Warrior Hwangbo Seon-yu had been listening closely to their conversation.
But now was the time for me to take action.
It wasn't like I had all the time in the world.
So I rose from my seat, approached them, and asked.
"Excuse me. Is that ointment really that effective?"
"And who might you be?"
I politely cupped my hands in greeting.
"Forgive my late introduction. This humble merchant is Eun Seo-ho, Deputy Merchant Lord of the Eunhae Merchant Group."
"Eun Seo-ho of the Eunhae Merchant Group?"
"Ah… the Handsome Young Hero?"
It was a little embarrassing, but that title certainly came in handy at times like this.
"That title is more than I deserve."
After offering the appropriate modesty, I continued.
"I happened to overhear the two of you talking and came over because I wanted to ask about it. The truth is, my brother has been suffering from a nasty boil. I apologize for listening in on your conversation without meaning to."
"Oh, so that's why!"
"It's quite all right. People who suffer from the same troubles tend to understand each other, don't they? Besides, it wasn't as though we were discussing some great secret."
"Thank you. Would you mind telling me a little more about it?"
"Of course. Though, to be honest, I didn't experience it myself. I only heard from people around me that they cured their boils using an ointment made by that physician."
"I see."
I casually placed a coin on the table and said.
"If you have some time after finishing your meal, would you mind taking us to that physician?"
.
.
.
A little while later.
We finished a very satisfying meal. I'd wondered why Warrior Hwangbo Seon-yu had chosen that particular inn, but apparently the food was the reason.
Come to think of it, every inn he'd chosen on the way here had served excellent food.
He seemed to be quite the gourmet. Thinking about how someone like that had deliberately brewed such terrible tea on the first day we met, then forced himself to drink it, almost made me laugh.
Though I still had no idea why he'd purposely ruined the tea in the first place.
Normally, I could at least make an educated guess about something like that, but Warrior Hwangbo Seon-yu was hardly an ordinary man…
"This way."
The two men led my party and me toward another inn.
"An inn…?"
"Yes. The physician is staying here."
"I see. Thank you for bringing us."
We entered the inn.
The place was packed with people, so crowded that there was barely an empty seat anywhere.
Then a voice reached my ears.
"You're asking whether I met His Majesty the Emperor in person? Of course I did!"
"What does His Majesty look like?"
"To tell you the truth, I don't remember him very clearly. I had to devote every scrap of concentration to taking his pulse, you see."
I pushed my way through the crowd toward the front.
A middle-aged man with a long beard was eating while regaling everyone around him with stories.
Just looking at him, I'd have taken him for one of those professional storytellers who made a living selling tall tales.
He cleared his throat.
"In any case, His Majesty was suffering terribly from boils. Worse still, no matter how many different treatments were tried, his condition showed no improvement. So every single day, I prayed desperately to Heaven and the divine spirits for guidance. Then one day, while I was studying medicinal herbs, I happened to drift off to sleep. An immortal appeared in my dream and told me how to prepare a medicine. I followed his instructions exactly, and His Majesty's boils vanished as though they'd never existed."
He tapped a small container sitting on the table.
"This is that very ointment, prepared according to the secret prescription I received."
"But if that's true, why aren't you still at the Imperial Palace? Why are you wandering around like this?"
"Whew… How many times must I tell this story?"
The man sighed before continuing.
"The Imperial Palace is a frightening place. I became entangled in a political struggle and… well, that's why I've been forced to wander outside like this."
"I see."
"Enough of such gloomy stories. Let us speak of the medicine instead. This ointment is the miraculous remedy that completely cured His Majesty's boils. Half a silver tael for one jar!"
"I'll take one!"
"Give me one too!"
People immediately began clamoring to buy the ointment.
The way they paid without the slightest hesitation made it obvious that most of them had come here specifically to purchase it.
I approached someone who had bought a jar and was preparing to leave.
"Excuse me. Does that ointment really work?"
"Of course it does! My father was suffering terribly from a boil on his back. I bought this ointment and applied it for him, and he improved so much you could see the difference with your own eyes."
"I see."
I called Palgap over.
"Go buy one of those ointments."
"Understood, Young Master."
"And Escort Guard Jin Yu. Please keep an eye on that physician."
"At once."
"I'll return to the Moon Beneath the Pines Inn."
A little while later.
Palgap returned to the Moon Beneath the Pines Inn with a jar of ointment.
"It's so popular that I barely managed to get my hands on one, Young Master."
"Good work."
I took the ointment upstairs to my room, with Warrior Hwangbo Seon-yu following close behind.
"Why did you have him buy that?"
