"What is that... smell?"
The voice was sharp, aged, and dripping with condescension. I didn't have to look up from the small mortar and pestle in my hands to know it was Chief Physician Zhang.
He was the man the Prime Minister had hired to "save" the heir—a man who had spent the last month doing nothing but burning incense and prescribing bitter, useless soups.
I continued grinding the dried, salty seaweed into a fine powder, mixing it with a drop of fish oil.
"It is a remedy, Physician Zhang."
"A remedy?" Zhang marched toward me, his silk robes rustling with indignation. Two younger assistants followed him, their faces twisted in identical scowls.
"I have studied the Yellow Emperor's Classic for forty years. I have balanced the Yin and Yang of the highest officials. And here is a girl, not even past her Hairpin Ceremony, grinding sea-scum in a bowl!"
"The 'sea-scum' contains the essence of the ocean," I replied calmly.
"My brother's 'unbalanced Qi' is not a spiritual haunting. His body is starving for real Medicine."
"Nonsense!" Zhang shouted, turning toward my mother, who stood nervously by the cradle.
"Madam Tang, you allow this? This... meddling? I cannot be held responsible for the Young Master's life if the First Miss is allowed to poison him with such filth! Seaweed is a 'cold' element. It will extinguish the boy's remaining fire!"
Mother looked torn. She desperately wanted to trust me, but Zhang was a man of high standing.
"Xian-er, perhaps... perhaps the Physician is right. You shouldn't—"
"Mother," I interrupted, finally standing up. I held the bowl out so Zhang could see the dark, shimmering paste.
"Physician Zhang, you have treated him for a month. Has the lump on his neck shrunk by even the width of a needle? Has he stopped crying when the sun sets because he can no longer see your face?" Zhang's face turned a mottled purple.
"The Heavens dictate the speed of healing!"
"Then the Heavens have sent me," I countered. I walked past him, my gaze level and unafraid.
"Researchers—pardon me, scholars—know that the ancients used the gifts of the sea to cure the swelling of the throat. If I am wrong, punish me. But if I am right, and you stop me now, you are the one who is killing the Tang heir."
The room went deathly silent. Using his own professional fear against him was a gamble. If the boy died, I was finished. But Zhang was a coward, he didn't want the blame if my brother failed to recover under his care.
"Fine!" Zhang hissed, pulling his sleeves back.
"Let her meddle. But when the boy's Qi collapses, do not come weeping to me to fix her mistakes."
He stomped out of the room, his assistants scurrying behind him like rats.
Mother approached me, her hand trembling.
"Xian-er, you were so bold. I have never seen you stand up to an elder like that."
"I'm not the girl I used to be, Mother," I said, gently lifting my brother from the cradle. I dipped a small spoon into the seaweed paste. It smelled of salt and the deep ocean, the iodine his body was screaming for.
"Now, little sweetheart, open that cute mouth of yours."
3 days after
The chamber was dimly lit, smelling of the salty, oceanic tang of the seaweed paste and the sweet, milky scent of the baby. I let mother sleep for a bit.
While me, I was hunched over the cradle, my movements precise. I had fashioned a tiny bamboo spoon to carefully slide the iodine-rich paste past my brother's lips.
He wasn't crying anymore, he was swallowing instinctively, his tiny hand clutched around my thumb.
Suddenly, the heavy silk curtains at the entrance were flung aside.
"Sister! What in the heavens are you doing?"
Ruo-Lan stood there, her hand pressed to her heart, her face a mask of horrified disbelief. Behind her, a few of her personal maids crowded the doorway, their eyes wide as they peered into the "tainted" room.
I didn't stop. I scraped the last bit of the dark green paste from the bowl. "I am feeding our brother, Ruo-Lan. I assumed that was obvious."
Ruo-Lan rushed forward, her silk skirts swishing like a warning. She didn't look at the baby's face, she looked only at the dark "sludge" on the spoon.
"Feeding him? With that... that black filth? Physician Zhang said it was poisonous! He said you were using forbidden methods!"
"Physician Zhang says a lot of things to cover his own incompetence," I replied, my voice cool. I gently wiped a green smudge from my brother's chin. "Look at him, Sister. Does he look like he's being poisoned?"
My brother's breathing, usually a ragged, terrifying whistle, had softened. For the first time in days, the tension in his tiny chest seemed to have eased. But Ruo-Lan wasn't looking for a cure, she was looking for a crime that she could pinned on me.
"He looks... sluggish! You've drugged him!" She turned to her maids, her voice rising into a panicked wail. "Did you see? Did you see what she forced into his mouth? Oh, Eldest Sister, how could you be so cruel? Is it because Father loves him more? Is it because he is the heir and you…you?"
I finally stood up, turning to face her. In the modern world, I had dealt with looters and black-market tomb raiders. Ruo-Lan's innocent act was amateur at best.
"Your imagination is as vivid as your jasmine pouch, Second Sister," I said, stepping toward her until she was forced to retreat.
"If you truly cared for him, you would have noticed that his neck is less swollen today. But you aren't here for him, are you? You're here for the drama."
Ruo-Lan's eyes flashed—a quick, jagged spark of the viper beneath the silk.
"Sister, I've already warned you! Father will hear about this." She said before she go.