"Are you insane?" Guo Tie barked, reflexively pulling the herb back. "I told you, it's lethal! You'll be dead before you hit the floor!"
Lin Chen didn't stop. His hand moved with a fluid, hypnotic grace, plucking the Ghost-Wail Grass right out of Guo Tie's grip. The purple veins on the herb seemed to lash out like tiny snakes, attempting to penetrate his skin. But the moment they touched Lin Chen's palm, a faint white mist rose. The poison was being neutralized—no, it was being *absorbed*.
"The Ghost-Wail Grass grows in shaded cemeteries and feeds on the essence of decay," Lin Chen said casually, as if he were giving a lecture. "To the ignorant, it is a poison. To a real doctor, it is the perfect remedy for... let's see... the chronic Qi blockage in your lower abdomen. Tell me, Guo Tie, does it feel like a thousand needles are stabbing your gut every midnight?"
Guo Tie froze, his eyes widening in terror. "How... how do you know that? I've never told anyone!"
"Because you've been practicing the 'Iron Skin Technique' incorrectly for years," Lin Chen replied. He squeezed the herb, and a single drop of purple liquid fell into a cup of water on the counter. He flicked a silver needle into the cup, then suddenly shot the needle toward Guo Tie. It buried itself in the man's Qihai point.
Guo Tie screamed, expecting death, but instead, a wave of immense heat flooded his body. The cold, stabbing pain that had haunted him for a decade suddenly vanished, replaced by a sense of lightness he hadn't felt since he was a teenager. He fell to his knees, gasping, sweat pouring down his face.
"The poison countered the stagnation in your meridians,"; Lin Chen said, turning back to his journal. "Consider it payment for the herb. Now, get out. And tell the 'Medicine King' that the Lin family has returned."
Guo Tie scrambled to his feet, bowing deeply. "I... I was blind! Thank you, Master Lin! I will tell my master of your mercy!" He and his men fled the shop as if the devil himself were chasing them.
Peace returned to the pharmacy, but it didn't last long. As evening fell and the streetlights flickered to life, the bell above the door chimed softly. Lin Chen didn't look up. "We're closed."
"Please..." a woman's voice whispered. It wasn't the commanding tone of Su Qingxue. This voice was brittle, filled with a desperation that bordered on madness. Lin Chen looked up to see a woman standing in the doorway. She was dressed in expensive but tattered clothes, her hair disheveled, and her face pale with terror. In her arms, she held a small bundle wrapped in a silk blanket.
"The Su family said you could perform miracles," she sobbed, stumbling toward the counter. She pulled back the blanket, revealing a child whose skin was turning a translucent, crystalline blue. "They're hunting us. Please... if you don't save him now, they'll kill us both before dawn!" Before Lin Chen could ask who 'they' were, the sound of a high-powered sniper rifle's red laser dot settled right on the woman's forehead.