"To determine whether that man is merely an impostor or an outright swindler."
I held up the ointment Palgap had purchased.
"If this ointment is genuine, then he's an impostor. But if it's fake…"
"Then he's a swindler."
"Exactly."
I set the ointment on the table and called for Escort Guard Lee Pil.
"Escort Guard Lee Pil."
"Yes."
"Can you determine what ingredients were used to make this ointment?"
"I'll take a look."
Escort Guard Lee Pil walked over to the table.
"Please, sit down and take as much time as you need to examine it."
"All right."
Escort Guard Lee Pil retrieved a few things from his belongings, sat down at the table, and began inspecting the ointment.
He had come from the Sichuan Tang Clan.
Circumstances had forced him to leave, but while he was still there, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he'd learned everything a disciple could reasonably learn before reaching adulthood.
He hadn't used the Tang Clan's secret medicines or poison arts before, but apparently the Myriad-Cure Divine Physician had given him permission. Ever since then, he'd begun actively studying both.
Perhaps the books the Myriad-Cure Divine Physician had given Escort Guard Lee Pil contained information on the Tang Clan's secret medicines. Whatever the case, that knowledge had even allowed him to create his own Tracking Incense.
Escort Guard Lee Pil put on a pair of deerskin gloves and began analyzing the ointment, while the rest of us decided to head downstairs and have some tea.
"Palgap, stay here and help Escort Guard Lee Pil."
"Understood, Young Master."
We sat on the first floor, drinking tea and chatting about one thing or another, until Palgap eventually came downstairs.
"Young Master. Everything's ready."
Which meant Escort Guard Lee Pil had finished his analysis.
We headed back up to the guest room.
"You're back."
"Yes. Did you figure it out?"
At my question, he nodded.
"Have you ever heard of Rabbit-Dung Root Herb?"
The plant had earned its ridiculous name because its roots grew in small, round lumps that looked remarkably like rabbit droppings.
It only grew in the southern reaches of the empire, south of the Yangtze River in places like Guangdong and Fujian. Naturally, very few people here in Shandong would know anything about it.
Even local physicians and apothecaries probably wouldn't recognize it.
I only knew because the Eunhae Merchant Group specialized in medicinal herbs, and I'd accumulated a fair amount of experience dealing with them myself.
Still, I never expected to hear that name here.
"Don't tell me that ointment was made with Rabbit-Dung Root Herb."
"Why do you look so serious?"
Warrior Hwangbo Seon-yu noticed my expression and asked.
There was a very good reason for it.
"Rabbit-Dung Root Herb is… poisonous."
At my words, Warrior Hwangbo Seon-yu's expression immediately turned cold.
"Did you just say it was poisonous?"
"Yes."
I turned to Escort Guard Lee Pil.
"Would you mind explaining?"
"Of course."
Escort Guard Lee Pil continued.
"I placed the ointment into a special reagent passed down through my teachings and…"
What followed was a fairly technical explanation.
Fortunately, perhaps because he was trying to accommodate us, he broke everything down into simpler terms, making it easy enough for us to understand.
And seeing how his eyes practically sparkled as he explained his findings reminded me once again that he truly was a Tang Clan man at heart.
"Based on the results, I determined that this ointment was made by mixing Rabbit-Dung Root Herb with beeswax."
"I see."
"And as my lord just said, Rabbit-Dung Root Herb is a poisonous herb. Its roots can make the skin smooth and beautiful, but their medicinal effect is so unnaturally potent that even the water they're boiled in can remain unspoiled for an entire year."
"Wouldn't that make it a good thing?"
"In one sense, yes. Taken alone, that property sounds beneficial. But as I just explained, the herb's effects are far too strong. The side effects are precisely why it's classified as poisonous. Take a look at this jar. It's remarkably small, isn't it?"
"You're right. It's very little for an ointment meant to be applied to the skin."
The container was barely the size of a thumb.
"Using this amount once shouldn't cause serious problems. But if someone uses two jars or more, that's when it becomes dangerous."
I added my own explanation.
"It can cause hallucinations and mental confusion. In women, it can even cause infertility. And the risk of suffering a heart attack rises significantly as well."
Escort Guard Lee Pil spoke again.
"The fact that he deliberately limited the amount in each jar to this much suggests there's a strong chance he's fully aware of those side effects."
"I agree."
We moved immediately.
If people who had already used the ointment and seen results were now coming back to buy more, that meant the side effects would soon begin appearing.
Which also meant it was about time for our self-proclaimed former Imperial Palace physician to disappear.
I'd been wondering why he'd chosen to operate specifically in northern Shandong, near Hebei Province, but now I understood.
