Cold sweat slid down Zong Wen's cheek.
His fingers clamped onto the sofa's armrest as he gave a very low, muffled groan.
“Mr. Zong!”
Assistant Zhou was scared out of his wits. His briefcase crashed to the floor, spilling its contents everywhere.
Without stopping to retrieve them, he sprinted to the entrance, yanked open the security door, and shouted at the top of his lungs. “Dr. Chen! Hurry! Mr. Zong's condition is flaring up again!”
The private medical team waiting outside filed in with emergency kits. Dr. Chen, who led them, wore rimless glasses and an extremely grave expression. “Everyone, move! This is a manic central nervous stress response brought on by prolonged insomnia. He needs treatment immediately.”
He opened his kit and swiftly expelled the air bubbles from a syringe.
On the sofa, Zong Wen's body was drawn taut as a fully bent bow. His chest heaved, bloodshot black eyes radiating a frightening intensity.
“Wait!”
Before the needle could descend, someone slammed open the side-room door.
Butler Xu, who had only just stormed off in anger, hurried over with a purple-clay stewing pot. Sweat covered the old man's head. He guarded the carved tray tightly, his urgency almost undignified.
“That's Western medicine! Too much damages the nervous system! Every time the young master has an episode, hasn't the Second Master's calming soup always settled it?”
Dr. Chen shoved aside the arm Butler Xu thrust toward him, his own temper rising. “Do you understand emergency care? His sympathetic nervous system is completely overloaded and his blood pressure is going through the roof. Without a sedative, he could have a cerebral hemorrhage!”
“What the hell does a salaried Western doctor like you know?” Butler Xu stamped in agitation, blocking the sofa like a wall and even knocking away the ice pack a nurse offered. “The young master has been frail since childhood. The Second Master searched all over Changbai Mountain for this soup. Get out of the way!”
Still fiercely protecting the tray, he reached for Zong Wen's chin and proclaimed his own service at full volume.
“The Second Master dug this hundred-year wild ginseng out of Changbai Mountain's ancient forests especially for him! A spirit-calming broth simmered by traditional methods for seven times seven—forty-nine hours! He stressed again and again that whenever the young master's headaches strike, one small bowl will calm him and send him straight to sleep. He's the young master's own uncle. Would he harm him? Delay his medicine, and ten heads apiece wouldn't pay for it!”
The steaming liquid sloshed in the clay pot, giving off a thick, bitter medicinal smell.
“Hold on.”
A lazy voice cut across them.
Chi Xingran appeared with bedhead like a bird's nest, his enormous red peony-print shorts swaying before everyone's eyes.
His nose twitched. Like a wary hound, he sniffed hard twice. “What the hell is that? Smells like rotten roots soaked in water, then left in the sun for three days with a filthy rag.”
He strode over and rudely stuck his head above the pot to look inside.
The soup was an eerie dark brown. A ring of extremely fine gray foam floated on top, refusing to disperse.
Chi Xingran scoffed, eyebrows shooting up. “Old man, you call this hundred-year wild ginseng? Did yours grow at a chemical factory's sewage outlet? Or is it rotten dried sweet potato fumigated eight hundred times with industrial sulfur?”
Butler Xu's hands jolted, nearly spilling the scalding broth.
He turned and glared viciously. “Insolent! What would an ignorant street thug know about rare medicinal ingredients? This is the finest tribute-grade ginseng, worth over a million! A gift from the Second Master's heart. How dare you spout nonsense!”
Chi Xingran rolled his eyes and shoved both hands into his shorts pockets. “Premium million-yuan ginseng? Don't bullshit me. Proper old mountain-ginseng roots brew into an amber-gold soup with a fresh pine scent. Yours is so black you can't see the bottom. The oily film shines green, and the sour stink could make a dog puke from three meters away. You know damn well how much industrial hydrogen peroxide and rotten root you've mixed into it.”
Exposed on the spot, Butler Xu's facial muscles twitched twice. A cornered panic flashed through his eyes.
“The young master's life hangs by a thread! Can you take responsibility if his medicine is delayed? Move, move, move!”
Invoking past practice, Butler Xu seemed frantic enough to lose all restraint. He slammed sideways into Chi Xingran and lifted the pot to force its contents into Zong Wen's mouth.
Zong Wen's head was splitting. His nerves felt pierced inch by inch with red-hot steel needles. He couldn't even lift his eyelids, much less raise a hand to resist.
Just as the murky liquid was about to touch his bloodless lips—
Chi Xingran's eyes went cold.
Years earlier, he'd scraped a living running a stall in an urban village's black-market medicinal-herb trade. He'd seen more low tricks and scams than anyone. Genuine ginseng broth had clear, translucent bubbles and the rich scent of earth and vegetation. This sour-smelling soup with gray foam was plainly using concentrated industrial sulfur solution to mask the bitter, rank odor of a potent neurological drug.
“You dried-up old bastard. Gave you a chance, didn't I?”
Quick as a flash, Chi Xingran seized the aluminum mop leaning in the corner and swung it backward.
