Poison Genius Consort

Chapter 530: Unforeseen circumstances at the Grand Medicine Testing ConventionOriginal and most updated translations are from volare. If read elsewhere, this chapter has been stolen. Please stop supporting theft.

By revealing everything that had went on behind the scenes, Head Elder Xie was completely antagonizing Jun Yixie.

Although Han Yunxi was considerably surprised, she quickly understood that Head Elder Xie was offending Jun Yixie for Medical City to see. By displeasing the Hundred Poisons Sect and even all of Northern Li Country, he would be able to curry favor with Medical City and consolidate strength for his position as Head Elder. The gains were far greater than the losses in this situation. Here, he was shooting two targets with one arrow. It had to be said that Xie Deyi wasn’t the leader of the Council of Elders for nothing. He certainly was a complex man! Moreover, behind him stood Ouyang Ningnuo, another man hard to deal with.

Han Yunxi dropped her head as she muttered to Long Feiye, “Let’s not end up making the wedding clothes[1. making the wedding clothes (做个嫁衣) - zuoge jiayi, a saying based on how poor tailors end up making wedding clothes for other families during the year while being too poor to afford their own---or to work hard and expend all that effort, only for it to benefit others instead of yourself.] for the Xie Clan!”

It was Han Yunxi who had helped Head Elder Xie believe that Mu Yingdong and Jun Yixie had long been in cahoots. But, if all their considerable effort ended up leaving the Xie Clan unscathed, then she would definitely cry.

Long Feiye only glanced over at her and murmured back, “Just wait.”

Upon hearing His Highness Duke of Qin’s words, Han Yunxi felt better. The best part of the show must assuredly be coming up later!

The agreement bearing the Mu Clan Head’s seal was being passed around the crowd. When it finally reached Lady Lianxin, she only glanced at it before shooting Mu Yingdong a hateful glare! Mu Yingdong could only stand, rooted to the spot as if he had been struck by lightning. His face was so black it might as well be charred. He was so stiff that he couldn’t budge a muscle, aside from his pair of trembling hands. His mind was completely blank, his senses were still fighting to recover from the shock!

After all, Head Elder Xie’s attitude had been very suspicious to him from the start, yet he never expected to be so thoroughly tricked! Or for developments to have come to this point!

How was he supposed to explain himself with such ironclad evidence being shown? How could he cut his losses?

I can only acknowledge my mistakes!

“Head Elder Xie!” Mu Yingdong suddenly shouted. “Head Elder Xie, this one was wrong! It was a gross error on my part. It’s all because Jun Yixie had used bribes and threats against me. This one dotes on my daughter so, and wanted to earn more benefits for Medicine City, so I agreed to that Jun Yixie’s demands! This one may have collaborated with Jun Yixie in secret, but this one had long planned out everything. Once Linger was married, this one was to hand over the other snow mountain as well, to the Council of Elders for public use by Medicine City!”

His words were practically a joke. Who would believe them now?

Head Elder Xie was about to retort when Lady Lianxin angrily rose to her feet. “Mu Yingdong, you’re an absolute fool! How could you accept any offers from the Hundred Poisons Sect?”

Jun Yixie already looked gloomy after Mu Yingdong had turned him into a scapegoat, but Lady Lianxin’s curse only turned his expression even darker if that was possible… Still, he didn’t say a word.

“Fifth Elder, this one was a fool! I deserve death! But, this one only wanted to protect my daughter and the city, ah! For the sake of Northern Li’s imperial clan, this one...aye!” Mu Yingdong seemed unable to explain his actions any further, and trailed off with a regretful tone as he boxed his own ears.

Lady Lianxin laughed coldly at the spectacle Mu Yingdong was putting on. “You’ve already lived for so long but you have still made such a grievous error. Hurry up and get out of here to reflect on your mistakes!” Then, she turned to face Head Elder Xie. “Head Elder Xie, this is the Grand Medicine Testing Convention. Everyone came to show off their pharmacy skills, so it’s better to avoid airing your Medicine City’s dirty laundry here. Take care of things once everyone has gone home! As for the Hundred Poisons Sect members….heheh, I think Medicine City would agree with Medical City that nobody welcomes any of them here!”

