The Returning Swan of Medicine Valley

Herbs of the Valley is a novel that artfully blends the culture of traditional Chinese medicine with mystery and deduction. It tells the story of Yan Qingyi's return to her ancestral home in Medicine Valley and her determination to stay, as well as the series of gripping struggles she undertakes to protect the legacy of traditional Chinese medicine.

Yan Qingyi is a young researcher with an abiding passion for traditional Chinese medicine. On the high-speed train back from Shanghai and Hangzhou, she encounters the eerie disruption of the train's signal. This strange occurrence is like a mysterious signal, heralding the start of the story.

After returning to her hometown in Medicine Valley, Yan Qingyi is sorting through her grandfather's belongings when she unexpectedly discovers a handwritten copy of the 1948 edition of Records of the Plants of Southern Henan and a mysterious Republic-era medicine scale. These seemingly ordinary objects conceal secrets unknown to others. The manuscript records information about rare medicinal herbs, along with her grandfather's cryptic annotations, while the strange symbols and writing carved onto the scale spark Yan Qingyi's deep curiosity.

As her investigation deepens, Yan Qingyi gradually uncovers a vast criminal network hidden behind Medicine Valley's medicinal herb cultivation and processing industry. To line their pockets, some people are willing to tamper with traditional medicine formula data, steal patent documents, and even use illegal methods to fumigate herbs and sell counterfeit, substandard products, gravely endangering patients' health and the reputation of the traditional medicine industry.

Along the way, Yan Qingyi faces one difficulty and danger after another. She narrowly escapes death in a tunnel in the Funiu Mountains, and exposes an illegal sulfur-fumigation operation at an offline guesthouse.