AN LING QI (安泠岐)

  Day 26, 4th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Shuishang Province, Huadu Sect

  This might work.

  The result of several hours’ work between Chun Li, Chen Yahui, and myself now sat in my palm: a pill the size of a thumbnail. I turned it over once, inspecting the sheen. A prototype. It was designed to suppress the early stages of the disease, by reduced the burning sensation, stabilising the pulse and breath.

  But it failed to prevent death. Every test subject had perished by the third stage. Without exception, they bit through their own tongues before spinal failure occurred.

  The last time I’d seen something this deadly had been when An Furong was still here.

  When she’d been the court alchemist of the Lian Dynasty.

  In our last trial, we tried to restrain the subject’s jaw. They had screamed and wailed like a ghost, until their spine violently twisted and cracked. When we approached seconds later, the crown of their skull was flush against their lower back, spine broken in three places. Frost had begun to form across their brow.

  I pressed a cork into a phial and placed it carefully on the table. The liquid inside was a pale pink and yellow, faintly staining the glass. The isolated sample. It looked harmless.

  “Is that it?” Chen Yahui asked.

  I glanced at her, then at the phial. The pathogen appeared delicate, almost decorative. No one would have suspected it could shut down the central nervous system within days.

  This was the stage I disliked most: human testing. To synthesise a working cure, we needed someone infected. Otherwise, efficacy was impossible to determine. Logically, that person should be me.

  I was the physician.

  I moved to take the phial.

  Chen Yahui snatched it and drank.

  By the time my hand reached her wrist, it was too late.

  She held up one hand to signal calm, the other pressed two fingers against her pulse. “Good. My heart rate is stable. Lingqi, can you—”

  She collapsed.

  I caught her and guided her onto the bed. Her pulse was detectable but elevated. “We don’t have a cure yet,” I said.

  Her fingers tightened around mine and drew them toward her chest. She looked at me directly. Her irises were brown with flecks of ochre. “This is the only way. We don’t know enough about it. Only if I’m the subject can we understand the full pathology.”

  “There are victims in every district. You weren’t necessary,” I said flatly. “I could’ve done it.”

  “Most die too quickly. There’s not enough time to monitor the full progression. And your blood resists all poisons. Only I can be the tester, ever since Li—” Her sentence cut off with a sharp cough.

  I retrieved the water jug and lifted it to her mouth. She drank.

  Her logic was flawed. A slower death was not guaranteed even for those with a high cultivation level.

  She coughed into her hands, hacking like an old man. Blood leaked between her fingers. She smiled.

  “Don’t waste time. You’ll figure it out. You always do.” She rolled onto her side, convulsing lightly.

  This was premature. The plan had been to complete the formula first, then consider internal testing. Not this.

  An Lingqi, listen to me. Are you listening, child? Don’t cry. Don’t smile. Don’t scream. Don’t laugh. If you do, we die. I’m not playing. I’ve never played with you.

  What a bad time to remember her. I exhaled.

  I pressed two fingers against her neck again. The texture beneath my touch had changed. A thin wetness coated her skin. Blood or sweat? I drew back and examined her neck. Neither. Early welts were beginning to form. I rechecked her pulse. Her body was nearing the second stage.

  Why was the disease progressing faster than usual?

  The fever was climbing. Lung oedema would be next.

  I prepared the half-made cure and spoon-fed it to her in measured doses. By the fifth, her temperature stabilised. Sweat stopped forming. Respiration continued within a tolerable range.

  A small success. One variable had worked. It would need refinement.

  I sat back on my heels. There were inconsistencies in the timeline. Most patients experienced a five-moon progression. But Chen Yahui’s symptoms advanced within hours.

  That indicated variability between hosts.

  I stood and crossed the room to the document wall. Thousands of patient records, ordered by date. I sought the ones that showed rapid-onset fatalities.

  Previously, I had assumed individuals that passed sooner had weaker bodies, a lower cultivation level.

  But Chen Yahui was neither weak nor average. She was a high-tier cultivator with centuries of martial and spiritual resistance. Her collapse discredited the earlier assumption.

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  I pulled down the first folder. Then the next. Then a third.

  It was going to be a long night.

  ***

  Daybreak signalled the transition into morning. Most of the candles had burned down to stubs; the remaining few clung to their wicks by threadbare strands. I had isolated four additional files that matched the progression pattern, but they offered no conclusive link. Their ages varied. Their genders were inconsistent. Their cultivation levels showed no correlation. I scanned through the observation logs, searching for a variable, just some factor that distinguished them from the broader sample pool. If I did not find it in time, Chen Yahui’s case would become terminal.

  I stopped on the demographic profile section. All four patients originated from Mingyun Prefecture.

  That had not been noted earlier.

  Chen Yahui was the current head of the Yuyan Sect. The sect was based in Mingyun.

  I set the sheet aside. The geographical commonality was statistically significant. But the mechanism remained unclear.

  What was it about individuals from Mingyun Prefecture that increased susceptibility?

  Chen Yahui groaned faintly. I moved to check her pulse. It had weakened. “I'm really an idiot,” she said.

  “Don’t speak. We still have work.”

  I withdrew a yin-based ointment from my satchel. Her skin had fully erupted in welts—reddened, blistered nodes centered around the joints and the neck, characteristic of the disease's second stage. The third stage was approaching. Historically, most patients at this point terminated themselves before organ failure could set in.

