The first prescription he gave her was to write down three little things every night before bed, to steady her fractured, wavering spirit. Later, Gu Yan became the cure for all her pain, and also a blade concealed in the shadows, of which she knew nothing.
She once found the medicine bitter and secretly poured it into a woodpile, only for him to catch her in the act. He made her kneel and reflect on her actions, teaching her that everything in this world leaves a trace, and no wrong can ever be erased completely. She knelt for exactly thirty minutes, the precise amount of time he had spent brewing her medicine.
Su Nian thought of him only as a kind yet strict physician. She had no idea that the man who made her admit her mistake had single-handedly quelled every family feud in J City at the age of twenty-two. He had shed his aura of violence and bloodshed, taking only the Worry-Forgeting zither left behind by his master to hide away in the mountains. To her, he was simply the gentleman who gently brewed her medicine, patiently taught her, and showed her how to play the zither beneath the pagoda tree.
He had punished her, taught her, and saved her. She crossed mountains and seas to return, certain of just one thing: the only person in this world who had ever made her kneel was also the only one who would gently call her to her feet and keep her safe.
