" What's the matter? "
" Boss Zhao's daughter has come down with a strange illness. All the famous doctors we've called in to take a look can't agree on what it is. Some say it's a rare medical condition, others claim she was poisoned by some special toxin, but no matter what they try, nothing works. " Guo Zhiyuan lowered his voice. " Mr. Qin mentioned over the phone that you spotted at a glance that Old Master Qin was poisoned, not suffering a coronary heart disease attack, and even used silver needles to stabilize his heart meridian. Once Boss Zhao heard about that, he's been begging to get you to look at his daughter. No matter if you can cure her or not, as long as you, Mr. Chen, are willing to grace us with a visit, he will absolutely make sure the compensation meets your satisfaction. "
Chen Xuan did not agree right away.
" The hospitals couldn't find the cause? "
" She's been to every major hospital in Jiangzhou, and we've even brought in several batches of specialists from the provincial capital. Some say it's a neurological disorder, others suspect a rare autoimmune disease, but none of the treatments have worked. The national medical sage we invited earlier even said she was struck by a bizarre poison. No one knows what's really going on. The young lady keeps having agonizing attacks where she screams in pain day after day, and Boss Zhao has been so tied up dealing with this that he can't leave the house for anything. "
" How long has she been sick? "
" Almost two months. At first it was just chest tightness and fatigue, then she started running fevers and having convulsions. For the past half month, she's been wracked with pain and screaming out in the middle of every attack. "
Chen Xuan pondered for a moment.
After years of scrambling to survive in the cultivation world where the strong prey on the weak, Chen Xuan had long understood that no world ever runs on kindness, malice, or plain common sense. It all comes down to cause and effect, interests and gains.
This very body he was inhabiting now had a lung infection, and with his family too broke to borrow any more money, it had still managed to hang on this long. The eighty thousand yuan that Huang Ting had advanced to Chen Yan had played a huge part in that. No matter what their original intentions were, that was an established fact.
That was cause and effect.
Zhao Tianxiong had run Huang Ting for years, and he had connections on both the legitimate and underground sides of Jiangzhou. A man like that might not be worth forming a deep friendship with, but doing him a huge favor could only bring Chen Xuan benefits, no downsides at all.
That was interests.
Once he had advanced far enough in his cultivation, all these people would be nothing but ants to him.
But until he reached that point.
He had only just returned to the modern world, and he still knew next to nothing about the power structures of Jiangzhou, the channels for sourcing medicinal herbs, or all sorts of hidden local secrets.
When it came to both his cultivation path and protecting his family, he could not rely on the Qin family alone.
No matter if he looked at it from the angle of cause and effect, or from the angle of personal gain, he ought to go take a look at this situation.
" Hearing you say that, such a strange illness does sound rather interesting. It wouldn't hurt to go see it. Lead the way. "
Guo Zhiyuan's face lit up with joy, and he immediately pulled open the car door for Chen Xuan.
" After you, Mr. Chen. "
Zhao Tianxiong lived in Cloud Lake Villa, a luxury gated community on the east side of Jiangzhou.
The black sedan left the city proper, drove along the lakeside road for over twenty minutes, and finally stopped in front of a standalone villa.
There were quite a few guards posted outside the villa.
When Chen Xuan got out of the car, he could feel several more pairs of eyes fixed on him from the shadows. It was obvious that Zhao Tianxiong had not managed to run his entertainment venues for all these years relying only on the visible security staff.
Guo Zhiyuan led him inside the villa.
A man in his fifties was already waiting in the living room. He was tall and broad, with streaks of white at his temples, and the natural air of authority that came from years of being at the top of the hierarchy. But his eyes were lined with heavy bloodshot, a clear sign he had not gotten a proper rest in a very long time.
" You must be Mr. Chen Xuan. I am Zhao Tianxiong. It is a pleasure to meet you. "
Zhao Tianxiong reached out his hand first.
" Regarding the incident at Huang Ting, it was my fault for failing to keep my people in line. I have already made Wang Hai return the contract to you. From now on, your sister will have no ties whatsoever to Huang Ting. I hope you will not hold this against me. "
" You stepped in to stop it in time. That's more than enough. "
Chen Xuan shook his hand briefly.
Zhao Tianxiong did not waste any more time on polite formalities.
" Forgive my haste, but I am desperate to save my daughter. She is upstairs right now. If you can cure her, I will do absolutely anything you ask of me. "
" Alright, let's see the patient first. "
" Great, this way please! " Zhao Tianxiong's face brightened with relief, and he immediately led the way.
The two of them went up to the second floor.
Several medical machines were set up in the bedroom, and two doctors were keeping watch by the bedside. Lying on the bed was a little girl around ten years old, her face pale, her lips completely drained of color, and her eye sockets slightly sunken from not being able to eat normally for so long.
The heart rate reading on the machines was unstable, jumping erratically.
A white-haired doctor who had been standing by the bed saw Zhao Tianxiong leading Chen Xuan in, his eyes filled with confusion, but he did not step in to stop them.
" Boss Zhao, who is this gentleman? "
" This is Mr. Chen, introduced by Boss Qin Qin Zhenghai. He is the one who saved Old Master Qin's life. "
When he heard the name Qin Zhenghai, the doctor nodded in understanding.
The story about how Qin Baichuan had been stabilized with silver needles by a passerby the previous morning, buying him the critical time he needed to be saved, had already spread all through Jiangzhou First Hospital. He had not seen it with his own eyes, but he had heard plenty of people talk about it.
