YBTS - 16

The shopkeeper and Xiangcao were talking in the courtyard. Luoyun could hear them clearly, but her head was still heavy, and she couldn’t get up. The shopkeeper was pressing hard, so Xiangcao, after thinking for a moment, volunteered to go to the shop and mix the ingredients for her young lady.

After all, the key to the secret lay in the ingredients and the initial blending technique. The rest could be left to the shop assistants. But after Xiangcao recited it in her mind, she still missed a few things.

Xiangcao knew that these techniques were difficult to remember without practicing a few times. So, she simply wrote the method on a piece of paper, put it in her bosom, and planned to look at it whenever she couldn’t remember.

Before she left, Tian Mama, still worried, reminded Xiangcao to keep the paper formula safe and not let anyone irrelevant see it.

Xiangcao nodded brightly in agreement and then followed the shopkeeper back to the shop.

With Xiangcao watching over things, Luoyun could finally rest and wait for her headache to subside. Xiangcao went for two consecutive days, and each day she would bring back some of the finished products for her young lady to inspect. Fortunately, Xiangcao was meticulous and followed the instructions to the letter, so the final products were not amiss.

But when she came back on this day, Xiangcao seemed exhausted, with a tired look on her face. She fell asleep the moment she returned to her room.

Tian Mama couldn’t help but grumble. Blending perfume wasn’t farming, so why was she so tired?

Luoyun was very fond of her personal maid. She thought that Xiangcao might have gotten sick from exhaustion, so she immediately called a doctor.

The doctor was also an experienced old hand who had traveled all over the country and had seen a lot. After looking at Xiangcao’s symptoms and carefully sniffing her breath, he frowned and said, “Did this girl eat something bad? It looks like... she was poisoned!”

Luoyun was startled. But after the doctor gave Xiangcao a medicine that made her vomit and detoxified her, Xiangcao seemed to get much better. When asked what she had eaten, she said that she had been craving something that day. Before going to the shop, she had a bowl of tofu pudding and some roasted sweet potatoes from a street vendor. Then, when she got to the shop, she had a bowl of sweet syrup. She couldn’t remember anything else for the time being.

The doctor said that it wasn’t a big deal, but she still needed to rest to recover.

Fortunately, Luoyun’s mind had cleared up in the past two days, so she didn’t need Xiangcao to run to the shop anymore.

It was also strange. When Su Luoyun went to the shop again, the shopkeeper smiled, rubbing his hands, and said that no one had ordered the “Faint Pear Fragrance” balm in the past two days and that she didn’t need to trouble herself.

Luoyun didn’t say anything and turned to go buy fabric for Guiyan’s clothes.

But in the next few days, no one from Shouweizhai came to their door again. Luoyun knew that something was definitely going on!

So, she had Tian Mama find an old acquaintance of hers, a woman she was familiar with. After giving her some silver, she asked her to go to Shouweizhai to buy some balm and to also discreetly gather some information.

The old woman was very clever and came back within half an hour.

She said to Tian Mama, “I followed your instructions, my dear sister, and went to order the ‘Faint Pear Fragrance’ balm. But the shop assistant said that the ‘Faint Pear’ balm was no longer being made. But they have a new balm that smells just as good as the ‘Faint Pear Fragrance.’ It also has crushed pearl powder added to it, which is good for the skin and a radiant complexion. It only costs ten percent more.”

With that, she took out a plum-sized porcelain bottle and handed it to Tian Mama.

When Luoyun carefully sniffed the new product, called “Moist Snow Balm,” the scent was identical to her “Faint Pear” balm. It was just a different name for the same thing!

Su Luoyun slowly put down the porcelain bottle and thought for a moment. She then asked Xiangcao, “Did anyone see your formula when you went to the shop to mix the ingredients on those two days?”

Xiangcao was stunned for a moment, and then her face turned pale. She fell to her knees with a thud. “Miss, I... when I went to the shop for the last time, I accidentally fell asleep... Did someone take the formula while I was sleeping?”

Tian Mama, who was listening on the side, was so angry that she almost twisted Xiangcao’s face. “You silly girl! You’re usually so full of energy, so how did you get lazy and fall asleep there? That’s not right... I remember you were sick after you came back that day. Did you eat something bad, which made you fall asleep?”

Xiangcao cried and said, “I... I don’t know either. I never have the habit of sleeping during the day! But that time, I was completely unconscious!”

Luoyun asked for a detailed account of what happened again. When she heard that Xiangcao had fallen asleep after drinking a cup of sweet syrup given to her by the shop assistant, she felt that something was amiss.

Just as Xiangcao herself had said, she never had the habit of being sleepy during the day. Why would she fall into a deep sleep when she was at Shouweizhai, an unfamiliar environment?

And the doctor had said she had food poisoning. Was it related to that cup of sweet syrup?

After Luoyun got the answers she needed, she couldn’t find out anything more, so she went straight to the shop. The shopkeeper was all smiles but claimed with a glare that the new formula was developed by the masters of the shop themselves.

As for Xiangcao falling asleep that day, no one had disturbed her, and who knew why she was sleeping during the day?

Luoyun couldn’t get any information out of this old fox. When she and Tian Mama walked to the corner of the street, a master craftsman named Li from the shop came over. He casually slipped a piece of paper into her hand. Then, he looked left and right, and in a low voice, he said, “I accidentally saw someone put this... in that girl Xiangcao’s water. I still have to make a living at the shop, so please investigate on your own, and don’t ever say that it was me...” and then he walked away.

Luoyun remained calm, and she had a good idea of what was going on. That Master Li had been an apprentice to her late mother when he was young. His family was poor, and her mother had helped him a lot.

