Daming: Brother, there is no future for monks, let's rebel

"Outside the East Gate, the branch warehouse of Tongyuan Bank."

The deputy official gritted his teeth, "There are two carts that need to leave the city this afternoon to deliver goods to two pharmacies in a neighboring county."

A hush fell over the room. The boy gasped, "If those two carts were also laced with poison, something terrible is going to happen in the neighboring county!"

Zhu Han turned around, lifted his robe, and stood up: "Select men to go to Tongyuanxing."

The stone-paved road in the East Market was not yet completely dry, reflecting a slightly damp glow in the morning light.

The doors of Tongyuan Pharmacy were only half open, and the shop assistants were carrying medicine bags out.

Zhu Han led the yamen runners around the side alley and straight into the backyard.

Lu Baoxing was checking the accounts with the steward when he saw a group of people rushing in. His smile froze for a moment, but he quickly forced it back on: "Your Highness's arrival is truly an honor to our humble abode. May I ask what brings you here?"

"Inspect the goods." Zhu Han walked straight to the two flatbed carts and uncovered the burlap.

The top layer consists of Scutellaria baicalensis and Bupleurum chinense, with bright colors and neat cuts, and a fresh, clean aroma.

Zhu Han didn't move. He moved a package in the corner, pried open the seal, and pinched it with his finger. A bitter smell immediately rose up, mixed with a strange astringency.

He tilted his head slightly, and the boy immediately presented him with a small porcelain dish and some water.

Zhu Han rubbed the powder into the water and gently smeared it. The powder floated differently in the water, sinking and floating unevenly. The veins of the leaves were as fine as hair, which was exactly the shape of the Gelsemium elegans.

Lu Baoxing let out an "Ah!" and forced a smile: "The grass is easily confused, and some may accidentally wander in. I'm willing to return or replace them—"

"Return or exchange?" Zhu Han sneered. "Where are you sending these two truckloads of medicine?"

Lu Baoxing's eyes flashed, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly: "--Fumintang and Puanzhai in the neighboring county."

"Produce the contract," Zhu Han said. Lü Baoxing hesitated for a moment, but still took out a stack of sheets from his sleeve.

Zhu Han took it and glanced at it briefly. The ink on the paper was glossy, but the edges of the stamp were slightly raised. He reached out and gently scraped it with his finger, and a small piece of red clay peeled off like scales.

“A forged seal,” Zhu Han said, throwing the account contract back. “This stamp is not used according to regulations, and the ink is not genuine. You have been dealing with the official granary for many years; you must know this.”

Lu Baoxing's face turned pale, and he ran away.

The constables who had been waiting nearby rushed forward and pinned the man down.

He struggled twice, but seeing that he couldn't break free, he suddenly sighed, knelt down, and kowtowed: "Your Highness, I deserve to die! It was all because my men were greedy and greedy; I was just..."

Before he could finish speaking, Zhu Han raised his hand and pressed down, immediately stopping his voice.

"Don't take the blame for anyone," Zhu Han said. "Have you ever seen someone delivering ink pads?"

Lu Baoxing's Adam's apple bobbed, and his eyes flickered: "He is... a merchant from the prefectural city, surnamed Gu, known as 'Yongtong'. He only appears at night. Every time he comes, he only talks to me in the back room and never puts his name on the books."

“Draw his portrait,” Zhu Han instructed. The boy immediately laid out paper and ground ink. Lü Baoxing painstakingly described the scene, and the boy followed his instructions, sketching a middle-aged man with a short beard on his cheeks and slightly upturned eyes.

Zhu Han looked at it for a moment, nodded to indicate that it should be put away, and then said to the yamen runners: "Seal the warehouse and stop the carriage. Not a single plant or tree in this shipment shall be transported out without being inspected again. Send another team to the neighboring county immediately with my order to temporarily seal the pharmacies of Fumintang and Puanzhai, and inspect the goods. If there are any abnormalities, burn them on the spot."

The moment the order was issued, the atmosphere in the courtyard changed drastically.

