Yandu bustled with the arrival of over three hundred White Stone Mountain remnants under arrest—though “remnants” was a stretch, since they were really just a group of doctors who took pulses and treated illness.

White Stone Mountain had stood as a school for several hundred years, and nearly every physician in the realm had some connection to them. Though His Majesty, after years of war, harbored deep resentment toward White Stone Mountain, once this large group was hauled in by Jiu Si Tang, it took only a few days before pleas for clemency began pouring in from every direction—starting at court and spreading all the way to the inner palace.

After all, what physician hadn’t saved a few lives with his own hands?

Yet in the single battle of Qingfeng alone, how many Daliang soldiers had been lost to White Stone Mountain’s poison powder? Tens of thousands, easily.

So it was that, for the first time since the founding of the Daliang dynasty, the military and civil officials found themselves in open opposition.

The military’s stance was simple: since the poison had come from White Stone Mountain, they should pay with their lives. The civil officials worried instead that punishing them would wound the hearts of healers everywhere, leaving the realm without doctors from then on.

Chen Dasheng harbored resentment too, but didn’t involve himself in the dispute—he simply stood quietly outside the hall, listening, waiting for an outcome like any other victim who’d suffered from the poison.

His Majesty, his head aching from days of ministers arguing, sent for She Qingling to be brought to the Daliang palace—not to discuss a resolution, nor to seek his opinion, since even if given, it wouldn’t be followed; retirement truly did mean staying out of such matters. His Majesty simply wanted to vent his frustrations, for in truth he himself wished to wipe out every last remnant of White Stone Mountain.

Listening to the endless stream of grievances around him, and seeing the hour grow late, She Qingling set down his teacup, his manner unhurried as ever, even with a hint of amusement on his face. “Your Majesty’s anger seems rather misplaced.”

His Majesty tossed the memorial in his hand aside irritably, snatching up his prayer beads to turn them over and over. “Misplaced how? By your reasoning, did my men die for nothing?”

She Qingling said, “Not for nothing—but you’re directing your anger at the wrong target. Consider: White Stone Mountain’s ties to the previous dynasty went back to its very founding. For generations they ate the previous imperial house’s provisions, sustained by the state treasury. Back when we were mere rebels, their poisoning us was simply an act of loyalty to their sovereign. Now you’d judge a crime under the previous dynasty by the new dynasty’s laws—that doesn’t quite hold up.”

“Oh?” His Majesty sat up, staring at She Qingling with an odd expression. “I say, Qingling, you’ve barely been out of the palace a few days and already you sound like one of the women in my harem.”

She Qingling laughed lightly. “I only fear that if this blade falls, physicians throughout the realm will forever harbor a grudge against Daliang. Think on it, isn’t that so? Never mind others—just look at the few competent men in our own Imperial Physician Bureau. Check their backgrounds—though they’re not officially White Stone Mountain men, how many of the formulas they use trace back to White Stone Mountain’s outer school? By that logic, White Stone Mountain is practically their half-teacher. Can you truly guarantee you’ll never catch a cold again? If you handle this your way, tell me—when you’re not feeling well, will you dare take their medicine?”

Stung, His Majesty huffed and lay back down, saying nothing more.

She Qingling rose to take his leave, and this time His Majesty didn’t try to keep him.

Father and son should have headed straight back to the Commandery Prince’s residence, but She Qingling instead told Chen Dasheng, “Go back to Qingfeng. Your wife is settling accounts with the other households today—with you, the head of the household, not there, it hardly looks proper.”

Chen Dasheng laughed lightly. “Are you mocking me? Since when has my wife ever let me be head of anything, since she married in? Me, head of the household?”

She Qingling shot him a look. “Enough nonsense, hurry along. Brothers as close as family—when you can yield, yield. We’re not short on household funds; don’t let money create a rift between brothers over pettiness.”

So Chen Dasheng saw his father back to the Commandery Prince’s residence before spurring his horse toward Qingfeng.

The turmoil in the palace hadn’t touched the common folk—Qinwei Lane remained as lively as ever, especially now that Qiqian’er was expecting, a matter that carried more weight than most.

No one had expected, though, that upon learning of her pregnancy, Qiqian’er would immediately summon the other six households under Lao Dao, saying she wanted to hand over the accounts she managed.

This, everyone flatly refused.

In truth, she’d wanted to hand off the accounts for a while now—ever since Ding Yuniang had come to the capital, she’d mentioned it to Yu Qingguan a few times, but he’d declined, citing Ding Yuniang’s poor health.

Over these three years, drawing on memories from her past life, Qiqian’er had bought up considerable farmland in the outlying counties, and when Qingfeng relocated, she’d traded the various households’ land income for storefronts along the main streets.

She managed the household finances to everyone’s satisfaction—but these were all sixth-rank officials now, each month collecting a few hundred coins from her hands. If outsiders knew, it would become quite the joke.

