Chapter 239: Midnight Preparations

He began trying to merge the properties of the three in his mind… That was it!

After days of relentless contemplation, he had finally achieved a breakthrough.

The taut string in his heart abruptly slackened and in its place came wave upon wave of exhaustion.

He turned to Wang Jian and said, “I’ll rest for a while. Later, I need to seek an audience with His Majesty.”

Wang Jian nodded.

After drawing the curtains, he quietly withdrew.

Ever since Gongsun Xing had begun researching this poison, three or four days had passed without any progress.

He truly had not rested properly during that time.

Now that the tension in his heart had eased, the fatigue descended all at once.

Before long, Gongsun Xing fell into a deep sleep, and that sleep lasted several hours.

When he awoke, night had completely fallen.

After a full night’s rest, his head ached faintly, but his spirits were sharper than before.

Seeing that he was awake, Wang Jian quickly poured him a cup of hot water. “How is it? I told you not to stay up all night like that. Now your body can’t take it, can it?”

Gongsun Xing smiled faintly. “Actually, I feel much better now. Just a bit of a headache… Where is His Majesty residing tonight? I need to see him.”

Wang Jian thought for a moment. “Gongsun Xing, now is not the best time to seek an audience. If I’m not mistaken, His Majesty should be with Imperial Consort Zhou at this hour. And the one who likely wishes to put Mingxuan to death is precisely her. If you speak of this matter in her presence, it may well have the opposite effect.”

Gongsun Xing considered this, then nodded. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that… Then how about I go to the imperial study tomorrow to see His Majesty?”

Wang Jian nodded again. “It would be best to give His Majesty time to think on his own. He may be prone to listening to one side, but he is not a fool. If he reflects on it himself, he should soon grasp the key points.”

Gongsun Xing nodded and added, “If I bring samples of the three poisons with me, it will be more convincing… It seems I must make a trip to the Imperial Medical Bureau.”

That night, it was Pan Lutong’s turn to be on duty.

He had just fallen asleep when a medicine boy hurried in to report, “Chief Physician, Miracle Doctor Gongsun has arrived.”

Hearing that the young master had come, Pan Lutong immediately rose, hastily throwing on an outer robe as he went out to greet him. “Young Master, the night is deep and the mist heavy, please take care not to harm your health.”

Gongsun Xing waved his hand and walked into the Imperial Medical Bureau alongside Pan Lutong. “It’s nothing. I’ve come to look for a few medicinal ingredients. You may go back and rest.”

Although he said this, Pan Lutong still followed him into the medicinal storage warehouse.

Inside stood rows upon rows of wooden shelves, holding thousands of herbs carefully sorted into categories.

The air was filled with the faint, bitter fragrance of dried medicine.

Gongsun Xing surveyed the surroundings and nodded slightly.

Although this storehouse still could not compare to Silver Needle Sect, among the royal courts of the four nations it was already considered far ahead of the rest.

He turned to Pan Lutong and said, “To have brought it to this state, you must have put in considerable effort.”

Praised by his own young master, Pan Lutong felt a glow of pride. “Beirong’s national strength is not weak, yet even so, it took decades to reach the scale you see today. There are still certain extinct herbs that exist only in Silver Needle Sect and nowhere else in the world can they be found.”

Hearing this, Gongsun Xing nodded. “The herbs in the sect are cultivated by specialists. Compared to those grown naturally in the wild, they are much easier to obtain. But correspondingly, their medicinal potency is somewhat reduced… Still, something is better than nothing. Another day, I’ll arrange to transfer a batch of herbs from the sect to you, to enrich this place further.”

Pan Lutong was overjoyed.

“If that could be done, it would truly be wonderful.” Yet almost immediately, a trace of worry appeared on his face. “But would the Beirong royal family be willing to pay for it?”

Gongsun Xing shook his head. “Silver Needle Sect does not lack their bit of gold. I have only one condition: after I leave, the medicinal stores of Beirong’s Imperial Medical Bureau must be freely available for Yue Mingxuan’s use.”

If things continued this way, his small clinic would likely leap in reputation and soon become the most renowned in all of Beirong.

A hint of doubt crossed Pan Lutong’s face. “Young Master, forgive my bluntness. Even if Prince Yue is a heaven sent genius, he is not worth such an enormous investment from Silver Needle Sect.”

The herbs the young master had just promised were rare specimens produced exclusively within the sect.

On the open market, a single plant could fetch at least a thousand taels of silver.

To gift an entire batch to the Beirong royal family merely so that Prince Yue could freely access the Bureau’s medicinal stores, this was an extravagant gesture indeed.

Gongsun Xing seemed to see through his thoughts and replied calmly, “Those herbs are not worth much. Yue Mingxuan, on the other hand, is someone Silver Needle Sect must retain at all costs. His medical skill is nothing short of extraordinary, especially his precision in heart surgery. Even I cannot claim to match it.”

Moreover, Yue Mingxuan had unraveled the mystery his father had left behind.

Even without that unparalleled skill, that alone would have been enough to justify Silver Needle Sect giving everything it had.

Pan Lutong had long heard of Yue Mingxuan’s heart surgery techniques, and he trusted his young master’s discernment in matters of medicine.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep