Over the next ten-odd days, twenty children were tested each day. By then, several hundred children had been dragged into the wooden huts to test the medicine.
Only a handful passed. If one or two out of ten made it through, that was considered a good result. Those who failed either died or were poisoned and driven out of the estate. Only the children who passed were kept in the Herb Gathering Hall.
The remaining three or four dozen children who had not yet been tested were still in the little courtyard.
Every evening, the children were given a bowl of thin porridge and a few steamed buns. Ye Qin was among them. He had managed to dodge the tests for more than ten days, putting them off until now. He had eaten so much thin porridge and so many buns that he could no longer taste them. Every day, he racked his brains for ways to stall and come up with a plan to pass the test.
Nearly all the children who remained were clever, and just as good at dodging as Ye Qin.
That day, a commoner child from the county town tricked Ye Qin and shoved him to the ground. A brocade-clad youth seized him like a chick and carried him up to the platform. In front of Grand Steward Zhang, he was made to press his thumbprint onto the death contract, then tossed into a wooden hut.
The hut was not large. It held only a table, two stools, and a middle-aged man in a blue robe. A wooden tray sat on the table, holding exactly one hundred different herbs. Beside it stood a large incense burner, its bottom dusted with the ashes of many burned incense sticks.
The middle-aged man sat on a stool, watching him coldly.
"Boy, you should know the rules for testing medicine, so I won't waste time explaining them. Pick an herb and eat it. After you finish one, wait the time it takes an incense stick to burn, then eat another. Keep going until you've eaten at least nine. If you're poisoned before you reach nine, don't expect this pharmacist to save you. You'll be driven straight out of the estate. If you eat nine or more without being poisoned, you'll belong to the Herb Gathering Hall."
Ye Qin immediately recognized the man in blue robes. He was none other than Herbalist Wang, whom Ye Qin had seen at the entrance to the Herb Gathering Hall. Ye Qin was shocked. He hadn't expected this man to supervise the test himself. Anger and fear churned in his heart as he gingerly perched on the edge of a stool, staring at the herbs on the table.
His thoughts were already in a complete tangle.
Of the one hundred herbs here, fifty were poisonous—fully half. Thirty were ordinary, nonpoisonous herbs. The remaining twenty were antidotes.
Any herb he picked at random had a fifty percent chance of being poisonous.
Unless he could recognize which herbs were poisonous and which weren't.
But how could he recognize these strange, unfamiliar herbs?
If he accidentally ate a poisonous herb, he would either die on the spot and be left in the wilderness, or be driven out of the estate for poisoning. He couldn't afford treatment at a county-town clinic or apothecary.
A wave of desolation and sorrow welled up inside Ye Qin.
Da Niu hadn't even managed to enter the Herb Gathering Hall. Because of his injured leg, Herbalist Wang had thrown him out, leaving him to wander the county town, his fate unknown.
Now Ye Qin had entered the Herb Gathering Hall, but he was facing a life-or-death trial—and death was still close at hand.
In his grief and anger, Ye Qin gradually forgot his fear and instead calmed down, fixing his gaze on the herbs in the tray.
He wasn't entirely ignorant about herbs.
He was the son of an ordinary country hunter. When he was only eight or nine, he had followed his father into the mountains to help hunt. Over three years, he had gone deep into the forests at least a dozen times, staying there for more than ten days at a time, sometimes even a month or two. When they were hungry in the woods, they dug up wild vegetables to eat. If they got scraped or cut, they would find herbs that could stop the bleeding and apply them to the wound.
His father had hoped he would become a hunter too, learning a trade that could keep him fed, so he had taught him to recognize a few herbs. If not for this year's severe drought and the scarcity of game in the mountains, Ye Qin would probably still be in the countryside, living as a little hunter.
Ye Qin widened his eyes and studied the hundred or so herbs in the tray, carefully distinguishing them. A few matched the herbs his father had taught him to recognize, but so much time had passed that he had forgotten some of them.
Ye Qin racked his brains, recalling herbs he had tasted before. To his surprise, he recognized several as antidotes he had once eaten. He picked out the three antidotes he had tried before and placed them near himself.
Herbalist Wang took an incense stick, set it in the burner on the table, and lit it. Then he watched Ye Qin coldly without urging him on.
After Ye Qin picked out the herbs he had eaten before, he barely recognized anything left. He hesitated, then began sorting the remaining herbs. He didn't recognize most of them, but he knew a little basic lore.
The colorful herbs in the old forests, the brightly hued ones, those with pungent or fishy odors, and those that stank foully were more likely to be poisonous. Also, mushrooms were the most poisonous things in deep forests, and they killed the fastest. Never eat one you don't recognize.
Ye Qin carefully nudged two or three dozen herbs with bright colors, foul or fishy smells—including several mushrooms—far away from himself, whether they were poisonous or not, just to be safe.
He still couldn't be sure that the sixty or seventy herbs left were all harmless. Some herbs in the old forests were deadly even without any smell or color. Desperately recalling the herbs he had seen before, he picked out the ordinary, nonpoisonous ones he vaguely recognized.
Herbalist Wang was a little surprised.
Over the past ten-odd days, he had supervised no fewer than thirty or forty children taking the test. Many of them had closed their eyes, picked an herb, and shoved it into their mouths, leaving their lives to fate. A few knew something about herbs, but they only chose ones they had seen before and avoided the unfamiliar ones.
It was rare to see a boy like this one choosing so carefully, sorting poisonous herbs, antidotes, and ordinary nonpoisonous herbs into separate groups. He had misidentified a great many of them, but that was probably because he didn't recognize the herbs, not because his method of sorting was wrong. It was proof enough that his wits were above average, unlike those of ordinary children.