Lady Lianxin was indeed a daughter of the Mu Clan. As Mu Yingdong’s third younger sister, she was also the only female on Medical City’s Council of Elders. In the span of but a few sentences, she had protected Mu Yingdong, rejected Jun Yixie, and paraded out Medical City as pressure against Head Elder Xie. First, she would chase off Jun Yixie, then send Mu Yingdong home, and finally sweep the whole incident under the rug. Once the Grand Medicine Testing Convention was over, there would be plenty of chances for the Council of Elders to decide on how best to punish Mu Yingdong.

To be honest, many of the spectators sitting in the stands were disappointed by the rescue. They had originally thought they would get to see a good show from the Mu Clan, but Medical City’s Fifth Elder, Lady Lianxin, had blocked all of that. Head Elder Xie would still have to give her face even if he didn’t want to. Despite her young age and ordinary medical skills, Lady Lianxin had been able to climb into the position of an Elder. Who didn’t know her methods at Medical City? It was obvious to anyone with eyes to see!

Yet, Head Elder Xie didn’t yield. Instead, he only grew more stubborn and came straight to the point. “Lady Lianxin, these are our Medicine City’s internal affairs. You are not the one to decide whether Mu Yingdong can go back without punishment!”

Lady Lianxin stood up, her back ramrod straight, somewhat surprised by the turn of events. But she quickly calmed down. “Head Elder Xie, we Medical City denizens naturally have no say in Medicine City’s internal affairs. I am merely making a suggestion; after all, myself and the rest of the audience are all here to see a competition, not your city’s scandals.”

Tsk tsk, what formidable words! In the distance, Han Yunxi almost wanted to clap in admiration.

“As the head of the association, I hereby announce that the Grand Medicine Testing Convention will break for one hour! There are tea and snacks within the hall, may everyone partake of them at their leisure!” Head Elder Xie refused to budge a step as he countered Lady Lianxin with his next move.

Lady Lianxin clenched her hands into fists, but she had nothing more to say. Now, all she could do was to nurse this grudge for the future. She steadfastly refused to believe that Head Elder Xie was targeting Mu Yingdong simply because of some ‘private agreement.’ Meanwhile, none of the audience members were willing to leave the scene despite the announced break. Even Jun Yixie, who had been asked to leave twice, refused to move a muscle.

He said coldly, “Head Elder Xie, this lord has come here today as a representative of Northern Li’s imperial clan with a sincere desire to improve relations between Medicine City and Northern Li’s imperial clan via marriage. I never once expected you to use this lord as a pawn to get rid of dissidents. Heheh, weren’t you the very one who told this lord to go find the Mu Clan head and sign the agreement?” Jun Yixie was there bearing the role of Northern Li’s Duke of Kang to ask for a hand in marriage. If he screwed everything up here, he would be in heaps of trouble once he returned to Northern Li. No matter what, he had to stay and fight for his principles.

Head Elder Xie only laughed out loud at Jun Yixie’s blustering. “Jun Yixie, you’re still pretending?! Before you came to see this old man, you were already collaborating with Mu Yingdong! The two of you had planned everything from the start!”

“Head Elder Xie, you need proof before spouting such accusations!” Jun Yixie’s tone turned severe.

Mu Yingdong simply lost his temper at that. “Head Elder Xie, you’re simply slandering others! I was only muddle-headed for a moment when I agreed to sign that agreement with Jun Yixie. The two of us were never close before this incident!”

Mu Yingdong was much more emotional in his rebuttal than Jun Yixie. After all, the most the Council of Elders could do was penalize him for his private agreement with Jun Yixie. But, if they found out the pair had long been allies, his crimes would be heavy! The entire nature of his misdeeds would change!

Head Elder Xie only smirked by way of reply. “Someone come, bring out the evidence!”

“Evidence…” Han Yunxi trailed off in puzzlement. Long Feiye was watching on in amusement as well. It was already beyond impressive for Head Elder Xie to stop the wedding talks in their tracks, but where was he to find proof that the Mu Clan and Jun Yixie were long in cahoots? Unexpectedly, everyone was disgusted by the presentation of the evidence---a corpse, crawling with worms! Ouyang Ningnuo had the most exaggerated reaction of all. He ran from the first ring all the way to the third ring to sit next to Long Feiye. Both Long Feiye and Han Yunxi simply took his presence as air, their attention more focused on the body onstage.

