Inside the isolated courtyard, the Go match dragged on with no end in sight, and the heavy air was beginning to wear down what little patience Xiahou Yuan had left.
He stretched his thick neck and stared at the wooden board, where black and white stones had formed a complicated pattern that probably made perfect sense to someone with the patience to study it.
Xiahou Yuan gave it two seconds of serious consideration before deciding that Go was the most boring thing he had encountered since becoming a prisoner.
He rolled his shoulders, stretched his hips, and casually began wandering toward the compound wall.
Zhang He noticed immediately.
He pinched a Go stone between his fingers and stopped halfway through placing it on the board. His expression carried the exhausted resignation of a man who had already dealt with this exact problem once before.
"General Xiahou. I was the one who had to shovel up the dung the locals threw over that wall last time."
Xiahou Yuan stopped in his tracks. A guilty flush spread up his neck as he turned around and gave Zhang He an innocent smile.
"Hey, Junyi. You know I was only going for a walk. Just a simple walk."
"Toward the wall, you mean?"
"The scenery is very good over there."
Zhang He stared at him without saying a word.
"Alright, alright." Xiahou Yuan slumped back toward the board. "Today we just play Go until we vomit."
The truth was that their current predicament had several possible explanations.
Perhaps Cao Cao's soldiers had behaved too brutally during their previous occupation of Chang'an. Perhaps Xiahou Yuan had simply unlocked a new skill during battle, that of shouting increasingly creative insults at Liu Bei. Perhaps the local civilians had brothers, sons, or fathers who had died fighting Cao Cao's army.
Whatever the reason, the people of Chang'an had decided that their group of prisoners deserved absolutely no courtesy at all.
Unfortunately, the civilians could not enter the courtyard, while Xiahou Yuan could not leave it. Once they realized they could not properly vent their anger through ordinary means, they came up with a remarkably practical alternative.
They threw dried chunks of dung over the wall.
The walled courtyard had armed guards stationed outside, so the civilians could not climb in, and Xiahou Yuan could not climb out. This left its wall as a perfectly safe firing position and General Xiahou as a perfectly convenient target.
The only person who truly suffered from this arrangement was Zhang He.
Every time the locals finished their little bombardment, he was the one who had to pinch his nose, grab a shovel, and clean up the battlefield.
And Zhang He had no choice.
The hierarchy inside this small courtyard made that painfully clear.
Xiahou Yuan was a descendant of Taipu, the Grand Coachman, and the brother-in-law of the Prime Minister. He had even once willingly taken the blame for a major crime to protect Cao Cao, making him practically a blood brother to the supreme warlord.
Du Xi, meanwhile, was a renowned scholar from the elite circles of Yingchuan and a member of the Du clan. He had served the Prime Minister faithfully for nearly two decades.
Then there was Zhang He.
Who exactly was Zhang He supposed to order around with a shovel, if not himself?
So whenever Xiahou Yuan wandered anywhere near the wall, Zhang He became alert at once. He watched his fellow general with the vigilance of a sentry guarding an important military position, because in this particular prison, preventing General Xiahou from approaching the danger zone was apparently one of his most important duties.
After all, losing a Go match was nothing.
Cleaning another courtyard full of dung was a fate even a defeated general should not have to endure.
With his plan to kill time by the wall completely ruined, Xiahou Yuan slumped back onto the floor and knelt on the woven mat beside the Go board. The boredom was getting to him, so he started searching for something to talk about.
"Tell me, Junyi. How exactly did you manage to lose the battle at Jieting?"
Zhang He did not look up from the board as he pressed a stone onto the grid.
"My dear General Xiahou, we have already discussed that three times."
Xiahou Yuan drummed his fingers against his knee.
"Then what about the time Ma Chao chased you down and slaughtered our routed troops?"
"We have covered that twice."
"How do you think Liu Bei's elite riders and the Qiang cavalry compare to the Prime Minister's cavalry?"
Zhang He let out a long sigh.
"If we discuss that today, it will be the fifth time."
Xiahou Yuan sighed as well. Life without warfare was becoming increasingly difficult to endure.
Fortunately, the wooden doors of the courtyard opened, and a bright laugh came from outside.