Herbalist Wang was quietly pleased.
On the surface, the Herb Gathering Hall's "medicine test" seemed to measure whether a child could recognize herbs, but what it truly tested was courage, intelligence, and composure. It tested whether someone could face life and death with courage, whether they were foolish or clever, and whether they could keep a clear, steady head after eating a poisonous herb, being poisoned, and finding themselves in a desperate, life-or-death predicament.
Herb gatherers often had to venture alone into extremely dangerous places to collect precious herbs. In those isolated places where death lurked at every turn, no one else could help them. Recognizing herbs was certainly important, but intelligence and composure mattered even more. If they couldn't stay calm, then even if they could identify herbs, panicking in a desperate situation would still lead to death.
Any child taking the test who showed even one of these qualities—courage, intelligence, or composure—could be admitted by special exception, even if they hadn't eaten ten herbs.
As for those who shoved herbs into their mouths indiscriminately, treated their lives as worthless, and relied on luck to pass—or those who mentally collapsed after accidentally eating a poisonous herb—they were all eliminated outright. Even if such children entered the Herb Gathering Hall, they would only end up dead sooner or later.
After a quarter of an hour, Ye Qin had picked three antidotes and four ordinary herbs out of the hundred. He was fairly confident that eating these seven would not poison him.
But he still needed two more to reach nine.
Sweat began to bead on Ye Qin's forehead.
If even one of those two herbs was deadly poisonous, it would be enough to cost him his life.
"Your time's almost up. Eat one now!"
Herbalist Wang's cold voice suddenly rang out as he pointed at the incense burner.
Ye Qin looked up at it in surprise. So the incense was used to keep time. Without realizing it, the stick in the burner had nearly burned down and was about to go out.
He had no choice but to pick up an ordinary herb he had already identified and stuff it into his mouth. A flicker of fear stirred in his heart as he prayed he hadn't mistaken it for a harmless herb.
As soon as Ye Qin ate an herb, Herbalist Wang took out a second incense stick and lit it in the burner.
With smoke curling through the air, Ye Qin was forced to eat another herb every time an incense stick burned down.
Time passed bit by bit.
In the blink of an eye, five incense sticks had burned down. Ye Qin had eaten four ordinary herbs and one antidote, with two antidotes still in his hand. But his anxiety grew, because he still hadn't managed to pick out any other nonpoisonous herbs from the large pile that he was confident enough to eat.
Ye Qin panicked.
What should he do?
At that moment, Ye Qin suddenly froze, staring at the two antidotes in his hand.
He remembered something. Grand Steward Zhang had once said that if he ate fifty to seventy herbs, he could become a direct disciple of the vice hall master.
But Grand Steward Zhang had also clearly said there were fifty poisonous herbs here, and that they would cause poisoning. So how could anyone eat seventy herbs and survive?
A thought struck Ye Qin. Could poisonous herbs be edible too? The twenty antidotes here could cure the poison from twenty poisonous herbs, bringing the total to seventy! Yes, that had to be it. Otherwise, no one could eat seventy herbs without dying.
He shifted his gaze to the poisonous herbs he had pushed far away.
Ye Qin recognized the two antidotes in his hand, so of course he recognized the poisonous herbs they corresponded to. Poisonous herbs and antidotes came in pairs. You had to recognize the poisonous herb before you could treat it with the matching antidote.
What use was it to recognize an antidote on its own?
Ye Qin immediately reached out and brought over those two poisonous herbs. They were common poisonous plants found in the countryside, and their poison was not particularly potent. Livestock sometimes ate them while grazing and fell sick from the poison. People would be poisoned by eating them too.
Herbalist Wang was slightly moved, and regarded Ye Qin with a meaningful look.
Exactly nine herbs.
Using an antidote to neutralize a poisonous herb was allowed.
One more herb would bring him to ten, the minimum required to enter the Herb Gathering Hall and become a Herb Gathering Apprentice.
Whether that final herb was poisonous or not no longer mattered; the Herb Gathering Hall would treat him either way.
After that, each additional herb he ate would earn him better treatment in the Herb Gathering Hall.
During this medicine test, Ye Qin ate eleven herbs in total. He was poisoned on the eleventh, but couldn't find the matching antidote among the herbs. Pharmacist Wang stopped the test and treated him.
Herbalist Wang said coldly, "Well done. From now on, you're a registered Herb Gathering Apprentice of the Herb Gathering Hall, and my disciple. Once the other apprentices finish their tests tomorrow, you and the others who passed will train under me."
"Yes!"
Ye Qin carefully concealed his hatred for Herbalist Wang, obediently answering and nodding before leaving the wooden hut.
After all, he was just a boy in his early teens from a hunter's family. He had only just crossed the gates of death to enter the Herb Gathering Hall and become a Herb Gathering Apprentice. Herbalist Wang, on the other hand, held a lofty position. Ye Qin could tell as much from the respect the gate guards and brocade-clad youths showed him. There was no way Ye Qin could pose even the slightest threat to Herbalist Wang.
If he let even a hint of hatred show, he would only be courting death. It would do nothing to win justice for Da Niu.
When Ye Qin walked out of the wooden hut, he felt as if water had been poured over him; he was drenched from head to toe, and his legs felt weak and unsteady. He felt no joy at all. He only wanted to find somewhere to sleep at once, recovering the strength and mental energy he had spent over the past few hours.
A proud young woman in brocade led him to a courtyard where he could rest.
The next child waiting to take the test was seized by the brocade-clad youths and sent into the wooden hut where Pharmacist Wang was waiting, screaming in terror.
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