The person who came running in was a young woman, and the Commissioner of Land Affairs’ eyes went wide the moment he saw her.
“Aren’t you Jaryeong’s maid?”
“My lord! Young Lady Jaryeong has fainted and still hasn’t woken up!”
What was that supposed to mean?
The Commissioner of Land Affairs’ daughter had fainted?
“What?”
Startled, the Commissioner hurried toward the inner quarters, and before we knew it, we ended up following after him in a daze.
His residence was fairly large and comfortably decorated; it looked like he’d poured his heart into it for his daughter.
But is it really okay for me to be going all the way into the inner quarters like this?
“Jaryeong! Jaryeong!”
Calling his daughter’s name, the Commissioner rushed into her room. From the doorway, I could see a young lady lying on the bed.
She looked pale and drained, but her features were so well-defined that she must have been quite the beauty when she was healthy.
Even though the Commissioner called to her over and over, she didn’t so much as twitch.
“What in the world happened?”
The maid answered his question.
“Since this morning, Young Lady hasn’t been well. She kept coughing and then suddenly collapsed.”
Judging from how the Commissioner and the household were completely beside themselves, this had to be the first time she’d ever fainted.
“Physician!”
“Yes, my lord!”
“How is my daughter’s condition?”
At his question, the physician answered while sweating bullets.
“The thing is, I can’t figure out the cause at all.”
“You can’t figure out the cause?”
“Her pulse is clearly normal, but…”
That was when I felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
Her pulse was normal, but her condition was somehow steadily getting worse?
I quietly extended my Qi and probed the teapot beside the young lady.
“…!”
That Qi felt familiar.
The same Qi I’d sensed once before.
“Excuse me, forgive my rudeness, but what illness have you diagnosed the young lady with?”
The physician answered my question.
“It’s a type of illness I’ve never seen before.”
“By any chance, does the young lady often say she’s thirsty, but can’t bring herself to drink plain water and insists on having tea instead?”
“Huh? That’s right.”
It was the maid who answered me.
I kept questioning her.
“And doesn’t she also sweat a lot?”
“Yes, she does.”
“Even in the middle of winter, she… Ah, it’s a warm region here, so maybe that part I’m not sure about. But doesn’t she complain every morning that her chest feels tight and stuffy, like something’s sitting heavy inside?”
“Uh? That’s right.”
“And that goes away when she drinks tea, right?”
“Yes! That’s why she loves drinking tea so much.”
Everything I’d asked so far were the symptoms I’d heard about from the White-Haired Painter-Physician – the signs that appear when that poison has progressed to a serious stage.
That’s right. The young lady wasn’t suffering from an illness – she was poisoned.
“Um, but… who are you, exactly?”
Instead of answering the maid, I threw her one more question.
“Among the teas the young lady usually drinks, are there Song of Birds and Flowers, Moonlight in the Cup, or Green Beauty?”
At my question, she flinched in surprise and shot back another question.
“How in the world do you know that? She loves those teas. She drinks those three almost every single day.”
“She eats jujubes as well, doesn’t she?”
In response, she nodded and opened the box sitting beside her.
Inside, it was packed full of dried jujubes.
Ah, damn.
To run into that poison again here of all places.
Song of Birds and Flowers, Moonlight in the Cup, Green Beauty.
This quadruple-layered poison stays in balance, mixed into those three teas so that no symptoms show, until the poison hidden in the jujubes breaks that balance and the symptoms suddenly erupt.
It was the Fourfold Compound Poison – the same toxin that had killed the empress in my previous life and, in this life, had poisoned the Zhuge Family’s Supreme Elder.
Apparently finding it strange that every question I asked hit the mark, the Commissioner of Land Affairs turned to me and asked:
“What in the world are you talking about right now? How do you know Jaryeong’s symptoms?”
“The truth is, I was once invited to the Zhuge Family’s estate. I can’t go into the details, but back then there was someone who nearly ended up in serious trouble with the exact same symptoms as the young lady. So I asked, just in case it was the same thing.”
“Then you know why Jaryeong is sick?”
“Yes, I do. The young lady has been poisoned.”
My words made the Commissioner reel in shock, but he quickly straightened up and looked at me.
“Poison? Who on earth would poison Jaryeong?”
“I don’t know that either. Today’s the first time I’ve ever seen the young lady.”
