Jing Shu let her actions speak. That was her remedy plan. Rough, unreasonable, and without a single line of explanation.
Everyone: are you kidding me? That is it?
The way she worked seemed to say, whatever the poison, take one sip of my panacea and all will be well.
The hairs on the mole at the corner of Cheng Qingzi's mouth seemed to tremble. Eyes wide, he struggled for words. "We are scholars. We identify why a problem arises, how it is solved, and then present a reasoned answer."
No wonder the hall shifted from noisy to silent. Most people who live by knowledge still care about saving face.
It was like a brutal calculus problem. Everyone had filled pages or blackboards with Given, Therefore, and endless derivations, yet still had not reached the result.
Then she walked up, glanced once, and wrote the answer: 0.
It left the room stunned. Nothing about the setup screamed zero. And how could snapping a plant and sticking it back in the soil be the solution.
President Tie was the first to react. He laughed and raised a thumb at her. "High. Truly brilliant. Wu City's Jing Shu has made a beautiful play." She was so beautiful, she was practically the perfect scapegoat!
Cheng Qingzi's lip curled with fury. At first he thought she was bronze. Then she looked like a king. Then bronze again. Was this what young people meant by sliding back and forth between ranks, king-bronze at will?
In the end he could only grit his teeth. "Let us wait and see if it sprouts."
She studied the third specimen, Sanqi. Even after a long look she could not see a specific disease. Sanqi had always been hard to cultivate. Its high price had a reason. It struggled before Earth's Dark Days, let alone after.
"It looks malnourished. Limp," she murmured, feeling there was no way to keep up the act.
"What does the young friend suggest?" Cheng Qingzi asked. "This Sanqi has been grown by the book. Soil pH of 6. Elevation above 1,000 meters. HCH below 0.2 mg per kg. DDT below 0.2 mg per kg. Plot disinfected with quicklime. Simulated sunlight at about 10 percent transmittance. Seeds soaked in a solution of alum and alcohol at 64 times and 500 times, respectively. No leaf spot or root rot. In short, the exact technology from before Earth's Dark Days. Yet it still falls short of medicinal grade."
He looked very pleased with himself. They had brought Sanqi for the government to see. If Ta City could raise Sanqi, what could they not grow. Obviously the provincial Medicinal Herb Association should be under their lead.
So this Sanqi was not sick, merely stunted and below standard. If anyone could make it grow as it did before Earth's Dark Days in these conditions, that would be a miracle.
She listened to his technical recital and could only think, "I don't understand a word. So what exactly is the issue?"
After failing to invent a convincing theory, she quietly pulled out the small spray bottle and sprayed the Sanqi from top to bottom. "It looks malnourished, so I am giving it a rare plant nutrition mix I formulated. It should grow robustly soon and reach medicinal grade."
"Stop." Cheng Qingzi lunged to block her, but she had already clicked the trigger a dozen times. The plant was drenched.
The old man stroked the limp leaves with shaking hands, tears in his eyes. "You are being reckless. It is finished. It will burn. Do you not know you cannot spray nutrient solution at will?"
"We will see in two days," she said.
President Tie clenched his fist. "Well done." He nearly howled his approval. He had never seen a scapegoat cooperate so well. Perfect. With behavior this foolish, the match would wrap up cleanly, even if the jeering was loud.
There were not many this unprofessional. Most people here had real skills.
He stepped onto the stage. Before the pot truly boiled, he had to keep her from being beaten to death. "Enough, Lao Cheng. Today's round ends here. Our Wu City genius says it will work. There will be results within two days. We will wait and see. If it fails, Wu City will accept being trampled by Ta City."
He spared no effort praising her, then scolded the crowd to have faith in the person President Zhou had invited. She was from a medicinal clan and knew many secrets that could not be shared.
"As is well known, Jing Shu is a seasoned master in medicinal cultivation. She cannot disclose all principles, so let us skip theory. Just know the method works, even if it is not easy to popularize." He began dispersing people.
"Wait."
Just as Cheng Qingzi seemed resigned to watching his Sanqi die from nutrient burn, she spoke up. "If I win these two rounds, that makes it five to five, tied, yes? A ring match needs a decisive point."
Cheng Qingzi nodded. "But you Wu City people have no more tricky cases to present. We only brought five to solve."
She drew a palm-sized pot from her pocket. "I have astragalus with an infestation. Simple. Kill the bugs on it and restore the plant to health."
Everyone understood her intent. President Tie flashed a gloating look. "Jing Shu, don't hand them a free point. Give them this and they will be at six."
"President Tie, if I don't give them a problem, and both sides finish at five, that is a tie."
"You are very confident," he could not help saying after holding it in all this time.
"Yes, too cocky."
"I have never seen anyone this cocky, already assuming she will take both points."
Cheng Qingzi didn't believe she could take the two points, but he still summoned his team to examine the astragalus. To his credit, he was serious about the work.
"Is that not red nematode?"
"Yes, red nematode. This is easy. Everyone knows how to deal with them now."
"Maybe she really is giving away a point."
"Impossible. They would not test us with something that simple. There must be a catch."
She handed over the astragalus. "Study it slowly. When I have taken those two points in two days, you will still have time to propose a fix. But I think Wu City is going to win."