The Wrong Medicine

When the baby’s cry rang out, everyone in the birthing room breathed a sigh of relief.

Everyone except me.

I lay on a mattress soaked with sweat, my fingertips still clutching Physician Xie’s sleeve.

The cry was tiny and clear, like a needle piercing the illusion Marquis Pei Cheng’an’s words—“Save the mother”—had planted in my heart.

I turned my head and looked at the tiny, scrunched-up face wrapped in swaddling cloth.

The baby was alive.

My baby was alive.

But the footsteps outside the door suddenly grew frantic.

Pei Cheng’an rushed inside, the hair at his forehead drenched. He reached for my hand first, his palm as warm as ever, his voice gentle.

“My lady, you’ve suffered.”

Before today, those words alone would have softened my heart.

But the moment he lowered his head, his gaze passed over me and fell on the copper basin behind Physician Xie.

Inside lay the placenta, freshly delivered, its blood not yet faded.

His eyes swept over it so quickly that they were like a shadow flickering past a window.

But we had been husband and wife for three years.

I knew his habits better than anyone. Whenever he was calculating something, his fingertips would unconsciously stroke the pale jade ring on his thumb.

Now he was polishing that ring until it gleamed.

“How is the baby?” he asked.

Physician Xie clasped his hands. “The young master was born a little premature, but his breathing is stable. Your ladyship is also out of danger. She only needs proper rest.”

The smile on Pei Cheng’an’s face paused for a heartbeat.

“It’s good that they’re out of danger.”

His words were flawless. He even bent down to smooth a stray lock of my hair.

But right afterward, he turned toward the baby. His sleeve brushed the copper basin as he quietly asked, “Is… that thing intact?”

Physician Xie’s expression darkened at once.

I closed my eyes, pretending I was too exhausted to stay awake.

But inside, I was colder than a well in the twelfth lunar month.

When I heard him say “save the mother,” I had thought he was afraid I would die.

Now I understood.

He was afraid that both the baby and I had survived.

The Pei family had been blessed with only one child in each generation for eight generations. Their ninth-generation heir should have been the root of the entire clan.

But to Pei Cheng’an, my baby was no more than a medicinal ingredient.

An ingredient that would lose its efficacy if it remained alive.

“Has my lady fallen asleep?” he asked.

Qingque immediately stepped forward, blocking the bed.

“My lady has lost a great deal of blood and needs rest.”

Qingque was the maid I had brought from my maiden home. She never yielded in an argument, though she was also very good at pretending to be docile.

She lowered her eyes like a cat that had sheathed its claws, keeping Pei Cheng’an away from the baby.

He did not insist. He only said, “Take good care of them. Move the baby to the Warm Pavilion for now, so he won’t catch a draft.”

“There’s no need for the marquis to trouble himself.”

I spoke suddenly.

He turned around.

I smiled weakly. “The baby has only just been born. He can’t be separated from me. Leave him here.”

A trace of impatience flashed through Pei Cheng’an’s eyes, but it quickly turned into tenderness.

“Very well. We’ll do as you say.”

After he left, Physician Xie dismissed everyone in the room except Qingque.

He took a handkerchief smeared with medicinal powder from his sleeve and placed it beside my pillow.

“My lady, this isn’t labor-inducing medicine.”

I looked at him.

“Your calming decoction before the birth contained aconite powder.” Physician Xie’s voice was tense. “The dose wasn’t enough to kill you, but it could have shifted the baby’s position and obstructed your blood flow. If you hadn’t been strong, you might not have survived until the child was born.”

Qingque’s face turned white. She had to cover her mouth to keep from crying out.

I, on the other hand, was perfectly calm.

No wonder my belly had felt so heavy for days, and the baby had been kicking less.

I had thought the birth was simply near.

Pei Cheng’an had even watched the medicine pot himself and soothed me, saying it was a prescription he had obtained from a renowned physician.

It turned out it wasn’t a calming medicine at all.

It was a ticket sending both me and my baby to the gates of death.

“Who prescribed it?” I asked.

Physician Xie shook his head. “The dregs were disposed of. Aconite powder isn’t common, though. Few people in the capital can get this processed variety.”

He paused, as if reluctant to say more.

“There’s something else. When the marquis asked about the placenta, I remembered a case in the Imperial Medical Academy’s records. There is a folk sorcery called ‘Life-Continuing Guide.’ It uses the placenta and a newborn’s umbilical blood to make medicine. The prescription has taken countless lives and was banned long ago.”

I opened my eyes and stared at the gold threads hanging from the bed curtains.

Lu Wanning.

Pei Cheng’an’s frail cousin.

Three years ago, when she came to the capital, her face had been as pale as paper.

Pei Cheng’an said she had suffered from a cold ailment since childhood, had neither father nor mother, and could only rely on the Pei family.

I believed him.

I gave her the finest courtyard, and even handed over the hundred-year-old ginseng from my dowry to nourish her.

