The more Bai Suzhen talked with the monk, the more inconsistencies she found. There might truly be more to this affair than met the eye.
"In that case, old monk, let us both stand down," Bai Suzhen said gravely. "Let my husband come home soon, and I will let bygones be bygones."
Fahai recited, "Amitabha," then said to Bai Suzhen, "Very well. But I have not seen Xu Xian. If I encounter him, I will certainly send him back to you."
Neither fully trusted the other, but neither entirely doubted the other either. Amid this uneasy mixture of belief and suspicion, they descended to the ground and went their separate ways to treat the townspeople.
Du Yu had been hiding nearby, watching them all along. Only when there was no longer any sign of a fight did he quietly slip into the backyard and retrieve a poison mushroom from the well.
"Qianqiu, could you find someone to take a look? Where did this mushroom come from?"
Before long, Dong Qianqiu replied, "Du Yu, the Queen Mother of the West says she recognizes this mushroom. It grows on Kunlun Mountain!"
"This mushroom was brought from Kunlun Mountain?" Du Yu frowned. "Then... was Medusa really the one who poisoned them...?"
Could she have done it deliberately? Traveling all that way to Kunlun Mountain to pick poison mushrooms, then dropping them into the well at the Hall of Rejuvenation in Hangzhou? That was far too outrageous.
No, Medusa had not traveled all the way from Hangzhou to Kunlun Mountain.
She had traveled all the way from Greece to China, been forced into a legend without knowing anything about it, and poisoned people along the way?
That motive made absolutely no sense.
In that case, the most likely possibility was...
*Medusa had no idea