Chapter 46

Chapter 46

"Bloody nose?" Shen Lian put down the dossier and looked at Xie Yuan in disbelief: "How much of the medicinal powder did you use at once? Did you follow my instructions—three pinches in water, taken once every morning?"

His Highness Prince Qi, while eating, suddenly remembered and scooped out a heaping tablespoon—far exceeding the dosage on Shen the Imperial Physician's prescription.

However, the wicked little consort replied: "Roughly that much."

"That's strange..." Shen Lian rarely doubted himself: "Are you sure it was the powder I gave you that caused the nosebleed?"

"Positive." Xie Yuan stared at the young imperial physician with certainty: "I drank half a bowl of the decoction, and suddenly blood dripped from my nose, turning the soup red. My personal eunuch thought someone had poisoned the food and screamed so loud it's still echoing in my ears."

Shen Lian guiltily scooted his chair away from the victim, his face full of disbelief: "That can't be right... Last time you told me not to make it too strong, so I used only a very, very small amount of Cistanche and Epimedium. Everything else was mild stuff to build up the root and boost energy for people with weak kidney fire. Three pinches a day should just give you a little energy and focus..."

"I have witnesses." Prince Qi scooted his chair closer to the culprit: "From taking the medicine to the nosebleed, multiple people saw everything."

Shen Lian asked nervously: "His Highness Prince Xi didn't see it, did he? You didn't tell him I made it, did you?"

Xie Yuan narrowed his eyes and demanded: "At this point, all the culprit cares about is her own rep and job?"

Shen Lian: "You look fine. Let me check your pulse?"

"No." Xie Yuan said: "I've already had a taste of Lord Shen's medical skills once, and I can never trust them blindly again."

The military physician at Prince Qi's mansion had already taken his pulse and said: "The pulse is slippery, fast, full, and strong. The powder smells like it's meant to tonify, and the ingredients seem to have been purified. It clashes with Prince Qi's constitution—his kidney qi is strong enough to pull up a willow tree—just too much of a good thing. Nothing serious though."

But Prince Qi diagnosed himself: "It must be that I'm just too delicate, and the powder isn't gentle enough."

Shen Lian whispered guiltily: "Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere right now?"

"Everything feels off." Xie Yuan faked being out of breath and wheezed twice: "Especially when I get annoyed."

Xie Yuan was indeed uncomfortable. After drinking half a bowl of the decoction at noon, his whole body was burning up and he couldn't sit still.

He went out for a walk, and in a daze, ended up turning into the alley where the young physician lived.

He'd planned to just walk past, but then spotted an ambush nearby.

Xie Yuan hopped onto the wall and watched for a moment, recognizing the Eastern Depot agents.

That many men—clearly up to no good.

To avoid tipping them off, Xie Yuan took a long detour, hopping across several folks' courtyards from the back alley, and jumped into the young physician's garden.

So there he was, Prince Qi, the mantis stalking the cicada with the oriole behind—crouched there for a whole shichen.

The young physician came back laughing and chatting with that garrison errand boy.

Through a drafty, broken door, the two talked on and on about life and death, loyalty and devotion, never stopping.

When Xie Yuan snapped out of it, the Eastern Depot agents lurking around had already fled.

Maybe even the agents were about to puke from listening.

Stuck in an awkward spot, Prince Qi crouched there like a thief in someone's yard.

In the end, between sneaking back the way he came and butting in, he chose the latter.

He'd figured the moment he showed up, the young physician would run over, grab his arm, and tearfully beg for help.

But somehow, Prince Qi ended up fighting with the garrison errand boy over who got to "save" the physician.

He didn't want anything back—he'd even help at a loss, just to prove he was more worth relying on than that garrison errand boy.

Maybe losing all that blood had scrambled his brain.

Or maybe the young physician had slipped him a love potion.

Xie Yuan shouldn't have gotten involved in this at all.

He'd thought passing a message to Li Youchang would end this petty feud over a prescription.

But for some reason, Dehui's people still dared to act.

A small imperial merchant's medicine shop, with Li Youchang's spies in the Eastern Depot—they'd easily rat each other out.

The Directorate of Ceremonial wouldn't dare cross a prince, but once a grudge was set, future memorials could easily get messed with, causing quiet losses.

His mother was still waiting for him to send a victory report to His Majesty's desk every day, just like two years ago.

And Prince Qi, with nothing better to do, was trying to outdo a garrison assistant commander.

If his mother found out, she'd twist his ear clean off.

Suddenly defiant, unable to control himself.

In the past, when the pressure got to him, Xie Yuan would go to the palace and stay with his mother.

In the previous two years, opportunities for military merit at the frontier were plentiful, and his mother grew more confident in him.

But after years of wins, with the realm at peace, every time he went to the palace and saw the hope in his mother's eyes, Xie Yuan felt like he couldn't breathe.

He used to be able to unwind with his third brother.

But now his third brother was glued to Song Jin.

A grown man like him hanging around his brother and sister-in-law all day—and Song Jin would always come over to fuss over him, trying every which way to guess what he was thinking.

Like some dim-witted little brother who needed his sister-in-law to look after him.

Xie Yuan wasn't thinking of anything.

He just had nowhere else to go.

He had trusted generals in the army, sure, but he couldn't cross that line, or it might mess with battlefield decisions.

He wanted to find a buddy he could totally zone out with.

He didn't want to admit it, but the young physician fit the bill.

The only problem was the young physician didn't care about him enough, not with his whole heart.

Without the title of War God of Great Wei, he couldn't even beat a garrison errand boy.

Xie Yuan refused to accept that.

Against a court full of sly old foxes, he could still win by a hair's breadth.

A kind-hearted, almost naive young physician—how could he possibly slip out of his grasp?