The men scattered in panic, and neighbors peered around suspiciously. Zhu Han ignored them and said to Lü Baoxing, "If you behave yourself, you can still live and testify; if you continue to hide, you will be cutting off your own path to survival."

Lu Baoxing kowtowed repeatedly, his lips twitching as if he was about to vomit something.

Just then, a man rushed in through the back door, carrying a small bamboo basket. Seeing the imminent danger in the courtyard, he turned to retreat.

The constables were prepared. They grabbed the bamboo basket, lifted the lid, and inside were sealed packets of "Bupleurum" and "Scutellaria," with dark green powder peeking out from the edges of a few packets.

The man turned pale, knelt down, and cried out his innocence: "I'm just a errand boy! Last night, the customer asked me to deliver it quickly, saying I'd be leaving this morning—"

"What's your surname?" the boy asked.

"They call me 'Ah San,' nobody asks my real name, and my home is in the western suburbs."

Zhu Han pondered for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Did you see what that customer looked like last night?"

"I saw him." Ah San nodded vigorously. "He was wearing a black cloak, had an old scar on the bridge of his nose, and spoke with a Fucheng accent."

The boy immediately understood and handed the portrait to Ah San. Ah San glanced at it a few times and nodded vigorously, "It looks like him, it looks like him!"

"Alright." Zhu Han waved his hand. "Take them to the county government office and interrogate them separately."

He smoothed out the wrinkles in his cuffs and turned to walk towards another car in the yard.

A faded cloth plaque hung beneath the carriage, the words "Yongtong" faintly visible. Zhu Han ran his fingers over it, seemingly understanding something, and asked, "Was this plaque recently put up?"

The driver quickly replied, "The innkeeper asked me to change it last night, saying it looked better."

"Pleasing to the eye?" Zhu Han repeated calmly, his gaze growing colder. "I'm afraid it'll make people recognize him at a glance."

He took the cards off and handed them to the boy: "Keep them safe."

In the afternoon, the county government hall was filled again. The deputy clerk, Lü Baoxing, and A San stood on either side, kneeling upright but still trembling.

Zhu Han had someone bring the account books from Tongyuan Bank and compared them one by one with the official granary's invoices. Many minor discrepancies were found:
Uneven ink on the edges of the numbers, an extra stroke where the silver coins are totaled, blurred red seals... these small flaws, when pieced together, form a dense network.

"Bring the people from the seal workshop here," Zhu Han ordered.

The magistrate left in a panic, and soon returned with a thin-faced engraver whose fingers were stained with vermilion ink.

Upon seeing the scene in the hall, the craftsman knelt down repeatedly, saying, "I'm just an employee, I don't know the inside story."

Zhu Han didn't say much, but told him to press the seal down as instructed, and then compare it with the usual ink paste. The sandiness and viscosity of the ink paste matched the forged seal.

"Where did you get it from?" Zhu Han asked.

“A small shop in the north corner of the East Market, the owner’s surname is Gu.”

"What are you worried about?"

“Gu Bufan.” Beads of sweat rolled down the craftsman’s forehead. “He only sells materials and doesn’t leave his name. I… I often go to get them because I see that his goods are of good quality.”

A hush fell over the hall. The young boy exclaimed, "Your Highness, could this be the customer of 'Yongtong'?"

Zhu Han lowered his eyes: "Perhaps. He's using different names to do the same thing." He raised his gaze, his voice suddenly turning serious, "Since all the clues point to 'Gu,' let's go find him."

The small shop in the north corner of the East Market was extremely ordinary, with the four characters "Stationery and General Merchandise" on the door plaque faded to white.

Upon entering, there was no sandalwood scent, only the smell of ink and paper.

There was no one behind the counter. Several rows of shelves were neatly arranged with seal stones, ink pads, bamboo sticks, and sealing paper. The boy touched one of the ink pads, and his fingers immediately became covered with a layer of sticky granules.

“Sand mixed with tung oil, making it excessively sticky, is exactly what counterfeiters often use.”

Zhu Han said softly, walking around the screen. He saw that the small window in the back hall was half open, and there was a half-dried bill on the windowsill: the heading was "Yongtong", but the footnote was "Gu Shen".

