TWWDS - Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Though Xu Zhongzhi did not understand Chao Qingxiu's intentions, that did not stop him from agreeing at once. "I appreciate your help," he said hurriedly, then moved ahead to lead the guest personally.

The Xu family was wealthy indeed. There were only three members of the Xu family, and even with the servants, the grounds remained spacious. Beside the kitchen, a small courtyard had been walled off specifically for decocting medicine for the eldest daughter.

At a distance, Nanny Wang saw a maid in the courtyard, knocking down elm seeds with a bamboo pole. She shook her head. "Every single day, just as playful as this." Then she called out, "A-Su, why are you still playing in the courtyard instead of watching Miss Xu's medicine?"

A-Su stopped what she was doing. "A-Qing is watching it inside. I knocked down some elm seeds to make steamed cakes for the Third Miss."

The place where the Xu family's eldest daughter had her medicine decocted was a small courtyard, separated from the kitchen by a fence woven into a wall. It contained two small rooms. One was used to boil the medicine, and once it was ready, A-Su and A-Qing would carry it into the room next door to cool for a while before taking it to the eldest daughter.

As Chao Qingxiu stepped through the door, she saw A-Qing eating dried jujubes.

Nanny Wang sighed. "One likes to play, the other likes to eat. Neither has any sense."

Chao Qingxiu had been in this world for some time and had learned a little about local customs. The Xu household had not hired so many servants because they lived in extravagant luxury. In the south, some ordinary families with too many children would send their children to stay with another household for a few years and perform odds and ends, learning skills for survival along the way to ease their own financial burden.

A-Qing let out a giggling laugh, quickly rose, lifted the cover from the bowl on the table, and picked it up. A-Su set down her pole and hurried back inside for a tray so that A-Qing could place the medicine bowl on it.

Chao Qingxiu's gaze swept over the medicine bowl, then she went next door to inspect the herbs that had not yet been boiled.

The paper packet held astragalus, white atractylodes, angelica, bupleurum, and other herbs, whose action was chiefly dispersing.

Xu Zhongzhi asked carefully, "What does Miss Chao think?"

Chao Qingxiu gave a slight shake of her head. "Nothing especially unusual." No poison had been mixed in, and nothing had expired. Whether viewed through a martial artist's eyes or a detective's, it was perfectly ordinary.

Seeing that her employer had not looked angry, A-Qing relaxed and sat down to eat more candied fruit.

Chao Qingxiu glanced at her. A-Qing immediately grabbed a handful of dried jujubes and asked, "Would you like some?"

Before the guest could answer, Nanny Wang had already coughed forcefully and shot A-Qing a look. A-Qing withdrew her hand and said with an apologetic smile, "She is always like this. I hope you will not take it to heart."

"...It is all right."

No one else knew that she had actually wanted to reach out and take some just then. She had refrained only because eating candied fruit did not suit the staid image she maintained as a physician.

A-Su carried the tray into the courtyard of the Xu family's eldest daughter, Xu Feiqu, but she did not go straight into the room. Instead, she waited until Xu Zhongzhi had scooped up a spoonful and tasted it himself. Only then did she hand the tray to A-Shan, a maid who attended Xu Feiqu personally.

Like the other maids in the household, A-Shan wore a silk blouse that was neither new nor old, her hair arranged with meticulous neatness and her sleeve cuffs tied with cords. She wore no unnecessary adornments, looking very clean and neat.

Chao Qingxiu asked quietly, "Is this your elder sister's maid?"

Xu Zhongzhi replied in an equally low voice, "Yes. Like her brother, A-Shan was entrusted to the Xu family by someone else. Because my elder sister was unwell, A-Shan used to accompany her to the academy and care for her."

Chao Qingxiu nodded slightly to show that she understood.

The room occupied by Xu Feiqu was thick with the scent of medicine. The bitter smell seemed to seep into the very body, giving off an indescribable air of withering decay.

Xu Feiqu struggled to sit up on the bed. The headache was too severe for her to bind up her hair, so it hung loose behind her. She was still very young, just the age to be studying diligently at an official academy, yet she looked like a lotus leaf in autumn, frail and withered.

The skin around Xu Feiqu's eyes was dark and hollowed, and her eyes were cloudy and threaded with blood. She looked worse than Li Yao had that day.

Xu Feiqu raised the medicine bowl, threw back her head, and drank it all in one go, then collapsed backward into the cushions behind her. Her chest heaved ceaselessly, as if the simple act had drained all her strength.

A-Shan broke off a piece of sugar. "Would you like to rinse your mouth, miss?"

Xu Feiqu shook her head weakly and with difficulty against the pillow.

Since her mistress would not take it, the sugar went into the maid's own mouth. After eating it, A-Shan poured Xu Feiqu a cup of clear water.

Xu Zhongzhi came over and said quietly, "Sister, I brought a friend today to examine your pulse."

Xu Feiqu closed her eyes and did not refuse, tacitly consenting.

Xu Zhongzhi gave A-Shan a glance. She supported the eldest daughter's arm, lifted her sleeve, and placed her wrist on a soft cushion.

Chao Qingxiu sat down and pressed three fingers to the patient's wrist.

Xu Feiqu's pulse was thin and weak, her breathing short, and her body damp with a faint sheen of sweat. After taking her pulse for a moment, Chao Qingxiu knew that the prescription written by the previous elderly physician had been correct.

Chao Qingxiu nodded to Xu Zhongzhi, signaling that the examination was over and they could step aside to talk.

She had just risen when Xu Feiqu on the bed suddenly furrowed her brows and began to shiver involuntarily. Chao Qingxiu had intended to leave, but a thought struck her, and she once more took the patient's wrist.

