Panacea

"Chu Hengkong, enough already..."

Across the table, the wind howled. Ji Huaishu covered her face with a sigh. Her skin was facing the greatest challenge it had endured since the day she was born.

This was an ordinary noodle shop found everywhere, with old facilities and a down-to-earth atmosphere. It had stayed open this long solely on cheap prices and the cook's skill. The place was usually filled with cheerful chatter and horsing around, but today, from the chef to the customers, everyone sat silent as cicadas in winter. Not a single person dared lift their chopsticks. More than a dozen pairs of eyes were fixed on the seat across from Ji Huaishu.

Chu Hengkong held chopsticks in his right hand and bent over his noodles, while the tentacle on his left arm swung back and forth like it was batting a ball. Every movement sent the extended tentacle whipping in a full circle around the shop. From above, it looked exactly like a silver electric fan. Everyone looked terrified. Few people could stay calm when fan blades might sweep across their scalp at any moment.

The few remaining hairs on the owner's head swayed miserably in the wind kicked up by the tentacle. Trembling, he asked, "What decree does the Divine Envoy have for us?"

"No decree... he's gone crazy..." Ji Huaishu said weakly.

Then the spinning tentacle snapped with a crisp smack. Chu Hengkong suddenly looked up, a strand of pickled vegetable still hanging from the corner of his mouth. "I've got it!"

Everyone in the shop jolted. A timid customer leaped up with his bowl in his hands, looking ready to flee for dear life. Ji Huaishu practically wanted to burrow into a crack in the floor. Seeing their reaction, Chu Hengkong came to his senses and tossed the owner a large Flow Pearl. "Sorry for disturbing everyone. I'm paying for the whole place today. Keep the change."

The crowd's frightened expressions immediately changed. They all praised the Divine Envoy for his compassionate heart and beautiful tentacles, then shouted for another bowl. The owner happily headed into the kitchen. A large bowl of noodles cost seven Flow Pearls, while that single pearl was worth a thousand. With such generous spending, forget making an electric fan—he would have gladly let himself be whipped a few times.

Ji Huaishu raised her head in despair. "You used to be the kind of person who shouted, 'I'm paying for everyone in the bar tonight!' and then took the lead in drunkenly losing your mind, weren't you?!"

"No. I used to clean up after other people lost their minds drunk by paying the bill." Chu Hengkong corrected her seriously. "I rarely drank. Being drunk affected my judgment."

"You already look pretty wasted right now."

"I'm very clear-headed. Mr. Ji was extremely wise back then."

Those two seemingly unrelated sentences were Chu Hengkong's genuine thoughts. Ever since seeing Ji Huaishu swing her sword, he had been pondering the details of that move. It had taken him a full half-day to finally grasp the trick. Compared to before, this was already lightning-fast progress, but if it had been when he had just broken through Skillful Hands, he would not even have needed half a minute.

Only after returning to normal could he understand how precious that burst of inspiration during his advancement had been. Learning Three Thousand Sets within those three days had been the most correct decision he had made since coming to Dragon's Return City.

Chu Hengkong mourned the inspiration he had lost while lowering his head to finish the noodles. They were a little cold, but they still tasted good. The black noodles were made from coarse flour and plant roots, served with chicken slices, assorted pickles, and a spoonful of chili oil. One bowl was enough to make a person feel refreshed from head to toe.

"I didn't expect the swamp to grow chili peppers."

"This is Dragon's Return City's granary. The moment you step outside, exotic species cover the ground. Other than large livestock, it has everything." Ji Huaishu sucked on her chopsticks, her face full of longing. "Once the city returns to order, we'll have the conditions to raise pigs, cattle, and sheep..."

Chu Hengkong popped her fantasy bubble. "That's assuming there are still live piglets in the city."

"I hope there are." Ji Huaishu said viciously. "If there aren't, you're coming out of the city with me to steal pigs!"

"Keep it down. The spies at the door are laughing."

