Wei Lan took out a small porcelain bottle from his sleeve and slammed it on the ground between the two of them. A burst of white smoke came out.
"What is this! Cough, cough..." Ye Wuji couldn't help but choke and cough, with tears and runny nose running down his face. He couldn't stop thinking about it. Yao Pei was not much better, he no longer looked like an elegant scholar.
"Look at how much your yard has been ruined by you!" Wei Lan said angrily, "You have only half an hour to sort out all the medicinal materials and put them away, otherwise..."
Wei Lan showed off a few silver needles, and the two of them suddenly felt a chill on their backs, and responded hurriedly: "No problem! Half an hour, right? It will be packed right away!"
Facts have proved that you should offend no one but the doctor, especially when you are still taking medicine.
Ye Wuji was fine. She was young and a girl. As her senior brother, Wei Lan would not argue with her. Yao Pei drank coptis water for three whole days. "Coptis clears away heat and detoxifies, which is good for your body." Wei Lan smiled and pushed the medicine bowl in front of Yao Pei.
Yao Pei gritted his teeth, picked up the bowl, closed his eyes, and drank it all. The bitter taste that spread throughout his mouth made Yao Pei retch twice.
"My lord! My lord!" Yao Pei's detective opened the door and ran in, excitedly saying, "I've caught him! The poisoner has been caught!"
Yao Pei slapped the table and said, "Why didn't you tell me earlier!" If he had come earlier, he wouldn't have to drink that bowl of coptis water.
"This... Sir, the thief ran all the way over as soon as he caught the villain. He didn't dare to delay for a moment." The young catcher felt aggrieved. He was running faster than his wife when she gave birth to a baby. How could the prefect still do this? I thought he was too slow.
Wei Lan clenched his fist to his lips, cleared his throat, and said: "Since we have caught the person, why don't you go quickly?"
"Senior brother, are you coming with me?" Yao Pei grabbed Wei Lan's hand and said, "Don't you also think that the medicine used by the thief is very sophisticated, so you can interrogate him with me."
"I want to go too!" Ye Wuji heard them talking in the room, opened the door and walked out with his sword.
"What are you doing? Don't join in the fun!" Yao Pei rolled his eyes at her angrily.
"Whoever joins in the fun, I also want to help." Ye Wuji glared back dissatisfied.
"Go, go, little brat, how can you help me? Thank God you don't cause any trouble for me."
"You're just a little brat! I can help you a lot. This is prejudice and discrimination!"
"Okay, okay, stop arguing." Wei Lan acted as peacemaker, "Just go, it's just multiple people, what's the big deal."
Yao Pei scratched Wei Lan's palm with his fingers and whispered: "I just want to be with you."
When Ye Wuji heard what he said, he shook exaggeratedly and said loudly: "Oh! Third brother, you are so disgusting!"
Yao Pei pretended to slap her, but Wei Lan held his hand with her backhand and said: "How can two people try a case? Stop making trouble, you two, you are just letting others laugh."
"Who dares to laugh at me?" Yao Pei looked at the young detective, "You?"
Ye Wuji also followed and looked over. The little detective was staring at him with such two pairs of eyes, and he broke out in cold sweat. He waved his hands repeatedly and said, "No, no, no, how dare you!"
After talking a lot of nonsense, the three of them set off towards the moat. There is no water source in the city. Except for those with wells at home, most people draw their daily supplies from the moat.
The plague that broke out in Stone City was not actually a plague. Someone poisoned the moat. People who consume poisonous water for a long time will develop fever, chills, general weakness, vomiting and diarrhea, symptoms similar to the plague. Many old, weak, sick and disabled people who fell ill, as well as those in good health, also consumed the poisonous water, but did not develop symptoms. This shows that the poison in the moat was not highly toxic.
The moat of Stone City is not a source of flowing water. The reason why this place is called Stone City is that the city is located in a mountainous area with steep hills and steep slopes, a lack of water sources, and the difficulty of drilling wells. The moat is an artificial canal dug at the beginning of the city's construction. The water source is three springs upstream. As long as the three springs are blocked, the moat will become stagnant water.
To be honest, Wei Lan felt that the poisoner's method was really not very clever. Using poison that would not be fatal in the short term would be better than actually spreading the disease in the city, which would cause panic. Using poison would be time-consuming and labor-intensive, and The effect cannot be achieved. Being able to use poison only means that the poisoner is in Stone City. If the disease spreads in the city, the poisoner is afraid that he will also be implicated.
Since Yao Pei took over as magistrate, he has offended many powerful local landowners, and there are countless people who want to get rid of him quickly. Large-scale poisoning has no set goal and can only be used to create panic and then bring down Yao Pei, the newly appointed prefect.
Yao Pei deliberately spread the news about the plague in Stone City in order to expose the people behind the scenes. Someone in the capital has already begun to impeach Yao Pei, and those in Stone City can't sit still anymore and want to add fuel to the fire. With the arrival of Wei Lan, no one who was poisoned in the city died. The poisoner knew that this would not shake Yao Pei's position, so he carried a larger amount of poison to the moat.
The caught poisoner was being held in the government prison. Yao Pei did not bring the prisoner up, but took Wei Lan and Ye Wuji to the prison for personal interrogation.