  I wiped her brow with a damp cloth. Her skin was fevered, but her expression had slackened.

  What distinguishes your body from the others?

  She murmured, “It’s cold.”

  That detail mattered.

  We had designed the prototype cure based on the assumption that the second stage was yang-dominant: fever, inflammation, erratic pulse. They were all markers of heat. But if the core pathogen was yin in origin, and was then refined through a stabilising flame, the external heat symptoms could mask an internal yin-natured source.

  This inversion would explain Mingyun Prefecture’s anomaly. The local population was known for balanced primordial constitutions: equal yin and yang essence. Such balance could inadvertently provide optimal conditions for the disease’s dormant cold root to activate.

  But this was only my conjecture. Dual-natured diseases were rare and engineering one would require a human incubator.

  Not impossible, but improbable.

  This would be much easier if Su Tang were here.

  báilián would solve this problem.

  Or perhaps not. Making her grow that now would only stunt her recovery process. I won’t have time to manage her if she gets sicker.

  Chen Yahui shifted. “Ling, what are you thinking?” Her voice was hoarse, strained. Her eyes were swollen, her skin broken at the surface.

  “I’m confirming a variable.”

  She moved her hand and let it fall over mine. “It’s okay.”

  That phrase implied finality. Her condition was degrading, and with it, time to act.

  I had never felt attachment to her teachings. Nor to her personality. But it would be a waste for her die so easily.

  If the disease needed a human vessel, the cure needed one too.

  I evaluated the remaining doses. We didn’t have many left. If the next trial failed, the sample would be spent. But what good was half a cure? Statistically, partial treatment yielded no survival outcomes.

  I took the pills and swallowed them.

  There was no benefit in hesitation.

  ***

  It was near mid-afternoon when I completed refining the remainder of the cure in my body. I made a superficial incision across my palm and collected the blood into a ceramic bowl. The sensation was negligible, likely dulled by adrenal response, low body temperature, or extended sleep deprivation. The blood slid from my palm as if I were pouring wine.

  My dulled senses awoke to screaming.

  Chen Yahui had entered the third stage.

  I cupped the bowl and brought it to her bedside.

  She convulsed uncontrollably, jaw clenched tight, limbs twisting in erratic patterns. I restrained her by the shoulders. Her body spasmed against the pressure, her head thrashing side to side. I pressed the bowl to her mouth.

  She resisted. Her teeth would not part. Her nails raked down my arm and tore open my skin. I suppressed the impulse to react and forced the bowl again to her lips. The liquid smeared over her face, leaking from her mouth, staining her jawline and throat. Her hair was matted with sweat and pooled against the pillow in tangled strands. Simultaneously hot and cold, she trembled beneath soaked rags and shredded robes. I wished that no one would ever see her like this.

  I immobilised her with a binding spell, then tied her wrists with twine. She continued to thrash, pulling until her skin broke and red lines seeped down her arms.

  “Drink,” I said.

  I managed to force half the contents down her throat.

  When her resistance ceased, I released the restraints and slumped beside the bed. In the mirror, I observed my appearance. My face was streaked with blood; my clothing, stained and rumpled, resembled the attire of a butcher. I sealed the lacerations on my arm with a spell; healing was incomplete, but haemostasis was achieved.

  Chen Yahui lay motionless.

  I reached for her wrist. No pulse. Only the residual thudding of my own circulation. I leaned over her mouth. No breath.

  I seized her shoulders and shook her. “Get up. Chen Yahui, do not give up now.” We were close. Not when we we're so close. Not when I'm this close.

  An Lingqi, listen to me. Are you listening, child? Don’t cry. Don’t smile. Don’t scream. Don’t laugh. If you do, we die. I’m not playing. I’ve never played with you.

  A learned protocol. One I had obeyed. Perhaps too well. What was the point of suppressing everything? To survive?

  They all die. Everyone leaves me.

  A red tear emerged from the corner of Chen Yahui’s eye. It slid down her cheek, collecting at the tip of her nose before falling. Her body had entered the final phase: exsanguination through ocular capillaries, systemic shutdown. A vessel emptied of spirit.

  This, I thought, is what crying looks like. A physiological release. Possibly desperation.

  I took one step backward. I thought I could do it. I thought—

  Chen Yahui sat up.

  “Phew,” she muttered, voice hoarse. “Rough situation for an oldie like me.”

  Her face was damp with sweat, streaked with blood, her garments torn past modesty. Despite this, her eyes—rimmed in red—held a sharp lucidity. “See, Lingqi? It worked.”

  I stepped back further, pressing my injured hand against my chest. It had worked.

  I experienced a sequence of physiological reactions: heart palpitations, shallow breathing, heat rising to the surface of my skin. All signs consistent with emotional catharsis.

  But no expression followed. I heard myself say: “I see.”

  It was the same when Xiao Wu died. Memories existed. Pain registered. Vocal cords strained from suppressed grief. But no tears emerged. Perhaps it had never been that woman’s command that stifled me. Perhaps it was me.

  Chen Yahui raised an eyebrow, then released a sound that fell somewhere between laughter and fatigue. She kept laughing, intermittent bursts through ragged breath. A cycle of exhalation and tremor. Her dishevelled hair clung to her bloodied temples. Her appearance was grotesque, almost unrecognisable.

  She looked like a monster.

  But I was the real one.