The iron pestle struck the stone mortar with a sharp, rhythmic clack-crunch that rattled the medicine jars lining the walls.
“Impossible,” Apothecary He spat, grinding dried roots into grey dust with enough venom to crack the granite mortar. “Utterly, biologically impossible. You’re asking me to pad a human skull for a headsman’s broadaxe using dried cabbage and ditch weeds.”
Lin Ke sat on a low wooden bench in the apothecary’s rear preparation cellar, his bare back straight against the whitewashed stonework. The smell of vinegar, crushed galangal, and dried bat spleen hung thick and humid in the underground air, warmed by three roaring charcoal fire bowls.
Across the room, four leather restraint straps—each three inches wide, stitched from triple-layer oxhide and heavy with forged brass buckles—hung from the heavy iron staples driven into the center of the oak check table.
“You said blood-vessel rupture was the fatal failure state,” Lin Ke said. His voice was level, unrushed, stripped of emotion. “Explain the exact living gearwork.”
“The gearwork?” Apothecary He slammed the pestle onto the worktable. It sent a cloud of root dust into the air that made him cough wildly. He jabbed a gnarled, yellowed fingernail at Lin Ke’s temple.