The long handle whistled through the air, sweeping low across the marble floor at a tricky angle and catching Butler Xu's ankle with perfect precision.
“Agh!”
His forward rush stopped abruptly. He lost his balance and screamed.
The tray flew from his hands. The purple-clay pot traced an arc through the air and smashed against the floor.
Crash!
Clay shattered in every direction. Scalding black medicine splashed everywhere.
Butler Xu landed face-first, his whole face striking the marble hard. Blood spurted from his nose, and two front teeth were knocked loose.
“You... you hit me?” Prone on the floor, he clutched his bloody nose and mouth and shrieked. “Outrageous! Assistant Zhou, get the bodyguards! Arrest this violent thug!”
Assistant Zhou and Dr. Chen stood stunned by the sudden scene.
Before Zhou could speak, Dr. Chen's pupils abruptly contracted. He stared fixedly at the floor.
After only moments in the air, the dark medicine spilled over the carpet rapidly formed a layer of dusky blue-green crystalline sediment. With the rising steam came a pungent, rank smell that made breathing tighten.
Dr. Chen turned deathly pale.
“Wait! Assistant Zhou, don't move!”
Ignoring the shards, he dropped into a crouch, pulled a specialized rapid biochemical test strip from his kit, and dipped it into the remaining liquid.
Within three seconds, the white strip turned deep black, indicating a highly toxic reaction.
“This isn't a calming tonic!”
He shot upright, his voice shaking violently with shock.
“The strip shows a strong toxic alkaloid reaction. This is a high-purity hallucinogenic nervous-system depressant, mixed with a prohibited drug that blocks central sedation!”
“Mr. Zong is in a state of central nervous agitation. A single mouthful could trigger an irreversible acute cerebral hemorrhage and kill him!”
With no time to dwell on the narrow escape, Dr. Chen snatched up the syringe, held Zong Wen's arm, and rapidly injected the prepared sedative into a vein. A nurse pressed an ice pack firmly against his temple.
His words left the living room deathly silent.
Cold sweat instantly soaked the back of Assistant Zhou's shirt. His knees weakened, nearly bringing him to the floor.
A calming soup? It was a bowl of lethal poison!
Had Butler Xu forced it into Zong Wen's mouth, the sky would have fallen on Zong Group today.
On the floor, Butler Xu began shaking violently. His mask of false kindness lay shattered. His face was bloodless, smeared with cold sweat and blood from his nose.
His hands scrabbled at the floor. One slipped into an inner pocket of his tailcoat, fingertips gripping something he tried to push into a gap in the carpet.
“It... it wasn't me! I didn't know! The Second Master gave it to me. I only brought it as instructed...” He crawled backward on hands and feet, his voice almost unrecognizable with trembling.
“Trying to pass the buck now? Too late!”
Chi Xingran strode forward, seized the collar of his tailcoat, and hauled the shriveled old man off the floor like a chick.
His other hand darted into the concealed pocket of Xu's waistcoat. A hard tug tore the lining with a rip, producing a flattened kraft-paper packet and two used plastic medical droppers.
“Caught red-handed, you old bastard. Where were you planning to hide the tools?”
He slapped the droppers onto the coffee table. Eyes fierce, he fired words straight into Xu's face like a machine gun.
“Changbai ginseng as a cover, ‘washing paste’ to mask the smell—these are black-market substitution tricks for poisoning people!”
“That surface ginseng smell is blended flavoring. Underneath it's rotten roots soaked in industrial acid and mixed with poison! How much dirty money did Zong Zeyu pay you, you old son of a bitch? Pouring that vile stuff down your master's throat—aren't you afraid lightning will strike you dead?”
The barrage of streetwise jargon stripped Butler Xu of his last secrets.
His eyes went blank, his lips blue. As though every bone had been removed, he slumped onto the floor with a thud, too weak even to beg.
Assistant Zhou reacted swiftly. A cold gleam in his eyes, he pressed his radio.
“Security! Living room, now! Restrain Butler Xu, confiscate all communications devices, and seal the scene. Bag and photograph every trace of medicine, every fragment, and the droppers on the table. Don't miss a single fingerprint!”
Four burly bodyguards in black burst in, pinned Xu's arms behind him, and dragged him out like a dead dog.
Ashen with terror, he left a long smear of blood and cold sweat across the marble.
On the sofa, as the intravenous sedative took effect and the ice pack cooled his forehead, Zong Wen's ragged gasps gradually settled. The fingers digging into the armrest slowly relaxed.
Chi Xingran dusted off his hands, tossed the mop aside, and exhaled.
“Fuck, I'm exhausted. I saved your damn life. You'd better knock a chunk off that twelve-million debt...”
Still muttering, he turned away and tugged at his floral shorts.
On the sofa, Zong Wen, whose eyes had been shut as he teetered on the edge of frenzy, had slowly opened them without anyone noticing.
The vein at his temple still pulsed, but he seemed much calmer. His gaze locked onto Chi Xingran's unconcerned profile.
His pale lips pressed into a deep, unreadable curve.