Volume 1 Chapter 19: Who Exactly Is Lying
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Yunxi appeared expressionless, but inside, her heart was surging like a storm-tossed sea. She had no idea how Gu Nanxiao had seen through her thoughts, but there was no way she would admit them now.
She met his gaze for a moment before finally saying nothing and closing her eyes. The faint anger in Gu Nanxiao’s heart softened when he saw how weak she looked.
He sat beside the bed and drew Yunxi into his arms, his voice firm. “From now on, no one in this household will make you observe any rules.”
When Yunxi still gave no response, he was silent for a moment before adding with greater emphasis, “And do not even think of leaving. I absolutely will not allow it!”
Yunxi was indeed utterly exhausted. The prolonged fever had left every part of her body aching and powerless. She had no desire to argue with him, much less reveal her plans to Gu Nanxiao.
She remained silent only because she refused to lie or deceive anyone. To do so would make her feel as though she had become Shi Qingchen. But when it came to the things she had to do, Yunxi would not waver.
The next day, Moye came to report that the young lady from the maternal family had accidentally fallen down a flight of steps while out buying jewelry and fractured her lower leg. She was now recuperating in the Princess Consort’s courtyard.
When Gu Nanxiao heard this, he instinctively felt that it was no coincidence. His intuition told him that Shen Yujiao’s broken leg was connected to Yunxi.
But Yunxi had only just returned from the gates of death, and she had spent the past two days recuperating in her room. So who had actually made the move?
Watching his master’s expression, Moye reported another matter. “My lord, on the day Miss Yun was made to observe the household rules in the Princess Consort’s courtyard, I believe I caught sight of a dark shadow passing over the courtyard wall. At the time, I thought my eyes had deceived me and could not make out what I saw. But afterward, I inspected the area beneath the wall and indeed found the footprints of an adult man.”
Several emotions flickered through Gu Nanxiao’s eyes. He merely ordered, “Strengthen the guards around every courtyard. If anything unusual happens, report it immediately.”
After a brief silence, he added, “Investigate the situation in Yunxi’s hometown as thoroughly and as quickly as possible. Do not overlook a single detail.”
Three days later
Yunxi had fully recovered. During that time, neither the young lady from the maternal family nor the Princess Consort had come to impose rules on her or cause trouble.
Seen from another angle, the ordeal had brought her unexpected fortune. After all, she still had many serious matters to attend to and had no energy to waste entangling herself with those tedious women of the inner residence.
Because of this illness, Yunxi became acquainted with Su Mingyan. Upon learning that he had saved her when her life hung by a thread, she immediately wrote ten secret prescriptions that had never been shared with the world and presented them to him. After reading them, Su Mingyan was utterly astonished by her genius.
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The two of them even began discussing the establishment of a pharmacy. Throughout the entire conversation, they completely ignored Gu Nanxiao’s dark expression and debated with fiery enthusiasm.
Su Mingyan was especially full of praise for Yunxi’s proposal to manufacture prepared Chinese medicines. He thought the idea was truly ingenious.
If medicinal herbs could be processed into large quantities of ready-made medicines, it would save ordinary people a great deal of money on consultations and treatment.
As long as the instructions were sufficiently detailed, many people would be able to choose the right medicine according to their own condition. They could even keep a supply at home for emergencies.
Moreover, prepared medicines would eliminate the inconvenience caused by the limitations of traditional decoctions and would be far easier to carry. For those who spent years traveling outside, a sudden illness in some remote wilderness might prove fatal—but a dose of prepared medicine at hand could perhaps save their lives.
For patients who needed long-term treatment, whether honeyed pills or water pills, they were far more palatable than medicinal decoctions. It was undoubtedly a blessing for such people.
In short, the idea would bring benefits to countless citizens and accumulate immeasurable merit. It was unquestionably a great undertaking.
After receiving Gu Nanxiao’s approval, Su Mingyan decided to join the venture. Together, they would first open four pharmacies in the southeast, southwest, northeast, and northwest districts of the capital as a trial.
