Twin Blooms in Ashes: The Physician Immortal’s Trial

On the night of the full moon, a bloody upheaval turned the glazed tiles of the Valley of Immortal Healers into a slaughterhouse. Ten-year-old Chu Mingyi huddled in a hidden compartment of the medicine cabinet, watching a black-robed Daoist's golden-snake tattoo gouge into her mother's heart. Its green glimmer was identical to the tattoo worn by the leader of a Southern Border caravan three days earlier, except this snake had blood-red eyes.

Ten years later, Su Wan, the orphaned daughter of the Immortal Healer, tore away three layers of disguise. The gentle female physician in the Imperial Pharmacy concealed the cold blade of an assassin from the Xuanming Pavilion behind her tender gaze. The fragment of the Green Satchel's Lost Prescriptions in Crown Prince Xiao Jingheng's palm bore her father's handwriting. When the Prince of Ning's residence sent a poisoned arrow engraved with the Bingxu reign year, and ashes from the twin lotus embroidered on her mother's shoe appeared at a fire in the Imperial Medical Bureau, the truth that had lain dormant began to strike back.

Amid the palace's swirling mists, the Empress's pulse carried the cold poison of a forbidden art from the Valley of Immortal Healers. The dragon-shaped birthmark on Xiao Jingheng's back matched the bloody image his mother had painted before she died. As purple smoke rose from the alchemy furnace, Su Wan finally saw through the scheme that had spanned twenty years. The so-called elixir of immortality was a vile parasite that required the bloodline of the Immortal Healer to thrive. And among the shadows that had shattered the glazed tiles that night, the tassels of the Son of Heaven's crown had unmistakably swayed.

When the sword of revenge pointed at the highest imperial power, it was not only Su Wan's mask that shattered in the reflection of the icy pool. As Xiao Jingheng shielded her with his body from a storm of pear-blossom needles, his flying blood painted the final prescription on the Green Satchel's Lost Prescriptions. In the ruins of the reborn Valley of Immortal Healers, three hundred children recited the Healing Scripture of Salvation in unison. The silver bells on their wrists rang in perfect harmony with the clear chime from that bloody moonlit night twenty years ago.