It was a relatively prosperous region where almost no one knew much about Rabbit-Dung Root Herb.
Long ago, Rabbit-Dung Root Herb had actually been used as a beauty treatment.
After all, it really did have the ability to make the skin smoother.
But its toxicity caused all manner of side effects, and in the end, the fashion never spread beyond the Yangtze River.
It could cause mental problems, and in severe cases, people could even die from heart attacks.
And that man had known all of this, yet he was still selling the ointment.
Worse, he was using the Emperor's name to sell it.
The moment I'd heard what he said at the inn earlier, I'd known there was no chance he'd truly been an Imperial Palace physician.
Frankly, I could understand him claiming that he didn't remember the Emperor's face.
But openly telling strangers about His Majesty's illness?
For physicians serving in the Imperial Palace, anything concerning the Emperor's health was an absolute top-secret matter.
Speak carelessly about it, and you'd lose your head.
And that wasn't a figure of speech. It meant execution.
Worse still, the punishment wouldn't necessarily end with the physician. His entire family could be put to death as well.
Before long, we reached the inn where the physician had been staying.
However…
"Ah, that physician left the inn a little while ago. He said it was time for him to move on to another town."
"I see."
As the waiter spoke, I noticed a jar of ointment beside him.
"Did you buy that ointment from the physician?"
"Yes. One of the other waiters bought some and used it, and the results were incredible. So I spent quite a bit of money and bought some for myself."
"You… really shouldn't use that."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"It's fake medicine."
"You mean it's some useless fake made from flour or something?"
"If that were all it was, you'd be lucky. That ointment is poison."
"Poison? Come on, there's a limit to slandering someone! This medicine works incredibly well! What grounds do you have for calling it poison?"
Just as I expected…
Human belief has always had something irrational about it.
People believe something because they've already accepted it as truth, even when it isn't. Breaking that kind of belief is actually fairly simple.
You only need to destroy the foundation that convinced them in the first place.
But when someone continues believing something false even after that foundation collapses, it's usually because they want it to be true.
There was no need to waste time trying to force people like that to change their minds.
Push too hard, and stubbornness would only take over, turning the conversation into a pointless confrontation.
Humans were creatures capable of thought.
If you left them alone, sooner or later the doubt would come naturally – Wait, what if I really was wrong?
There were several ways to tear down the foundation of a lie.
One of the most effective was credibility.
So I revealed my identity to the waiter.
"This humble merchant is Eun Seo-ho, Deputy Merchant Lord of the Eunhae Merchant Group."
"Don't tell me… you're the Handsome Young Hero?"
"That's right. As you may already know, the Eunhae Merchant Group specializes in medicinal herbs. I became curious about that ointment myself, so I purchased a jar and had it examined…"
My expression turned grave.
"We discovered that although it produces obvious results at first, it contains a poisonous herb whose severe side effects can eventually kill the person using it."
"Is that really true?"
"Why would I tell such a lie and drag the Eunhae Merchant Group's name through the mud?"
I continued.
"The reason that physician left the inn today is because the side effects will begin appearing within the next few days. I cannot forgive a man who deceives innocent people for his own profit."
My voice rose with emotion.
"I swear upon the name of the Handsome Young Hero that I will find that man and expose the truth."
At my declaration, Palgap spoke up.
"Young Master, isn't this really just you sticking your nose into somebody else's business? We're busy. Why don't we just keep going?"
"No. The fact that I learned about this must be Heaven telling me that I'm supposed to set things right."
"Well, if you've made up your mind that firmly, I suppose there's nothing to be done. Understood, Young Master."
"Please warn everyone else not to use that medicine under any circumstances. We need to go after that swindler, so we'll take our leave."
With that, we left the inn.
I felt relieved when I glanced back and saw the waiter gingerly pushing the jar of ointment away as though it had suddenly become something unpleasant to touch.
Truthfully, even if that waiter used the jar he'd bought, nothing terrible would happen to him immediately.
But now that I knew it was harmful, there was no way I could simply stand by and watch him use it.
Maybe Palgap was right, and I really was meddling in someone else's affairs.
"My lord."
"Yes?"
Warrior Hwangbo Seon-yu spoke to me.
"I'm glad that my lord has chosen to walk the righteous path."
Escort Guard Seo Wu smiled at that.
"We often find ourselves thinking the same thing whenever we watch you, my lord. Hahaha."
There was a reason I could afford to be this relaxed.
I'd already ordered Escort Guard Jin Yu to keep the physician under surveillance.
– Geumryeong. Find Escort Guard Jin Yu for me.
– Kui!
–TL Notes–
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