The Culinary Chronicles of the Court Physician: The Disgraced Princess Consumes Poison to Create Medicine
Sleepless nights continued.
The winter moon was transparent. Fei Ling, with her gaze on the moon, was polishing the mortar for grinding medicine.
Pharmacology was a strain on the nerves. Even though she knew adequate sleep was necessary, once Lan Xin had gone and silence returned, thoughts of things she couldn’t do filled her head. The mortar was now perfectly clean, so she began to tidy the medicinal cabinet instead.
“Ah…”
Her fingers slipped, and the box of traditional Chinese herbs fell.
The lid of the box came off, and poisonous fruits, resembling purple beads, rolled out. As she bent to gather them, someone’s foot crushed them. The crushed fruit oozed purple poison.
“I heard the emperor collapsed from a poison epidemic.”
A voice mixed with mockery descended from behind her.
“Zhen… since when were you here?”
She gasped, turning to find Zhen standing there. His dull purple eyes narrowed, filled with toxic disdain. His beautiful features made the malice seem even more intense.
“Are you the one preparing the medicine?”
“I’m a Bai Ze,” she replied.
“Do you think you can do it?”
Zhen scoffed.
His words, knowing how skilled Fei Ling was at preparing medicine, only made his mocking tone more like a curse.
“I heard that the current emperor is the younger brother of the late emperor, but he was born to a concubine, not a queen. It’s said he was born to a low-status wife. If it had been a proper empress, it would have been different, but he was born to a lesser wife. He should never have been able to ascend to the throne. Yet, by executing the broken emperor, he ended up claiming the imperial seat.”
“Are you insulting His Majesty?”
“Insult? Isn’t it the truth?”
Zhen’s tongue was like a storm of poison. Even though she knew not to take his words to heart…
“Your mother must be filled with resentment toward the current emperor.”
The wind was stirred by a fire within. Beneath his green eyes, dark flames burned constantly.
Fei Ling sighed heavily, then deliberately replied calmly.
“Yes. My mother must have resented His Majesty.”
Not just the emperor.
She had hated everything when she lost the one she loved. Even Fei Ling, the daughter of a noble family.
That’s why, knowing that the calamity of poison was about to rage, she took her own life. Like the late emperor, who had been called “Chaos,” the women of Bai Ze died choking on poison at their final moments.
“You don’t hold a grudge?”
“I have to.”
She didn’t lie. Lies were like poison.
“But… there’s also a debt of gratitude to His Majesty.”
With pale lips, Fei Ling spoke the words as though telling herself.
“No matter the reason, my father became chaos and spread poison. Those unjustly executed never ceased. Someone had to stop it. Even if it meant taking my father’s life. It was His Majesty who stopped it.”
She recalled the look in her uncle’s eyes when, in secret, he had confessed, “I don’t like wielding a sword,” smiling bitterly despite being called a coward. He had been a kind man, scratching his cheek awkwardly.
Yet, Emperor Diao had taken up the sword himself, and corrected the late emperor’s cruelty.
“The debt of gratitude far surpasses the grudge.”
It was worth offering her life for.
But Zhen, instead of expressing understanding, looked at her with pity. After a moment of silence, he spoke like the blade of an executioner’s axe.
“—Even if that emperor was the one who poisoned the late emperor?”
A heavy shock hit her. It was like a poison bee piercing her heart.
Her eyes widened as she slowly shook her head. She didn’t scream. Instead, a soft groan slipped from her throat.
“It’s a lie… that can’t be true, because…”
As far as she could remember, Emperor Diao had loved the late emperor. He had even said that he was proud of having such an excellent younger brother.
There was no way he would poison him.
Yet, Zhen didn’t seem to be lying.
“Have you never once doubted the current emperor? A sharp woman like you? Impossible. You must have known. But you didn’t want to think about it.”
Fei Ling tried to think of a way to refute Zhen, but her mind was frozen. No matter what words she found, they became contradictions.
(Ah, I see. Just as Zhen said.)
If anyone could have poisoned the late emperor, it would have been Emperor Diao.
The late emperor had trusted his younger brother with everything.
Fei Ling had suspected it, but until this moment, she had unconsciously locked the idea away, not because she loved the only remaining family member, but because she had to remain a practitioner of medicine.
“If this is the truth…”
She dug her nails into her palm, holding back the burning fury. Her voice trembled slightly, but she forced herself to continue.
“Then why do you know this?”
She confronted him, stepping where no one dared to tread. It was like a sword fight, counterattacking while being wounded.
“You knew, but you’re no mere poison master. You didn’t come to the palace just to assassinate me, did you?”
His poison expertise was extraordinary. It was flawless, the words “divinely ethereal” fitting to describe it.
When Consort Xue Mei was poisoned, other poison masters’ concoctions clashed, and Fei Ling realized the stark difference between their poisons and Zhen’s.
(He must be the descendant of a family of court poison masters.)
Zhen had come to the palace because of a deeper connection.
After the late emperor severed ties with the poison masters, their clan scattered. Zhen’s eyes occasionally reflected a hint of resentment. From the circumstances of how he became a poisoner, it was easy to imagine the hardships his family must have suffered.
(I never intended to look into his origins before. I felt I had no right to know. But we have come this far.)
Fei Ling took out something hidden behind the medicine shelves. It was something entrusted to her by Li Sha, the Spring Consort.
“This belongs to you.”
She presented a jade pendant carved with a qilin symbol.
Zhen’s pupils dilated, and he clicked his tongue softly. He must not have expected it to be in her hands, but his surprise lasted only a moment before he shrugged in resignation.
“There’s no point hiding it anymore. I’ll tell you.”
A fine snow swirled in the wind. The candlelight flickered and trembled in the cold draft. Zhen’s purple eyes glinted slowly.
“You asked if I know of a poison that destroys the soul—The poison the current emperor used on the late emperor was concocted by me.”
Fei Ling was speechless. Her breath hitched, and her gaze wandered.
“To be precise, I was the poison itself.”
“You were the poison? But the late emperor was poisoned with a forbidden poison, not just any human toxin.”
“I taught you how to make human poison.”
It took thirteen years to absorb various poisons, and to process them within the body—this was human poison.
“As soon as the human poison is ready, if you extract blood from the artery, crystals of poison like cinnabar form. It’s called dragon blood, a rare poison. A single fragment can kill tens of thousands, but the true nature of this poison is different.”
Zhen’s voice lowered.
“You poison your own bloodline. It doesn’t matter how distant the relation is. When blood and poison mix, this poison reveals its true power. It devours and destroys the soul.”
“Bloodline… no way.”
The harem was a place where rumors bloomed. Among the rumors, there was talk about the current emperor’s legitimate heir. He was weak and lived in seclusion in a distant palace with his consort, disappearing five years ago. It was whispered that he had likely been assassinated.
“Well deduced.”
Zhen smiled slightly.
“I am the legitimate son of the current emperor, Diao.”
Frozen in shock, Fei Ling dropped the jade pendant from her fingers, and Zhen took it quietly, continuing his story.
The hell of poison he had traversed.
