Discuss with you

Chapter 674 Secretive Methods
"No evidence was left behind...?" Upon hearing this, Lu Qing also discerned something amiss from Lin Kun's wording. "Could it be that after receiving such high regard from the Prince of Lan, this person still chose to leave Lan?"

“No, he didn’t leave, he just died.” Lin Kun shook his head.

Upon hearing this, both Lu Qing and Zhu Yu were taken aback. Clearly, the death of this divine doctor had caught them completely off guard.

Not only the two of them, but Chang Yu was also surprised.

He hadn't specifically asked his uncles about what happened back then, and Lin Kun and the others were afraid of touching on their young master's painful past, so they never brought it up. Chang Yu hadn't known about the various things involved, especially the matter of that divine doctor, before. Like Lu Qing and Zhu Yu, this was the first time he had heard about it.

The mysterious doctor, whose origins are unknown, is a highly suspicious figure in this whole affair, and yet, it is discovered that he is already dead, which would surprise anyone.

"That divine doctor died strangely." Lin Kun frowned as he recalled what happened back then. "He was perfectly fine. He rarely left the palace because he was with the prince. Even when he went out, he was always accompanied by the palace guards."

At that time, he was a favorite of the prince, and no one dared to risk causing him any mishap, otherwise they would have no way to explain themselves to the prince.

So this person was perfectly fine, and stayed by the prince's side for more than a year, when suddenly he fell ill and died before he could be treated.

The prince was deeply affected by this and ordered the physician to be given a proper burial. He then secluded himself for several days, only reappearing after much persuasion from the heir apparent and several other young masters. In those few days, he had become noticeably thinner.

As Zhu Yu listened to Lin Kun recount these events, his brows furrowed, as if he were deep in thought.

Lu Qing noticed this, and when Lin Kun finished speaking and stopped, she turned to Zhu Yu and asked, "What are you thinking about? Is something wrong?"

Zhu Yu did not answer Lu Qing immediately. After a brief moment of thought, he asked Lin Kun, "Does Guard Lin still remember that this divine doctor, who only provides prescriptions and not medicinal materials, leaving no room for anyone to find fault with him, has he made any unusual requests regarding his prescriptions?"

Lin Kun was taken aback by her question.

Overall, he remembered the matter very clearly, but when it came to the specific details, no one had asked about it in the past ten or twenty years, so he hadn't tried to recall it repeatedly and couldn't answer it right away.

After much agonizing recollection, Lin Kun gradually unearthed some almost forgotten details from the depths of his memory, and thus found the answers to Zhu Yu's questions.

"That legendary doctor specifically instructed that the servants in the Prince's mansion must use an iron pot to boil his medicine, and not the earthenware pots used for boiling medicine on a regular basis." He said with great certainty, "He didn't mention anything else, but he repeatedly emphasized this point."

The servants in the prince's mansion did as he instructed, and later the prince recovered from his illness, so the matter was not taken too seriously.

If this gentleman hadn't specifically asked if I had any unusual requests, I probably would have completely forgotten about it.

Chang Yu, standing to the side, was completely bewildered, not understanding the significance of using a particular pot or kettle for decocting medicine. But looking at Zhu Yu, however, he already seemed to understand. No wonder that person didn't need to prepare the herbs themselves; he didn't need to tamper with the herbs at all. The iron pot was the crucial step.

The reason why pots used for decocting medicine are usually made of earthenware is that some medicinal materials cannot be boiled in iron pots, as this will cause changes in their medicinal properties.

However, some medicinal herbs do not have special requirements for the material of the container; it is perfectly fine to use an iron pot to stir-fry them.

Distinguishing between what can be done with iron tools and what cannot becomes a rather complicated task. In the end, to prevent apprentices from making mistakes and causing trouble due to their lack of skill, many master craftsmen would tell their young apprentices that no matter what kind of medicinal materials they used, they should always use earthenware pots to boil them.

Therefore, it is quite obvious that the mysterious doctor, when he prescribed medicine for Prince Lan, included herbs that should never be boiled in iron. What might have been ordinary ingredients would develop properties completely different from their original medicinal effects after being boiled in an iron pot.

There are many ways to detoxify, one of which is called "fighting poison with poison".

"Does anyone still remember which medicinal herbs that divine physician prescribed for Prince Lan back then?" Zhu Yu asked.

This stumped Lin Kun. He shook his head with some difficulty and then turned to ask other guards who were around his age and had also experienced these things back then. The others also shook their heads, indicating that they couldn't remember.

“We are all rough men, completely ignorant of medical matters. Even if the prince had told us the prescription back then, after ten or twenty years, we probably wouldn’t remember it,” Lin Kun said somewhat embarrassedly. “I only remember that some of the herbs in it were relatively common, while others were not so easy to obtain. It took the people from the prince’s mansion a long time to gather them all.”

Zhu Yu nodded, indicating that he understood.

In fact, she had guessed that there must be some unusual ingredients in it. Otherwise, the physicians of the Lan Prince's Mansion were not just sitting around doing nothing. It was obvious that boiling it in an iron pot would change the medicinal properties, so they would never dare to use it on their own prince.

Unless they are completely unfamiliar with the medicinal properties of this substance.

While this whole pattern isn't exactly the same as Brahma's previous experience, it's roughly similar in its approach.

They provided what the other party needed most when they needed it most, thereby gaining their trust. And the methods were very secretive, making it difficult for others to detect anything unusual quickly.

It's a pity that Yan Daoxin is no longer with them. Otherwise, with his knowledge of all kinds of rare and poisonous herbs, he might have been able to find out more details.

Zhu Yu seemed somewhat powerless in this regard—making the dead "speak" was her forte, but she only had a superficial understanding of medicines and poisons.

Seeing that Zhu Yu didn't seem to want to ask any further questions about the original prescription, Lu Qing pondered for a moment before asking Lin Kun, "Back then, several of Lan Wang's sons died tragically."

Before this... had there ever been any rift between them and King Lan?