Two people on the scene discovered simultaneously that the corpse was poisoned. One was Han Yunxi, while the other was Jun Yixie. The latter was close enough to recognize the worms as the Hundred Poisons Sect’s most famous Poison Roundworms. That toxin had never been circulated outside the sect and was closely guarded by its members.

Just who had poisoned this man?

“Here is the proof! This man was a jailkeeper in charge of sending meals to Mu Linger. She poisoned the man in an attempt to pressure him to release her, but was fortunately caught by a guard. Heheh, from what this old man understands, this type of poison comes from none other than the Hundred Poisons Sect. It’s not just anyone who can get their hands on it! So I’d like to ask, where did Mu Linger get her own? She’s a pharmacist, so how could she know the poison arts?” Head Elder Xie questioned Jun Yixie.

“This lord did not give Mu Linger any poisons!” Jun Yixie roared in denial.

“From what this Head Elder understands, this is a poison exclusive to the Hundred Poisons Sect and is not spread to outsiders. Jun Yixie, you say that you didn’t give Mu Linger this poison. Could it possibly be that one of your subordinates did it instead?”

Faced with Head Elder Xie’s onslaught of questions, Jun Yixie was left at a loss for words. Meanwhile, Han Yunxi felt even more astonished! How in the world did things end up like this?

Because she was sitting far away, she didn’t have a clear line sight of the stage, but her detox system had already told her that the corpse contained Poison Roundworm, not the Birthing Roundworm Poison she had given Gu Qishao. She had been researching the Hundred Poisons Sect on her own and its top ten list of poisons. From their descriptions and records, she could, more or less, manage to make her own variants of the toxins. Yet, because she’d never seen those poisons in person, she could only create poisons with similar--but not the exact same---effects as the real thing.

The Roundworm Birthing Poison she had given to Gu Qishao was one such case. The victim would exhibit the same symptoms as someone infected by Poison Roundworm, but there were still minute differences. For example, her Roundworm Birthing Poison would cause the worms to fester and rot away with the corpse within a day, but the Hundred Poisons Sect’s version would last much longer. Moreover, there was the question of the intended target. Gu Qishao had sent a letter saying he’d poisoned one of the Lin Clan’s lackeys, so how did the victim suddenly turn into a jailkeeper instead?

Han Yunxi immediately started up a deep scan with the detox system to determine the victim’s exact time of death. The results gave her a fright. This body had been poisoned two days after the death of the Lin Clan rogue. In other words, someone had used real Poison Roundworm to infect the jailkeeper after the incident with the original attacker.

Who did it? Where did the true poison even come from?

Han Yunxi originally created the false impression of the Hundred Poisons Sect poison to convince Head Elder Xie that Jun Yixie and the Mu Clan were working together. She hadn’t meant for it to turn into proof of their long-term alliance! After all, they had to suppress the Mu Clan step by step. If the Mu Clan collapsed now, the Xie Clan’s power would rise to take the Mu Clan’s place. It would become even harder to rescue Mu Linger then.

Moreover, “the Mu Clan and Jun Yixie are collaborating” had a completely different tone than “Mu Linger and Jun Yixie are collaborating.” If Mu Linger became the scapegoat for all of this mess, she would be blacklisted by Medical City!

Troublesome!

Without a doubt, Long Feiye’s plot had been thoroughly ruined as well. He narrowed his eyes to stare coldly at Ouyang Ningnuo sitting by his side. The merchant only gave a refined and harmless smile in reply. Han Yunxi was still quite depressed when Head Elder Xie suddenly called her out.

“Qin Wangfei, I have heard that you’re familiar with the poison arts. Please come onstage to verify the evidence.”

Now, Han Yunxi felt like crying… What do we do now?

“Esteemed wangfei, Head Elder Xie is calling you,” Ouyang Ningnuo reminded the pair with a smile.

Han Yunxi ignored him and looked over questioningly at Long Feiye instead…