Once the plan had been finalized, Yunxi wrote nearly four hundred prescriptions within three days. Su Mingyan then reviewed them, made a few simple adjustments, and prepared them for mass production.
Yunxi had only two requirements regarding the prescriptions. First, they were to be published under the name of her sworn elder sister. Second, they were not to be passed on to outsiders.
Su Mingyan and Gu Nanxiao both agreed without hesitation. A woman capable of producing so many prescriptions deserved the reverence of the entire world. As for the second condition, selling medicine without selling the prescriptions was only common sense.
In truth, Yunxi was not afraid that the prescriptions might eventually spread among the people, nor did she intend to keep all her secrets hidden forever. She simply did not want the Shi family to profit from them.
In the end, the three of them decided that the prepared-medicine shops would open within a month. The first batch would consist of slightly more than fifty kinds of affordable medicines commonly needed by the people. The remaining prescriptions would be put into production once the factory had been completed.
A month later, two people suddenly rose to fame in the capital, and another extraordinary matter became the subject of endless discussion.
One of those who gained renown was Gu Nanxiao, who had been disrespectful to his parents and unkind to his younger brother since childhood, and who had grown even more brutal and ruthless after becoming Commander of the Imperial Guard.
This time, however, he became famous for something other than infamy. Over the course of that month, he successively presented the imperial court with a method for smelting high-quality iron, meticulously designed blueprints for bows and crossbows, and a sand-table model based on a crude map.
Each of the three things Gu Nanxiao offered left the entire court in stunned amazement.
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Recently, his achievements had not been limited to the imperial court. In the streets, he had also opened an affordable prepared-medicine shop and a low-cost ice shop.
The method for smelting high-quality iron that Gu Nanxiao presented delighted the emperor immensely. Just imagine—if every soldier in the Great Yan Empire could be equipped with weapons of such quality, would they not be invincible on the battlefield, capable of defeating ten enemies at once?
For this unparalleled achievement, the emperor immediately rejected the memorial submitted by the Prince of Yong requesting that his heir be formally designated. Instead, he granted Gu Nanxiao a hereditary marquisate that could be passed down without reduction in rank, along with a marquis’s residence.
He also bestowed two estates of a hundred acres each, promoted Gu Nanxiao to the rank of Senior Second Class, and even expanded the authority of the Imperial Guard, permitting it to investigate and discipline all civil officials.
The low-priced ice Gu Nanxiao sold won the favor of numerous officials, gentry, and wealthy merchants. At those prices, after all, they would spend only half as much on ice as they had in previous years.
Yet what earned Gu Nanxiao the greatest praise was the newly opened affordable prepared-medicine shop. Because his medicines were inexpensive, many poor people who could not afford medical treatment were given hope of survival.
Those suffering from chronic illnesses and requiring long-term medication would no longer be driven into poverty by their ailments, nor would their families be reduced to destitution.
Gu Nanxiao’s image instantly transformed from that of a rakshasa demon into that of a living bodhisattva. Within only a few days, not merely the people of the capital but the entire Great Yan Empire was spreading tales of his merits.
The second person to rise spectacularly to fame was, astonishingly, a young woman named Yunxi. The reason for her renown was that Gu Nanxiao publicly declared that the high-quality iron-smelting method, every prescription sold by the prepared-medicine shop, and the method of manufacturing prepared medicines had all been contributed by Miss Yunxi.
It was only after these two people became famous that the strange affair that followed came to light.
The affordable prepared medicines sold in Gu Nanxiao’s newly opened shop were remarkably similar to the expensive secret-recipe decoctions sold by the Shi family’s pharmacy. Not only were their names alike, their effects were exactly the same.
That was where the contradiction lay. Gu Nanxiao publicly claimed that all these medicinal prescriptions belonged to Miss Yunxi.
Yet when the Shi family had first opened its pharmacy and ice shop, it had declared that the prescriptions had all been developed by the young master of the Shi family, Shi Qingchen.
Faced with such irreconcilable claims, everyone began to speculate. Had these prescriptions come from Shi Qingchen, or from the mysterious woman Yunxi?
Who was lying? Who was claiming credit for heaven’s work and deceiving the public?
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