All around was complete silence.

Cui Min stared intently at the face before the wind lantern.

That face… that face was still as he remembered, yet completely different from memory.

Black hair had turned gray and white, smooth skin was covered with wrinkles, and his beard had somehow grown long, piled on his chin, appearing disheveled despite being groomed.

This face should have lived poorly—weathered and worn, a worn walking stick with peeling paint supporting his slightly curled leg, and clothing made of coarse hemp.

Yet this face also seemed to have lived well—no gloom could be seen between his brows and eyes, the responding voice from behind the felt curtain earlier had been full of joy, and even now upon meeting, his face showed only shock, not resentment.

He stood frozen in place.

This was his former close friend—

Miao Liangfang.

His confidant waited by the carriage below as Cui Min heard his own voice, ethereal and not quite real.

“…Why are you here?”

Miao Liangfang opened his mouth, but Lu Tong had already naturally taken over the conversation: “Of course he’s here. Master Miao is the resident physician at Renxin Medical Hall.”

“Resident physician?”

Cui Min found it absurd.

“He’s a criminal—how can he practice medicine?”

“Why can’t he?”

Lu Tong smiled slightly, her tone remaining peaceful. “When Master Miao was expelled from the Imperial Medical Academy years ago, the Academy’s punishment never stated he could never practice medicine again in the future.”

Cui Min paused.

It was true—they had never said that.

But still…

How could this be?

Over ten years ago, when Miao Liangfang was expelled from the Imperial Medical Academy, he had secretly had people inquire about his whereabouts.

When the once-famous, high-spirited genius imperial physician hit rock bottom, no miracle occurred. Miao Liangfang had sought help from old friends, but no one would risk pulling up a disgraced common physician with criminal charges.

He was like a weed that had accidentally strayed into a noble’s garden—casually removed with light strokes.

Cui Min knew that afterward, Miao Liangfang lived in destitution—drinking heavily, limping, spending days in a daze, mixing with beggars. Gradually, he stopped paying attention to this person.

He hadn’t killed him completely, still leaving him a way to live, out of consideration for their past friendship when both worked as assistants in the medicine shop. He hoped Miao Liangfang would live, but not too well—like countless busy, ordinary people, gradually becoming a piece of rotten dust.

Many years passed without Cui Min seeing Miao Liangfang again. He thought the man had long since vanished into the cruel world, perhaps dead. The name “Miao Liangfang” only occasionally flashed through his mind during sleepless midnight moments like a false illusion, gradually thrown behind him.

He never expected him to suddenly appear before his eyes.

Not fallen, not dejected—the man looked prosperous and ordinary, yet more peaceful than when he was young years ago.

“You…”

Miao Liangfang came to his senses, as if awakening from his earlier shock. Setting aside past grievances, he instinctively stepped forward, staring at Cui Min coldly: “What are you doing here?”

“Academy Director Cui came to find me,” Lu Tong said.

“That’s right, I came to—”

Cui Min suddenly paused, looking again at the two people before him.

The wind lantern in the inner shop was dim, but that weak light illuminated the subtle expressions on both their faces with particular clarity.

Miao Liangfang stood in front of Lu Tong in a protective posture. The conversation and expressions between them were intimate, like familiar acquaintances.

Suddenly, an absurd thought surfaced.

“…Are you two in league together?”

Miao Liangfang was stunned, not understanding.

But Lu Tong smiled without speaking.

Cui Min stepped back two paces in horror.

Lu Tong and Miao Liangfang clearly appeared to be old acquaintances, but when had these two met?

Was it when Lu Tong was suspended and returned to West Street recently, when Lu Tong was injured at Huangmao Ridge some days ago, or when Lu Tong first entered the Imperial Medical Academy?

He hadn’t paid attention to West Street. Renxin Medical Hall was just an insignificant, rundown medical hall. He only knew there was an old resident physician inside who had replaced Lu Tong’s position, but no one had ever told him who that resident physician was.

Cui Min looked at Miao Liangfang: “When did you start practicing here?”

Lu Tong answered for Miao Liangfang: “He was here before the spring examination.” She asked: “Why has Academy Director Cui suddenly come? Could it be… Young Master Qi has fallen ill again?”

Hearing this, Cui Min’s face changed dramatically.

She had actually guessed it!

No, perhaps it wasn’t a guess, but rather…

If Lu Tong was Miao Liangfang’s person, she absolutely couldn’t have entered the Imperial Medical Academy without purpose. Miao Liangfang held old grudges against him—the only possibility was that Lu Tong entered the Imperial Medical Academy to take revenge on his behalf.

