Winter, the twelfth year of Yonghe. Heavy snow falls over a northwestern border town.
Shen Qianxue lays down her armor and whip, then ventures alone to Soulbreak Cliff.
Her sharp sword cannot cleave the mist around Medicine King Valley,
nor can her iron-scaled armor keep out the poisonous scent of the Hundred Herbs Miasma.
When she kneels until the bluestone beneath her shatters,
the valley master in flowing white finally appears.
“Miss Shen, do you know Medicine King Valley's Three Refusals?”
Beneath her cold iron mask, she bites her lip until it bleeds.
“If I offer a fragment of the Green Satchel Manual in exchange, will that be enough to persuade the divine physician to help?”
The silver needle in his fingers catches the light of the snow.
“What I want... is the other half of the military tally your father took from the Ning family all those years ago.”
It turns out that a healer's benevolent heart can also be a blade.
In Ning Wuchen's medicine chest lies:
a bloodstained fragment of Along the River During the Qingming Festival,
seven golden needles dipped in “King of Hell's Smile,”
and the osmanthus candy she gave him when she was seven.
“The antidote requires a Seven-Star Begonia.”
“It is in the Northern Di palace.”
“There is another way...”
He traces the birthmark on her neck.
“Would Miss Shen be willing to serve as the medicine's catalyst?”
Outside the tent, the wind howls through the snow, as if the dead were whispering.
The fire that consumed the Ning residence all those years ago
burned away the affection of their childhood friendship,
but could not melt the inscription “Together Forever” on their yin-yang jade pendant.