"If General Xiahou is truly suffering from such extreme boredom, I would be more than happy to invite General Zhang Fei over tomorrow. He could come and help you relieve some of that stress."
The corners of Xiahou Yuan's mouth twitched upward on instinct, but he quickly forced the expression away. He cupped his hands in greeting.
"Jian Yong."
They were not strangers. Jian Yong had served as Liu Bei's diplomatic envoy since their early days fighting across the frozen northern plains. After Xiahou Yuan and the others were defeated and captured, the two had crossed paths several times and exchanged a few words. Jian Yong was good at dealing with people, even in hostile situations, so they had developed a fairly familiar relationship.
After a few brief pleasantries, Jian Yong got straight to the point.
"I came here today because I need your help with something."
Xiahou Yuan raised an eyebrow. "Help? From three prisoners?"
"From three men who understand things ordinary soldiers do not." Jian Yong smiled. "Five Mineral Powder."
The request caught all three captive Cao officers completely off guard.
Xiahou Yuan immediately looked toward Du Xi.
"If you are looking for someone familiar with Five Mineral Powder..."
Zhang He followed his gaze.
Du Xi's face tightened, because he already knew what was coming.
Jian Yong looked at him curiously.
Du Xi sighed, reached into his robes, and pulled out a small, carefully wrapped package. His expression was reluctant as he placed it in Jian Yong's hand.
"You must take this with cold food. It is best to wash yourself with cold water afterward. If you have ice-chilled wine, even better."
He leaned closer and lowered his voice.
"Never take more than three coins' worth at once, and never exceed two doses in a single day. This substance can cure a hundred different illnesses."
Du Xi paused and glanced at the package in Jian Yong's hand one last time.
"Please tell the Zuo General that this is my entire remaining supply."
Jian Yong lowered his head and examined the object Du Xi had handed him. It was a beautifully crafted brocade pouch, and when he loosened the drawstring, he found a neatly folded paper packet inside.
The moment he rubbed the paper between his fingers, he recognized its texture.
"Zuo Bo paper?"
Du Xi straightened at once, an unmistakable sense of pride appearing on his face. He gave a restrained nod, the kind a teacher might offer a student who had finally answered a simple question correctly.
"You recognize it, then. Good, good. This is Zuo Bo paper, and not just any Zuo Bo paper. This is the finest grade produced in Donglai, the kind that is reserved for official documents and ceremonial use. The fibers are beaten by hand, and the sheets are dried in the shade rather than under direct sunlight, which is why the texture remains so smooth and the color so even. A single sheet requires no fewer than twelve separate stages of work, and most of those stages can only be performed by craftsmen who have spent decades at the trade."
He paused to draw breath, apparently preparing to continue.
"This is why even if you offered ten thousand coins, you might not be able to purchase a single sheet. The supply is limited, and the merchants who handle it know exactly what they are selling. I once knew a man in Xuchang who paid a small fortune for a bundle of inferior grade and considered himself fortunate."
Jian Yong gave a polite nod. He carefully tied the pouch closed again before returning it to Du Xi with both hands.
"In that case, General Du, you only need to accompany me for a short trip."
Du Xi breathed a sigh of relief.
He had no idea how long they would remain in Liu Bei's territory, and the thought of running out of his supply of Five Mineral Powder was enough to make his chest tighten. He had already experienced the agony that came when the effects wore off, and it was an experience he had no desire to repeat.
Still, Du Xi was a man with sharp social instincts, and he could not have missed the disgust flickering in Jian Yong's eyes.
Irritation stirred within him, but he wisely kept it to himself. Bah. What could a rustic fellow possibly understand about the refinements of high society? A man who has never opened the Analects would not know the difference between a noble pursuit and a peasant's habit. The Five Mineral Powder was an elegant practice, the kind appreciated only by those with learning and taste.
Since this was a rare opportunity to leave the confines of the courtyard, he swallowed his pride and slipped the brocade pouch safely back into his robes.
Xiahou Yuan, who had been watching from nearby, immediately sensed danger.
If Du Xi left, what was he supposed to do? Stay behind with nothing but a Go board?
"Xianhe," he called out quickly. "Junyi and I happen to know quite a bit about the Five Mineral Powder as well. We are both very familiar with it."
Jian Yong looked at Xiahou Yuan's desperate expression, then glanced around the dreary courtyard. After considering the situation, he slowly nodded.
