Even Meng Qi almost couldn’t help but laugh at Chief Changxin’s untimely flattery.
This remark did not describe the fabric, but the painting.
Ge Changxin did not understand anything about fabrics; neither the pattern nor the material moved him as much as silver did. The two compliments he had just uttered were things he had heard before, and now, barely used, he couldn’t think of a third one despite racking his brains. He could only smile awkwardly.
Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Chief Changxin glanced at the shop with the corner of his eye, feeling deeply annoyed.
Why was he so unlucky? To avoid someone, he randomly ducked into a shop and ended up in trouble.
Two men in black lay here, dazed. One of them was facing Mo Li. Just as the man was about to exert force, an invisible force suddenly struck his cheek. The man in black leaned back, rolled half a circle on the ground from the blow.
“Poof.”
Blood mixed with two teeth fell out.
In the pool of blood, there was also a yellow-brown foreign object, flat and round, pitifully small. If not observed closely, it could easily be overlooked.
Meng Qi, with his keen eyesight, naturally wouldn’t miss it, especially since he saw Mo Li make his move.
Connecting the dots, Meng Qi immediately guessed that this object was a poison sac hidden in the man’s mouth. Once the identity of a death warrior was exposed, they would immediately commit suicide.
Meng Qi pulled up another man in black who was lying face down. As expected, he was a step too late. The man’s eyes rolled back, his face turned dark, foam and saliva flowed from his mouth, his body convulsed slightly, clearly dying.
Before the still-alive man could get up, Meng Qi directly sealed his acupoints, preventing him from continuing his suicide attempt.
Mo Li picked up the poison sac from the pool of blood, carefully pinched it open, and sniffed.
“Snake venom.”
The smell was very strong, with a hint of bitter sweetness.
Mo Li exerted internal energy, and the poison sac instantly shattered.
“South Border Broken Heart Grass, Strychnos, and the venom of a highly poisonous white-lipped snake.” Mo Li frowned deeply. Besides these, there were also some other miscellaneous things, but the scent was too faint. Coupled with the strong snake venom smell, it confused his senses, making it difficult to identify.
Doctors could identify medicinal herbs from the residue because there was a prescription for the decoction, a pattern to follow.
By recognizing the main herbs and a few important auxiliary herbs, they could roughly guess the prescription, and then deduce the possible herbs based on the smell and shape of the residue.
In short, this had a defined scope, but poison did not.
According to Magistrate Xue Lingjun of Zhushan County, most of the poison used in the martial world was randomly concocted, especially by those who learned Miao Gu poison techniques illegally. They liked to mix various poisons together: a bit of snake, scorpion, spider, and toad venom, along with some toxic medicinal herbs, sometimes even adding bone ash and corpse oil.
They would even use various sinister and impure items from folklore, like water seeping from yin walls or freshly dug soil from graves.
Once they made the poison, they would test it on people.
The purpose of testing was not to develop an antidote but to see how fast the poison acted.
As long as it acted quickly and caused a terrible death, it was considered successful!
Xue Lingjun once drunkenly cursed, believing that these martial artists who used poison this way were scum, deserving to be killed. Not because they could make potent poisons, but because their random mixtures often failed to achieve the desired effect. For example, snake venom; why was the venom of a snake just out of hibernation the most toxic? Because the snake hadn’t been active all winter, its venom was unspent, making a full dose exceptionally deadly. Any poison, if insufficient in quantity, would be ineffective. Yet, luck played a role, and occasionally, something deadly would result.
Mo Li struck the chest of the already poisoned man in black, then used his fingers like knives to tap over ten acupoints.
The man, already semi-conscious, shuddered violently and vomited a mouthful of black blood.
He then began vomiting wildly in the street, with tears and mucus streaming down his face, looking extremely wretched.
His companion, who had failed to bite the poison sac, initially glared at Mo Li with resentment for disrupting his suicide attempt. Seeing his companion’s miserable state, his expression froze. He should be grateful he hadn’t succeeded; otherwise, there would be another person crying and vomiting uncontrollably, unable to foam at the mouth or convulse to death.
The death warriors did not fear death, but the thought of suffering without being able to die made them tremble with fear.
Even Chief Changxin looked at Mo Li with eyes full of dread.
—Originally, he only feared Meng Qi; now he found this doctor even more terrifying.
Just think, how could one offend someone who could prevent death itself?
Mo Li keenly turned his head and, seeing Ge Changxin’s frightened expression, felt puzzled for a moment. When he realized why, he could only feel helpless.
In these times, ruthless killers and mysterious death warriors were commonplace in the martial world, but a doctor with life-saving skills was feared.
Mo Li couldn’t think further as a familiar presence approached him.
“The doctor is truly impressive.” Meng Qi’s eyes shone brightly, clearly never having seen a death warrior who could be saved after attempting suicide by poison.
Previously, the best outcome was to concoct medicine to keep them alive long enough to extract information.
Because the poison acted quickly, it took at least half an hour to prepare the medicine, making it impossible to save them unless, like Mo Li earlier, the poison sac was prevented from being bitten. However, if someone wanted to die, they could bite their tongue or bash their head against a wall, requiring many people to guard them.
If not for being in the middle of the street, Meng Qi would have recounted the intelligence he missed and the extra battles and fallen subordinates due to such missed opportunities during his campaigns.
“Ah, if only I had met the doctor sooner.” Meng Qi said with regret.
“……”
Suddenly, Mo Li’s heart felt at peace, and all he saw was Meng Qi’s figure.
It seemed that every time his mind wavered, Meng Qi would pull him back in time.
