flstandardbreds Chapter 170 The Teamwork Breaks the Formidable Enemy
Chapter 170 The Teamwork Breaks the Formidable Enemy
The team members worked together to defeat the formidable enemy.
Before the midnight drumbeat had even faded, Su Yunlan's silver needle had already pierced the window paper.
A needle, as fine as a cow's hair, picked up half a piece of indigo silk, which gleamed eerily with phosphorescence in the moonlight. "Snow silkworm silk quenched with red-chain snake venom." She dipped the silver needle into the wolfberry soup; the blood droplet instantly turned into ice shards and sank to the bottom. "Zhao's really gone all out this time."
Xiao Yuhan fastened the newly forged black iron wrist guard to her wrist, twenty-eight antidote pills embedded in the metal's dark patterns: "The mud in the stone lion's paw print is Qingzhou red clay, unique to the pottery kilns in the west of the city."
Their eyes met in the mist, and the copper bells on the eaves suddenly moved without any wind.
Su Yunlan's purse trembled slightly, and the glass bottle containing the medicine powder glowed spontaneously—this was her improved warning device, which would light up if there was malicious spying within a hundred meters.
"They're here." She divided the detoxifying soup she had prepared into bamboo tubes. As her crimson skirt swept across the threshold, the scorched marks on the twin lotus blossoms happened to cover the newly dug ditch at the base of the wall.
As dawn broke, the area in front of the inn was already covered with gold-flecked paper.
"Yunlai Inn poisoned a passing caravan!" Zhang, the waiter, rushed into the kitchen clutching a flyer, his rough knuckles stained with ink. "This picture is of the earthenware pot we use to brew medicine!"
Cook Sun slammed her cleaver on the cutting board, causing the freshly made jade shrimp dumplings in the steamer to bounce all at once: "Manager Zhao sent someone to buy ten catties of arsenic last night, just to throw this kind of dirty water around!"
Su Yunlan stroked the gilded patterns along the edge of the leaflets, then suddenly threw the entire stack of papers into the medicine furnace.
Flames shot up three feet into the air, condensing into the eagle totem of Zhao's Trading Company. "A mere trifle," she said, crushing a piece of salt and tossing it into the fire. The smoke instantly transformed into a shower of golden dust. "Uncle Zhang, please take two clever assistants and lift the eight-treasure glazed well cover under the locust tree in the East Market."
As the sun climbed above the eaves, the whole city was talking about the strange story of Yunlai Inn—anyone who approached the door with a flyer would have their gold-flecked paper spontaneously combust to ashes, yet their clothes would remain undamaged.
Even more mischievous children chased and played with flyers, and the wisps of smoke from the burning flyers drew pictures of the inn's newly launched medicinal cuisine menu in mid-air.
"This is the fourth lady's specially made phosphorescent ink," Zhang, the shop assistant, demonstrated to the onlookers, wiping his sweat as he placed the sample jade shrimp dumplings on the flyer. "Any one that gets even a speck of oil will immediately reveal its true nature!"
The crowd erupted in gasps of amazement.
Blood-red characters gradually appeared on the paper that the shrimp dumplings had touched, clearly stating the evidence of Zhao's Trading Company's embezzlement of the craftsmen's money.
The woman carrying the vegetable basket was the first to react, grabbing the crystal pork jelly from the tasting plate and pressing it onto the flyer.
Xiao Yuhan hid behind the carved window on the second floor, watching Su Yunlan distribute the last tube of detoxifying soup to the coughing old man.
The young lady's golden phoenix hairpin was slightly tilted, and at some point a string of jade-carved zodiac bells was tied to the end of the hairpin, which played clear and melodious Buddhist music as she poured soup.
"Fourth Brother, look!" The Twenty-First Young Master suddenly tugged at his sleeve.
Following the boy's fingertips, a figure hurriedly retreated into the darkness through the diamond-shaped window on the second floor of Zhao's Inn—the edge of the person's right boot was clearly stained with specks of Qingzhou red clay.
As dusk fell, a long queue had formed in front of the inn.
Chef Sun's newly prepared medicinal eight-treasure duck was bubbling in the iron pot, its rich aroma of angelica and astragalus wafting through three streets and alleys.
Zhang, the shop assistant, led his workers through the crowd, distributing ginger tea to waiting customers to ward off the cold.
