Chapter 4: The Better Pill

At noon on the fourth day, Hall Chief Kuang Shiyuan came up the mountain with a jade box.

The Sect Master walked behind him, leaning on a cane.

Two apprentices carried a silk-covered tray.

Zhiyi was sitting on the stone floor of the Thunder Hall with her back against the tiger, eating dumplings.

Lei Juehan was on the bed in a clean robe, with a bowl of the same dumplings balanced on one knee.

He had made her eat first, and he had not said why.

"War God," said Kuang Shiyuan, bowing from the waist. "Sect Master. The Hundred Herbs Hall is proud to offer the Nine-Yang Pill."

He opened the box.

Inside lay a golden pill the size of a plum, wrapped in a gleam of its own.

"One dose gives back the strength of three nights," he said.

"No fever, no waiting for midnight. The War God would be on his feet by tomorrow."

Juehan looked at the pill.

Then he looked at Zhiyi, and she put down her dumpling.

"May I taste it first, Hall Chief?" she said. "A crumb. I eat what I hand over."

"A junior's tongue is hardly a measure," said Kuang Shiyuan, smiling.

"Let her," said the Sect Master wearily.

Kuang Shiyuan's smile held for exactly one breath too long.

Then he broke off the smallest corner and set it on her palm himself, with his beautiful fingers.

Zhiyi put it on her tongue.

It was sweet.

It was sweet, and warm, and a moment later the inside of her mouth stopped feeling anything at all.

She pressed her tongue to her teeth and felt nothing.

She spat the crumb into her handkerchief and held it up.

"Silent orchid," she said. "It's a numbing herb."

The apprentices looked at the floor.

"Take it for three nights, and the War God stops feeling the thunder," she went on, in her plain dosage voice.

"The burn doesn't stop. It spreads under the numbness. On the tenth night he stands up from his bed and his heart quits."

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