Zhao Tianxiong stared at the sachet in Chen Xuan’s hand, his expression frighteningly grim.
At the time, Zhao Tianxiong had assumed the other man was just making an empty threat.
“Luo Zhendong!”
Zhao Tianxiong ground out the name, murderous intent already in his eyes.
Guo Zhiyuan had been at Zhao Tianxiong’s side for years and knew his boss’s temperament well. He immediately pulled out his phone, waiting for Zhao Tianxiong to give the word so he could summon men and go settle the score with Longsheng Entertainment Group.
“Don’t rush into anything. We still don’t know for sure what happened.”
Chen Xuan placed the sachet back on the bedside table.
Suppressing his anger, Zhao Tianxiong asked, “Mr. Chen, do you think Luo Zhendong wasn’t behind this?”
“I only said we can’t be certain.”
Chen Xuan glanced at the unconscious Zhao Qingya.
“The sachet was given to her by the Luo family’s daughter, and the medicine was prescribed by your family doctor. The clues do point to Longsheng Entertainment Group—but that’s exactly why everything seems too clear-cut.”
“If Luo Zhendong were really sure you wouldn’t be able to identify the poison, he wouldn’t have needed to use your family doctor to leave behind a way to cure it. The fact that he did means he was prepared from the start for you to discover what happened.”
Zhao Tianxiong fell silent.
Chen Xuan continued, “We won’t know whether Luo Zhendong did this, or whether someone wants you to think he did, until we find Liu Nanfu. If you take people to the Luo family now, you’ll have to beg them to save her if they’re responsible. And if they aren’t, you’ll have walked straight into someone else’s trap.”
Zhao Tianxiong had managed his affairs in Jiangzhou for many years. He wasn’t the sort of man who only knew how to shout threats and pick fights. A moment ago, his daughter’s life had been at stake, and anger had clouded his judgment.
Now that he had calmed down, he too could see something was amiss. Zhao Tianxiong turned to Guo Zhiyuan.
“Don’t alert anyone. Look into Liu Nanfu first: who he met before leaving Jiangzhou, where the money came from, and how his family left.”
“Understood.”
Guo Zhiyuan immediately left the bedroom to make the arrangements.
Zhao Tianxiong went to the bedside and looked down at his daughter’s pale face, his voice turning urgent once more.
“Mr. Chen, how much longer can Qingya hold on?”
“The poison has begun to attack the meridians around her heart. If we hadn’t discovered it today, she might not wake up the next time it flares.”
At Chen Xuan’s words, Zhao Tianxiong’s fingers tightened. He looked at Chen Xuan anxiously. “For now, saving her comes first. We can look into who poisoned her after she wakes. Please, Mr. Chen—you have to save her!”
What Zhao Tianxiong feared most was that Chen Xuan would say something like, “There’s nothing I can do.”
Chen Xuan checked Zhao Qingya’s pulse once more. “Get me a few things.”
“What do you need, Mr. Chen?” Seeing that Chen Xuan hadn’t said he couldn’t save her, hope flared in Zhao Tianxiong’s eyes.
“Silver needles, a clean porcelain bowl, and a few medicinal ingredients…”
Chen Xuan named six herbs, and Zhao Tianxiong immediately committed them to memory.
When Chen Xuan named the last one, the gray-haired doctor’s expression shifted slightly.
“Redblood Vine? Hardly anyone in Jiangzhou uses that herb. Ordinary pharmacies may not carry it.”
Zhao Tianxiong took out his phone.
“I’ll have someone check Baicaotang.”
“No need to ask Baicaotang.”
Chen Xuan looked at the faint red powder inside the sachet.
“It’s already in here.”
Zhao Tianxiong followed his gaze.
Chen Xuan picked up the sachet, his voice calm.
“The person who poisoned her doesn’t want your daughter dead. They deliberately left behind the medicinal ingredient needed for an antidote. If you hadn’t asked me here today, I suspect they would have sent you a way to keep her alive anyway.”
Chen Xuan had barely finished voicing his suspicions when hurried footsteps sounded outside the bedroom.
The next moment, a man guarding the villa burst in without even knocking. He was holding a plain white envelope with no markings.
Zhao Tianxiong was about to reprimand him for his recklessness when the man hurriedly said, “Boss Zhao, someone just delivered this. They said it could save Miss Zhao.”
Zhao Tianxiong’s expression changed at once.
“Who brought it?”
“A delivery rider. He said someone called him and told him to pick up the envelope from under a bench at Yunhu Park and bring it here. The payment had already been left beside it. He never saw the person who hired him. I checked his call history, but there was no number, so we can’t trace it.”
As he spoke, the man handed over the envelope.
Zhao Tianxiong didn’t open it right away. Instead, he looked to Chen Xuan.
Chen Xuan nodded.
Inside was a single printed sheet. There was no signature, nor anything that could prove who had sent it.
The message was brief.
It instructed the Zhao family to take the red powder from the sachet and brew it with two other medicinal ingredients. Prepared as directed, it would suppress the poison in Zhao Qingya’s body and keep her from suffering another attack for three days.
At the end was one final sentence.
【If you want your daughter to stay alive, keep your phone on tomorrow night at ten. Don’t miss the deadline.】
The bedroom fell silent.
Zhao Tianxiong read the page twice, then slowly looked up at Chen Xuan.
Chen Xuan had just said that the other party would send them a way to keep her alive. And now, only moments later, the letter had arrived at the Zhao residence.
“Mr. Chen, will this really save Qingya?”
Chen Xuan took the page and glanced over the prescription.
“It’s a life-saving remedy, but it treats the symptoms, not the root cause. It’ll only buy her three more days.”
“Only three days?”
“This won’t cure the poison. It will merely force it back into her internal organs for a time. The first dose should stop the attacks. But in three days, the poison will surge again, and her condition will be even worse than it is now. When you see Miss Zhao suffer another attack, I’m afraid you’ll agree to anything.”
Chen Xuan put the page back into the envelope.
“Even if they don’t make a demand next time, they’ll probably keep stringing you along. You’ll have no choice but to do what they ask in exchange for another way to keep her alive. The more often she takes their medicine, the more her body will depend on it. In the end, even if you find someone truly capable, it may be too late to save her.”
Zhao Tianxiong stared at his daughter lying in bed, his grip tightening until the envelope crumpled in his hand.
The other party had never intended to reveal the cure all at once.
They meant to use Zhao Qingya’s life to keep him on a leash, making him bow his head every few days. As long as his daughter stayed alive, he would have no choice but to do their bidding.
“What a vicious scheme.”
Zhao Tianxiong clenched his teeth.
He was over fifty, and she was his only child—the daughter his beloved had given him.
That woman had suffered through countless hardships with him from the very bottom, climbing her way up alongside him.
Yet before she could enjoy the fruits of their success, she left behind their daughter and him, passing away.
The person Zhao Tianxiong felt he owed the most in this life was his wife—the woman who had endured a lifetime of hardship with him and stood by him as they built their success together.
After his wife was gone, their daughter became the only remaining link between him and her.
Not to mention that Zhao Qingya was his only blood relative; even for the sake of repaying his debt to his wife, he could never allow anything to happen to their daughter.
Otherwise, he would truly have no choice but to let others lead him around by the nose.