"Very well. You may both come with me."
Xiahou Yuan's expression brightened at once.
Zhang He, meanwhile, had no objections. He rose from his seat and brushed the dust from his knees, but before leaving, he could not resist turning back for one last look at the Go board.
What a pity.
His position had actually been quite promising. If the match had continued, he was confident that he had a good chance of winning.
Zhang He sighed inwardly as he followed the others out.
They stepped past the heavy wooden threshold of the small courtyard.
Xiahou Yuan looked up at the sky. He could not tell whether his mind was simply playing tricks on him after being confined for so long, but the sun seemed brighter outside the walls, the temperature perfectly balanced between warmth and coolness, and the air itself felt clean.
In the distance, atop the towering stone city walls, the grand banners of the Han Dynasty snapped violently in the wind. The battle flags of Liu Bei flew right beside them, their presence impossible to miss.
Below the walls, the streets directly in front of their courtyard were already overflowing with people. The crowd stretched outward in every direction, and everywhere Xiahou Yuan looked, his vision was filled with people.
Elderly men carried baskets through the streets while young children wove their way through the crowd. Burly laborers walked beside lean scholars, while men with round, joyful faces passed alongside men whose jaws were sharp and whose expressions were serious. Some of the workers had gone bare-chested despite the wind, and teams of laborers hauled heavy timber through the streets while chanting rhythmic work songs. Their voices echoed against the surrounding stone buildings, blending into the endless noise of the city.
The sight was chaotic, yet strangely harmonious. The countless people moving through the streets resembled millions of tiny droplets of water merging into a roaring, unstoppable river of life that surged through the city's main avenues.
This was completely different from the Chang'an Xiahou Yuan remembered.
When he had occupied this city, the commoners had looked entirely different. Their spines had been bent toward the dirt, their shoulders permanently hunched, as if they were afraid to stand upright. Their faces had worn a pathetic, tragic mask, and whenever they encountered his soldiers, they had constantly offered cowardly, ingratiating smiles born from a poisonous mixture of starvation and terror.
But the people walking past Xiahou Yuan now were different. They stood with their chests pushed out and their heads held high, sweat glistening on their beaming faces beneath the sunlight, and there was an unmistakable sense of pride in the way they carried themselves.
To Xiahou Yuan, the glare was painful to look at.
The excitement he had initially felt upon leaving the compound disappeared without a trace. In its place, a heavy, suffocating blanket of depression settled over his shoulders.
The sight of these proud, defiant citizens dragged his thoughts back to the night his army had been captured.
He remembered his soldiers then, broken and freezing, eagerly drinking the hot medicinal soup provided by Liu Bei's medics. He remembered them huddling around the burning coal stoves, desperately absorbing whatever warmth they could, before finally falling into deep sleep for one night in the enemy camp.
And when they woke the next morning and looked at Xiahou Yuan, something fundamental had broken. They still treated him with the utmost politeness, and they still respected him as their general, but the fierce, blood-bound loyalty that had once tied them to him was gone.
So was the awe.
His dark thoughts were interrupted when, following closely behind Jian Yong, the group came across a familiar face in the middle of the crowded street.
"Chief Inspector Zhong."
Jian Yong smiled brightly and brought his hands together in a warm, polite greeting.
Zhong Yao had been walking briskly through the crowd and had nearly brushed shoulders with them. He slowed at once and returned the greeting with diplomatic grace.
"Xianhe."
Jian Yong currently held the temporary title of Governor of Yongzhou, and considering the mountain of administrative duties he handled every day, the title was hardly inaccurate.
The two officials stood in the middle of the busy street and exchanged the usual pleasantries. Jian Yong asked whether Doctor Zhang Zhongjing was available and where he could be found, and Zhong Yao provided the directions with perfect clarity. Afterward, the two men bowed politely and exchanged their farewells.
Throughout the entire exchange, Du Xi and Zhang He stared fixedly at Zhong Yao, their eyes wide with expectation. They waited for some secret signal, a sympathetic glance, or even the smallest gesture acknowledging their shared history under Cao Cao.
Xiahou Yuan, however, chose a more direct approach.
"Lord Zhong."