Whenever she took medicine, Pei Cheng’an went to check on her in person.

I thought it was affection between cousins.

Now, looking back, it was a cruel joke.

“Physician Xie,” I said softly, “please help me keep what happened today secret.”

He frowned. “What are you planning to do, my lady?”

“Someone wants my baby dead.”

I looked toward the door, my voice calm and cold.

“Then I’ll let him think he’s about to get what he wants.”

Qingque was stunned, then her eyes lit up.

“My lady, I understand.”

I looked at the baby lying in his swaddling cloth.

He had only just been born; his features had not yet formed clearly, and already someone had decided he should die.

Then they could hardly blame me, his mother.

I would help him gather every stone on the road ahead, then throw them one by one at the feet of those people.

2

That night, Pei Cheng’an did not come to the main courtyard.

He said he was afraid of disturbing my rest, so he would sleep in his study.

Qingque peered through the window and saw him take his confidant, Fang Cheng, outside.

But they weren’t heading toward the study.

They were going to the Orchid Courtyard.

I leaned against the headboard and slowly drank the bowl of blood-nourishing soup Physician Xie had prescribed.

There were no candied fruits in it.

The bitterness lingered all the way to the back of my tongue.

“Qingque.”

I said, “Tomorrow morning, send word to my elder brother. Tell him I’ve given birth to a son and ask him to bring the longevity lock Grandmother gave the baby.”

Qingque acknowledged the order.

“Also tell him to bring two people.”

“Who?”

“One person who can manage accounts, and one who can examine medicine.”

I reached out and lightly touched the baby’s cheek.

The little one slept soundly. He couldn’t even hold back his cries, yet his tiny fingers gripped one of mine tightly.

“If they’ve set a trap right here in the Pei household…”

I said, “Then we’ll begin dismantling it with the Pei family’s books.”

At daybreak, Pei Cheng’an came in carrying a bowl of bird’s-nest soup.

He still looked refined and gentle, and even the fragrance on his robe was the same as before: agarwood, my favorite.

“Are you awake, my lady?”

He sat beside me.

“The baby cried a lot last night. I was afraid you’d be tired, so I asked the wet nurse to take him to the Warm Pavilion to soothe him.”

I looked at the empty cradle beside me.

Qingque’s eyes immediately reddened. “The young master had another fever last night. Physician Xie says he may have caught a chill and might not last through today.”

The fingers of Pei Cheng’an’s hand paused.

He asked in a low voice, “Is it serious?”

“Hard to say.”

I looked at him.

“Are you worried, my lord?”

There was indeed a trace of anxiety in his eyes.

I almost let that small sign deceive me.

Until he lifted the bowl of bird’s-nest soup and brought it to my lips, his voice tender, almost coaxing.

“Just focus on recovering. I’ll take care of the baby.”

I didn’t accept it.

“My lord.”

I asked, “If the baby really doesn’t make it, will you be heartbroken?”

His breath was so light it was almost inaudible.

After a moment, he took my hand.

“Don’t say foolish things. You matter more than anything.”

I smiled.

His words of affection were as faultless as ever.

His knife was simply better hidden.

“That’s good.”

I pushed away the bowl of bird’s-nest soup.

“I have no appetite these days. Leave it there for now.”

Pei Cheng’an didn’t press me. He set the bowl aside and helped pull up my blanket.

When he stood, I noticed a faint trace of vermilion on his sleeve.

It didn’t belong in the study.

In the Orchid Courtyard was a white-robed Guanyin statue for praying for healing. Vermilion talisman ash was burned at its feet every day.

After he had gone, Qingque picked up the bowl of soup, her expression cold.

“I’ll give it to the cats in the back courtyard.”

“Don’t.”

I stopped her.

“Find someone who knows medicine and have it tested.”

Qingque was startled.

I looked at the bowl, white enough to dazzle the eyes, and spoke very softly.

“If Pei Cheng’an has made his move once, he won’t have prepared only one knife.”

That afternoon, my elder brother came.

He didn’t enter the inner courtyard. He only sent in a black-lacquered box.

Inside were a longevity lock, a stack of my dowry account books from when I married, and a note.

The note had only eight characters:

“The men are ready. Give the word.”

I hung the longevity lock around the baby’s neck and lowered my head to kiss his forehead.

The baby had no fever and had not caught a chill.

He was being cared for by my brother’s people at a private residence nearby.

There was a wet nurse arranged by Physician Xie, and the guards were the people my maiden family trusted most.

In the Warm Pavilion, I had left only a bundle of swaddling cloth warmed with hot water and a few cries Qingque deliberately muffled.

Pei Cheng’an wanted to wait for a child to die.

So I would let him wait.

I would wait until he brought every piece of evidence to me with his own hands.

The next day, the person who tested the soup gave me an answer.

There was no poison in the bird’s-nest soup.

But it contained a herb called Forget-Sorrow Grass.