Just as the boy was about to reach for it, he suddenly heard a soft rustling sound from the roof, like a mouse scurrying across the beam.

The constable looked up, but before he could see clearly, a dark figure had already fallen through the cracks in the ceiling, kicked out the light on the wall with its toe, and darted towards the back window.

Zhu Han grabbed a bamboo skewer from the table, his wrist slightly lowered, and the skewer shot out with a "whoosh," embedding itself an inch above the window frame.

The dark figure froze, his right shoulder twitched as if pricked by a needle, but he still managed to force his way out of the window.

"Chase!" the boy shouted, leaping out of the window. The back alley was narrow, with low walls on both sides. The dark figure darted quickly along the walls, the soles of his shoes making a rapid "clattering" sound.

Zhu Han turned out of the doorway, took a shortcut through the alley, and cut a straight line according to the possible landing point of the dark figure.

The dark figure seemed to see someone ahead, and suddenly plummeted down, tumbling into a well in a backyard, grabbing the well rope to try and get up.

The boy rushed closer, swung the rope to lasso the shadowy figure, who was injured on the shoulder. The figure was a beat too slow and ended up with the rope around its left arm.

As the three struggled, the derrick creaked and swayed, the rope tightened, and the dark figure was finally pinned to the ground.

The torch was lit again, illuminating a middle-aged man with a handsome face, slightly upturned eyes, and a familiar, old horizontal scar on the bridge of his nose.

He sneered, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth: "Not bad."

“Gu Shen,” Zhu Han said.

The man raised an eyebrow: "I didn't expect you to use your title so poorly." He swallowed a mouthful of blood, still keeping his back straight, "Since Your Highness has found out, then ask away."

"Where did you get the heartbreak grass?" Zhu Han asked.

“There are plenty in the mountains.” Gu Shen’s smile grew colder. “The farmers don’t recognize them and put them in the pile of Bupleurum. I just pick them out and put them somewhere else.”

Who are you selling it to?

"I'll sell to whoever pays me."

The boy retorted angrily, "Do you know which pharmacy that's meant for? Do you know someone could die?"

"I only do business." Gu Shen's eyes flashed for a moment in the firelight. "You've sealed off the warehouses and the pharmacies, but if people need medicine, they still have to come to me. I'm just a merchant; I can't bear the great crimes you're talking about."

Zhu Han looked at him quietly: "Why did you go back to the shop last night?"

Gu Shen was silent for a moment, then smiled and said, "Clothes up and we'll move to another location."

"Take him away." Zhu Han withdrew his gaze. "Let's go to the county government office first."

As he turned around, his fingertips twitched almost imperceptibly, and the boy carefully collected the "Yongtong" bill along with the bamboo slips on the window frame.

The tip of the bamboo skewer had a thin black thread attached to it, like a strand of hair pulled from inside a garment.

Zhu Han glanced at Gu Shen's shoulder, which had been rubbed by bamboo skewers, and secretly noted the barely visible powder stain.

As night fell again at the county government office, the three men in the court gave conflicting testimonies, but the name "Gu Shen" gradually became clear.

Zhu Han ordered his men to move all the containers from Tongyuan Trading Company into the backyard under the lamp, where he personally sorted and arranged them, with wooden signs indicating: genuine, counterfeit, and suspicious.

The re-examination lasted from evening until midnight, and everyone's clothes were covered in the bitter smell of the medicine powder.

Finally, the last package was opened, revealing clean Bupleurum root with a yellowish cut surface and clear pulse lines.

The county magistrate brought ginger soup and stood trembling in a corner of the hall, not daring to say a word.

Zhu Han took a sip, his gaze still heavy.

He looked at the items on the table: the words "Yongtong" on the license plate, Gu Shen's bill, the peeling ink, and the black thread wrapped around the tip of the bamboo skewer.

The boy leaned closer and whispered, "Your Highness, that black thread looks like a silk thread pulled from a seam of clothing, with a faint medicinal powder on it. I smelled it—it has a strange coolness, not like the heartbreak grass, but more like the fragrance of dried buddleja officinalis."

