Chapter 319 Three Incense Sticks, Determining the Fate
In the backyard of Derentang, a storeroom that was usually used to store precious medicinal herbs had been emptied.
The air was filled with a heavy, complex medicinal smell, mixed with dust and a faint, strange, sweet, and fishy odor.
A young apprentice lit three thick incense coils with trembling hands, the rising smoke intensifying the somber atmosphere.
Master He stood at the front with his arms crossed, his goatee twitching, his face full of contempt, as if to say, "Let's see how long you can keep up this act."
Behind him, dozens of core employees of Derentang, from top to bottom, all craned their necks, crowding around the small warehouse.
All eyes were focused on the simple wooden bed in the center of the room.
There was a man lying on the bed, but he looked more like a skeleton wrapped in human skin than a man.
His eyes were closed, his face was sallow, his lips were cracked and peeling, and he was completely still, with only the slight rise and fall of his chest indicating that he was still alive.
A faint, strange smell was emanating from him.
Sister Lan stood nervously beside Bai Shu, her palms sweating. She tried to speak several times, but Bai Shu's icy profile froze her back.
Qin Zheng stood behind Bai Shu like an iron tower. His eyes, honed on the battlefield, scanned everyone present like radar. If anyone dared to make a move, he would not hesitate to snap their neck.
Bai Zhu, or rather Su Wantang at this moment, seemed oblivious to the tense atmosphere around her.
She walked around the hospital bed slowly, without touching the patient at all.
Her gaze, like the most precise probe, swept over the patient's sallow skin texture, the abnormal grayness on his fingernails, and the faint blue veins on his temples, inch by inch.
Finally, she stopped at the head of the bed and leaned forward slightly.
Instead of smelling the patient, she brought her face close to the patient's mouth, about a foot away, and gently twitched her nostrils.
This action left everyone present completely dumbfounded.
"What...what are you doing? Smelling something?"
"How could you possibly smell something from that far away? You're just playing tricks!"
"Shh! Keep your voice down, Master He is watching."
Master He frowned. He had been practicing medicine for fifty years and considered himself to be highly skilled in the four diagnostic methods of observation, auscultation, inquiry, and palpation, but he had never seen such a method of diagnosis.
Is this young man just being mysterious, or is there some secret he doesn't know?
Just as the ash from the first incense stick was about to fill the incense burner, Bai Zhu straightened up.
Her hoarse voice rang out clearly in the impenetrable warehouse.
"The patient is not sick, but poisoned."
These words immediately caused a small commotion in the crowd.
Bai Shu ignored him and continued, "The poison is from the pollen of a rare plant in the Southern Frontier called 'Meng Tuoluo'. This poison is colorless and odorless, and cannot be detected by ordinary means. Only when it combines with the decaying blood and qi in the body of a dying person will it emit a faint, sweet and fishy smell."
Master He's expression changed instantly!
A startling light flashed in his cloudy eyes as he stared intently at Bai Shu, as if trying to see right through her.
Poisoning!
He had long suspected poisoning!
To verify his suspicions, he secretly took the patient's blood, tested it with a silver needle, and used various ancient methods to test for poison, all of which showed no poison.
He even suspected it might be one of the common poisons in Beijing, such as Gelsemium elegans or Crimson Throat, but the symptoms didn't match up at all.
He never imagined that such an unusual and rare poison existed in the world!
"How...how do you know it's 'Mengduoluo'? I've searched through countless medical books and have never seen such a thing recorded!"
Master He's voice trembled slightly, a mixture of excitement and disbelief that comes with a top expert encountering the unknown.
Bai Zhu completely ignored his question.
She took out a neatly folded silk handkerchief from the pocket of her large trench coat.
The handkerchief was snow-white, without any patterns on it.
Amidst the puzzled gazes of the crowd, she gently placed a handkerchief over the patient's withered wrist.
Then, she closed her eyes.