Ji Huaishu turned toward the entrance and made a face. A young man who had been peeking inside fled in panic. She turned back with a snort. "There are eyes and ears everywhere! Like lowering our voices would do any good."

Ji Huaishu was absolutely right. The enemy's surveillance had become brazen enough to be out in the open. The diners in the restaurant across the street, the vendor selling squid by the roadside, the old man drinking tea in the teahouse... Chu Hengkong spotted three spies with a single sweep of his eyes. It was not hard to imagine that even more were lying in wait like hunters beside a tree stump, waiting for rabbits. If the tentacle electric fan had not caused such a commotion just now, the spies might have slipped directly into the shop to watch them.

He drained the noodle soup and said casually, "Write up a wanted notice and arrest Adali."

There was nothing to doubt. Only the All-Spirits Society's Great Shaman had the resources to deploy human-wave tactics in the swamp. Grandma Sang Jia had been assassinated only that morning, so Adali had to be behind it. Ji Huaishu was tempted too. She lifted her chopsticks several times, but ultimately put them down.

"That won't work."

"Why not?"

"Religious rule is also a distorted kind of order." Ji Huaishu said. "The last time I came to the swamp, I didn't smash the All-Spirits Society because Grandma Sang Jia was a decent person. More importantly, if the All-Spirits Society fell, the swamp would descend into utter chaos. Life is hard for those at the bottom. Even if they believe blindly, people still need something to hold onto spiritually. That old man has immense prestige in the swamp. I'm worried that killing him outright would cause a riot."

"Old man?" Chu Hengkong caught that wording.

"He's nearly sixty this year!" Ji Huaishu said with disgust. "Either he borrowed a demon's power, or he used some terrible drug. In any case, it can't be anything good."

Sixty years old... An old man turned demon-wise, immensely prestigious, and an intelligent "cornerstone." The swamp's foundations should be quite solid. They could not count on him making a mistake on his own.

There were too many people here. If riots threw the place into chaos, Dragon's Return City's overall order would inevitably fall, and Dragon's Return's divine power would decline along with it... In the worst-case scenario, the Healing Temple might become unusable. And if they sent a large force into the swamp to suppress it, the Central District would be left undefended, leaving them vulnerable to enemies before and behind...

The more Chu Hengkong thought about it, the more his head hurt. "I understand why you didn't want to come to the swamp."

"I told you we should have dealt with the club first!" Ji Huaishu sighed. "Come on, come on. Let's get to work."

As they left, Chu Hengkong heard murmured discussions, as if they were deliberately speaking for him to hear.

"That inspector murdered Great Shaman Alex..." "Those tentacles were stolen." "He isn't a child of God." "That man ruined the divine descent ritual." "Sure enough, he and the Doom Knight are birds of a feather..."

He merely smiled and followed the plan toward the wet tea shop.

So-called "wet tea" was a specialty of the Jade Marsh District. The swamp was damp and filled with venomous insects, so epidemics naturally ran rampant. When Dragon's Return City had first been built, there had been no Healing Temple, and the swamp's epidemics had given the City Lord's Manor endless headaches.

Fortunately, risks and opportunities existed side by side in the swamp. The immigrants had brought the customs and beliefs of their homelands, as well as their native medicinal herbs. Seeds from all over the world took root and sprouted in the swamp. The abundance of medicinal materials here would make every physician beam with delight. Jingzang the Great Scholar had been the first to recognize this. He personally went into the swamp to investigate, teaching people to boil medicinal herbs together with tea leaves into a medicinal brew that dispelled dampness and expelled toxins. This tea had saved the swamp during the epidemic of those years, and the people had been profoundly grateful to Jingzang the Great Scholar. Thus, this healing wet tea had spread far and wide.

Nowadays, every major settlement in the swamp had famous wet tea shops. It was said that each possessed a secret recipe never shared with outsiders. The first one the two visited was Harmony Hall. The shop was located in a bustling district. Though it had only opened that morning, customers were already waiting outside. A burly gray-skinned clerk took Flow Pearls from the customers and handed back chilled tea broth in wooden bowls.