She thought it a good plan, yet handing over the accounts proved awkward—no one wanted to take them.

Rarely one to speak up, Ding Yuniang grew anxious, sweat beading on her forehead, gesturing frantically, repeating over and over, “No, no… won’t, won’t, can’t.”

Qiqian’er, in a goose-yellow lined jacket, leaned against the kang and smiled. “Sister-in-law, whether you can or not, you’ll have to learn. What if one day I’m laid up and can’t manage these things—by then, even wanting to help won’t be enough. You should start learning now, and I’ll guide you hand in hand these next few months—besides, don’t you have Da Niu and the others to help you?”

Ding Yuniang refused, turning her face away so she couldn’t read Qiqian’er’s lips.

The men of the Lao Dao brotherhood said nothing, sitting quietly in the outer room listening—their stance was consistent: they didn’t understand these matters, their wives decided.

Yet in their hearts, they were still quite content to let Qiqian’er continue managing things.

Zhang Wanru, working a small child’s eight-immortals cap with a sieve basket, asked carefully upon hearing this, “Sister-in-law, did you hear some gossip outside?”

Qiqian’er shook her head immediately. “What gossip? Since Qinwei Lane came to be, when has there not been talk about us outside? Today they call us the watchdog lane, tomorrow they say we’re arrogant—in this world, as long as you’re doing well, there’s never a shortage of gossip. It has nothing to do with our household accounts… Seven households mixed together under one roof just doesn’t look proper.”

Back when she’d first set up the estates, she’d guarded against exactly this—keeping each household’s holdings strictly separate, precisely to avoid the confusion they now faced.

Before she could finish, the outer door rattled, and a gust of cold air swept through the room.

Chen Dasheng, wrapped in the chill from outside, entered but didn’t dare barge straight over to Qiqian’er, laughing instead from the doorway. “I heard a bit of this from outside—what are you all thinking? Oh, dividing up the accounts means we’re not family anymore? You’re overcomplicating this! It’s just handing over some accounts, why act like it’s such a burden for our sister-in-law here?”

Taking Chen Dasheng’s cloak, Yu Qingguan laughed. “Chief, that’s not quite right either—it’s not about it being a burden, it’s that once the accounts are in our hands, we wouldn’t even know how to manage them.”

Hu Yougui immediately jumped up after that. “Brother, whatever the case, I’m not taking my accounts—I eat well enough on my own, everyone else has wives managing things for them, who do I have to manage mine?”

Tong Jintai stuck out his foot and tripped him. “You say that, but I’ve seen whose face you climb the wall for every day—seems to me she’d love to manage things for you.”

The room burst into snickers at that; Hu Yougui, remembering that particular “madwoman,” fumed and turned to squabble with Tong Jintai.

As it happened, there was no curtain on the outer room door, and each family had brought their own daughters along—when Tong Jintai’s daughter, who was just starting to talk, saw Hu Yougui raise his hand against her father, she wailed as if being slaughtered, and one cry set off a whole chorus of crying children.

Doting on his daughter beyond reason, Tong Jintai rushed in at once and scooped up his beloved eldest girl.

The child hadn’t been raised for nothing—being held by her father wasn’t enough; she pointed her chubby little finger at Hu Yougui and, that very instant, turned to tattle to the whole room: this scoundrel hit my dad, someone deal with him! She’d point once, then turn to bury her face against her father and cry a few times, then turn back to point and tattle some more, then cry again.

Embarrassed, Hu Yougui ducked behind the door, but the clever little girl scanned the room, and finding her enemy gone, let out a piercing wail, clinging to her father and crying, “Dad~ Dad!”

Well, your father’s alive and well—plenty of time yet before you need to mourn him.

Moved, Tong Jintai’s eyes reddened. Shameless now, he carried his daughter behind the door and gave Hu Yougui a proper kicking, until his little girl felt she’d gotten her revenge, giggling and clapping her hands in satisfaction—at which point everyone finally relaxed.

Ah, children these days!

The child truly hadn’t been raised for nothing. Delighted, Chen Dasheng reached out to pat her little cheek, but Tong Jintai, disliking the roughness of his calloused hands, worried they’d scratch her tender face, and dodged away.

“Tsk, just because you’ve got a kid, old man, you think you’re something special!”

Chen Dasheng, rare for him, let a bit of childlike playfulness show. Having shaken off the outside cold, he finally entered the room properly, smiling at everyone. “Alright, it’s late today, we won’t settle anything tonight—let’s discuss it again tomorrow, how about that?”

With that settled, everyone laughed and took their leave.

Once everyone had gone, Chen Dasheng flopped onto the kang, affectionately stroking Qiqian’er’s belly. “Did he give you trouble today?”

