Confrontation

Silence filled the infirmary. Everyone stared at the young man standing before the bed, a pill between his fingers, and at his face, which had suddenly gone cold. The unrest and hostility in their gazes inexplicably stalled for a moment. Luo Feng was briefly taken aback, then sneered. "Not your pill? You refined it with your own hands and gave it to Physician Luo Su yourself. Who in the entire residence doesn't know that? Something goes wrong, and you say it isn't yours? Do you take us all for three-year-olds?"

Xiao Yan ignored him, not even sparing him a glance. He looked only at Luo Su. "Where have those five bottles of pills been kept these past few days?"

Luo Su was still somewhat pale, but she quickly calmed herself. "They were all locked in the medicine cabinet behind the infirmary. I'm the only one with a key. Every noon, I took them out myself and fed the pills to the injured with my own hands."

"Who's been behind the infirmary these past three days?"

Luo Su thought for a moment. "Besides me and the other physicians, the servants who deliver medicinal ingredients and meals... and..."

She paused and glanced at Luo Feng, her voice dropping. "Elder Feng came once the day before yesterday. He said he was visiting the injured and brought a steward with him. The steward stayed in the back for a while, saying he was delivering some tonics to the injured on Elder Feng's behalf..."

A low murmur immediately rippled through the crowd. Luo Feng's expression changed slightly, and then he said angrily, "Luo Su, what do you mean by that? Are you saying I poisoned the pills? I, Luo Feng, have been in the Luo God Clan for over a hundred years. Would I do such a thing?"

"You misunderstand, Elder Feng. I'm only naming the people who have been behind the infirmary these past three days." Luo Su lowered her head, her tone neither servile nor overbearing.

Xiao Yan did not look at Luo Feng. He held the pill in his palm and slowly closed his eyes. A wisp of Soul Power slipped quietly from between his brows and gently enveloped it. In his perception, the familiar fire pattern still covered the pill's surface, but beneath it, in the pill's deepest core, something had been added.

It was an exceedingly fine powder, inserted through a tiny hole in the pill's surface using an extraordinarily delicate technique. The powder itself was colorless and odorless, but when washed by the pill's medicinal power, it would turn into a sinister force from the same source as blood baleful Qi. Far from dispelling the blood baleful Qi, it would detonate it completely. And on the powder lingered an extremely faint trace of a dark red, turbid presence with a bloody smell: the presence of the Blood God Clan.

That was not all. At the edge of the hole, Xiao Yan's Soul Power also detected another, even subtler trace: a Spiritual Energy imprint left by someone's fingertips when they had pinched the pill. The imprint was so faint that even the Luo God Clan's finest physician could never have detected it, but Xiao Yan's soul was at the Emperor Realm.

He slowly opened his eyes and swept his gaze over the people in the infirmary and the dense crowd at the door, one by one. Everyone his gaze passed over inexplicably felt a chill shoot up their spine. His gaze was not sharp, yet it seemed able to pierce flesh and see what lay deepest in their hearts. Finally, it settled on a middle-aged steward in a long gray robe behind Luo Feng. The steward stood there with his head lowered, looking utterly unremarkable, but the instant Xiao Yan's gaze fell on him, his body stiffened almost imperceptibly.

"What's your name?" Xiao Yan asked calmly.

The steward was briefly taken aback. Then he raised his head, a respectful smile spreading across his face. "In answer to Mr. Xiao, this humble servant is Luo Ping, a steward in Elder Feng's household."

"Were you the one who came to the infirmary with Elder Feng the day before yesterday?"

"Yes... it was me."

"You went behind the infirmary?"

"This humble servant... I went there once on Elder Feng's orders, to deliver some tonics to the injured..." Luo Ping's smile was still respectful, but a fine sheen of sweat had quietly appeared on his forehead.

Xiao Yan looked at him and asked no more. He simply raised his hand and held the pill out in front of him. "Pinch it."

Luo Ping's expression finally changed. "Mr... Mr. Xiao, what do you mean...?"

"Just pinch it." Xiao Yan's voice was calm, without the slightest ripple. "Your fingertips left an imprint on this pill. I want to compare them."

An uproar broke out in the infirmary. Luo Feng whirled around and stared at the steward behind him, his fat face full of astonishment. The clanspeople in the infirmary who had been echoing Luo Feng fell silent one by one, their gazes darting between Xiao Yan and Luo Ping. The air itself seemed to freeze.

Luo Ping stood rooted to the spot, staring at the pill inches away. His lips trembled, and large beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. He raised his hand halfway, then stopped in midair, unable to bring himself to reach out.

