Unparalleled medical and martial arts skills, saving the CEO's fiancée at the start.

Three days after Shen Bo'an left, Ye Chen took the bronze medal out of the drawer.

He was busy with the security department's quarterly assessment for those few days, and the bronze medal was out of his mind.

That evening, Jiang Ruoxi worked overtime and didn't come home. After eating dinner alone, he sat in his study with nothing to do, so he took out the bronze plaque and examined it carefully.

The card was small, about the size of a palm, with a shiny copper surface, but the edges were somewhat blackened, as if it had been touched for many years.

The character "合" is carved in the center, with thick and powerful strokes, clearly the work of an old craftsman.

Ye Chen examined it several times and suddenly noticed a very fine seam on the edge of the bronze plaque.

He thought it was a crack that had formed over time, but when he looked at it under the light, the crack was straight and even, unlike a natural crack.

He gently tried to pry around the seam with his fingertip, but couldn't get it open.

After trying a few more times, I found a tiny dent next to the seam, as if something had poked it.

Ye Chen went to the kitchen, grabbed a toothpick, and gently poked the indentation.

With a click, the bronze plaque split in two.

It's empty inside.

When the two sides are folded together, they can fit a tiny piece of paper.

The paper was yellowed and brittle. Ye Chen used tweezers to slowly unfold it and placed it under the lamp.

The paper was written in tiny, neat characters, and the words "Heji Pharmacy Joint Venture Agreement" were written on the top of the paper.

Further down is a partnership agreement from the Republican era, which contains the terms of Anhetang and Yaowanggu's joint venture to open a pharmacy.

But the more Ye Chen looked at it, the more he felt something was wrong, because there was a line of small writing on the side of the contract. The handwriting was different from the main text, much more messy, as if it had been added later.

The small print reads: "The Shen family guards the shop, the Ye family guards the territory. As long as the territory exists, the people live; if the territory is lost, the shop perishes. If the two families meet again, they can use the plaque as proof and open a general register."

Ye Chen flipped the paper over and over three times to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

He carefully tucked the piece of paper into a thick book and took the two halves of the bronze plaque to the medicine shop.

Su Qinghan was flipping through an old book under the lamp when she saw Ye Chen come in and looked up.

Ye Chen placed the bronze medal and the piece of paper in front of her and explained the whole story.

Su Qinghan put down the book, first looked at the piece of paper, then picked up the two halves of the bronze plaque and compared them, and then took out a tiny silver key from her medicine box.

"What master register?" Ye Chen asked.

Su Qinghan inserted the key into a hidden hole at the seam of the copper plate and turned it gently.

The two halves of the bronze plaque snapped back together perfectly, without a trace of ever having been separated.

"Your grandmaster's notes mentioned that when Anhetang and Yaowang Valley separated, their account books were also divided. Anhetang took the cash flow account, and Yaowang Valley took the prescription account. But there was also a master book that recorded all the income and expenditure and secret recipes during the period when the two companies were in partnership. Whoever has this master book can prove that the two companies were originally one family."

Ye Chen asked, "Where is the master register?"

Su Qinghan put the bronze plaque back on the table and said, "The master book is not here with me. Your grandmaster wrote it very vaguely, only saying 'the master book is hidden in Heji.' I have been thinking about it for so many years and always thought it was hidden at the old site of Heji Pharmacy, but the old site is long gone."

She paused, looked at the bronze plaque, and said, "Now it seems that perhaps there's something else that Shen Bo'an hasn't handed over in his half of the plaque."

Ye Chen called Shen Jingqiu.

After listening, Shen Jingqiu remained silent for a while before saying, "After Grandpa went back, did he hand over all the affairs of Anhetang to me? He just sits in the yard sunbathing every day and doesn't manage things much anymore. He didn't mention the bronze medal to me."

Ye Chen said, "Ask him, there's no rush, maybe he forgot."

Shen Jingqiu said okay and hung up the phone.

The next day at noon, Shen Jingqiu returned the call.

After hearing this, Grandpa thought about it for a long time, and then asked her to take an iron box down from the beam of the old house.

Inside the box was an older piece of paper with a hand-drawn map on it.

Shen Bo'an said that it was a map of the backyard of the former site of Anhetang, which his grandfather drew for him back then.

The diagram shows a circle drawn at the southwest corner of the main house's foundation, with the character "合" (meaning "together") written next to it.