The ten prescriptions in the spring examination, the seemingly earnest pointing out of errors in his study, that baseless, obvious accusation…

It was all just an elaborate trap she had carefully laid…

He had been caught in it all along!

A sudden chill arose from his heart. His body, exhausted from the sleepless night, swayed precariously, and his head throbbed as if it would split. Cui Min’s eyes widened, the fine bloodshot vessels making those normally gentle features appear somewhat fierce.

“You did it on purpose?”

“You deliberately left problematic prescriptions to lure me in, already predicting today!”

He suddenly understood.

Why had Qi Yutai’s illness, which had nearly recovered, suddenly relapsed severely? Why were pulse symptoms that had never appeared before now all present? He couldn’t find a single clue, couldn’t even determine a direction for treatment—all because this was a trap Lu Tong had laid.

He had fallen for it!

Miao Liangfang frowned: “What are you talking about?”

But Lu Tong stepped forward from behind Miao Liangfang, looking at him with amusement.

“Whether it was intentional or not—does it matter? Taking possession of what belongs to others will eventually have consequences.”

Her bright dark eyes gazed at Cui Min, seeming to contain infinite mockery.

“Academy Director Cui, even if the prescriptions on the spring examination papers had problems, even if in your pharmacy I misstated some ingredients, as long as you hadn’t harbored covetous thoughts, or even if you had simply mentioned my name when doing this, you wouldn’t have fallen into such a passive situation today.”

“After all these years, you still only know the same trick. It seems—”

“You’re not only despicable, but also stupid.”

Though spoken plainly, these words struck Cui Min’s heart like muffled thunder.

He nearly staggered.

His former friend stood in the inner shop. He didn’t know how much Miao Liangfang knew, or whether this whole affair was orchestrated by him. Instinctively unwilling to lose face before Miao Liangfang, Cui Min gritted his teeth, looked at Lu Tong, and said in a lowered voice: “Lu Tong, to deal with me, to revenge past events, you dared to act against the Grand Tutor’s son. You’re finished, and he can’t escape either.”

Lu Tong and Miao Liangfang had come for him, yet used Qi Yutai as a chess piece in this game—that was the Grand Tutor’s only legitimate son!

To be toyed with by a lowly commoner—how could the Qi family let this pass?

“The Qi family will never spare you…”

“You’re seeking death!”

“What does this have to do with me?” Lu Tong asked in surprise. “The prescription was personally developed by Academy Director Cui. This point was already an established fact when I was suspended before all the imperial physicians at the Academy.”

She smiled: “As head of the Imperial Medical Academy, the Academy Director surely can’t shift blame to others the moment problems arise.”

Cui Min’s heart sank.

The numerous imperial physicians who witnessed everything had now become evidence.

She had calculated everything from the beginning!

Extremely angry, Cui Min instead calmed down, and facing Lu Tong, his tone couldn’t help but soften somewhat.

“Lu Tong, what must I do for you to be willing to correct the errors in the prescription?”

He had no other path. If Qi Yutai couldn’t recover his clarity before the sacrifice ceremony, the Qi family would threaten him with his wife and children…

The woman tilted her head to look at him, as if seriously considering.

After a moment, she nodded, her voice cheerful: “As long as Academy Director Cui now explains to the world that the ‘Cui’s Pharmaceutical Theories’ you wrote back then was stolen from former Academy Director’s medical prescription notes ‘Miao’s Good Prescriptions,’ and admits to the crime of framing the former Deputy Academy Director, telling everyone in Great Liang that you’re just a fame-seeking fraud…”

“I’ll spare you.”

At these words, Miao Liangfang’s expression paused, showing no surprise.

But Cui Min’s face turned ashen.

She had indeed come for Miao Liangfang’s matter!

“Impossible.” Cui Min refused flatly, and while rejecting, a sense of absurdity arose in his heart.

This woman was very young, calm when facing situations. Previously he thought she was a Ji Xun without background, or perhaps a more discerning Miao Liangfang. Now it seemed she was different from both.

Cui Min had spent twenty years at the Imperial Medical Academy, rising from a small medicine shop assistant to his current position as Academy Director. He was no longer the lowly poor person who was bullied everywhere back then. He prided himself on understanding human desires thoroughly, especially those of powerless ordinary people. Only with Lu Tong did he consistently fail to see through her.

Calling her noble, yet she maneuvered between Pei Yunying and Ji Xun. Calling her greedy, yet she recklessly opposed the Grand Tutor’s residence.

“What exactly do you want to do?”

