On a stormy night, a lightning strike leads to a strange encounter. Beneath a crimson bloodvine lies the truth behind a twenty-year-old murder case.
To save his mother's life, the young mountain boy Lin Qing risks climbing a cliff to gather herbs. He is struck by lightning and fire, accidentally awakening the ancient medical text, The Secret Manual of the Blue Satchel.
The moment a golden needle enters his brain, he sees the truth behind his mother's coughing blood:
It isn't a common cold. It's poison, administered to silence her by the Imperial Physician of the current dynasty!
In his left hand, he holds remedies that can save the world. In his right, he hides a blood-written order to assassinate the emperor.
To break the deadlock, he disguises himself as a woodcutter to secretly learn from others and uses corpses to identify poison. He stops an epidemic with a bowl of medicinal fumigation soup, only to be denounced as a demon by the powerful;
He saves a young lord who has been poisoned while traveling incognito, only to be drawn into a shocking conspiracy surrounding the late emperor's sudden death;
His feelings for his childhood sweetheart, A Zhi, deepen, only for him to discover that the butterfly-shaped birthmark on her shoulder is living evidence of the previous dynasty's massacre...
As the copper bells of witch doctors and spirit mediums ring out, shattering people's hearts, and a poisonous banquet hosted by the young master of the Zhao family stains the wedding candles red,
Lin Qing sets the bloodvine ablaze and makes his own body the furnace:
“They say a healer must have a compassionate heart. Today, I'll use these golden needles, ”
“One needle to break evil, two to slay the wicked, three to bring peace to all!”
