A batch of defective angelica root that should have been destroyed is given fresh packaging, furnished with a passing inspection report, and quietly sent back to hospitals.
Du Heng, the quality-control chief, has to break open just one slice to recognize the lot number that should have been dead and buried. His boss pushes him to sign, the pharmaceutical company demands his silence, and the test report looks cleaner than the real medicine. Signing would save his job. But once this batch reaches pharmacies, no one knows whose medicine jar it will end up in.
Three years ago, he trusted a report and let his mentor take the blame for a batch of fake astragalus.
Three years later, he decides to trust only the medicine he has tested with his own hands.
Starting with this truckload of angelica root, he follows the clues to uncover a hidden chain in which samples, reports, and goods have been deliberately separated. Some win the market with the lowest price. Some use a single passing certificate to hide the risks. And some wait by an old medicine scale for him to weigh out the truth, three years overdue.
This is more than a feud in the urban world of traditional Chinese medicine. It is also a practical guide to avoiding pitfalls in life, one you may need sooner or later.
Here, you’ll learn how to tell genuine Chinese medicinal slices from fakes, understand the secret battle between profit and conscience, and see how an ordinary person can hold on to the last shred of honesty in a world of right and wrong.
Reports can lie. Medicine cannot.
And someone has to weigh the truth.