He struggled to maintain composure, trying not to completely collapse before her, wanting to stop her crude, almost mutually destructive revenge.

“Qi Yutai’s condition—no one in the entire capital knows about it.” He caught his breath slightly. “You know his secret—do you think you can survive?”

Even if she took revenge on him, Lu Tong would be eliminated by the Grand Tutor’s residence. Did she understand this or not?

Lu Tong’s lips curved as if amused by his words.

“Academy Director Cui, didn’t you survive?”

Cui Min was stunned: “What did you say?”

On the empty long street, the distant sky gradually showed a line of white. That line grew brighter and larger, darkness gradually fading. In the thin white mist, a ray of golden sunlight emerged. The “swish swish” sound of bamboo brooms sweeping arose.

The inner shop was also brightened by this sunlight, no longer as dim as before.

Lu Tong smiled slightly.

“Academy Director Cui forgot one thing. The Grand Tutor’s residence needs a physician to treat illness. You and I are both of common birth—it’s the same whoever goes.”

“Of course I won’t die.”

She looked into his eyes, speaking in gentle, soft words.

“Because I’m going to…”

“Take your place—”

…

The sky had completely brightened, and the clear water splashed at the street entrance had been evaporated by the morning heat, reflecting golden sunlight.

Lu Tong walked to the front of the inner shop and extinguished the wind lantern.

Miao Liangfang sat dazedly on his stool. Under the plum tree by the entrance, there was no longer any trace of the carriage.

Cui Min and his companion had already left.

He was quite disheveled when he left, as if Lu Tong had revealed some most feared reality, like a cornered beast crying out in desperation.

“I can cure him. I’m not the only one in this world who can create new prescriptions.” He had sneered, his gaze carrying inexplicable pain and humiliation when it swept over Miao Liangfang. “The Qi family won’t show you mercy.”

He fled toward that carriage and hurriedly departed, as if escaping a quagmire he couldn’t face.

It was quiet outside the door. It was still early, with few pedestrians passing on the street. A’Cheng and Du Changqing hadn’t arrived yet, and Yin Zheng was cooking porridge in the back courtyard kitchen.

“Little Lu.” Miao Liangfang spoke in confusion. “Just now, was that really Cui Min?”

Lu Tong: “Yes.”

“Oh.”

The old gentleman was even more confused. After a while, he murmured softly: “I can barely recognize him anymore.”

Too much time had passed.

For over ten years, when he was so drunk in the chaotic thatched hut that he couldn’t get up, when the rice bag by the stove was so empty it couldn’t yield another grain, when his leg bone scars ached on rainy days—

Cui Min’s face was always particularly clear.

He thought he would forever remember this enemy who had harmed him to his current state. Yet when Cui Min truly appeared before him today, his first reaction was actually that Cui Min looked so strange, completely different from the past.

As for those hatreds, those grievances and unwillingness—upon seeing the other person at this moment, they weren’t as intense as he had imagined. He looked at it like an old scar—though it occasionally ached faintly, he no longer dwelt on it.

It was already a thing of the past.

More than this, he was currently more worried about another matter—

“Little Lu.” Miao Liangfang asked urgently: “What did Cui Min mean just now? You deliberately left problematic prescriptions to lure Cui Min into using problematic prescriptions to treat the Grand Tutor’s son?”

“You’re too bold!” Miao Liangfang’s face flushed red with anxiety.

What kind of family was the Qi family—below one person, above ten thousand others. He had thought about Lu Tong seeking justice for him, but not through such methods.

Though this method could restrain Cui Min, it would drag the Grand Tutor’s residence into it as well.

Qi Qing would never tolerate his son becoming a chess piece in the struggle between Lu Tong and Cui Min.

No one could bear the Grand Tutor’s wrath.

“Master Miao,” Lu Tong said, “the prescription was written on my spring examination paper. During the spring examination, I hadn’t yet entered the Imperial Medical Academy and didn’t even know who was in the Grand Tutor’s residence. How could I know that the Qi family’s son would fall ill in the future, and specifically with epilepsy?”

Miao Liangfang was startled.

That was also true.

After all, when Lu Tong returned during a rest period after entering the Imperial Medical Academy, she had specifically sought his confirmation, indicating that Lu Tong could only have glimpsed some facts after entering the Imperial Medical Academy.

“You’re saying this was an accident?”

“That’s right. Master also knows that my new prescriptions have always been unreliable. I didn’t expect Young Master Qi would suddenly fall ill, and that Cui Min would be so audacious as to directly plagiarize without even noticing the prescription’s flaws, bringing this upon himself.”