Chu Hengkong lined up and bought a bowl. As he took the tea, he asked, "I'd like to get a prescription. Is the doctor here?"

The gray-skinned clerk did not even raise his head. "You're lucky today. Hurry inside. The doctor will be heading out to gather herbs soon."

Chu Hengkong thanked him, lifted the door curtain, and entered the shop. A wave of herbal fragrance washed over him. The wet tea shop looked much like a traditional Chinese medicine store from the last century. Various herbs were stored in a large wooden cabinet according to their labels, while the doctor, whose head resembled that of a rhinoceros beetle, was packing a small backpack.

The doctor's two tiny eyes were as small as soybeans, and his insect-like face had a kindly air. "Have a seat and tell me. What illness do you have?"

Chu Hengkong smiled back. "I'm not sick. A friend wants to open a tea shop in the Central District and asked me to find out which prescriptions sell best."

The insect doctor laughed when he heard that. "Your friend really is an amateur! The Central District and the swamp have different climates, different constitutions among their residents, different races. No matter how good a prescription is, how can it simply be copied wholesale?"

Ji Huaishu had put her raincoat back on, and her voice became eerie. "Merchants have fallen into a money hole and can't climb out. We're only asking for him. Passing the message along will fulfill our obligation."

"See the one in your hand?" The insect doctor tilted his horn toward Chu Hengkong. Chu Hengkong took a sip of wet tea. The broth was cool and refreshing, with a hint of sweetness hidden beneath the herbal flavor. It beat the heat and quenched thirst.

"It tastes pretty good."

"Then that's the one selling best." The insect doctor said. "No matter what kind of shop it is, Panacea sells best."

"This is called Panacea?" Chu Hengkong froze. "Is this the formula personally passed down by Jingzang the Great Scholar?"

"Don't laugh! You youngsters don't understand. This really is a genuine Panacea. Even if someone has been bitten by a snake and is about to drop dead after taking a few steps, one bowl can pull them back from death on the spot. Back then, it saved countless lives." The insect doctor looked grave. His tone then fell. "But the more it was used, the less effective it became, so now it can only be drunk as a refreshing tea broth... Sigh, no one can explain why..."

The insect doctor sighed repeatedly, slung his little bag over his back, and went out. Chu Hengkong saw him walking east and could not help feeling puzzled.

To the east of Deeproot Settlement was the little path they had taken on bicycles, surrounded by wild grass and dead trees. Yet from the higher ground of the settlement, they could see dense jungle and hills blooming with flowers to the west. That small hill was almost the only bright color in the area. There was no need to think about it—rare herbs and exotic plants should grow amid fertile forests, not in wasteland.

"Doctor, aren't you going the wrong way?" Chu Hengkong asked.

"I wouldn't dare go the right way!" The insect doctor sneered. "You really are people from the Central District. You don't even understand the swamp's rules."

Chu Hengkong was baffled. Just as he was about to press further, Ji Huaishu tugged at the corner of his clothes.

"That's Adali's private land." Ji Huaishu said coldly. "After sidelining Grandma Sang Jia, he claimed all the swamp's fertile fields as his own. He used entirely reasonable and legal methods, and paid the appropriate price... But by the time people realized what had happened, they had nowhere left to gather herbs. Now ninety percent of the swamp's medicinal herbs are Adali's private property. When people pay exorbitant prices for medicine, they still have to praise the Great Shaman's compassionate heart."

Chu Hengkong vaguely saw a worm-like line on the small hill. It should have been the people struggling up the mountain to seek medicine. The line was gray-black, full of rags and filthy clothes, while the few tiny specks atop the hill were pure white: the gold-trimmed white robes of priests. Amid the flowers blooming across the mountaintop, the bronze-colored spire of a church emerged. Perhaps at that very moment, the Great Shaman was sitting in that church, calculating how much oil he could squeeze from the poor people's thin bones.

"If I'd known, I would have killed him the first time we met," Chu Hengkong said.

"If you dared make a move, the people would willingly act as his meat shields." Ji Huaishu said flatly. "I tried."

