Just as the morning sky began to show a hint of fish-belly white, Pi Yanlin wiped his face with the blue cloth handkerchief Gu Qinghuan handed him.
The handkerchief carried a faint scent of soap pods, mixed with the smell of grass he had deliberately rubbed onto it, making him look very much like a peasant who had rushed through the night carrying a critically ill family member.
"Sister Qinghuan, does this disguise look convincing?" He bent down to stuff Li San into the bamboo basket, deliberately smearing a patch of mud on his temple. "Do you think when Dr. Sun sees me looking this anxious and rubbing my hands together, he'll invite us straight into the back hall?"
Gu Qinghuan did not answer.
She stared at the unconscious Li San in the bamboo basket, her knuckles turning white—the bloodstains left by ropes were still visible on Li San's wrists, clearly showing he had been interrogated overnight. "The fact that Zhang Qi was able to find Zuihua Pavilion means Judge Wei's men have had their eyes on Li San for a long time." She tugged at the hem of her coarse cloth skirt and tucked her waist-worn saber deeper into her lapel. "Jishi Hall is a medical clinic registered with the Xuan'an Bureau. No matter how bold they are, they wouldn't dare torture someone inside the clinic."
As the two of them walked through the morning fog along the bluestone path, the sole of Pi Yanlin's shoe stuck to half a withered lotus leaf.
He stared at the dew-dampened square bricks beneath his feet, the tips of his ears burning slightly—just now at Zuihua Pavilion, the sinister smile Zhang Qi wore when mentioning "Li San" had felt like a fine needle pricking the back of his neck.
He touched the half-string of copper coins tucked inside his tunic, the "wine money" he had deliberately slammed onto the table just moments ago, which was now digging painfully into his ribs.
The vermilion double doors of Jishi Hall had just had one leaf unlatched, and the fragrance of medicine rolled out wrapped in warmth.
Gu Qinghuan took the lead in supporting the bamboo basket, her eyes instantly turning red. "Have mercy, Doctor! My brother was suddenly struck with a splitting headache yesterday and kept screaming that he saw ghost fires!" Her voice trembled, and her shoulders quivered slightly, making her look precisely like a terrified young wife scared out of her wits.
Manager Zhang, who was clicking an abacus behind the counter, raised his eyes.
He was in his forties, with a round, smiling face, and his two-pronged mustache was dusted with medicinal powder, making him look just like a Maitreya Buddha. "Little lady, don't fret. Dr. Sun is in the back courtyard brewing medicine." His gaze swept over Li San in the bamboo basket, then landed on Pi Yanlin's pale face. "This brother here doesn't look too well either.
Could he have been frightened?"
Pi Yanlin immediately grabbed the counter, smashing his forehead heavily against the nanmu desk—he used a clever burst of strength, wincing sharply from the pain, but the move perfectly blocked Manager Zhang's line of sight into the bamboo basket. "Aiyo... My head... My head feels like it's going to split open..." He staggered back to the waiting area, collapsing limply onto a wooden bench. "Qing... Qinghuan, quickly... quickly get me some pain-relief powder..."
Gu Qinghuan immediately turned to rummage through her cloth pack, and loose silver coins clinked like little brass bells as they fell onto the counter. "Manager, get my brother two patches of pain-relief plaster first, and then fill a prescription for calming the nerves." Her fingertips deliberately brushed across the abacus, scattering the beads of the calculation half-finished—this was their agreed-upon signal to "begin."
Pi Yanlin slumped on the bench, his eyelids half-drooped.
He stared at the plaque hanging from the beam that read "Benevolent Hands and Kind Heart," his mouth twitching slightly—the sandalwood frame of the plaque bore several faint, fresh scrape marks, as if it had been slashed by a sharp weapon.
He closed his eyes tightly and silently chanted the System command in his throat: "Check in."
A familiar wave of heat rose from his lower dantian, exploding a burst of golden light within his sea of consciousness.
The incantation for the third tier of the *Lazy Immortal Formula* rushed in like a tidal wave: "Let the spirit wander and cast off external sensations, seal the five senses of your own accord, let the heart be like lazy clouds, untouched by ten thousand worldly dusts..." He only felt a buzzing in his ears, and the previously clear scents of medicine, the sound of the abacus, and Gu Qinghuan's voice suddenly grew blurry, as if separated by a layer of frosted glass.
"It worked." His eyelashes fluttered, and pretending to be half-asleep, he slid halfway off the bench.
The waiting area was a mere three steps away from the back kitchen. Taking advantage of the cover provided by the flow of people, he ducked low and slipped through the door bearing the wooden sign that read "Restricted Medicinal Area."
The dampness of the cellar suddenly became starkly clear once he circulated his cultivation technique.
The moment his five senses were blocked, he actually "saw" more—the medicinal aura floating in the air condensed into pale white wisps of mist, one of which tinged with an eerie red, burrowing downward along the base of the wall.
He reached out to touch the bluestone slab in the corner, and the moment his fingertips brushed the gap, a searing wave of heat surged from beneath the ground, burning him so badly that he pulled his hand back.
"It's down below." He squatted down, his fingernails hooking into the edge of the slab.
