The instant Shen Wan swallows poison, her fingers clutch half a Time-Congealing Fruit. A restorer of ancient books transmigrates into the body of an orphan girl murdered by her stepbrother. This rotten hand has to be turned around!
The ointment she brews can actually reveal when people will die:
Her stepbrother brings thugs to smash her stall? She spots the “bloody mark of a broken leg” in the ointment, then splashes out a pot of it, and sure enough, screams ring out one after another.
The head of the canal gang appears in a vision, submerged in a stinking ditch? She tosses a stone there ahead of time, then counts her coins as she packs up when he really falls in.
Earn enough to save her life in three days, and take over a thriving shop on Rouge Lane in half a month? Far too conservative!
The county magistrate's family line up bearing gold and silver, powerful nobles in the capital beg to become her godparents, and even a prince's horse has to be tied up at the end of the lane near her ointment stall!
Only Lord Xiao dares to flip over her stall. No, wait, he blocks her way with a pine-scented cloak in his arms:
“Your stepsister stole your deed?” He tosses out a written confession. “I just sent her to the yamen. She'll be executed after the autumn assizes.”
“Someone wants to steal your secret recipe?” He braces one long leg against the doorframe, his fingertip brushing the ointment at the corner of her lips. “If they want to steal my wife, they'll have to get past the blade in my hand.”
Then the ointment reveals an image of him being struck by an arrow, matching the bloody marks on her father's ley-line map exactly.
Shen Wan weighs the copper ladle she uses to brew the ointment. Firelight glints in her ruthless eyes.
This ointment can predict deadly calamities and brew mountains of gold. It can also reduce to bone dust the vermin who harmed my father and want to kill him!
Not bad, not bad!