A young boy tiptoed to reach for the sample plate, but his father pressed his head down and made him bow to Su Yunlan, pleading, "Please, Your Excellency, take this boy's pulse; he has a cough that his mother had since birth..."
"It's alright." Su Yunlan lightly touched the child's tiger's mouth with a silver needle, and the miniature detector hidden in her sleeve flashed green. "Tomorrow, send two doses of loquat syrup to the back alley, in a green bamboo tube."
When the night watchman struck the first watch gong, the stone lions in front of the inn suddenly made a crisp sound.
Xiao Yuhan drew his sword three inches from its sheath, only to see the iron ball in the lion's mouth spontaneously crack open, rolling out twenty-eight jade zodiac animals wrapped in oiled paper—the very same ornaments that had been replaced.
"Manager Zhao just sent someone to deliver these." Shopkeeper Zhang scratched his head, unwrapping the oil paper. Each jade carving contained a gold seed embedded within. "He said they were being returned to their rightful owner."
Su Yunlan used a silver hairpin to pry open the golden melon seed; the poison hidden inside dissolved upon contact with the wind.
She gazed at the lanterns of the inn across the street that had suddenly gone out, a faint smile curving her lips: "Aunt Sun, could you please make a pot of mung bean soup and send it to Manager Zhao? Tell him that Yunlai Inn is congratulating him on his newly installed gilded plaque."
As night deepened, Xiao Yuhan's hand, which was wiping his sword, suddenly paused.
The copper bells on the eaves swayed gently, reflecting the bustling scene downstairs: Zhang, the shop assistant, was teaching the helpers how to water the newly transplanted Xiangfei bamboo with detoxifying soup; the twenty-first young master was chasing a stray cat that was stealing honey with a pestle; and the cook, Sun, was secretly stuffing the leftover scraps from the tasting into plump medicinal dumplings and giving them to a beggar huddled against the wall.
Moonlight streamed over Su Yunlan's newly tailored moon-white skirt, and the scorch marks on the twin lotus blossoms had somehow spread into a vine-like pattern, perfectly framing the faintly glowing purse at her waist.
Xiao Yuhan's sword tassel brushed against the tender leaves of the newly sprouted Xiangfei bamboo, and the moonlight shattered into shimmering waves on the black iron sword.
He looked at the people playing in the corridor, and his cold and stern eyebrows softened with a touch of warmth. Zhang, the waiter, was pulling on the apron tie of the cook Sun to learn how to tie plum blossom knots. The twenty-first young master stood on one leg on the stone steps with a medicine pestle on his head. Even the usually timid fire maid dared to secretly sprinkle licorice powder into the old man's tea bowl.
"It's even more lively than the great victory in the northern frontier." Before he finished speaking, the golden phoenix hairpin in Su Yunlan's hair suddenly trembled slightly.
The jade bells rang out a series of Buddhist chants, startling the bronze bells on the eaves, which responded with frosty ripples.
The two of them looked at the newly transplanted Podocarpus macrophyllus in the southwest corner at the same time, and saw that the night dew on the branches was condensing into ice beads at an eerie speed.
Su Yunlan's fingertips brushed against the purse at her waist, the vibrations of the miniature detector inside causing her pupils to shrink slightly: "Are the jade ornaments that Manager Zhao sent today all buried at the Bagua array's core in the backyard?"
"According to your directions, it was sealed with three layers of Qingzhou red clay." Xiao Yuhan lightly tapped the pillar with the hilt of his sword, causing a few ice crystals to fall. "But just now, when the mung bean soup was delivered, Manager Zhao was burning incense and praying before the gilded plaque."
The words suddenly caught in his throat.
Suddenly, fireflies appeared in formation on the southwestern horizon, their flickering lights forming half a poem, "Po Zhen Zi".
Su Yunlan's black iron wristband emitted a buzzing sound, and twenty-eight antidote pills simultaneously burst forth with emerald light, melting the ice beads that drifted to the eaves into green smoke.
At this moment, in the secret room on the top floor of Zhao's Inn, Manager Zhao was slamming his purple brush onto the yellow talisman.
Vermilion splattered onto the tattered scroll of *Qimin Yaoshu*, perfectly obscuring the three characters "Baicaoshuang" (Hundred Herbs Frost). "Prepare a fast horse!" He tore off the five-emperor coins from his neck and threw them at the kneeling waiter. "Bring that gilded Medicine Buddha statue from the Qingzhou kiln, the one that's been soaked in arsenic!"