His voice was loud and heavy, every word carrying an unspoken meaning and a desperate plea for some acknowledgment of the bond they had once shared.
Zhong Yao paused in the middle of a step and turned back. He bowed slightly at the waist, but his expression did not shift by even a fraction.
When he spoke, his voice was flat, carrying all the emotion of a man casually discussing an unremarkable bowl of rice.
"General Xiahou." That was all.
He offered not a single additional word. After giving Zhang He and Du Xi a brief, mechanical nod, Zhong Yao turned around and continued on his way, gradually disappearing into the crowd. His footsteps remained perfectly steady, and he never once looked back.
Xiahou Yuan felt his spirit crumble into dust.
Zhong Yao's attitude was exactly the same as that of his captured soldiers on that fateful morning. There had been no arrogance in their eyes, but neither had there been any submission. They had simply been completely, terrifyingly polite.
The old bonds of brotherhood and shared conquest were gone. In their place stood a thick, impenetrable wall, separating them from the past as though it had never existed.
Jian Yong then led the three brooding generals through the city until they arrived at a separate, sprawling estate. They had barely reached the front threshold when a thick, overpowering aroma of medicinal herbs flooded their noses.
Passing through the main gate, they entered a courtyard buzzing with frantic activity. Two rows of women sat on low wooden stools, rapidly sorting piles of green herbs beneath the strict supervision of an apothecary, while two young boys near the stone steps aggressively scrubbed black soot from a collection of clay medicine-boiling stoves.
The most jarring detail sat in the corner of the yard. Several large bamboo cages were stacked together, filled with a chaotic mixture of chickens, ducks, rabbits, and geese that squawked and honked. The noise was loud, and the smell hit Xiahou Yuan's nose as his stomach let out an embarrassing rumble of hunger.
Du Xi paid no attention whatsoever to the poultry. Instead, he smoothed the wrinkles from his robes, lifted his chin, and reclaimed what remained of his aristocratic dignity.
"Does Liu Bei intend to manufacture Five Mineral Powder?"
Jian Yong bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from grinning. Rather than answer Du Xi's question, he simply cupped his hands around his mouth and called toward the main hall.
"Doctor Zhang, I have brought the man you asked for."
During the years he had spent hiding in Changsha, Du Xi had occasionally heard all sorts of wild rumors about a man named Zhang Zhongjing. He had never imagined that their first meeting would take place under circumstances quite this strange.
Once they entered the hall, Zhang Zhongjing dispensed with the formalities entirely. He immediately demanded the powder.
Du Xi reluctantly handed it over.
Zhang Zhongjing poured the precious Five Mineral Powder onto an ordinary, inexpensive sheet of paper. He pinched a tiny amount of the dust between his calloused fingers, brought it beneath his nose, and took a deep, analytical sniff.
He then reached into a wooden box on his desk and withdrew an object that seemed to defy all reason: a piece of perfectly clear glass firmly attached to a wooden handle. Holding the strange instrument above the pile of powder, he peered through it with intense concentration.
Du Xi shifted his position so that he could get a better view. When he looked through the glass himself, his jaw nearly dropped to the floor.
The tiny grains of powder had been magnified several times over. Every minute imperfection was visible, and the individual crystal structures could be seen with astonishing clarity.
It was practically witchcraft.
"What is that object?" Du Xi whispered.
Zhang Zhongjing had no intention of satisfying his curiosity. He held the magnifying glass steady in his left hand while gripping a tiny silver spoon in his right, using it to poke, prod, and sift through the powder without ever blinking.
At last, he straightened and looked toward a young assistant nearby.
"Record this in the log. Toxicity level Beta Two."
Du Xi's aristocratic composure shattered instantly, his brow knitting into an angry knot.
"Toxicity?"
Zhang Zhongjing nodded absently without looking at him. In full view of the horrified general, the doctor casually rolled up the sheet of paper containing the priceless powder and stuffed the crumpled ball into the young assistant's hands.
"Mix all of this into the feeding trough in the duck cage outside. Be careful. Do not mix it into the feed for the other animals."
Du Xi immediately threw both hands into the air.
"Wait!"
His voice echoed beneath the wooden beams of the hall.
"I purchased that with solid gold! That powder can neutralize a hundred poisons and cure a hundred diseases. It is the medicine of the immortal gods. Why in the world are you feeding it to ducks?"