He leaned in close, staring into the young imperial physician's watery peach-blossom eyes. "Lord Shen, you'll need to put more effort into fixing me up."

"Then you'll have to let me take your pulse first before I can prescribe the right medicine." Shen Lian huffed indignantly, and without thinking, raised his voice in complaint: "You're the one who told me your kidneys..."

"Shh." Xie Yuan turned to glance at the group of Tengxiang Guards hunched over files in the distance, then looked back at the young physician. "This isn't the place to discuss it. Let's keep looking through the files."

Shen Lian's train of thought was completely thrown off.

He kept going over the process of making the tonic in his head, wondering if he'd messed up.

There's no way the formula and proportions could be wrong.

Even a healthy person with no kidney issues, taking the medicine as directed, wouldn't get a nosebleed from it.

By midnight, they'd gone through nearly two years' worth of complaints.

There were only three cases related to Zhou Fuqing in total.

They'd thought this shady establishment would be full of dirt waiting to be dug up, but it turned out they'd been keeping a low profile in recent years.

Of the three cases, two were about Dehui Medical Hall hoarding supplies and cornering the market—even if they won the case for the plaintiff, it would just end in a fine.

Only one case looked serious.

The complaint alone was dozens of pages long, mostly petitioning the authorities to investigate the raw medicine depot and Dehui Medical Hall for colluding to swap out specially supplied goods meant for the inner court.

The complaint listed many specific supervisory and garrison institutions related to the case, making it a real slog to read.

The gist was that an imperial merchant similar to Dehui, called Su Ji Pharmacy, had supplied a batch of notoginseng to the inner court at the end of last year. It was a premium grade from high-altitude Yunnan with high saponin content.

It passed the imperial medicine depot's inspection when it was delivered, but two months later, when a consort was bleeding during childbirth, the imperial physician discovered something wrong with it, nearly killing someone.

A thorough investigation revealed that the batch of notoginseng was of extremely poor quality, not even meeting the lowest market standards.

Su Ji Pharmacy, implicated in this "deceiving the inner court" case, naturally took the hit—the boss's property was confiscated and he was imprisoned, and everyone involved in purchasing and delivery was sent into military exile.

The complaint came from the eldest legitimate grandson of the Su family, who hadn't been implicated.

Probably no legal counsel dared take the case, so the grandson wrote the complaint himself—all heart, no skill.

The pages were full of grievances, but not a single piece of evidence proving his family's notoginseng had been swapped by Dehui.

Shen Lian read it several times and could see nothing that could help an appeal.

After thinking it over, he swallowed his pride for the moment, turned and handed it to the Young Male Concubine without a word.

The Young Male Concubine glanced down at the complaint, then asked him in his usual teasing manner: "Well? Which words does my lord not recognize?"

Shen Lian was about to blow up when Lu Huaizhi walked over and asked in a low, concerned voice: "Finished reading? Anything unclear? I can help..."

Before he could finish, Xie Yuan snatched the stack of complaints and flipped through it quickly.

Only after confirming the case was messy enough did Xie Yuan turn and hand it to Lu Huaizhi.

Lu Huaizhi assumed the young man was stumped and was passing the case-solving opportunity to him, so he couldn't help but let out a smug little laugh as he took the complaint.

But after laughing, something didn't sit right.

Why on earth was he competing with this prince's household advisor over anything?

After reading the complaint, Lu Huaizhi understood why Shen Lian hadn't said a word.

The case was already three months old.

Everyone from the Su family involved in purchasing and delivery had been convicted and imprisoned or exiled—how could they possibly appeal?

"No point. This case is dead in the water." Lu Huaizhi sighed and set down the complaint. "We'll need to dig up older records."

Xie Yuan smiled and reminded him: "The Tengxiang Guard can only access the archives kept at Shuntian Prefecture. Anything older has been sealed up and transferred to the Dali Temple."

Lu Huaizhi was startled, narrowing his eyes to scrutinize this prince's household advisor: "Why are you so familiar with my garrison's scope of power?"

Xie Yuan: "I know a thing or two—just a bit more familiar with the garrison than Deputy Commander Lu."

"Ha!" Shen Lian quickly hopped between them: "It's a bit chilly tonight!"

Lu Huaizhi: "..."

That was far too clumsy a way to break it up.

Shen Lian turned and shot a fierce glare at the Young Male Concubine, whispering: "Tell me, is there any way for us to get the Dali Temple's sealed records?"

Xie Yuan shook his head.

Lu Huaizhi let out a mocking laugh, glancing sideways at Dian Xia, who was full of bad ideas: "Then tonight was a complete waste. Dehui has no leverage at all. Mr. Dian is way too imaginative."

Xie Yuan smiled and raised his index finger in response: "It's only that Deputy Commander Lu sees no leverage. But in the eyes of the Xi Prince's strongest advisor, every link in this case is a weakness to exploit."

Lu Huaizhi couldn't understand how someone so insufferable had survived so many years in the prince's household without being beaten to death.

Still, he maintained his composure and said: "Then please, Mr. Dian, enlighten us."

Xie Yuan smugly took back the stack of complaints, like a cavalryman wheeling around for a final strike, and looked at the young physician with determination: "There are three key points to break this case. The simplest one is..."

"Wah—!" Shen Lian's eyes flew wide in alarm.

Xie Yuan paused, leaning in to whisper: "Wait until I'm done before you go 'wah.'"

Shen Lian whispered back guiltily: "Dian Xia, nose... nosebleed..."

Xie Yuan hastily raised a hand to wipe his mouth and nose. The war god's aura instantly deflated. He set down the complaint and strode quickly to a corner, passing the culprit—the young physician—and snarling: "You. Come here."