Strangely enough, ever since that one incident at the Tang residence, the baby had been remarkably calm—she could eat, drink, and sleep just fine, the pregnancy going smoothly.

Qiqian’er smiled and shook her head, sending Siyue to tell the kitchen to bring dinner.

Chen Dasheng had gotten through a couple bites of his hot meal when someone below announced that Physician Cheng had arrived.

Chen Dasheng set down his chopsticks and had him shown in right away—no need for formality between them, so they received him right there on the kang.

Physician Cheng entered looking thoroughly disheveled, having spent the evening wracked with anxiety and worry, unable to voice it to anyone, yet seeking some anchor, some certainty to steady his heart. After circling Qinwei Lane several times, he’d spotted Chen Dasheng’s guard tending to the horses outside and finally come in.

Seeing Chen Dasheng eating heartily, his face grew paler still, and he offered an awkward smile. “Ah, you’re eating—I’ve come at a poor time…”

Chen Dasheng hopped off the kang and personally pulled up a stool for him before saying, “Physician Cheng, no need to stand on ceremony between us. If you needed something urgently enough to call through the wall in the middle of the night, would I not come?”

Physician Cheng sat down mutely, saying nothing for a long while.

Chen Dasheng, sharp as ever, finished his soup and set down his chopsticks, and only after the servants had cleared the dishes did he speak. “Physician Cheng, could this have something to do with White Stone Mountain? Are you here today looking for a favor?”

Qiqian’er and Physician Cheng both looked up in astonishment at Chen Dasheng.

Seeing the color drain entirely from Physician Cheng’s face, Chen Dasheng, worried he might frighten the man into some mishap, hastened to reassure him. “Physician Cheng, don’t panic—as the saying goes, the law doesn’t punish the masses. Never mind other places—just here in Yandu alone, how many physicians have benefited from White Stone Mountain’s teachings? Even if your medical training has ties to White Stone Mountain, your record speaks for itself. Since His Majesty raised his banner, you’ve served our cause diligently without a single day’s slacking—everyone can see that. So there’s no need to panic. No one looking to make trouble would ever come looking for you.”

But this wasn’t what Physician Cheng had meant. He remained anxious, and after steadying himself for a long moment, he said, “It’s—it’s not quite that. I was thinking, thinking of being so bold as to ask you—to find out—if, if it really is true that a White Stone Mountain disciple bore past guilt, then—then what is the court’s intention?”

He gazed at Chen Dasheng with pleading eyes.

Startled, Chen Dasheng studied Physician Cheng more carefully.

Physician Cheng immediately lowered his head, his legs trembling nervously, unsure where to put them, simply shaking.

Qiqian’er set down the little trousers she’d been sewing and tugged at Chen Dasheng’s sleeve. “I have some things to see to outside—you two go ahead and talk.” With that, she slipped off the kang and shuffled off toward the old residence.

Once Qiqian’er left, Chen Dasheng sat pondering—for Physician Cheng to say such a thing, there was clearly some matter he wasn’t aware of. As for whether Physician Cheng knew the court’s decision, that wasn’t quite the case either.

But by now, he’d thoroughly gauged the thinking of every ministry head, the military commanders, even His Majesty himself. He could work out an outcome, though he couldn’t say so plainly to Physician Cheng.

Yet Physician Cheng was the matchmaker who’d brought him and Qian’er together—back when his grandmother had wandered destitute, she’d received no small kindness from this man. A person had to have conscience.

Life rarely went as one wished—who could have imagined that the first person to come seeking a favor after he gained real influence would be someone as unworldly and unassuming as Physician Cheng.

The lamp wick on the table crackled, startling Physician Cheng into jumping up.

Chen Dasheng hurried to comfort him, pouring him a cup of tea before saying, “You… is this something you’re deeply entangled in?”

Physician Cheng quickly looked up to explain. “No, no, no—not me, you know me, it’s not me—it’s someone, someone very important to me.”

Relieved, Chen Dasheng thought to himself: whatever mood His Majesty had been in, he now understood it firsthand.

After mulling it over for a good while, he said, “Physician Cheng, we’ve known each other a long time now. I can’t speak to the court’s intentions directly, but what I can tell you is that even the Empress Dowager herself has been stirred by this matter.”

At this, Physician Cheng’s head snapped up, his eyes wide as he stared at Chen Dasheng.

Chen Dasheng nodded. “Not just the Empress Dowager—there are countless people pleading for clemency! If His Majesty deals with this harshly, I fear all of Daliang will be left without physicians from that day forward. Physician Cheng, set your heart at ease—by my own reckoning, the worst outcome… if some fugitive leader from White Stone Mountain’s three great halls is found to take the blame, the rest… might just get off with a beating and some punishment. After all… everyone has their share of misfortune in life… wouldn’t you agree?”

Chen Dasheng’s words brought Physician Cheng no comfort. He forced a smile and made his way home in a daze.