Luoyun asked Tian Mama, who told her that what he had just slipped into her hand was a common yellow paper wrap from a pharmacy, usually used to wrap medicine.

But the paper looked like it had been picked out of a slop bucket. The edges were stained with a lot of soup.

Luoyun sniffed it and immediately smelled a medicinal scent on the paper. She asked a pharmacy assistant and found out that it was the scent of monkshood.

If a small amount was used, it could be a painkiller and a paralytic, which doctors used to put patients to sleep to avoid the pain of external injuries. But if too much was used, it would kill a person instantly!

Luoyun thought for a moment and understood. Someone had probably seen Xiangcao take out the paper formula when she was mixing the ingredients. So, they used a despicable method, putting some monkshood in Xiangcao’s sweet syrup to knock her out, and then secretly copied the formula.

The next step was a bait-and-switch. They added a gimmick, pearl powder, to the “Faint Pear Fragrance” balm and then sold it as the new product, “Moist Snow Balm”!

That Master Li also seemed to be in the know. Remembering the kindness of the late Madam Hu, he couldn’t bear to see Madam Hu’s blind daughter being bullied like this. That’s why he picked up the discarded medicine packet from the thief and gave it to her.

Now that she knew about the medicine, it was easy to find out who bought it. The paper that wrapped the medicine had the pharmacy’s seal on it.

Before long, Tian Mama returned with Xiangcao, saying that the errand boy from Ding Shi’s courtyard had bought three coins of monkshood powder.

Su Luoyun couldn’t help but sneer. She and her father had agreed that she would get a twenty percent profit from the new balm. But now that the “Faint Pear Fragrance” was no longer sold, her profit would naturally be gone.

If she wasn’t mistaken, the person who went to such lengths to set this trap was definitely not her father. Although he was good at scheming and didn’t care much for his late wife’s children, he wouldn’t stoop to such a contemptible act.

That left her stepmother, Ding Pei. To push her into a corner, her stepmother had really gone to great lengths!

Thinking this, Su Luoyun’s fists clenched. She said coldly, “Let’s go back to the Su family and get to the bottom of this.”

Xiangcao listened to her young lady’s analysis with her mouth agape. She was so angry that she was trembling all over. She accompanied her young lady back to the residence. Tian Mama, however, was given another task by Luoyun and did not go with them.

They arrived at noon, just in time for lunch. Master Su couldn’t stand the bland food at his office, so he returned to the residence for lunch.

Su Hongmeng was in a good mood today. Hearing that Su Luoyun had returned, he picked up a piece of steamed pork with preserved vegetables and asked her, “Have you eaten? If not, I’ll have a maid get you a bowl and chopsticks.”

Su Luoyun silently suppressed the anger in her heart and sat down at the table. She then asked her father if he knew that the shop was no longer selling the “Faint Pear Fragrance” balm.

Su Hongmeng really didn’t know.

He had been given a major task in the past few days. Every spring, the Office of Trade and Exchange had to select and buy a year’s worth of spices for the palace. Besides the usual formulas, the new nobles in the palace also had their own requests, which needed to be recorded and adjusted.

Su Hongmeng, who had just taken on the new task, was overwhelmed and had handed over all matters concerning Shouweizhai to Ding Shi.

After his daughter’s question, he turned to Ding Pei, who was serving soup to Su Luoyun. “What’s wrong? Is the new fragrance not selling well?”

Ding Pei handed the bowl of soup to Luoyun and said with a smile, “I was just about to tell you about this. It’s like this: Master Xiao at the shop was inspired by the ‘Faint Pear Fragrance’ balm and created a new balm. Because it smells even better than the ‘Faint Pear’ balm, all the noblewomen from the various residences have chosen to buy this ‘Moist Snow Balm.’ As for the balm that Luoyun made, its price is too high and it’s in a strange middle ground, so no one buys it. So, to save on materials, the shop decided to remove the ‘Faint Pear Fragrance’ balm.”

Xiangcao had been tricked, and she had lost the formula that her young lady had so painstakingly developed. She was already filled with guilt and indignation. Now, hearing Ding Pei’s sanctimonious words, she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She said angrily, “You’re joking, Madam! What new balm? It’s clearly just our young lady’s formula with some crushed pearl powder added! Before, the master craftsmen couldn’t figure out our young lady’s method, but then I fell asleep in the shop with the formula, and suddenly, the master craftsmen’s minds were enlightened? It was all because someone put medicine in my water and then stole the formula...”

“Nonsense!” Ding Pei slammed her chopsticks down heavily and scolded Xiangcao loudly. “What kind of demonic talk is that! Shouweizhai is a spice shop, not some kind of dark establishment that robs people! You were lazy and fell asleep, so why are you accusing people of putting medicine in your drink! Besides, that formula isn’t some kind of magical elixir for eternal life. Why couldn’t the skilled craftsmen in the shop figure it out? You silly girl, you must think that since you’re living alone with the young lady, you don’t need to respect me, the mistress of the house!”

Ding Pei’s voice was usually gentle and soft. At this moment, she was so angry that her voice trembled, making her seem pitiful.

Su Hongmeng’s heart ached for her. He glared at Xiangcao. “A servant shouting at the dining table! How did your young lady teach you!”

Xiangcao knew she had been impulsive. She wiped her tears and knelt down.

But Luoyun placed two porcelain bottles in front of her father and said calmly, “Father, you’re an expert in spices. Please, smell these and tell me what the difference is between these two balms?”

Su Hongmeng was full of anger. He picked up the two porcelain bottles and sniffed them. When he did, he realized... there was no difference at all.

The anger on his face lessened a little. If the scents were similar, it was possible that the master craftsmen had developed it themselves. But for the scents to be so identical, it could only mean that the blending technique was exactly the same.