This time, Xu Feiqu's pulse was far stronger than before, surging and fading in turn, like a madman with a muddled mind beating a drum as he pleased.

Chao Qingxiu lowered her eyes and stared steadily at the patient.

The room had never been bright, but now it seemed to grow even dimmer.

Xu Zhongzhi pressed the question. "Is my sister..."

Chao Qingxiu picked up the empty medicine bowl and pointed toward the door. "Let us talk outside."

By now, Xu Zhongzhi fully believed that Chao Qingxiu was a physician with exceptional skill. It also explained why she had spent most of her time quietly at home, unwilling to go out and make a living. Someone with such astonishing skills would never have to worry about finding food to eat, no matter where she went.

Nanny Wang stayed in the room with A-Shan to care for Xu Feiqu. Xu Zhongzhi led Chao Qingxiu into the neighboring room, waiting for her to explain his elder sister's condition.

Instead of answering, Chao Qingxiu asked, "Aside from your sister, has anyone else in the household been unwell recently?"

Xu Zhongzhi shook his head blankly.

Chao Qingxiu stared at the medicine bowl that had been carried out. She used a chopstick to dab up some of the remaining medicine and held it beneath her nose. Then she conveyed the judgment of the Medical Arts: "Your elder sister is not merely suffering a flare-up of her headache. She may have been poisoned."

"What?"

Chao Qingxiu considered for a moment. "It is most likely poison from the Miao territories." The toxin was deeply hidden and did not resemble any common condition in the Central Plains. If Xu Feiqu had been in better health, the poison would first have lain dormant after she took the medicine, then struck several hours later. It was only because her body was now so frail that the first signs had appeared.

Moreover, if the Medical Arts had not included cases of poison injury among people of the martial world, Chao Qingxiu would never have seen it.

A thought suddenly surfaced in Chao Qingxiu's mind: although the dynasty she had transmigrated into had a thoroughly fictional name, the Miao territories were still called the Miao territories, just as the Wulin Alliance was still the Wulin Alliance. Both were indispensable elements of the martial-arts world.

Xu Zhongzhi's gaze shifted to the medicine in the bowl. "The poison was in the medicine?"

His voice held a note of disbelief.

Xu Zhongzhi tasted his elder sister's medicine nearly every day. If the poison had been put in the medicine, then...

Before the thought was finished, Chao Qingxiu picked up the spoon once more, inspected it again, and shook her head at Xu Zhongzhi. "There was no problem with the medicine in the spoon. Only the medicine in the bowl had been poisoned."

The poisoning method was ingenious, a fact confirmed by the Medical Arts. Had Chao Qingxiu not noticed the sudden change in Xu Feiqu's pulse and deliberately searched the medicine for a problem, she would never have discovered it.

"Miss Xu's illness must have persisted for some time. Her headache has grown steadily worse. Even if she felt unwell after drinking the medicine, there was no way to identify the true problem accurately."

"..."

Xu Zhongzhi suddenly felt fortunate that he had used a spoon when tasting medicine for his elder sister, making the spoon an important piece of evidence in the poisoning.

The young man, who had shouldered the household's burdens since his elder sister fell ill, remained silent for a moment. "I will go and bring A-Shan."

---

Every room in the Xu residence seemed brighter than the room occupied by Xu Feiqu.

Xu Zhongzhi stared silently at the maid before him. Sternness marked his face, but so did confusion and bewilderment.

Chao Qingxiu remained as calm as she had upon arriving. She sat composed in her chair, in no way preparing to withdraw merely because this was another family's private affair. Her attitude was remarkably serene and open. To anyone watching, she looked like a white crane resting on a riverbank.

Xu Zhongzhi said, "Doctor Chao has examined it. Someone put poison in the medicine in the bowl, but there was none in the spoon."

A-Shan stared at the bowl, the color slowly draining from both her cheeks. Then her knees buckled, and she dropped to the ground in a kneel.

Her lips trembled. She opened and closed them several times before finally saying, "I administered the poison."

Chao Qingxiu asked curiously, "May I ask why you wanted to poison Miss Xu?"

A-Shan lowered her eyes. "The eldest daughter was very strict with us. I... I grew up beside her, and she treated me no more leniently than anyone else. For a moment, I was overcome by an evil thought."

Xu Zhongzhi shook his head in denial. "My elder sister is merely strict about running the household." He sighed. "Once she fell ill, the household slowly fell into disorder. So many things became a complete mess. Nanny Wang had no choice but to impose stricter rules. Does that mean you would have had an easier life than before?"

A-Shan gave a bitter smile. "In any case, I have wronged the eldest daughter. Now that you have discovered what I did, if you insist on taking me before the authorities, I have nothing to say."

"Have you any accomplices in the Xu household?"

"The more people who know a thing like this, the easier it is for a flaw to show..." She shook her head. "There are no accomplices. It was entirely my own idea."

Chao Qingxiu nodded and smiled. "Indeed, working alone is more discreet. You are not stupid."

Xu Zhongzhi's mind was in turmoil, so he could only have A-Shan placed under guard first.

He could, of course, report the matter to the authorities. But when such matters arose, people generally preferred to settle them privately. Even though Deputy Magistrate Han was a decent person, the Xu family was unwilling to involve the authorities.

Moreover, A-Shan's reason was that she had found Xu Feiqu too strict in managing the household. If such an account spread, it would inevitably damage her reputation at the academy. People would think that even if she entered officialdom, she would become a harsh and unforgiving official.

The instant A-Shan confessed, a new message appeared on the Detective Panel.

[System: Xu family poisoning case solved. User has gained 2 Detective Points and 1 Fame Point.]

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