Miao Liangfang remained puzzled: “Then why was he so certain you had tampered with it?”

Lu Tong replied calmly: “A cornered dog will bite wildly—that’s only natural.”

After hearing this, though Miao Liangfang felt her explanation made sense, he still felt something was strange.

“Don’t worry, Master. I don’t understand the Qi family, so how could I plan ahead? He’s done too many guilty deeds—this is just karmic retribution.”

“But Little Lu,” Miao Liangfang worried, “if Young Master Qi doesn’t recover and Cui Min continues to act crazy, won’t it implicate you?”

“No.”

She spoke lightly: “Those who do good are rewarded by heaven with blessings; those who do evil are punished by heaven with disasters.”

“Cui Min has done evil for years—it’s time for great disaster to befall him.”

…

The sky was fully bright—today was another clear day.

In the Grand Tutor’s residence, someone sat by the window.

Someone hurriedly entered from outside, reporting in low voices: “My lord, this morning at dawn, Academy Director Cui left the residence and didn’t return to the Imperial Medical Academy, but went straight to West Street.”

“West Street?”

Qi Qing picked up the tea cup from the table. “What was he doing on West Street?”

“The person following him saw him stop in front of Renxin Medical Hall on West Street and speak a few words with Lu Tong, who was previously expelled from the Imperial Medical Academy. Fearing to alert them, the follower didn’t dare get close and doesn’t know what was said.”

Qi Qing frowned.

He knew about Lu Tong.

First she had unclear entanglements with Pei Yunying, causing Qi Huaying to grieve and weep, then she fought and captured tigers at Huangmao Ridge, also causing Qi Yutai to lose face…

He actually didn’t care what Lu Tong did—a helpless common imperial physician could be controlled by the Qi family anytime they wished.

The reason he hadn’t acted against her was because Pei Yunying was involved.

The Third Prince was currently trying to win over Pei Yunying, and Emperor Liang also acquiesced. Yuan Zhen was already becoming anxious.

Lu Tong was just a chess piece representing the Palace Guard’s stance, representing Pei Yunying’s will.

Pei Yunying had decided to support Yuan Yao.

The subordinate said: “Academy Director Cui might want Lu Tong to return to the Imperial Medical Academy to jointly treat the young master? After all, Lu Tong was previously suspended for accusing Academy Director Cui of plagiarizing the prescription given to the young master.”

The tea cup reached his lips as Qi Qing lowered his head to sip. “Indeed.”

“My lord, if what she said is true…”

Qi Qing didn’t respond.

If what Lu Tong said was true and Cui Min had indeed plagiarized her prescription, then regarding Qi Yutai’s current condition, perhaps only Lu Tong could provide the fastest targeted treatment.

“There’s another matter…”

“Speak.”

“The person who followed said the newly hired resident physician at Renxin Medical Hall looked somewhat familiar, resembling former Deputy Academy Director Miao Liangfang from the Imperial Medical Academy.”

“After inquiring, the resident physician’s surname is indeed Miao.”

Miao Liangfang.

This name was too distant. Qi Qing pondered silently for a long time before gradually piecing together a vague impression.

“Surname Miao?”

“Yes.”

He remembered that Deputy Academy Director who was expelled from the Imperial Medical Academy, who had once been deeply favored by palace nobles. A common person who had enjoyed success and didn’t understand how to adapt to circumstances in the palace—his fate was predictable.

If he remembered correctly, Miao Liangfang and Cui Min had entered the Imperial Medical Academy together.

Qi Qing’s gaze shifted.

Lu Tong came from Renxin Medical Hall on West Street, and now Miao Liangfang was also practicing at Renxin Medical Hall.

Miao Liangfang and Cui Min had old grudges.

Lu Tong had entered the Imperial Medical Academy as a commoner.

As if chaotic, blurry clouds were suddenly blown away, everything became clear. Qi Qing set down his tea cup and couldn’t help laughing.

His laughter was deep, as if he had discovered some new secret. He laughed until the wrinkles at his eyes deepened, yet his gaze was like cold arrows, covered with a gray, shadowy film.

So that’s how it was.

They had come prepared.

“Common imperial physicians daring to use Yutai as a tool for their struggle.”

He picked up the prayer beads from the table and slowly turned them in his hand, his tone carrying a hint of admiration: “Truly extraordinary courage.”

Outside the window, the sun shone brightly while the room remained silent.

“Prepare the carriage.”

The subordinate was startled: “My lord intends to…”

The old man stood up, his pair of turbid old eyes gloomy, yet his face showed a kindly smile.

“Go to West Street.”