BOOK 10. There are two tales at the beginning. Zhao Yunlan is searching for a lost artefact while Black Robe is searching for the same thing in a different world. One story is partly an illusion, while the other is very real and when they merge...
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Chu had heard about the hostage incident and went to visit Yunlan and see how he was afterwards. He was still trying to calm himself about Shen Wei being the victim and he tried looking at it from a different angle. The guards would have saved him somehow, yes he believed that, but it took him a while to get back to normal.
When Chu entered, he didn't need to be a medic to see the effect it was having on Yunlan's nerves. Guard Li nodded to him on his way in and he realised that Shen Wei had put him in place to protect Yunlan an he almost laughed when he saw how fast things were moving between the two of them, and sat down to talk.
"You've had a busy morning and it's not even eleven o'clock yet. Would you like something to calm your nerves?"
"As long as it's not illegal, I would take it. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw who was standing there. He's fine, I'm not."
"I'll make you a coffee," and Chu put a very mild herbal sedative in it.
"It won't put me to sleep, will it?" Yunlan asked.
"No, it's too mild to do that, it should just help your nerves to settle a bit."
Chu dropped less than half a teaspoon into his mug of coffee and waited to see what the effect was. Yunlan seemed better and told Chu all about Black Robe's visit the night before but he had to stop when the phone rang and he was called to another incident.
There was a man on a roof threatening to jump but he had asked for Yunlan by name, which should have alerted him to the possible dangers of this call, but it didn't. He had agreed to come down only if it was him he spoke to, because he had saved his brother's life and he wanted to thank him before he jumped, but it sounded all wrong. Guard Li was worried and stayed close by as he climbed the stairs to the top of the building. The man seemed drunk and was standing on the ledge, he was going to jump unless he could be given a good enough reason not to, and he had poured a glass of wine for Yunlan to join him in a farewell toast.
There were several things wrong with this whole scenario. Yunlan didn't like wine and he would be drinking on top of Chu's sedative. Who knows if the wine had been poisoned? A farewell toast meant that someone was going to die and why ask for Yunlan specifically? Lastly, was his brother still alive? Guard Li was working his way through all these questions with the other guards telepathically as he stood continually watching. Yunlan took one small sip while all the answers were fired into the guard's brain. The brother was dead, he was poisoned with a gardening substance which could be bought from this man's shop and it was given to him in a glass of wine.
The man on the rooftop laughed after Yunlan had tasted what was in the glass.
"I said that I'd come down after you drank a toast to my brother, I didn't say that you would be able to take me, you can always jump if the pain from the poison gets too strong."