"Go on, pinch it," Xiao Yan said calmly. The instant those words fell, a vicious glint flashed in Luo Ping's eyes. He spun around, Spiritual Energy erupting from his body, and turned into a gray blur as he hurtled toward the infirmary window! The crowd cried out and stumbled back. No one had expected that this steward, who usually kept his head down and bowed and scraped to everyone he met, could move so swiftly.

But fast as he was, someone else was faster. A pale golden thread of fire shot from Xiao Yan's fingertip. Though launched later, it arrived first, wrapping around Luo Ping's ankle just as he was about to crash into the window. The fire was as thin as a strand of silk, but the moment it coiled around him, Luo Ping let out a piercing scream. He fell heavily from the air and slammed into the ground, rolling about as he clutched the ankle bound by the thread of fire. The flame did not burn his flesh, but burned into his meridians, scattering the Spiritual Energy in his body so thoroughly that he could no longer gather it.

A deathly silence descended over the infirmary.

Everyone stared blankly at the steward rolling and screaming on the floor, then at the young man still standing calmly before the bed. Xiao Yan walked slowly over to Luo Ping and crouched down, reaching into his sleeve to pull out a small porcelain bottle. He removed the stopper and tipped it over his palm. A few grains of dark red powder, as fine as dust, fell out, giving off a faint, nauseating smell of blood.

"Blood Erosion Powder." Luo Qing's hoarse voice rang out from the crowd. The chief alchemist stared fixedly at the grains in Xiao Yan's palm, his face ashen. "A secret medicine of the Blood God Clan, made specifically to detonate blood baleful Qi..."

Xiao Yan stood and turned to look at Luo Feng, who was utterly stunned. Luo Feng's face was now completely bloodless. Mouth open, he looked at Luo Ping on the floor, then at Xiao Yan, then at the gazes fixed on him from all around. His whole body trembled.

"No... it wasn't me... I didn't know..." His voice had changed pitch. "Luo Ping... he's followed me for thirty years... I... I didn't know he..."

Xiao Yan looked at him without speaking. His gaze was so calm it bordered on indifference, making Luo Feng's skin crawl until he could barely get his words out. Xiao Yan could tell that the fat elder truly hadn't known. He was stupid, greedy, afraid of trouble, and ready to trim his sails to the wind, but he hadn't known.

Just then, the crowd outside the infirmary suddenly fell silent, then parted to either side like a tide. A gray figure walked slowly in. Luo Tianshen's gaze passed over Luo Ping on the floor, the porcelain bottle in Xiao Yan's hand, and the unconscious Luo Chuan on the bed, before finally settling on Luo Feng's deathly pale face. There was no emotion in his cloudy old eyes.

"Take him away."

He spoke the words calmly, and two members of the Luo Shen Guard stepped forward and dragged the still-screaming Luo Ping out.

"Elder Feng, for failing to keep your subordinate in check, you are stripped of your position as elder and confined to your quarters for three years."

Luo Feng went limp and collapsed to the floor. Luo Tianshen looked at him no longer. He turned to Xiao Yan and fell silent for a moment before slowly saying, "Once again, we've had to trouble you to clean house for the Luo God Clan."

Xiao Yan shook his head and returned to the bed. Looking at the young man who was still unconscious, he said softly, "Luo Chuan's injuries are worse than before. I'll have to refine another batch."

That night, the lights in the pill room burned until morning. This time, Xiao Yan did not refine Fire Pattern Pills. Instead, he added three medicinal ingredients that countered Blood Erosion Powder to the Fire Pattern Pill formula, refined them separately using seven layers of the Yin-Separating Mark, then tempered them layer by layer with the fire of the Flame Mantra. He kept refining until broad daylight before the pills were complete.

By the time the pill was brought to the infirmary, Luo Chuan had awakened. Lying in bed, he had heard Luo Su recount the previous day's events, and his face, so thin it had lost its shape, was full of shame. When he saw Xiao Yan enter, he struggled to sit up. "Mr. Xiao... I... I heard what those people outside were saying yesterday... I didn't believe it... I never believed it..."

Xiao Yan popped the pill into his mouth, cutting him off. "Stay alive first. You can talk about what you believe later."

A red-and-blue light shone inside Luo Chuan's body. The black blood baleful Qi covering half his face receded inch by inch, turning into wisps of blue smoke that dissipated inside the infirmary. Luo Chuan lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling as tears streamed silently down his face.

Outside the infirmary, Luo Tianshen stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the young man inside, who was weary all over yet still wore a calm expression. A faint ripple stirred in his cloudy old eyes.

"The Blood God Clan's hand has reached too far," he murmured to himself. "It seems it's time I had a proper talk with that old thing."