They returned to Harmony Hall, intending to buy several more prescriptions from the young apprentices. When they got back, they found that the line for Panacea had grown even longer, and hope shone in the people's eyes. The gray-skinned clerk had grown tired of ladling tea and shouted impatiently, "If someone at home has Light Poison, don't waste your effort! This is just tea for relieving summer heat. It can't save lives!"

The hope in people's eyes dimmed at those words. Some left, but nearly half remained in line. Several old shaman women mingled among the crowd, wagging their tongues at those buying medicine and urging them to pray to the gods instead. One middle-aged woman hesitated, saying that sick people still needed medicine, didn't they? Her grandfather had said that this medicine had saved his life back then... The old shaman woman loudly declared that her grandfather was muddled with age. Could she believe an old man's words? Old people even said Dragon's Return was miraculous—when had she ever seen it show its power? The Great Scholar and Dragon God were all frauds. If she came to pray with them, at least she would gain some peace of mind!

So the middle-aged woman was persuaded, and several more people left the line. The gray-skinned clerk was especially pleased to see the shorter queue, because he could finally slack off.

Ji Huaishu saw the old shaman woman's swaggering look and silently clenched her fists. Chu Hengkong patted her hand and told her not to argue with fools.

They followed the plan to the next wet tea shop. Deeproot Settlement was not as crowded as they had imagined. Unease and anxiety hid beneath the plain faces of the passing residents. Their robes were dull gray. Perhaps they had once been colorful, but after living in the swamp for so long, they had all turned the same shade of gray. More people hid behind doors and windows, lying in their beds. Chu Hengkong could hear their labored breathing and see the ominous glow spilling through the cracks in their doors.

Deeproot Settlement had more Glowing Corpses than Bountiful Settlement, yet the people here trusted neither doctors nor the authorities. They were failures who could no longer survive in the Central District, wanderers who had drifted here from distant Dust Island. Their trust had long been ground away by repeated misfortune and war. But people had to believe in something to live in this world. Unable to believe in others or themselves, they hesitantly followed the crowd and placed their faith in illusory gods.

For the rest of the day, they visited every major wet tea shop in Deeproot Settlement, buying all kinds of folk remedies from doctors and apprentices. It was not until late at night that they returned to their base to rest. The beds here were sticky too, and the air conditioner roared like a helicopter, making it hard to sleep soundly.

"Let's take turns keeping watch." Chu Hengkong suggested. "I'll go first. I'll wake you at two-thirty."

"Three!"

Chu Hengkong cooperatively gave way. The extra half hour of rest improved the blonde girl's mood a little. She plunged onto the bed, buried her face deep in the pillow, and made a muffled sound. "Every time I come to the swamp, I feel like..."

"Sort out what matters most. We're here to find gold. There's no use overthinking it."

"I know." After a while, Ji Huaishu finally said in a muffled voice, "I know."

After washing up briefly, the blonde girl fell asleep. She slept sweetly even in this environment—she truly had a big heart. Chu Hengkong thought for a while, then called the watchman over to the door of their room.

"What is it, Inspector!" The young watchman was nervous.

"Let everyone know to sleep in their gear tonight." Chu Hengkong stuffed several Flow Pearls into his hand. "Overtime pay. Thanks for your hard work."

The young watchman grew even more nervous. He put away the Flow Pearls and hurried downstairs. Chu Hengkong returned to the bed and sat cross-legged in meditation, listening to the occasional sound of his partner grinding her teeth.

Ji Huaishu did not sleep very well. In her dream, she kept feeling that someone was following her. When she turned around, she found an old, ugly octopus. Its mud-stained tentacles wriggled toward her, coiling around her. Every tentacle held a person, leaving her nowhere to strike.

Then she was suddenly shaken awake. The old octopus's face turned into Chu Hengkong's. She blinked blankly. "...Wasn't it three?"

"Control your emotions." Chu Hengkong said gravely. "We're retreating."

She turned her head in confusion and saw scarlet firelight shining through the window.