Back home, he found dinner already laid out on the main hall’s table, covered with small bowls to keep warm. Xue Gu was no longer the pampered young disciple of White Stone Mountain—she had earnestly, over three years, humbled herself to learn household management.

The family’s meals had all along been prepared by Xue Gu, while Ali—A’Li—tended her pregnancy.

He had no appetite and went to the back rooms instead, where he found Xue Gu working alongside Su Baili on the same small garments.

He thought of how, next door, they were sewing baby clothes too, but with an expression of shared family joy.

In his own home, though, his wife had begun sewing the moment she conceived, as if desperate to finish their daughter’s entire dowry in advance.

She simply had no intention of living.

Yes—she was the brilliant, soul-lost Su Baili. How much of White Stone Mountain’s poison had she made with her own hands? Though she hadn’t fought the battles that killed Daliang’s soldiers, the poison itself had truly been her handiwork.

Now, three full years into Daliang’s founding, Jiu Si Tang was rounding up White Stone Mountain remnants everywhere—and this latest batch wasn’t even the whole of it; in Jiu Si Tang’s hidden prisons, far more White Stone Mountain disciples than this languished already.

His heart aching, Physician Cheng looked at his wife’s belly and silently began to weep.

Hearing his muffled sobs, Xue Gu merely glanced up briefly, then continued her work with an unreadable expression.

His wife, though, smiled, looking up at him. “Oh, you. Sick with worry and grasping at anything—your family’s lives are lives, but aren’t other families’ lives also lives? Don’t torment yourself over this—I’ve known this outcome for three years now.”

Overcome with grief and fury, Physician Cheng suddenly raised his head. “So you changed your face, orchestrated this whole scheme, used me—Su Baili, you used me!”

His wife touched her own thoroughly disguised face and sighed helplessly. “Cheng Wanning! I do love you, and that you love me too, that much is true. But if you call it ‘using’ you—remember, back then, if I hadn’t eloped with you, I never would have entered the poison-making trade. That night you said, once the move is made there’s no regret… I only came with you because of that.”

Physician Cheng had long since regretted it. In this life, everyone had their moments of youthful recklessness, but the hardest thing was to bear the consequences of that recklessness for a lifetime. He couldn’t bear it—his heart shattering, he lunged forward and embraced his wife, weeping. “A’Li, don’t go, please? A’Li, just stay with me, please?”

His wife slowly stroked his hair, now streaked with gray, and said, “No, I can’t. The Daliang soldiers who died wouldn’t say it’s fine. White Stone Mountain’s inner and outer disciples who’ve been implicated wouldn’t say it’s fine. White Stone Mountain’s generations of past masters wouldn’t say it’s fine. Now, of those still alive who know the inner sanctum’s poison-craft, I’m the only one left. If I don’t go, there’ll be no one in this world left to save them. We need to give that old emperor a way to step down gracefully, and we owe those wrongly dead souls an explanation.”

Physician Cheng sank to the floor, and after a long while, laughed bitterly. “Heh~ To think that after a lifetime of helping countless people, Cheng Wanning would end up like this—and to think my own child… will be born without even a mother…”

“I’ll be her mother!”

Xue Gu’s voice suddenly came from the side. Startled, Physician Cheng stared, astonished, at his young martial-junior’s newly grown, mature face.

By candlelight, Xue Gu, carefully sewing a peach-blossom-red little jacket, smiled as she worked. “This child’s mother is dying in White Stone Mountain’s place. From now on, she’ll be White Stone Mountain’s Sacred Lady, supported and venerated by our disciples. She won’t lack for a mother’s love—once A’Li is gone… I’ll marry you, and become her mother!”

His wife considered this seriously, then nodded with certainty. “Mm, I think that could work.”

Physician Cheng, driven half mad again, jumped up and shouted at his young martial-junior, “Work? Have you both lost your minds? I won’t allow it!” With that, he stormed out, and through the still-open door, a rush of cold wind poured into the room…

Only once his footsteps had faded entirely did his wife smile and peel the human-skin mask from her face, revealing features with a high, straight nose bridge and sharply arched brows—not conventionally beautiful, but striking, with a bold, dashing air.

She handed the mask to Xue Gu. “I’m being selfish right now—I truly don’t want my child to be born and called motherless. Take this, study it closely, and make more like it. Tonight I’ll boil the glue for you.”

Xue Gu nodded solemnly, tucking the mask into her robe. After a moment’s thought, she took a small medicine vial from the pouch at her waist and handed it to his wife. “If it comes to it urgently, and the court insists on a clean sweep, this can at least spare her the suffering—let her pass quickly into the next world.”

His wife took the vial, clutching it tight, and looked down at her belly with a bitter smile. “My child… what debt did you owe me in your past life… that you’d be born into my womb this time?”