joints, stressed by four days of nonstop high-pitched earth deep ring, were already clicking with warning signs of stone stiffness.
“A living embargo,” Lin Ke noted coldly. “They can’t seize our capital in court, so they’re forcing physical degradation before the trial convenes.”
* * *
Lin Ke walked past the empty shelves toward the dark cellar door in the back of the medicine room.
“Where are you going, boy?” He barked, hobbling after him with his walking stick. “I told you, there’s nothing down there except mold and rats!”
Lin Ke kicked open the cellar door.
In the damp stone vault below sat twelve rotting wooden crates, covered in fuzzy grey mold and leaking a sour, fermented stench. Inside the crates lay mountains of shriveled, blackened roots. Slated for disposal in the melted rock waste incinerators.
Crimson Root.
A high-grade healing herb known for rapid body repair and spirit vein soothing, ruined by poor storage. The roots had rusted during transport. That turned into toxic, black sludge that caused severe vomiting and liver black rot if ingested.
“Spoiled inventory,” Apothecary He groaned, leaning against the doorframe. “Two hundred pounds of rotten rubbish. The damp cellar ruined them three months ago. You touch that rot and your skin will slough off.”
Lin Ke knelt beside the nearest crate, picking up a blackened root with his bare fingers.
“The active healing alkaloids in the core are fully unharmed,” Lin Ke said, snapping the brittle root in two.
Beneath the greasy black rind lay a thin, vibrant thread of deep vermilion flesh.
“The toxicity is entirely superficial,” Lin Ke explained in plain, grounded terms. “The surface absorbed sky moisture and rusted, forming an acidic tannin crust. If we strip the rust, the meat underneath is purer than fresh harvest.”
Apothecary He blinked, squinting through the gloom. “Strip the rust? How do you strip rust from a root without boiling away the healing spirit?”
“A reduction wash,” Lin Ke replied. “We crush the roots in high-proof grain alcohol to dissolve the outer wax. Then we bubble carbon monoxide gas from the fire chimney pipes through the vat for six hours.”
He looked up at the old healer.
“The fire gas strips the oxygen from the tannin crust. That turned the toxic black scum into neutral ash that settles to the bottom. The pure healing oil remains suspended in the alcohol.”
Apothecary He stared at the seventeen-year-old clerk for five full seconds, his pipe slipping from his teeth and clattering onto the stone steps.
“Fire smoke... And grain alcohol?” the old man muttered, his brow furrowing as decades of rigid medical dogma collided with cold, undeniable chemical logic. “By the ancestors... It might actually precipitate the acid.”
* * *
They worked through the night in the medicine room cellar.
Meng Shan hauled six kegs of seventy-proof sorghum liquor from the tavern storehouse, dumping them into a massive copper basin with the crushed, blackened roots.
Lin Ke ran a sealed iron pipe from the backup draft chimney pipe of Kiln Nine directly down through the cellar window, submerging the bubbling nozzle into the bottom of the vat.
For six hours, the copper basin hissed and gurgled.
The foul, rotten-egg carbon monoxide gas bubbled through the alcohol mash. Slowly, miraculously, the oily black scum floating on the surface curdled. That turned into a gritty, inert gray settled mud that dropped to the bottom of the basin like sand.
The liquid above turned into a brilliant, crystal-clear crimson syrup that radiated a sweet, invigorating herbal perfume that filled the entire cellar.
By the fifth watch, Lin Ke had strained the liquid through fine silk and whipped it with cold beef animal fat.
On the workbench sat twenty heavy clay jars of thick, semi-clear red healing salve.
Apothecary He dipped a trembling, gnarled finger into the ointment, rubbed it between his calloused palms. Then he sniffed it deeply. A look of sheer, pure shock washed over his scarred old face.
“Eighty percent active purity,” the old healer whispered, his voice cracking with awe. “Better than the refined salves from the inner sect medicine halls.”
He looked at Lin Ke, then down at the bucket of gray chimney soot sitting in the corner, and burst into a loud, raspy, frantic cackle that echoed off the stone walls.
“You insolent, terrifying little brat,” He laughed, tears of bitter mirth leaking from his yellow eyes. “Young Master Zhao spent ten thousand spirit stones buying up the country harvest to choke us... And you bypassed his entire blockade with a bucket of charcoal smoke and six kegs of cheap sorghum liquor!”
The old man shook his head, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.
He turned toward his private inner sanctum—a locked iron safe set deep into the cliff wall—and unlocked the heavy three-tumbler lock with a silver key.
From the safe, He retrieved a heavy, black clay pot jar sealed with purple wax and stamped with an ancient, forgotten healing crest.
He thrust the jar into Lin Ke’s hands.
“Take this,” Apothecary He said, his voice suddenly dead serious, stripped of all humor. “It’s Black Marrow Broth. Brewed from the boiled joint padding of deep-trench earth dragons, steeped in bone-knitting liquid silver.”
Lin Ke felt the jar’s huge weight. It was dense as lead, shaking with a cold, heavy stone hum.
“Drink it before your next breakthrough,” He commanded, his dark eyes boring into Lin Ke’s skull. “Your glass channels are fast, boy, but they’re brittle as dried sugar. If you try to push into Stage Three without an organic stone sheath to cushion the chassis, the internal pressure will snap your ribs like dry twigs.”
Lin Ke held the heavy black jar against his chest.
He met the old healer’s gaze and gave a single, formal, respectful nod.
“Acknowledged,” Lin Ke said. “Chassis steadying scheduled for midnight.”