A crowd had gathered outside the apothecary doors.

In the center, two stretchers had been laid down, and on each one lay a patient, pale as ash.

Several people stood guard beside each patient.

“Longying sells counterfeit medicine! Dr. Long is no divine physician — she’s a quack!”

Of those flanking the stretchers — more than ten in total, excluding the three children — everyone called out in unison.

“Longying sells counterfeit medicine! Dr. Long is no divine physician — she’s a quack!”

“Longying sells counterfeit medicine! Dr. Long is no divine physician — she’s a quack!”

When Feng Jiu’er came out with several of her brothers, along with Xiao Yingtao and Jian Yi, the crowd at the door was still shouting.

In recent days, Longying’s reputation had grown considerably. People came to see the physicians for ailments large and small alike.

The troublemakers had only just arrived, but already a good number of onlookers had gathered outside Longying’s doors.

Some were looking at the patients on the stretchers, some were watching those who appeared to be the patients’ family members, and most had their eyes on the people emerging from the apothecary. The murmuring was ceaseless.

“Longying sells counterfeit medicine! Dr. Long is no divine physician — she’s a quack!” A tall man caught sight of Feng Jiu’er coming out and immediately took two steps forward.

Two servants moved to intercept him, one on either side.

“Who are you, and what are you saying?” one of the servants bellowed. “Longying has never sold counterfeit medicine. What grounds do you have for such a claim?”

“Never sold counterfeit medicine?” The man fixed his eyes on the servant, his expression ferocious.

He glanced back at the two people lying on the stretchers, and the cold edge in his manner sharpened further.

“If you’ve never sold counterfeit medicine, then explain my father’s condition. He was full of life when he came to Longying two days ago. Look at the state of him now.”

“And my mother — the same!” another man called out. He was dressed in a somewhat tattered grey padded coat.

“My mother was perfectly fine two days ago. She heard word that the medicine here was good and came to get something to build up her health. Look at her now.”

“The talk has been spreading through all of Yuecheng these past days — how excellent Longying’s medicine is, how skilled its physicians are.”

“And yet you’ve turned a perfectly healthy person into this? That’s what you call skilled?”

The man in the grey padded coat was gripping an axe, as though ready to use it on someone.

“Today, one way or another, you are going to give us an explanation!”

“Yes, an explanation!” Beside the man in the grey coat stood three other men and a child, all of them staring at Feng Jiu’er with deeply unfriendly eyes.

The first man who had spoken glared at the two servants, his expression tightening. “You’ve reduced a healthy person to this state, and you have nothing to say for yourselves?”

His gaze shifted from the servants to Feng Jiu’er, standing behind them. He gave a contemptuous snort.

“So you’re the owner of this establishment, Dr. Long? Not bad looking. And how old are you, exactly, to be calling yourself a divine physician?”

“Now something has gone wrong, and you’re hiding behind others. What kind of physician is that?”

“I don’t care what faction Longying is, or how many brothers you have. Today, you are going to give me an explanation.”

Feng Jiu’er met the man’s gaze and narrowed her eyes slightly. She raised her hand. “Stand aside.”

“Since I am the one responsible for this establishment, no matter what has happened, it falls to me to see it through.”

The two servants glanced back and both frowned.

Feng Jiu’er raised an eyebrow. Both servants nodded at once and stepped back to either side.

“Tell me — how do you propose to resolve this?” the leader of the group said, his voice cold.

“If this matter truly has anything to do with my establishment, I have said — and I mean it — I will see it through to the end.” Feng Jiu’er’s brow furrowed as her gaze moved to the two patients lying on the stretchers.

Both were stretched out on their backs: a man with hair going grey at the temples, and a woman whose hair was even more so, both clearly advanced in years.

As a physician, Feng Jiu’er could see that they were genuinely ill — and not mildly so.

Yet when it came to the medicinal ingredients in her own establishment, she remained confident.

“What exactly do you mean by that?” the man demanded, incensed. “Are you trying to say you’ve never even seen them?”

“Outrageous!” The man in the grey padded coat gripping the axe was even more furious.

He stared at Feng Jiu’er with a look of pure viciousness.

“My mother clearly went to your apothecary. Are you trying to deny it now?”

“My mother—”

With a wet, heavy sound, the elderly woman behind the man in the grey coat coughed up a mouthful of dark blood.

“Mother.”

“Grandmother.”

“Auntie.”

In an instant, two or three people crowded around the stretcher from both sides.

“Mother, what is it?”

“Grandmother, don’t frighten me — please, please—”

“Mother, Mother—”

Feng Jiu’er’s brow furrowed. She stepped forward.

But the man who had spoken first moved to block her path.

Jian Yi drew his sword and stood in front of Feng Jiu’er, fixing his gaze on the man who had just taken a half-step forward.

The man felt the cold emanating from Jian Yi and immediately retreated two steps.

“What are you trying to do? You’ve already harmed someone, and now you want to hurt people further, is that it?”

“You are lawless — you’ll stop at nothing for money. Are you even human? Where is your conscience?”

At that very moment, more than ten people suddenly pushed through from the outer ring of the crowd.

“You are not from Yuecheng — get out! Get out of here right now!”

“Pay compensation! You may be skilled fighters — does that give you the right to do as you please?”

“Who are you people? Who gave you permission to cause trouble in our Yuecheng? Get out! Get out of Yuecheng!”

The dozen or so newcomers were hurling insults without pause.

But Feng Jiu’er’s attention was not on them.

Longying’s brothers were quick to respond, surrounding Feng Jiu’er, Xiao Yingtao, and Jian Yi, leaving only a small opening at the front.

Through the shifting crowd, Feng Jiu’er could still make out the elderly woman who had just coughed up blood.

She kept her gaze on her and paid no attention to the people immediately in front of her.

Feng Jiu’er was small in stature, but the presence she carried was considerable.

Even without Longying’s brothers at her back, without Jian Yi and Xiao Yingtao — the steadiness she radiated would have kept most people from daring to come too close.

When everyone quieted down and waited for her response, Feng Jiu’er suddenly said in a low, clear voice, “She has been poisoned. Deeply.”

“Poisoned?” The man who had been crouching beside the elderly woman — the one who had set down the axe — turned to look at Feng Jiu’er.

“So your medicine is poisonous? You’re willing to throw lives away? You’re despicable! I’ll fight you to the death over this.”

He was beside himself with fury. He suddenly snatched up the axe beside him, leapt to his feet, and charged toward Feng Jiu’er.

“I’ll kill you! You witch — I’ll kill you! Give me back my mother — you witch, I’ll kill you!”

The man in the grey padded coat came barreling through the crowd with the axe raised.

But the moment he broke out of the crowd, the axe in his hand was knocked away by something — no one could tell what — and sent spinning far off to land on the ground.

One of Longying’s brothers leapt up.

By the time he landed steadily on the ground, the axe had vanished from the man in the grey coat’s grip, and the man himself lost his footing and fell.