Three slender fingers, the index, middle, and ring fingers, rested on the thin silk handkerchief, sliding over it extremely slowly with each breath.
Her fingertips never touched the patient's skin.
"My God! What kind of pulse diagnosis method is this?"
"Diagnosing the pulse with a suspended thread? That's not right, I can't see any thread!"
"My goodness, he can take a pulse through a cloth? Is he even human?"
The men were in an uproar. Even Master He stared wide-eyed, his mouth slightly agape, forgetting to breathe.
Throughout his life as a doctor, he had only ever seen records of "pulse diagnosis by hanging thread" in some lost ancient books, which were almost regarded as legends and myths boasted by doctors.
But what we are seeing is even more bizarre than mythology!
This is no longer within the realm of medicine; it's practically... divine magic!
Su Wantang's inner world was not as calm as her outward appearance.
When her fingertips touched the silk handkerchief, the internal energy of the Taiyi Xuanjing flowed like mercury, silently penetrating the patient's pulse through the thin silk.
This was not "listening to the pulse," but rather she used her internal energy to amplify her perception to the extreme, in order to "read" all the information conveyed by that faint pulse.
It is more powerful and more accurate than pulse diagnosis by thread.
The second incense stick had burned halfway.
Bai Shu suddenly opened his eyes.
A knowing glint flashed in those clear, cool peach blossom eyes.
"The source of the toxin is not ingested, but rather hidden in clothing worn close to the body, which is inhaled in small amounts daily."
She paused, her gaze sweeping over the dirty pillow, and stated, word by word:
"Search his pillow; there's a hidden compartment inside."
Just as the atmosphere in the backyard of Derentang reached its peak of tension, the scene in the accounting office in the front hall was quite different.
Following Su Wantang's secret instructions, Sister Lan laid out the black ledger that Qian Hao had handed over, along with all of Derentang's purchase records and inventory receipts from the past ten years, on the table.
She originally thought that the new master just wanted to settle accounts with Derentang.
But as she went through the pages one by one, cold sweat poured out of her back.
Several accounts don't match up!
For example, last winter, the books showed that 500 kilograms of the inexpensive medicinal herb "Banlangen" were purchased, but the shady records showed that a large sum of money was spent to obtain a batch of things from a mysterious channel that were never put into storage.
This sum of money is so large that it's enough to buy several thousand kilograms of Isatis root!
And the final destination of this expenditure pointed to a name that terrified her.
—Health Bureau, Logistics Department.
One stroke, two strokes, three strokes...
The more Lan looked, the more alarmed she became. These shady deals had been going on for several years, with each transaction involving a larger sum than the last.
She suddenly remembered someone: Feng Jianguo, the deputy director of the Health Bureau who had been suspended from his post but recently reinstated!
This new master, from the very beginning, was not targeting Derentang, nor Qian Hao!
Her appetite was much bigger than she had imagined!
In the backyard warehouse.
As soon as Bai Zhu finished speaking, a quick-witted waiter was the first to react. He rushed forward, picked up the small knife used for cutting medicinal herbs hanging on the wall, and slashed the greasy pillow hard!
"Sizzle—"
The tattered cotton cloth was torn open, and yellowed and blackened cotton fibers burst out.
Immediately afterwards, something fell out of the cotton wadding and landed on the ground with a "thud".
It was a palm-sized brocade pouch, washed so much that its original color was no longer visible, with the character "安" (peace) embroidered on it in rough stitches.
A sweet, fishy smell, exactly the same as the one on the patient, instantly filled the air, ten times stronger than before!
The entire venue was deathly silent.
All the men's eyes shifted from the sachet to Bai Shu.
That look in his eyes was like a mortal seeing a living deity descended to earth.
Master He, who was standing at the very front, had begun to tremble violently and uncontrollably.
He stared intently at Bai Shu, his previous disdain and scrutiny completely gone from his eyes.
Instead, there was an indescribable horror and a near-mad frenzy!
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