" Mr. Chen, what do you think is wrong with my daughter? "
" That's odd...? " Chen Xuan muttered under his breath as he took one look at the girl, then slowly walked over to the bedside.
Chen Xuan stopped by the bed, first observing the girl's complexion and the color of her fingernails, then reached out to press two fingers to her wrist.
The girl's pulse was wildly irregular.
Sometimes it raced like a galloping horse, other times it grew so faint you could barely feel it at all. The flow of qi and blood inside her body was not like that of an ordinary sick person, slowly weakening with illness. Instead, there were several obvious blockages, as if something was slowly gnawing away at her meridians and internal organs.
Chen Xuan then lifted her eyelid to take a look at her pupil.
" What medications has she been taking every day? "
The white-haired doctor handed over the medical file and the medication log.
" Mostly nutrient solutions, heart-protective drugs, and nerve-regulating medication. Every single drug has been tested, and no problems have been found with any of them. "
Chen Xuan finished reading the medication log, then walked a full circle around the room.
On the nightstand lay an opened sachet, giving off a very faint herbal aroma. Smelled on its own, there was no trace of poison in it, and it even had a mild sleep-aiding effect.
Chen Xuan pinched a little bit of the powdered herb from the sachet between his fingers, then glanced back at the girl's medication log.
" Where did this sachet come from? "
Zhao Tianxiong turned to the nanny standing by the door.
The nanny quickly replied, " The young lady got it as a birthday gift two months ago. She really liked the smell, so she's kept it right by her bed ever since she started sleeping with it. "
" Who gave it to her? "
" It was a gift from the daughter of Boss Luo from Longsheng Group. The young lady and Miss Luo are in the same class at school, and they've been very close friends for a long time. "
The moment he heard the name Longsheng Group, the look in Zhao Tianxiong's eyes shifted.
" Is there something wrong with this sachet? "
" On its own, it's completely harmless. "
Chen Xuan put the pinch of powder back, then pointed to one of the nerve-regulating drugs listed in the medication log.
" This herbal fragrance is harmless when it enters the body on its own, it just makes people a little drowsy. But if you are exposed to it for a long time while taking this specific drug, the two of them will combine inside the body to form a chronic poison that is almost impossible to detect. "
The white-haired doctor immediately snatched up the sachet.
" But the main active ingredients of these two things don't have any documented pharmacological conflict at all. "
" That's because the real toxic reaction doesn't come from the main ingredients. "
Chen Xuan's gaze turned back to the sachet.
"There's a type of plant powder inside with an extremely low concentration, so standard tests easily mistake it for a harmless impurity. Once it binds with the components in her medication, it will slowly erode her heart meridians and nervous system. At first, she'll only feel fatigued and tight-chested, but soon that will progress to fevers, convulsions, and comas. If the poison continues to spread, she'll start suffering bouts of searing, all-over body pain that make her scream and howl uncontrollably before slipping back into unconsciousness, over and over again. In her current state, she won't live more than ten days."
The bedroom fell dead silent in an instant.
Zhao Tianxiong's face darkened gradually.
"You're certain this is poisoning?"
"Absolutely certain."
"Can she be saved?"
"Yes. But the poison has built up in her system for far too long. We can't use a common detoxification method directly, or the full force of the toxin will flood into her heart meridians all at once, and she won't even make it through tonight."
Chen Xuan turned his gaze back to the medication records.
"Who prescribed this medication?"
The white-haired doctor furrowed his brow.
"I didn't write the original prescription. When Miss Zhao first started having trouble sleeping, the Zhao family's personal doctor prescribed her medication for a period of time. Later, when her condition worsened, we only made minor adjustments based on the original existing medication record."
Chen Xuan immediately asked, "Where is Dr. Liu?"
A voice from outside the door answered, "Dr. Liu took a leave of absence a month ago. He said there was an urgent emergency back in his hometown, so he went back. All he left behind was a note insisting that this specific herb must be taken continuously. The other doctors looked over the prescription, agreed it was appropriate for her symptoms, and kept using it."
Zhao Tianxiong stared at the man.
"Contact him at once."
A short while later, one of his subordinates rushed back quickly to report something in a low voice.
The voice was not loud, but with Chen Xuan's sharp senses, he heard every word clearly.
"We already called his phone, but Liu Nanfu's line is shut off. We contacted people in his hometown to check on him, but his house there is empty. No one in his entire family is anywhere to be found."
Zhao Tianxiong said nothing, but his gaze turned ice-cold.
Chen Xuan had cleared up the entire situation for him the moment he stepped in.
The full name of Longsheng Group is Longsheng Entertainment Group. It is an outside force that only entered Jiangzhou in recent years, and it runs all kinds of entertainment businesses. The man behind it, Luo Zhendong, has long been trying to buy several entertainment venues that Zhao Tianxiong owns. Two months ago, their negotiations fell through, and the other side even publicly threatened that sooner or later, Zhao Tianxiong would come crawling to beg him for help.
It was right around that same time that Zhao Qingya received a sachet sent over by the Luo family.
Since it was just a gift exchanged between children, no one paid it any special mind.
No one could have guessed that it was all part of a carefully laid scheme, coordinated with their own family's personal doctor.
And now the private doctor in charge of her prescriptions has vanished without a trace.
This is far too deliberate to be written off as a coincidence.
But Chen Xuan did not immediately jump to the conclusion that the Luo family was behind it.