“Actually, I don’t know much about this. I didn’t study this field, so I don’t have much daily contact with it. If it weren’t for a patient I…” Qi Yue said, quickly stopping herself from saying something she shouldn’t, “I once encountered a patient who used it, which is why I started paying attention to it.”

As she spoke, she spread a piece of paper on the table and began recording everything she needed.

“Since Lady Qi has done this before, that’s good,” Liu Pucheng said with some relief.

Qi Yue smiled bitterly.

“Before…” she paused her writing, “I did this before to prove it was unusable.”

How ridiculous it was…

Liu Pucheng and the others were stunned.

“Anyway, I thought it was unusable, it was simply… but people still used it… and it became increasingly popular…” Qi Yue said with a frown, “To refute it, I personally experimented, and then…”

Increasingly popular? Why did Lady Qi’s words sound as if everyone knew about and used this kind of medicine? But why had they never heard of it? Perhaps it was used elsewhere?

How strange, but they couldn’t think about this now.

“Then what happened?” Liu Pucheng asked with some nervousness.

“Then I succeeded,” Qi Yue said, smiling, though the smile looked rather ugly.

“You succeeded, meaning that kind of medicine was unusable?” Zhang Tong couldn’t help but ask first.

The people who had just ignited hope became confused again.

“Although I don’t quite believe in or approve of this medicine, I know it’s being used, which means it has successful and effective cases,” Qi Yue took a deep breath and said, “Anyway, let’s try it.”

Everyone nodded. As long as successful cases existed, that was good. As long as it wasn’t just theoretical, that was good.

“I don’t know anything else. I only made two kinds at the time: violet herb and senecio,” Qi Yue said.

This was her second time mentioning violet herb.

“We have senecio, but we’ve never used violet herb,” Liu Pucheng said.

Violet herb was harvested in autumn, and it would be even harder to find in this deep winter.

“Then let’s use senecio,” Qi Yue said, writing it down on the paper. “I need to boil senecio liquid and extract an effective concentrate. So I need test tube dilution of the medicinal liquid, which means I need to culture bacteria…”

She stopped writing and frowned.

“Meat broth culture medium… what to do?” she murmured to herself for a moment, then picked up the brush again.

After writing a few strokes, she stopped again.

“High-pressure sterilization? Distilled water…” she muttered to herself again, “No microscope…”

Liu Pucheng and the others couldn’t understand what she was saying. Knowing they couldn’t help, they could only watch her anxiously and helplessly, seeing this woman constantly scratching her head with her hands, eventually making her neatly combed hair completely disheveled.

Accompanied by Qi Yue’s writing and drawing, disciples began searching the mansion for various strange and peculiar items in the middle of the night.

“Slow down, slow down.” Disciples carrying two pots and a steamer from the kitchen called out in unison as they stepped out the door.

“This is prime pork belly and beef…” another disciple received large chunks of meat from the cook.

“The basins and brushes you wanted…”

“This is white cloth…”

“…will a wooden bucket of this size work?”

“Are these plates enough?”

The noise and lit torches and lanterns illuminated half of the Marquis Dingxi’s mansion. Those who were sleeping and those who couldn’t sleep all curiously watched these people bustling about.

At this moment, Qi Yue was somewhat glad she had stayed at the Marquis Dingxi’s mansion. When Chang Yuncheng had pulled her through the door, she had originally wanted to leave. But with all the back-and-forth talking, it would inevitably require more discussion, and time was life—she had no life to waste. Now it seemed it wasn’t bad after all. Otherwise, finding all these things would probably take a lot more time.

However…

After this time, she would definitely prepare these things herself—things that belonged to her.

“What is the Young Madam doing?”

“Are they starting a separate fire in that courtyard?”

“What for? I heard she’s making some kind of medicine…”

“Aren’t medicines all boiled? What’s the meat for?”

“As a catalyst, perhaps?”

Here, with all tools ready, it was already the latter half of the night, but everyone in the courtyard had no desire to sleep.

“Because time is urgent, let’s all take turns resting. We need to purify usable injection liquid within three days, so the patient will depend entirely on you, Teacher,” she said, while taking the ginseng A’Ru handed her. “This is the fine ginseng the Old Marchioness left me. Use it for the patient when necessary.”

Liu Pucheng reached out to take it, while Zhang Tong and the others behind him couldn’t help but widen their eyes.

This kind of ginseng was worth a fortune, wasn’t it? Heavens, the lives of ten hunters couldn’t equal this single ginseng root.

“Now we’re not just doing this for this one patient. For us, for the new treatment method to be accepted by more people, for having medicine available when we encounter this kind of illness again—the significance of this cannot be compared to even ten or a hundred ginseng roots,” Qi Yue smiled.

Liu Pucheng nodded.

“Good, I’ll take care of the patient,” he said. “Lady Qi, this time it all depends on you.”

Qi Yue nodded, put on her mask and gloves one by one, and called four or five disciples including Hu San to assist her into the room that had been specially cleared to serve as a laboratory.

A’Ru watched Qi Yue and the others enter and took a deep breath.

“Doctor, I’ll go take the patient’s temperature,” she said.

Liu Pucheng nodded.

“You go prepare the salt-sugar water Lady Qi mentioned,” he said to Zhang Tong.

Zhang Tong responded affirmatively, and everyone busied themselves with their respective tasks.

This challenge between life and death had begun.

By this time, almost everyone in Yongqing Prefecture knew about this wager, and once again stirred up various idle gossip about the Marquis’s beggar young madam.