“Milletia spp.?” Zhu Han was slightly taken aback, his thoughts immediately connecting. “This flower is placed on the same side of the cabinet as Bupleurum chinense. If someone uses pollen to mask the smell, the bitterness of Gelsemium elegans can be slightly reduced, and laymen will not be able to tell the difference.”

"Then Gu Shen will use this as a cover," the boy said, suddenly realizing.

Zhu Han nodded, his eyes growing even colder: "He's not just selling substandard medicine. If he's even prepared inkpads, contracts, and odor-masking tools, there must be someone behind him."

Suddenly, hurried footsteps sounded outside the door.

The constable who had been ordered to go to the neighboring county rushed in, panting, holding a medicine flag that had been scorched by fire.

"Your Highness! We sealed off Fumintang and Puanzhai as ordered, and the goods delivered by both were indeed suspicious—they have already been destroyed in the courtyard. However, in the back alley of Puanzhai, we caught a young man carrying medicine, who was shouting that he was going to deliver the goods to 'Juyi Warehouse'."

"Juyi Granary?" The magistrate was bewildered. The boy reacted even faster: "It's that privately owned granary in the southern suburbs of the prefectural city, which has also been used to store medicinal herbs in recent years. People come and go there, so if you're storing goods there, it's very easy to sell them."

Zhu Han put down the ginger soup and stood up: "No rest tonight. Gather the best men, change to fast horses, and leave the city!"

The magistrate was stunned: "Your Highness, the road is difficult to travel at night—"

"It has to be done, even if it's difficult." Zhu Han's voice wasn't loud, but it sounded like it was hitting iron and stone. "If we drag this out overnight, more than one county will be in trouble tomorrow."

The city gate opened a crack, and the wind cut in like a knife.

The moon was half-swallowed by dark clouds, and only the flickering light of torches danced on the country road.

The sound of horses' hooves scraped the ground, rising and falling in waves.

The boy held the reins, pressed close to Zhu Han's profile, his heart pounding, yet he dared not slow down even a fraction.

In the distance, lights flickered on and off along the field ridges. Someone was driving at night.

Zhu Han tightened the reins, and the horse suddenly snorted.

He raised his hand, and the group fell silent. The torches were covered, and darkness descended, leaving only the panting of horses and the breathing of men.

On the small bridge ahead, the wheels rolled over the wooden planks, making a familiar creaking sound.

"Get on the bridge," Zhu Han whispered. "Flank from both sides."

The constables dispersed, leaped over the low ridges of the fields, and silently approached, stepping through the wet mud.

The flatbed cart slowly made its way onto the bridge, and the driver hunched his shoulders, as if fighting against the cold wind.

Suddenly, a firelight shone from the side, illuminating the driver's face and making him pale.

Figures leaped up from both sides simultaneously, and the knife handles slammed onto the brakes with a thud in the firelight, bringing the wheels to a stop.

"The county government is handling a case!" The boy's voice trailed off in the night.

The driver was startled and was about to jump down and escape, but he missed a step on his trouser leg and fell down with a thud on the edge of the bridge.

The other carriage was still outside the bridge. The driver cursed under his breath and was about to turn around when a dark shadow flashed in front of him. Zhu Han was already standing in front of his horse, his right hand outstretched to stop the horse's head.

The torchlight flickered in the wind, but his expression remained calm to the point of being cold.

“Take off the seal,” he said.

The constables got to work. The first packet was opened; it contained Scutellaria baicalensis. The second packet contained Bupleurum chinense. As soon as the knife tip pried open the hemp rope of the third packet, a delicate fragrance of powder wafted into their nostrils.

The boy leaned closer and sniffed it, his face darkening: "Misty Buddleja pollen."

Zhu Han's eyes flickered: "Push aside the upper layer."

Several rough hands moved down at the same time, prying aside the medicine packet layer by layer.

The bottom few packets contained chopped Gelsemium elegans, mixed with powder, and covered with a layer of Scutellaria baicalensis powder, like a beautiful garment.

The driver sat on the ground, his lips trembling: "I...I was ordered to just take the goods to Juyi Warehouse; someone will pick them up tomorrow morning." (End of Chapter)