Shen Jingqiu took a picture and sent it over.

Ye Chen and Su Qinghan stared at the phone screen for a long time, both feeling that the circled area almost overlapped with the wall behind the Anhetang medicine cabinet.

Su Qinghan said, "The complete register is probably still in the southern part of the city, buried under the foundation of Anhetang."

Ye Chen said, "Then we should go take a look."

The next day, Ye Chen told Jiang Ruoxi about it.

After listening, Jiang Ruoxi said, "I'll go with you."

Ye Chen asked, "Can you leave your company?"

Jiang Ruoxi said, "It'll only be two or three days. Xiao Zhou can handle it."

The two packed their bags that night and drove south early the next morning.

On the way, Ye Chen called Shen Jingqiu and asked her to prepare the old map and find a sturdy shovel.

It was already evening when we arrived in the south of the city.

The alleyway is still the same, except that the locust trees at the entrance of the alley have started to shed their leaves.

Shen Bo'an was sitting in the courtyard when he saw Ye Chen and Jiang Ruoxi come in. He nodded and said, "You're here. Did Jingqiu give you the drawings?"

Ye Chen said he had given it to him.

Shen Bo'an said, "My grandfather said back then that the master register was in Heji Pharmacy. I thought he meant Heji Pharmacy, but I didn't expect it to be Heji Pharmacy's nameplate. Did you bring the nameplate back?"

Ye Chen took the restored bronze plaque from his pocket and placed it on the stone table.

Shen Bo'an picked it up, looked at it, and then put it back.

He said, "Then dig it up, but be careful not to damage the medicine cabinet."

The next morning, Ye Chen and Shen Jingqiu moved the medicine shelf behind the medicine cabinet.

That wall was made of old blue bricks and plastered with white lime on the outside, so it looked no different from the other walls.

Ye Chen gently dug along the baseboard with a shovel, but after digging less than a foot deep, he encountered a hard object.

He squatted down and used his hands to remove the loose soil, revealing a flat iron box.

The iron box was small, about the same size as the bronze plaque, and was covered in rust, but the bronze lock on the lid was still intact.

Shen Bo'an walked over with his cane, glanced at it, took out a small key from his pocket, and handed it to Shen Jingqiu.

Shen Jingqiu inserted the key into the lock and gently turned it; the lock opened.

Inside the box was a thin booklet with the words "Heji General Booklet" written on the cover.

Ye Chen took out the booklet and opened it to the first page.

The record above shows the transaction details from the opening day of Heji Pharmacy. The handwriting is extremely neat, and the ink is still clear.

Turning the page reveals records of medicinal materials coming in and out during the partnership, secret recipes, and several annotations on processing methods.

Turning to the last page, there is a line of text, written in a more illegible hand than the previous ones. It reads: "The Ye and Shen families will both benefit from unity and both suffer from separation. May future generations see this book and know that the two families were originally one family. Written by Mr. Ye at Heji Pharmacy in the 26th year of the Republic of China."

Ye Chen closed the booklet and handed it to Shen Bo'an.

Shen Bo'an turned to the last page and looked at it for a long time.

His hands trembled slightly, but he was smiling.

He said, "My grandfather wasn't lying to me; the master register really is there."

Su Qinghan took the booklet from Ye Chen, flipped through a few pages and said, "The processing methods recorded in this booklet are missing from many of the Medicine King Valley's manuscripts. I need to make a copy and bring it back to the valley."

Shen Bo'an said, "It should be confiscated. These are items from both companies; one copy for you and one copy for Anhetang."

Ye Chen nodded.

That night, Ye Chen and Jiang Ruoxi stayed in the backyard of Anhetang.

Jiang Ruoxi leaned against the headboard and said, "I never expected that there were so many things hidden inside that bronze plaque."

Ye Chen said, "I never expected that Grandpa Shen would give me the bronze medal. Maybe he was just waiting for this day."

Jiang Ruoxi said, "He has waited for so many years, and he has finally handed over everything he was supposed to hand over."

Ye Chen turned off the light and lay down.

A breeze was blowing outside the window, rustling the leaves of the locust tree at the alley entrance.

He recalled what Shen Bo'an had said: "As long as people are still alive, we can see them every year."

He thought, things are the same.

As long as people are still looking, the things won't be lost.