The instant those words left his mouth, the atmosphere in the busy hall changed.
The air grew cold.
Doctor Zhang stopped moving. Slowly, he reached into his robes and withdrew a small, bound notebook. He picked up a hard-tipped writing brush and began rapidly sketching and writing across its pages. Every few moments, he would pause, raise his head, and fix his piercing, clinical gaze upon Du Xi's face, studying him with the same concentration a butcher might give to a slab of meat.
Under that relentless scrutiny, Du Xi's heart began hammering against his ribs.
The young assistant reacted even more strongly. His eyes widened until they were the size of saucers, and he stared at Du Xi as though the man had just confessed to eating human flesh. He slowly shuffled backward until he was standing closer to the doctor, apparently terrified that Du Xi's stupidity might somehow prove contagious.
Jian Yong let out a long, heavy sigh.
"General Du, this is not immortal medicine. If you want an accurate description, you could call it the undisputed king of all poisons. Consuming it over a prolonged period is nothing more than an exceptionally dedicated method of suicide."
Du Xi shook his head so violently that his neck gave a sharp crack. He refused to believe it.
"Are you trying to steal my immortal medicine for yourselves? You need only consume a single dose, and its miraculous effects will immediately become apparent to your own body."
Jian Yong did not even have the opportunity to answer. The young assistant spoke first, his voice filled with undisguised disgust.
"Who in their right mind would want to steal that garbage? Its toxicity is barely Beta Two."
The boy sneered at the wealthy general.
"If you dared consume the Alpha One tier poison the doctor brews in his laboratory, you would die with a smile on your face before you even realized that your heart had stopped."
Zhang Zhongjing continued examining Du Xi's pale complexion, jotting down another note as though none of this concerned him. Without breaking eye contact with his patient, he reached out and delivered a sharp thwack to the back of the boy's head.
"Stop speaking nonsense."
Du Xi paid no attention to the boy's terrifying claims. He had already entered a state of complete denial.
"I have consumed this sacred powder for three whole years. My mind has become remarkably sharp, my vital energy is pure, and my physical body feels lighter than a feather. Where, exactly, is this supposed toxicity?"
Zhang Zhongjing placed a firm hand on the boy's shoulder, preventing him from saying anything else, before turning his full and terrifyingly calm attention toward Du Xi. His voice remained flat and rhythmic, each word delivered with devastating precision.
"After consuming the powder for one year, whenever you exerted yourself, sweated heavily, or performed strenuous labor, did you experience bouts of severe dizziness accompanied by blurred vision?"
Du Xi's mouth snapped shut.
Zhang Zhongjing continued without pause.
"After consuming it for two years, you should have developed a severe and crippling loss of appetite. Your body began to waste away, and your bones became increasingly visible. Naturally, your body felt lighter. And now, in the present day, have you found that your skin develops an intense and unbearable itch every few days?"
The color drained from Du Xi's face.
"If you continue consuming this poison for another few years," Zhang Zhongjing continued, his tone completely devoid of pity, "the dizziness will be accompanied by a constant and deafening ringing in your ears. Your loss of appetite will develop into violent vomiting. The itching of your skin will become so deep that scratching it will cause the flesh to ulcerate and rot. Those open sores will not heal for a hundred days. Once you reach that stage, even if the legendary surgeon Hua Tuo were to rise from the grave, he would be unable to save your life."
Du Xi stood completely frozen, his aristocratic arrogance utterly shattered. He could not form a single counterargument. The doctor's description had been terrifyingly precise. Every symptom was a direct hit.
Panic breeds desperation, and somewhere within Du Xi's terrified mind, a wild and completely illogical theory took shape. He pointed a trembling finger at Zhang Zhongjing.
"Doctor Zhang... do you also consume a secret, superior recipe of the Five Mineral Powder?"
Jian Yong groaned and slapped a palm over his own face.
Zhang He stepped forward and opened his mouth, apparently intending to salvage what remained of his friend's dignity, but Xiahou Yuan immediately seized his arm and yanked him backward, shaking his head furiously.
Zhang Zhongjing did not bother answering with words. He calmly tucked his notebook back into his wide sleeve, turned his back on the bewildered general, and gave a simple command.
"Follow me."