The window was suddenly blown open by the night wind, and the jade Pixiu paperweight on the desk rolled to the ground.
Manager Zhao bent down to pick it up, only to see an indigo blue thread emerging from the crack in the blue bricks—it was the red-chain snake venom thread that Su Yunlan had burned the night before.
The silk thread, as if alive, wrapped around his thumb and, illuminated by the candlelight, coalesced into a grotesque character for "sacrifice".
At 3:45 AM, a strange medicinal aroma wafted from the kitchen of Yunlai Inn.
Su Yunlan pressed the newly made antidote pill into the osmanthus sugar filling, when she suddenly heard a faint popping sound coming from her purse.
The monitoring map automatically recorded in the unfolded space shows the red dot representing Zhao's Inn flashing in the trajectory of the Big Dipper.
She picked up a grain of glutinous rice, wrapped it around the medicinal powder, and looked at the star patterns that appeared on the sugar coating under the moonlight.
"Fourth Madam!" Zhang, the shopkeeper, burst through the wooden gate, carrying a dripping earthenware jar in his arms. "The Xiangfei bamboo root drawn from the well is covered with ice crystals!" He held a section of bamboo in his rough palm, the inner wall of which was densely inlaid with gold foil talismans, which, under the moonlight, formed half a distorted human face.
Xiao Yuhan's sword pierced the talisman, and the exploding gold dust condensed in the air into a one-eyed crow.
Suddenly, the crow's beak opened, spitting out a piece of charred sandalwood—the very fragment of the offering table that Manager Zhao had used for burning incense this morning.
Su Yunlan's silver needle shot out swiftly from her wrist, pinning the crow to the third crossbeam of the medicine drying rack. The jade bell attached to the needle's end instantly turned blood red.
"Aunt Sun, please steam some mugwort buns." She suddenly turned and instructed, the golden phoenix hairpin in her hair casting a double shadow on the window paper. "Make sure to mix in 30% sorghum flour and use the first batch of yeast from Li's Distillery in the south of the city for fermentation."
The twenty-first young master, carrying a pestle, approached, a few specks of honey on his nose: "Fourth sister-in-law, are you making a hangover soup?"
“It’s the Dream-Awakening Soup.” Su Yunlan swept the crow’s afterimage into the medicine furnace, watching the green smoke condense into the eaves and brackets of Zhao’s Inn. “Someone wants to use the art of nightmare suppression to reverse the universe, so we will use the method of harmonizing the five flavors to break his yin and yang.” She lightly tapped the monitoring chart with her fingertip, and the red dot of the Big Dipper suddenly shifted, coinciding with the direction of the intertwined branches pattern on the purse.
Xiao Yuhan suddenly placed his sword horizontally in front of the medicine furnace, the blade reflecting the flickering lanterns of the inn across the street.
The candlelight, which should have been extinguished, now glowed with an indigo blue, projecting the words "Zhao Ji" onto the stone lions in front of the Yunlai Inn.
As the light and shadow swept across the iron ball in the lion's mouth, the jade zodiac animal spontaneously began to rotate.
"They're here." Su Yunlan pressed the burning pouch at her waist; the red dots on the monitoring graph had connected to form the shape of a poisoned crossbow.
She placed the last Osmanthus Detoxification Pill into Xiao Yuhan's palm, and the fluorescence in the glass bottle suddenly surged, drawing a complete defensive array diagram under their feet.
As the water clock ticked, a baby suddenly cried out in the night.
When Chef Sun lifted the lid of the steamer, the steam from the mugwort buns condensed in the air into the handprint of the Medicine Buddha.
Zhang, the waiter, carried a copper kettle to refill the night watchman's teacup, the angle of the spout perfectly cutting off the afterimage of the one-eyed raven.
The twenty-first young master chased the stray cat and leaped onto the roof beam. The tile smashed by the pestle perfectly completed the last stroke of the array diagram.
Xiao Yuhan's sword tassel brushed against Su Yunlan's wrist guard, and twenty-eight antidote pills lit up simultaneously.
They gazed at the crimson halo of the moon on the horizon and heard the soft clicking of gears meshing in their spatial pouches—the automatic calculation of weather data for the next seven days.