“Well, that’s true. This is your first…”
He blinked at me a few times, as if just now realizing that I’d ended up here by accident in the first place.
I hurriedly cupped my fists and bowed my head.
“I apologize for intruding all the way into your inner quarters as an outsider. Things just played out this way before I could stop them, so please forgive the discourtesy.”
“No, no. The situation was urgent, you couldn’t help it. It’s my fault as well for not showing you to your quarters first.”
He went on.
“More importantly, can you cure Jaryeong?”
“I’m a merchant, not a physician. But I do know someone who can treat her.”
“And who would that be?”
“Have you perhaps heard of the White-Haired Painter-Physician?”
At my words, the physician standing to the side spoke up.
“If you mean the White-Haired Painter-Physician, isn’t he in Hubei?”
“That’s right.”
The physician quickly turned to the Commissioner and said.
“My lord, if the young lady has truly been poisoned, we must send for him at once. When it comes to antidotes, no one can compare to him. I treat illnesses; I’m not particularly knowledgeable about this sort of poison.”
“Send someone to bring him here immediately! I don’t care how much it costs!”
“Yes, my lord!”
He looked down at his daughter with misty eyes.
“Jaryeong, I brought snow for you to see…”
“Sir, from the symptoms, it sounds like she’ll regain consciousness in a few hours. You don’t need to worry too much.”
“That’s a relief.”
“So it might be best to show her the snow then.”
“Yes, thank you. I need to hold on to some hope.”
Then he turned to me and said.
“I’ll have quarters prepared for you, so go and rest there for now.”
“In that case, I’ll take my leave for now.”
Led by an attendant, I left the inner quarters and was shown to the guest hall in the outer residence.
I sat down at the low table and went over everything that had just happened.
I never thought I’d run into the Fourfold Compound Poison here.
That poison was created by the Murim Alliance. From what I knew, it was tricky to use and so expensive that it wasn’t something just anyone could afford to employ.
Was the Murim Alliance moving behind the scenes here?
What are they after?
Are they trying to remove the Commissioner and install one of their own people in his place?
Then why go after his daughter instead of the Commissioner himself?
And in my previous life, even when I died, the Commissioner was still the Commissioner of Land Affairs of Guizhou.
Then was the Commissioner’s daughter their target from the very beginning?
All right, let’s sort this out again.
I’m certain the Commissioner’s daughter died because of the Five Stars Merchant Group’s scam.
What if it wasn’t just a scam? What if something they brought with them made her poisoning worse?
If that was something even the Murim Alliance hadn’t expected, it might have ruined whatever plan they had.
Either way, now that this poison has shown up here, there’s a high chance someone from the Murim Alliance is close to Young Lady Jaryeong.
For now, judging by how readily the maid and the physician answered my questions, they probably aren’t with the Murim Alliance…
In any case, I really hoped the White-Haired Painter-Physician would get here soon.
Since I was the one who said out loud that the young lady had been poisoned, I couldn’t just leave until the White-Haired Painter-Physician arrived.
Of course, I could have kept my mouth shut, taken my reward from the Commissioner, and left.
But you can’t treat a person’s life like that.
Just then, Palgap spoke to me.
“Young master, I think it’d be good for you to wash up and change your clothes.”
“Ah, you’re right.”
I washed with the water they’d prepared and changed into clean clothes. After a late lunch, I was flipping through a book for a while when the Commissioner’s attendant, the one who’d first shown me here, came looking for me.
“Deputy Merchant Lord Eun Seo-ho, the Commissioner of Land Affairs is calling for you.”
“All right. Has the young lady woken up?”
“Ah, yes! She just woke up. Um, but…”
He hesitated for a moment, then asked me.
“Is the young lady going to be all right? She can be cured, can’t she?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not a physician, so I can’t give you a definite answer.”
“…”
Realizing his mistake, he quickly apologized.
“I asked you something unfair. Please forgive me.”
“It’s fine.”
Once again, I realized what Jaryeong meant to the people here.
As I walked after him, I said,
“You all must care about the young lady a great deal.”
“Of course. Young Lady is our joy. We were so happy when a good marriage was arranged for her…”
Come to think of it, they said Young Lady Jaryeong first fell ill when she was sixteen.
Sixteen is about the age you’d have a match arranged.
We arrived at the entrance leading into the inner quarters.
The Commissioner of Land Affairs was standing there waiting for us.