“Really… this time Marquis Dingxi is in big trouble…”

Most people opened with this sentence, so much so that outsiders newly arrived in Yongqing Prefecture thought this was the local customary greeting.

“This time Marquis Dingxi is in big trouble.”

Upon hearing this news, behind the prefect’s office, the prefect’s wife also said this to the prefect.

The prefect sighed.

“This Young Madam seems quite sensible. How could she be so unreliable?” he shook his head.

“What reliability could there be?” the prefect’s wife said. “With that kind of background…”

Then she recalled the various behaviors when treating her son. At the time, she was only worried about her son and didn’t think much of it. Now, thinking back, she felt offended no matter how she looked at it.

“Sister from the Xie family must be furious beyond words. Her fate is truly bitter,” she sighed.

The prefect frowned.

“Perhaps we should visit the Marquis’s mansion to express our…” he said in a low voice.

Before he could finish, the prefect’s wife interrupted him.

“Don’t go looking for trouble. Express what? Right now everyone is avoiding the Marquis Dingxi’s mansion. Why should we go toward it!” she said urgently.

The prefect found these words somewhat distasteful.

“After all, she saved Ziqiao. We should say something…” he said.

“We remember the life-saving grace, but that doesn’t mean she can’t harm people,” the prefect’s wife said. “Gratitude is gratitude, but reason must be reason too.”

The prefect said nothing.

“I’m telling you to be careful. This time, Marquis Dingxi is really in big trouble. You, as the prefect, shouldn’t act rashly. If those people cause trouble at our place, you’ll be in deep trouble,” the prefect’s wife cautioned again.

The prefect felt that listening to his wife was quite an unmanly thing to do, and coughed.

“You women don’t understand. I have my own judgment,” he said solemnly.

The prefect’s wife knew he had listened, smiled, and didn’t mind his small display of pride.

“How is the young master? Watch him carefully. Don’t let him run around. He just recovered. I’ve already requested a good doctor from the capital to examine him,” she called a servant woman over.

The servant woman quickly sent a little maid to check. Soon the little maid returned in a panic.

“The young master has gone out,” she replied.

“He just started walking around, and it’s about to get dark. Where did he go? Who’s with him?” the prefect’s wife was startled and questioned urgently.

“He said he was bored at home and wanted to go out for a walk. He went with the young masters from the Chen, Zhou, and Sun families. He said they wouldn’t go anywhere else, just to Yanxun Pavilion for some pastries,” the maid quickly knelt and said. “Several nannies followed him, and they brought hand warmers, foot warmers, and thick clothes—everything complete.”

Only then did the prefect’s wife breathe a sigh of relief.

“Yanxun Pavilion is a good place, quiet. After being cooped up at home for so long, it’s good to go out for a walk,” she said.

However, where Huang Ziqiao was at this moment was not very quiet at all.

The light was dim, and the noise was constant.

Deqing Manor was Yongqing Prefecture’s largest gambling house, with high, medium, and low-grade gambling halls to meet the different needs of various social classes.

But at this moment, in the highest-grade gambling hall, the atmosphere was rather strange.

“Bet! I’m telling you to place your bets here!” A young man sitting at a gambling table held a horse whip and heavily struck one direction.

There was a marker with the character “Qi” written on it, with only a few scattered chips placed there.

The gambling house’s big boss, Huang Siya, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead as he entered.

“My young lord, how did you get interested in this~ Quick, quick, I heard your health just improved. Don’t stay here. Come with me to a private room. Whatever you want, I’ll personally serve you,” he said with some flattery, stepping forward to help.

Huang Ziqiao struck him away with his whip.

“Don’t. I’m here to play,” he said, throwing a heavy bag of chips over.

It landed squarely and accurately on the “Qi” marker.

“Place your bets!” he shouted again.

The gamblers shuddered and came back to their senses.

“But, but we don’t want to bet on this side…” someone said boldly.

Before he finished speaking, Huang Ziqiao’s whip was pointing in that person’s direction.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

That person quickly hid behind others.

“Sir, he’s the son of Yongqing County’s assistant magistrate…” the servant beside Huang Ziqiao immediately said.

“Good, you just bet whatever you want. After you’re done betting, your father will pay,” Huang Ziqiao shouted.

An assistant magistrate might not fear the county magistrate, but the prefect was his superior!

That person was nearly in tears.

“This is a gambling house! How can anyone force people to bet in a gambling house!” he shouted.

Yes, yes, the others also nodded with aggrieved and dissatisfied expressions. They didn’t want to bet on that Lady Qi—that was clearly throwing money away! Who had so much money they didn’t want to win and instead wanted to lose? Wasn’t that sick?

At this moment, the sick person snapped his whip on the table again.

“I’m being kind, showing you a path to wealth. Don’t be ungrateful! Everyone, quickly place your bets! All bet on Lady Qi winning!” he shouted.

Meanwhile, in the lowest-grade gambling hall, amid the noise and sweat, seventeen or eighteen men of various ages crowded around a large table, shouting as they threw chips of varying amounts. The two sides of the table showed a stark contrast.

“Why is no one betting on this side?” a person squeezed in and asked. “If this side wins, wouldn’t that be a huge profit?”

People around heard this and turned to look, seeing a young man with his arms folded, curiously looking at the table.

Marquis Dingxi’s Lady Qi… what kind of bet was this?

“Little Coffin, you should bet quickly,” someone familiar shouted.

“I’ll bet then,” the young man said, without hesitation throwing all the chips in his bag over.

With this bag of conspicuous chips, everyone laughed happily.

“Good, with Coffin Boy who loses every bet placing his wager, we’re guaranteed to win.”