A faint "gurgling" sound came from beneath the slab, as if something was being boiled.
Just as he was about to pry it open, Gu Qinghuan's cold rebuke exploded by his ear: "The manager is rather quick with his abacus beads, but could it be that my brother's life isn't worth as much as your few copper coins?"
Pi Yanlin's heart tightened.
Knowing that Gu Qinghuan was doing this to draw Manager Zhang's attention away, he put every ounce of strength into prying open the stone slab—the heat from the cellar rushed at him, thick with the fishy-sweet stench of medicine. An iron pot sat over a firewood stove, filled with churning dark green slime in which half a charred bird carcass was bubbling and fizzing.
"Netherworld Guide!" He gasped sharply.
This was a wicked poison recorded in the Xuan'an Bureau case files, capable of luring corpse worms into the body and driving a person to scream and foam at the mouth in agonizing pain until they died mad—the sweat on Li San's temples and his racing pulse were precisely the symptoms of having contracted this poison!
"Bang!"
The wooden cover of the cellar entrance was kicked open violently.
Manager Zhang stood at the top of the stairs, his mustache twitching violently, clutching a coarse cloth sack in his hand.
Staring at Pi Yanlin, his once-round face twisted into that of a ferocious ghost: "What kind of person are you! How did you find this place?"
Pi Yanlin took two steps back, his lower back pressing against the medicine cabinet.
Catching sight of the cold sweat oozing from Manager Zhang's fingertips, he suddenly smiled: "Manager Zhang, you sure have clever methods—selling tonics by day, brewing poison soup by night. Did Li San refuse to talk about the 'Holy Monarch', so you poured this down his throat?"
Manager Zhang's pupils contracted sharply.
He abruptly tore open the coarse cloth sack, and white powder billowed out like a thick fog.
Catching a whiff of bitter almonds, Pi Yanlin instantly activated the "Trace-Seeking Eye"—within his field of vision, the poisonous dust transformed into countless silver threads, lunging toward his face along the air currents.
Sidestepping, he slammed into the medicine cabinet, sending sandalwood drawers crashing to the floor in a clatter that blocked the densest of the poisonous clouds.
"Pi Yanlin!"
Gu Qinghuan's voice pierced through the window, mingling with the ringing of a blade.
The goose-feather saber in her hand flashed with a cold light, cleanly slicing the suspension rope hanging from the cellar ceiling—the bundle of medicinal herbs that had been suspended came crashing down with a boom, tightly sealing the cellar entrance.
The poisonous cloud was trapped below, leaving only a few wisps leaking out through the gaps, choking Manager Zhang into a fit of coughing.
"Run!" Manager Zhang roared, spinning around to bolt toward the window.
Gu Qinghuan swung her saber at the back of his neck, but was blocked by the medicine cabinet he had knocked over.
Seizing the opportunity, Pi Yanlin lunged toward the spot where Manager Zhang had just discarded his sack, his fingertips brushing against a tiny bit of residual powder—this was dark iron sand, capable of absorbing poisonous dust, and it served as irrefutable physical proof implicating Manager Zhang.
As Manager Zhang scrambled through the window, he shattered half of the wooden frame, sending splinters of wood splashing onto the back of Pi Yanlin's hand.
Staring at the distant retreating figure outside the window, Pi Yanlin felt the medicine pouch hidden inside his tunic—just now in the corner of the cellar, he had spotted half a roll of blood-stained confidential correspondence, bearing the faint words "Fifteenth day of the seventh moon, Xuan'an Bureau."
"Qinghuan, after him!" He shoved the confidential letter into Gu Qinghuan's hands. "But don't take his life—what we want is the person behind him."
Gu Qinghuan wiped the medicinal powder from her face, her gaze sharp as a blade: "Keep watch over Li San and the evidence, I'll go cut him off." Vaulting onto the window sill with her saber in hand, her blue skirt fluttered in the wind like a hawk ready to strike.
Pi Yanlin bent down to pick up the dark iron sand from the floor, dropping it into his personal cloth pouch.
Staring at the still-boiling cauldron of poison down in the cellar, he suddenly felt that the gurgling sound was just like some sort of countdown.
"Holy Monarch..." He muttered the name, and the back of his ears began to burn again.
The words Li San had uttered before losing consciousness were now poking at his temples like a needle, one stab at a time.
Outside Jishi Hall came Gu Qinghuan's sharp shout, mingling with the sound of running footsteps in pursuit.
Patting the medicinal powder from his clothes, Pi Yanlin re-wrapped Li San tightly in the bamboo basket.
Glancing at the still-burning oil lamp on the counter, he saw the wick formed a burnt blossom resembling a blood-red flower.
"Time to head back to the yamen." He hoisted the bamboo basket onto his shoulder, and as he turned around, his eyes caught the plaque of "Benevolent Hands and Kind Heart" hanging from the beam— bathed in the morning light, the gold lacquer on the plaque now took on a dark purple sheen, as if soaked in blood.
Touching the confidential letter tucked in his tunic, he squinted toward the direction of the yamen.
The shadow of the old locust tree in the back courtyard was slowly creeping up the base of the wall; in another half hour under the sun, it would be baking to perfection.