“Sir, have you been waiting? I came as soon as I was called.”
“My daughter has woken up. When I told her you’d brought snow, she said she wants to see it right now. We should bring it here.”
“Understood. I’ll do that.”
I immediately brought the cart back to the entrance of the inner quarters.
But the cart turned out to be bigger than I’d expected, so it couldn’t fit through the entrance; we had to carry the boxes in by hand.
When Escort Guard Seo Wu and Escort Guard Jin Yu lifted the boxes and headed in, the Commissioner couldn’t help but exclaim.
“They look heavy, yet they’re carrying them so easily. Impressive.”
“My escort guards are fairly skilled.”
“You’ve got good people around you. Have them move those boxes all the way to my daughter’s door.”
“Um… is it really all right for us to enter the inner quarters?”
“You already went in once, didn’t you?”
“That’s true.”
And with that, we went inside.
As we approached Young Lady Jaryeong’s room, a window swung open.
A young lady wearing a veil was looking out at us.
It was because of that veil that the Commissioner had allowed us to come this close.
“It’s an honor to meet you, my lady. I’m Eun Seo-ho, Deputy Merchant Lord of the Eunhae Merchant Group. Beside me are my attendant and escort guards.”
“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Jaryeong.”
Her voice was incredibly lovely.
If it sounded this good when she was sick, how happy would just hearing her voice make you when she was well?
“I heard you brought snow just for me.”
“Yes. Your father had it prepared for you.”
“Even so, you must’ve gone through a lot of trouble.”
“Of course it was hard. But a merchant doesn’t shy away from hardship if it’s to satisfy a customer.”
I gave my escort guards a look, and they opened the boxes.
They opened the inner box as well and took out the tray piled with snow, holding it out toward her.
“My lady, this is what snow is.”
As I said that, I quietly released a bit of cold Qi.
The snow inside the box was fine because I’d stored cold Qi in the pendant artifact, but once it was taken out, the temperature here was high enough that it could melt at any moment.
“So this is… snow.”
In a trembling voice, she reached out her hand, then hesitated.
“C–can I touch it?”
“Of course.”
She slowly, ever so slowly, reached out toward the snow she’d never seen before.
Tap.
Her hand touched the snow.
“Ah… it’s cold.”
“Yes, it’s snow, after all.”
I went on.
“Snow is what happens when the weather turns cold and falling rain freezes in the air, changing shape like this. You can think of snow as a kind of ice.”
“I see. But I’ve never seen ice like this before.”
Just then, she lifted her veil.
“J–Jaryeong…!”
“I’m sorry. But I couldn’t see the snow properly with the veil on.”
She smiled.
“It’s white, and sparkling… it’s beautiful.”
She looked so genuinely happy that I felt all the effort had been worth it.
“I heard there are all kinds of games you can play with snow.”
“That’s right. When I was little, I’d pack snow into balls and throw them around, and sometimes we’d pile it up and make snowmen.”
I continued.
“And I’d write my name in the snow, too. There was a saying that if your name written in the snow didn’t disappear before the new year, you’d live to be over a hundred.”
“I–is that… really true?”
“Honestly, I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
Right then, she began to trace letters into the snow.
“Hm?”
But the characters she wrote weren’t her own name.
“Are those your father’s and mother’s names?”
“Yes.”
She smiled bashfully and said,
“My father told me that pendant artifact keeps the snow from melting.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“If it wouldn’t trouble you too much, would you sell me that pendant? Or even just lend it to me? I want to keep this snow from melting until the new year.”
“So you can keep your parents’ names from disappearing until the new year?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“I want my parents to live past a hundred.”
“…”
For a moment, I was at a loss for words.
How can someone have such a kind heart?
I felt like I finally understood why everyone here cherished Young Lady Jaryeong so much.
When someone’s heart is this pure, how could you not like them?
At her words, the Commissioner and the middle-aged woman standing behind him both wiped at their eyes with their sleeves. From her clothes and bearing, the woman had to be the young lady’s mother.
Just then, a question occurred to me.
“Then why aren’t you writing your own name, my lady?”
–TL Notes–
Tired of seeing Ads? Then please support me on Patreon! Any tier of subscription will make it so you won’t get any ads!
If you want to support me or give me feedback, you can do it at patreon.com/InsanityTheGame
Join my Discord! https://discord.gg/BWaP3AHHpt