The cold rain of late autumn drenched the streets of Qiantang. Xiao Lubai, in a long green cloth gown, came on a awning boat. Hidden in his sleeve was a secret order, half a tiger talisman given by the Holy Emperor. He was ordered to thoroughly investigate the corruption behind the plague relief, but he unexpectedly bumped into the moon-white figure in the medicine house.
Yu Chunuan's silver hairpin illuminated the oil lamp, illuminating the yellowed medical records on the case. In the "Additional Notes to the Record of Wrongs" collected by her father, there is half a sheet of anti-epidemic prescriptions from five years ago. Next to the signature "Lv Bai", the cinnabar annotation "Three Mints" echoes the "Xiao" on the bottom of her medicine jar. When Manager Zhao, who was wearing a brocade robe, led the yamen servants to open the medicine house, and pointed the sword at the mulberry paper with the drawing, Xiao Lubai was shocked to realize that this seemingly ordinary medical woman from the medicine house actually hid the other half that could fit perfectly with the tiger talisman in his sleeve.
The medicinal prescriptions engraved on the rock wall of the official kiln, the hidden signs of the osmanthus-patterned medical needles, the secrets of plum blossom birthmarks... Layers of clues weave into a web that spans ten years. The medicinal materials resold by the son of the Minister of Household Affairs, the arsenic in the moldy grains, and the unfinished medical agreements of his father's generation all surfaced as the plague spread. Xiao Lubai wrapped justice in a green shirt, and Yu Chunuan used a silver needle to pierce the illusion. When the sulfur met the poisonous smoke and turned into purple mist, they finally saw clearly in the firelight: the tampered anti-epidemic prescription was originally a token written by their fathers; and the mint pills rolling in the medicine jar had already buried the prophecy of "once in ten years".
When the sky clears after the rain, the copper bell under the old camphor tree is still ringing softly. Half a tiger talisman forms a complete osmanthus flower, and the newly dried medicinal materials are glowing with golden light, as if to say: medical knowledge can help the common people, justice can illuminate the sun and the moon, and some fate, just like good medicine, needs to be boiled over time to become mellow.
