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墨書 Inktalez
"Uncle Zhang," Cui Xiaoman suddenly lowered her voice, "you mentioned the glass beads appearing in the county..."
"It's just that the Zhou family shop is selling them!" Peddler Zhang spat, "The Jiangxi craftsmen they hired make beads that look exactly like the samples your father left behind!"
A torrential rain fell without warning. The three of them stood under the eaves, watching the bags of saltpeter in the yard get soaked by the downpour. Lin Dahe suddenly recalled the ceramic jar he had seen in the charcoal kiln—on the sealed resin, there seemed to be the same wax seal marks.
The system display flickered to life through the curtain of rain: [Emergency Task: Eliminate saltpeter hazards within 72 hours, or face charges of treason]. Beneath the red countdown, an icon of a small figure in shackles slowly appeared.
"Bang!"
A coarse clay mortar crashed into a stone pestle, startling the sparrows on the window sill into a flurry. Lin Dahe rubbed his sore wrist as he watched Cui Xiaoman pour wormwood juice over the saltpeter crystals. The emerald liquid seeped into the gaps of the crystals, transforming their originally colorless prisms into a translucent jade green.
"Add some realgar," Cui Xiaoman said, using a copper hairpin to mix in the powdered medicine. "It's too green; it doesn't look like medicinal material."
Outside, hurried footsteps approached. Through a hole in the window paper, Lin Dahe saw three Yard Officers walking toward the yard, with the leader's badge shining brightly—it was the head constable from the county office! He quickly stuffed the dyed saltpeter into a celadon jar while Cui Xiaoman grabbed some ash from the stove and smeared it on her face to feign a haggard appearance from brewing medicine.
"Where is Lin Dahe?" The head constable kicked open the fence gate, chains clattering loudly. "I am here on orders from the county to investigate illegal saltpeter!"
As Lin Dahe rushed out holding the medicine jar, he deliberately tripped. The jar fell and rolled to the constable's feet, spilling green "pills" everywhere. He lunged forward frantically, shouting, "Sir, you mustn't! This is a special remedy for Lady County Magistrate's malaria!"
"Nonsense!" The constable stepped on one of the pills. "This clearly is..."
"Stop!" A crisp female voice called from outside the yard. A maid in an apricot-red vest rushed over, her silver bells jingling in her hair. "The lady is waiting for her medicine; how dare you—" She suddenly recognized the constable and lowered her voice by an octave, "Zhao... Uncle Zhao?"
The constable's beard twitched: "Chuntao?"
The situation suddenly turned comical. The Yard Officers exchanged glances as they watched Lady County Magistrate's personal maid squatting on the ground picking up "pills." Cui Xiaoman seized this opportunity to hand Chuntao a coarse cloth bag. "Sister, take this; this 'Qing Shuang San' must be decocted with rootless water..."
Lin Dahe nearly burst out laughing. What "Qing Shuang San"? It was clearly saltpeter mixed with wormwood residue! But Chuntao's expression was as if she were holding a life-saving elixir, and even the constable began to hesitate about whether to help pick them up.
"Wait." The constable suddenly picked up a pill and held it up to the sun. "How could saltpeter..."
"Sir, please see." Lin Dahe quickly pulled out a yellowed scroll of paper. "This is 'On Miasma and Malaria' passed down by monks from the Western Regions; it says that saltpeter turns white when encountering miasma and blue when encountering malaria." He flipped through to a certain page and pointed at some obscure symbols on it. "Look at this prescription for wormwood with saltpeter..."
The scroll labeled as an "ancient text" was actually a nautical map that Peddler Zhang had brought a few days ago, which Lin Dahe had used for random doodling. But clearly, the constable couldn't read; he just stared blankly at those pretentious symbols.
"The lady needs her medicine urgently!" Chuntao suddenly tugged at the constable's sleeve. "Yesterday she was burning up and talking nonsense; she kept shouting 'Green Butterfly'..."
The constable's expression softened suddenly. He bent down to help Chuntao pick up all the pills, but as he left, he shot Lin Dahe a fierce glare: "Tomorrow, County Magistrate wants to personally inspect the medicine; if it proves ineffective..."
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