Resplendent – Chapter 538

Chapter 538: Medical Disturbance

All other herbs were easy to come by, but ginkgo leaves were another story. In this world, pharmacists and physicians rarely used ginkgo leaves in their remedies, making them nearly impossible to find in herbal shops. 

Just as Gu Ye was fretting over this, fortune smiled upon her, delivering Yuan Haiqing to solve the problem.

Upon hearing this, Yuan Haiqing grew excited: “Can Ginkgo leaves be used in medicine too? I thought only the fruit had healing properties! Sister Ye, how much do you need? I’ll send someone to harvest them from the estate tonight!”

“No rush, we still have two days to rest in between!” Gu Ye smiled. “Not much is needed either. One bottle of ginkgo leaf ointment should take roughly a sackful of leaves.”

“No! We should gather them sooner to avoid any delays later.” Yuan Haiqing instructed her maid, “Ride my horse back immediately and have Steward Li personally go to Ginkgo Manor to gather… five sacks of ginkgo leaves. They must be delivered to the Duke’s residence by noon tomorrow at the latest!”

“Sister Qing, that much isn’t really necessary…” Gu Ye didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Yuan Haiqing, however, adopted a serious tone. “It’s better to have more prepared. Better safe than sorry! Alright, go rest now. Look at your little face: it’s grown so thin it’s barely bigger than my palm. I’ll come see you show off your skills during the ninth-level assessment!”

Watching Yuan Haiqing’s retreating figure, Gu Ye touched her own petite face. The original owner had always had a face as small as a palm. Well, since she’d been reborn into this body, it had never gained weight. That was pretty great, wasn’t it? No need to struggle with dieting!

Feeling a gentle gaze fixed upon her, she turned to find Brother Chen watching her intently from a short distance away. Beside him stood the Fourth Prince, his face sickly pale and gaunt. 

Gu Ye recalled the embarrassing incident where she’d stained his sleeve with her menstrual blood, and felt her cheeks grow warm. She nonchalantly averted her eyes and climbed into her family’s carriage.

The Fourth Prince clicked his tongue and said, “Cousin, you still haven’t secured my future cousin-in-law! That girl’s getting more and more formidable. Her admirers and those with ulterior motives will only multiply. It’s not that you’re lacking, Cousin. In fact, you’re more handsome than anyone else. It’s just that your temperament is too cold. You should smile more, stop wearing that deadpan expression…Alright, alright, I’ll shut up. Okay?”

The Fourth Prince shuddered. His cousin’s gaze was terrifying, like a thousand icy arrows piercing him through and through. If even a grown man like him was scared, no wonder the young lady didn’t care for him. Serves him right!

Back at the Duke’s residence, Aunt Yan prepared a feast of her favorite dishes to reward her. After a hearty meal, she slept soundly. She then took Yue Yuan out to purchase medicinal herbs.

Thanks to their business relationship with Jimin and Baicao, buying herbs elsewhere wouldn’t be cheap. Gu Ye strolled leisurely down West Street with her maid, arriving at Jimin Pharmacy.

From afar, they saw a crowd gathered before the pharmacy, murmuring among themselves. Gu Ye was puzzled: Is Jimin Pharmacy running a promotion? Quite the turnout!

Upon closer inspection, she realized it was nothing of the sort. Jimin Pharmacy was embroiled in a medical dispute.

“My eldest brother had only a minor cold. Hearing that Jimin Pharmacy had a medicine that wasn’t bitter, he paid a hefty sum for a dose. Little did we know this so-called life-saving remedy turned out to be a deadly poison! After taking your Jimin Pharmacy’s Cold Relief Granules, my brother vomited and had diarrhea. Before long, he passed away… Jimin Pharmacy, you must give us an explanation!”

Gu Ye squeezed into the crowd and saw a plainly dressed young man, his shoulders and elbows padded with cloth, collapsed over a corpse covered with an old quilt, weeping uncontrollably.

Outside the West District Jimin Pharmacy stood two strikingly similar, handsome youths. One wore sky-blue robes, his expression gentle and composed. The other, clad in azure garments, frowned impatiently. Gu Ye raised an eyebrow. Had the Bai family’s twin brothers also arrived in the capital?

The blue-robed figure was Bai Zhi. Pointing at the youth, he rebuked, “How dare you! You’ve come to defraud our pharmacy? Countless ‘Cold Relief Granules’ leave our shop daily, yet we’ve never heard of anyone vomiting and having diarrhea after taking them. How can you be so certain your elder brother didn’t simply eat something wrong, yet insist our medicine is at fault?”

The young man lifted his tear and snot-streaked face. Choking on his words, he said, “My brother was sick and had no appetite. Today, aside from your medicine, he ate almost nothing…”

“Brother, that is where you erred. We warned you before dispensing the medicine that the granules must be taken after meals. You ignored our instructions, and now you come blaming us when something went wrong?” A clerk from Jimin Pharmacy seized the young man’s words as ammunition and shouted back.

The young man wiped his tears with his sleeve and continued, “I’ve never heard of medicine causing death if taken before meals or on an empty stomach. Unless… this medicine is poisonous, causing severe harm to the body!”

The onlookers heard this and began murmuring among themselves: “Harmful to the body? But my family and I have all taken Gu Pharmaceutical’s granules before. Could toxins have built up inside us?”

“I’ve heard some poison masters use the method of countering poison with poison. Could Gu Pharmaceutical’s medicine actually be toxic? If the dosage isn’t precise, wouldn’t that cause problems?”

“Oh dear! I still have several types of Gu Pharmaceutical medicine stockpiled at home. No way, I’ll have someone fetch them right now to return them!”

“Brother Han, Gu Pharmaceutical medicines are notoriously hard to come by. How come you have so many varieties at home? Could it be that you have some special connections?”

“Not at all…” Brother Han replied, his tone tinged with pride.

“Maybe this person got it wrong! Whenever my family has a headache or fever, we buy Gu’s medicines from Jimin Pharmacy and have never had any problems. Gu’s medicines work much better than ordinary herbal decoctions, and they aren’t bitter either.”

“That’s right! Especially the children’s medicines. My youngest son caught a chill last winter and had a fever that wouldn’t break. After taking Gu’s fever reducer, he was back to his lively self in less than three days.”

“Same here! My brother accidentally fell into the water and caught a cold, coughing for over a month. All those herbal decoctions didn’t help, but after drinking two bottles of Gu’s cough syrup, he was cured. I hear many influential families use Gu’s granules and pills. How could they possibly put poison in their medicine? Don’t they fear legal trouble?”

“Could it be… business rivalry? Someone is framing them?”

….

As the crowd’s murmurs began shifting blame toward Gu Pharmaceutical, panic flickered across the young man’s face. He stole a glance toward a specific spot in the crowd, then, as if receiving some signal, threw himself onto his brother’s body and began wailing uncontrollably.