When they first met, it was Mo Li who needed to stop Meng Qi’s bouts of madness. Yet, unknowingly, everything had changed. The world outside Zhushan County was different from what the books and Elder Qin had taught, only superficially similar.
Words could not convey the world’s suffering, and Mo Li could never become accustomed to it. The many experiences filled his heart with righteous indignation and doubt. His teacher taught him the way of humanity but never said how those who were “human” should act and understand the right.
—Was it so difficult just to be “human” without aspiring to be a sage?
Mo Li often asked himself this but found no answer.
Without Meng Qi by his side, what would he have become?
Most likely, he would have struggled to maintain his peace of mind, becoming confused and unable to resolve it. Even with extraordinary medical skills and rare martial arts, he could only save people temporarily, not permanently, and often had to watch helplessly as disasters struck.
Having already experienced setbacks and failures in this chaotic world, Meng Qi decisively praised Mo Li, always with unwavering support. He and Mo Li were alike, a strength that no one else could touch. Mo Li never doubted Meng Qi’s words, never had differing thoughts, never rejected him.
Yet, thinking of the chubby, round sand rat as a calming pill was still a bit unsettling for Mo Li.
“If I had met Brother Meng fifty years ago…”
Meng Qi had many close friends in the past, but there was always a layer of separation.
Like Prime Minister Deng and others considering their future, Chu Emperor Yuan wary of powerful families, Meng Qi had noticed this but faced many national issues and emergencies that needed immediate decisions, pushing these “small matters” aside.
The human mind is unpredictable, and Meng Qi neglected things he never cared about but were crucial to others.
If only there had been someone else who knew all his secrets and understood everything, they could have seen more together, complemented each other, and reminded each other of omissions.
Meng Qi couldn’t help but sigh, “Two heads are better than one. The doctor is my remedy, but unfortunately…”
Mo Li thought, unfortunately, at that time, he was just a fish in a pond.
Chief Changxin, looking left and right, finally realized something was off between the two. He stuck close to the wall, inching away step by step, and after moving three zhang away, he ran off.
Meng Qi paid no attention to him; the earlier commotion had already scared the townspeople enough.
Many shops had closed their doors, vendors were busy packing up their things to hide, and the originally sparse pedestrians were nowhere to be seen.
At this moment, a lone craftsman sitting on the side of the street stood out conspicuously.
“Old man?”
Mo Li recognized the carpenter who had ordered the rattle drum earlier.
The carpenter forced a smile. He looked very frightened, his words barely coherent, but he still took a rattle drum out of his cloth bag and handed it over.
The drum was oval-shaped, with a chubby sand rat drawn on it with ink. The drum’s striker balls had been replaced with two wooden carved dates, their surfaces polished smooth.
The carpenter seemed to have carved these items before and replaced them without delay.
As for why these things were made, it was because the wealthy in small towns often replaced the fruit plates offered during festivals and the pastries displayed in the main hall with fake ones to save costs.
The more glamorous and distant items were mere showpieces, while only the food served to guests was real. This practice had even spread to Taijing, where some servants of prominent households secretly skimmed off the surplus without their masters knowing.
These two “dates” were very plump and had a layer of lacquer, making them shiny and tempting.
The sand rat on the drum had round eyes, and its paws were held in front of its chest. When the rattle drum was shaken, it seemed like the dates were flying in front of the sand rat’s eyes, which stared eagerly at the dates as they clanged but couldn’t catch them.
Mo Li’s few strokes had drawn a very lifelike sand rat, and the carpenter’s painting was also excellent.
Meng Qi: “……”
He was truly caught off guard; he thought the sand rat would be using its paws to drum on its belly.
He had underestimated the doctor.
The carpenter had initially wanted to ask what animal Mo Li had drawn, but these days, painted images were often distorted, and auspicious patterns were hard to describe. The toys were meant to amuse children, but he hadn’t expected it to be more attractive than the big-bellied Maitreya Buddha.
“…… I’ve already been paid.” The carpenter mumbled, more to convince himself than to explain.
This helped him suppress his fear and wait by the street.
If Mo Li hadn’t called out to him, the carpenter wouldn’t have dared to approach.
As soon as Mo Li took the rattle drum, the carpenter ran off, hugging his things.
People peeked out from corners of the street; those were yamen officers and constables, hesitant to show themselves.
Meng Qi cleared his throat, pretending not to see the rattle drum, and went directly into the shop from which the men in black had emerged.
Mo Li stayed on the street, destroying the scattered hidden weapons one by one, all of which were poisoned. Leaving them could cause accidental injuries.
When the two men in black saw Mo Li touch the hidden weapons on the door panel, they showed faint, sinister smiles, which soon froze. They saw a pile of fragments fall to the ground wherever Mo Li’s hand passed.
Mo Li took out a fire starter, completely shattered the wooden door panel, and set it on fire near the pile of fragments and dust.
The smoke initially had a strange smell but soon dissipated as the flames roared.
“There are several corpses in the shop. Take them outside the city for interrogation.” Meng Qi came out holding an account book.
It was a rice shop. Besides the signs of fighting in the main hall, there were also a few bloodstains in the back.
Obviously, there had been a skirmish before Chief Changxin accidentally entered the rice shop.
“The corpses are the shopkeeper and the clerks, all of whom had practiced martial arts, so their identities are likely unusual. They might be spies for some family.” Meng Qi pondered, “They don’t seem to be from Fengxing Pavilion. There was a hidden compartment in the back room with a roll of accounts. An ordinary account book wouldn’t be hidden so carefully. Let’s take these two death warriors away first.”
Author’s Note:
Mo Li: “Didn’t see that coming, did you?”
Death Warriors: “……”
——————
Meng Qi, incredulously pointing at the rattle drum