A small dose caused fatigue and sleepiness. Taken continuously, it would confuse a person’s memory and emotions.

A woman was already weak after childbirth. If people dismissed the symptoms as “overthinking,” few outsiders would notice.

What did Pei Cheng’an want me to forget?

Or, more accurately…

What did he want me too weak to remember?

I ordered them to seal the bowl of bird’s-nest soup intact. Then I had Qingque continue reporting as usual, saying I had drunk it and fallen fast asleep.

Sure enough, Pei Cheng’an relaxed.

Over the next two days, he often visited the main courtyard.

He brought nourishing medicine in the morning, new little clothes in the afternoon, and sat beside my bed in the evening to tell me trivial things from court.

Anyone who didn’t know the truth would have praised the marquis as a devoted husband.

But every time he sat for less than half a tea service, his gaze would drift to the closed door of the Warm Pavilion.

He was waiting.

Waiting for word that the baby inside had stopped breathing.

Then I would play along with him.

“Physician Xie says the baby’s fever still hasn’t gone down.”

I clutched a handkerchief, my voice trembling.

Pei Cheng’an frowned slightly. “Don’t be anxious, my lady.”

“How can I not be?”

I looked up at him.

“He’s our son.”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Of course he is.”

That “of course” was so faint it was like dust falling on the water.

I lowered my eyes, hiding the cold at the corners of my mouth.

Just then, someone from the Orchid Courtyard arrived.

It was Bixia, the maid beside Lu Wanning.

She knelt outside the door, crying so hard she could barely breathe. She said Miss Lu had suffered another cold attack the night before and vomited blood; she begged her cousin to come see her.

Pei Cheng’an’s expression changed immediately.

He stood up, forgetting even his cloak.

I called after him.

“My lord.”

He turned around.

“The baby is sick. Where are you going?”

He seemed at a loss for words.

After a moment, he explained gently, “Wanning is frail, and there are no elders by her side. I’ll go check on her and come back.”

I nodded.

I even helped him take the cloak from the chair.

“Your cousin’s life is important.”

I said, “Go quickly.”

He clearly breathed a sigh of relief.

As he took the cloak, he even held my hand.

“You’ve always been so understanding.”

As soon as the door closed, Qingque spat in disgust.

“Who needs his praise?”

I soaked my hands in a basin of hot water, slowly washing away the warmth he had left behind.

“He praises me for being understanding because he used to think I’d never expose him.”

Qingque was so angry her eyes reddened.

“My lady, I really want to rush into the Orchid Courtyard and drag those adulterers…”

“Not yet,” I said.

“When you catch an adulterer, catch them both. When you catch a thief, get the evidence. The account books we have still aren’t enough.”

That night, Li, the steward who had come with my dowry, brought me a stack of account books.

He was nearly fifty, and his abacus clicked as quickly as falling rain. In his youth, he had accompanied my father on business trips through thirteen prefectures.

Everyone in the Pei family knew he was someone I had brought from my maiden household, so no one was wary of him.

Steward Li opened a green-covered ledger in front of me.

“My lady, these are the Orchid Courtyard’s medicinal expenses from the last three months.”

I turned two pages.

The list of medicinal ingredients was complete: ginseng, deer antler, snow toad, donkey-hide gelatin—every item expensive.

But one entry, “Nanhua pearl powder,” cost three hundred taels in a single purchase.

Lu Wanning’s frail body was clearly being propped up by mountains of gold and silver.

“Where did this money come from?” I asked.

Steward Li replied, “The marquis’s household fund paid only fifty taels. The remaining two hundred and fifty came from your dowry estates.”

Qingque’s face darkened at once.

“Why does she get to spend my lady’s dowry?”

I kept turning the pages.

It wasn’t only the pearl powder.

Charcoal, medicine, brocade, Lu Wanning’s jewelry—even the rosewood screen in her room—all had been charged to my dowry account.

Each expense bore Pei Cheng’an’s personal seal.

He had used my money to support his cousin.

No wonder Lu Wanning’s delicate health was so elaborately maintained; even her medicine bowl was made of fine white jade.

“Copy every entry,” I said, closing the ledger. “Don’t touch the original.”

Steward Li lowered his voice.

“There’s something else. A few days ago, Fang Cheng went to Miaochun Pharmacy in the western part of the city to pick up two packets of medicine. One of my men followed him and saw him hand one packet to a Daoist.”

“What Daoist?”

“He wore a faded blue robe and was missing part of the little finger on his left hand. He often visits White Cloud Temple outside the city. His name is Yunxu.”

Physician Xie had said the Life-Continuing Guide was a forbidden prescription.

Forbidden prescriptions wouldn’t appear in ordinary pharmacies. The easiest place to hide one would be somewhere people came to burn incense.

I told Steward Li to continue watching him.

Then I took a brush and wrote a letter, asking someone to deliver it to Physician Xie’s residence.

The letter contained only one sentence: