The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty (ENGLISH TRANSLATION)

CH 8

Tang Fan nodded. “Yang-rich spring is a yang-booster recorded alongside ancient prescriptions. It isn’t at all rare, in and of itself, and can be made up with ingredients like brown stinkbug, weevilwort, rehmannia, and barrenwort. While eating a lot of it is maybe not advisable, Zheng Fu claimed that Zheng Cheng took the drug approximately two or three times a month, so that wouldn’t be enough to take a life. If thorowax is added to it, though, it’s different. Thorowax is for dispelling internal heat, but it can’t be used indiscriminately. Those with low innate qi must avoid it, as taking it over a long period of time will damage the liver and kidneys even further. Adding it into the yang-rich spring turned it from a yang-boosting drug to a death-prompting drug.”

“The people I dispatched to Weihui sent news, stating that Lin Chaodong, the Rejuvenation Hall worker that helped Zheng Cheng get his medicine in secret, hadn’t gone back to his hometown at all, and has since disappeared without a trace, nowhere to be found,” Sui Zhou said.

Tang Fan smiled bitterly. “If that’s the case, the trail has once again been cut off.”

Sui Zhou was quiet for a short time. “Not necessarily, actually. Come with me.”

He got up and went out. Tang Fan locked the courtyard door, then followed him.

Under the blue sky and white sun, the strangle-mark on his neck was really too awful, and his collar wasn’t able to cover it. With a Brocade Guard also being beside him, this led to passersby constantly turning their heads to look at him with weird gazes, like they were watching a prisoner on death row about to go to his execution ground.

Sui Zhou first went back to the Bastion Office to bring Zheng Fu out from inside, then led him to Rejuvenation Hall.

Although Shopkeep Liu and the rest had been released, their every move and word were still being monitored. Two Guards had been ordered to keep watch at the entrance of the Hall like some door guardians, which entailed that business these days had slumped by a lot. Shopkeep Liu’s group of three was sitting inside, faces anxious, and promptly stood up upon seeing the pair.

“Sir Sui, you can see that we’re just businesspeople doing our part. That guy Lin Chaodong’s affairs have nothing to do with the Hall, either, so could you…” Shopkeep Liu had wanted to complain, but a sweep of Sui Zhou’s cold eyes made him straight-up swallow the latter half of his words down.

Sui Zhou handed the prescription Tang Fan had given him over to Zheng Fu. “Do you recognize the list on top?”

Zheng Fu took a look at it, then nodded repeatedly. “This is the exact prescription for yang-rich spring. This lowly one frequently saw it back when I went to get it made for the Young Lord… huh. There had never been any thorowax in it before!”

“When was the last time you came to get it made?”

“Just around two or three months ago?”

“I want an exact date. Think back carefully!” Sui Zhou said, frosty.

Human potential was unlimited; from Sui Zhou’s one roar, Zheng Fu actually did end up remembering. “It was the eighteenth of March, I remember! The eighteenth! That’s because those pills had to finish simmering each and every time, which was more troublesome, so I would always come two days in advance to give Lin Chaodong the order, then wait until the twentieth to go back and pick the pills up!”

Sui Zhou looked at Shopkeep Liu. “You heard. After you’ve looked up the backup records for the Hall’s prescriptions dating from the eighteenth to the twentieth of March, come back and report them.”

“Yes, yes, yes! This lowly one will do that!”

He swiftly called for Gao Yazi and the present physician to go shut the Hall’s door, then began to sift through the records.