Chapter 130: A Plan In Mind

The inside of the main building was as dim as its windows had suggested from outside, a single oil lamp burning low in the front hall while servants moved through the shadows with the hushed, careful steps of people trying not to disturb something fragile.

One of them, a young woman Lu Feng vaguely recognized as Lin Laifu’s attendant, hurried forward the moment she saw him, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen.

"Young Master Lu." Her voice cracked. "Thank the heavens. Master Lin has been asking for you, though none of us knew how to reach you in time."

"Take me to him," Lu Feng said. "Now."

She led him down a narrow corridor lit by nothing but a single lantern hung near the far end, past closed doors and the low murmur of at least one other person weeping softly behind one of them, until they reached a room at the back of the building where the air itself seemed heavier, thick with the bitter smell of failed remedies and unburned incense.

A tray of untouched medicine bowls sat abandoned on a side table just outside the door, their contents long gone cold, evidence of how many different attempts had already failed before this one. It probably was the last attempt since the pill master had warned against further ones.

Lin Laifu lay on a wide bed that had clearly not been made for a man this sick, propped up against a mountain of cushions, his face gaunt and gray in a way that made him look ten years older than the last time Lu Feng had seen him. His lady sat at the bedside, her hand wrapped around his, dark shadows beneath her eyes betraying however many nights she’d spent exactly like this.

"Lu Feng," Lin Laifu rasped, his eyes cracking open at the sound of footsteps. A weak, disbelieving smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. "You actually came."

"Of course I came." Lu Feng crossed the room in a few quick strides and knelt beside the bed, ignoring the way Lin Laifu’s lady straightened with a mix of hope and confusion at his sudden arrival. "Why didn’t you send word that something was wrong?"

"Didn’t want to trouble you," Lin Laifu managed, each word costing him visible effort. "Business troubles. Not yours to fix."

"You’re an idiot," Lu Feng said, though there was no heat in it, only a tightness in his throat he didn’t bother hiding. "This was never just business."

He reached into the inner pocket sewn along his robe and withdrew a small jade box no larger than his palm. Inside, nestled in a bed of soft cloth, sat a single pill.

Lin Laifu’s lady gasped softly. Even in her exhaustion, she clearly recognized something valuable when she saw it.

"What is that?" Lin Laifu whispered.

"Something that saved someone else’s life once," Lu Feng said simply. "I’m hoping it can do the same for you. Actually, I believe it can do.the same for you."

He didn’t wait for permission. He pressed the pill gently between Lin Laifu’s cracked lips, guided a cup of water to help it down, and then sat back on his heels to watch, his own heart hammering harder than he wanted to admit.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Lin Laifu’s breathing remained shallow and uneven, his lady’s grip on his hand tightening as the silence stretched.

Then Lin Laifu’s whole body went rigid.

His lady cried out, half rising from her chair, but Lu Feng caught her wrist and shook his head once, sharply. "Wait," he said. "Just wait."

A faint silver light bled up from beneath Lin Laifu’s skin, tracing thin lines along his arms and throat like veins made briefly visible, pulsing in time with something Lu Feng couldn’t see but could somehow feel pressing against the air of the room.

Lin Laifu’s face twisted, jaw clenched tight against a pain that seemed to be tearing through him from the inside out, and for one terrible heartbeat Lu Feng wondered if he’d made a mistake, if whatever poison had been used here was simply too far advanced for even the Heaven and Earth Mending Pill to reach.

Then, all at once, the tension broke.

Lin Laifu’s body sagged back into the cushions, the silver light fading from his skin, and the color that flooded back into his face was so immediate and so stark that his lady let out a sob of pure relief before she could stop herself. His breathing deepened, steadied, evened out into something that actually resembled rest rather than desperate survival.

"How," Lin Laifu breathed, eyes wide open now, clearer than Lu Feng had seen them since he’d walked into the room. "How do I feel like I could stand up and walk to the market right now?"

"Don’t," Lu Feng said, allowing himself a small, exhausted smile. "Your body still needs time, even if it doesn’t feel that way. But yes. Whatever that ailment was, the pill worked against it."

Lin Laifu’s lady pressed both hands over her mouth, tears finally spilling freely, and reached across the bed to take her husband’s face gently between her palms as if to make certain he was really there.

It took several minutes before Lin Laifu could speak again without his voice shaking, and several more before he insisted, against his lady’s protests, on sitting up further to actually look Lu Feng in the eye.

"I need to tell you what happened," he said. "Before I forget any of it, or convince myself I imagined it."

"Tell me."

Lin Laifu drew a slow breath, gathering himself. "The night of the celebration. Everything was going well, better than well. My workers were in good spirits, my lady was happy, and I’d just closed the largest deal I’ve done in a while thanks to you. At some point, a server came around with wine, refilling cups. Nothing unusual about that. I’d hired extra staff for the night."

"Go on."

"Except I didn’t recognize this one." Lin Laifu’s brow furrowed with the effort of remembering clearly. "A young man, plain face, forgettable in every way except that I’d never seen him before and I know every servant in this house by name. He poured for me personally, said something about congratulations on the auction, and I thought nothing of it. I drank. Enjoyed the rest of the evening." His jaw tightened. "By the time I went looking for him the next morning to ask who’d hired him, no one in the house could remember seeing him arrive, and no one could find him anywhere on the grounds."

"And nothing was the same after that wine," Lu Feng said quietly.

"Nothing," Lin Laifu confirmed. "Within hours I felt it starting. By morning I could barely stand."

Lu Feng sat back, the pieces settling into place with a cold, deliberate click. A stranger, invisible enough to slip in and out of a private celebration without anyone questioning him, patient enough to wait for the perfect moment, precise enough to poison a single cup without anyone else in the room so much as feeling ill. This wasn’t the work of common thugs sent to grab his maid off the street. This was something far more careful.

"You saved my life," Lin Laifu said, and there was nothing performative in it now, none of the merchant’s usual flourish. Just plain, exhausted gratitude. "I owe you everything, Lu Feng. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, you have my word."

"I’ll hold you to that," Lu Feng said, and he meant it, though he softened it with a small nod. "But not tonight. Tonight you rest, and you let your lady fuss over you as much as she wants."

Lin Laifu managed a weak, genuine laugh at that, one that clearly still hurt something in his chest, judging by the way he winced halfway through it.

"Before you go," he said, waving weakly toward a locked chest sitting against the far wall, "there’s something else. The proceeds from the auction. I’d meant to bring them to you myself, but obviously that plan fell apart." He gestured for his lady to fetch the key from where it hung on a cord around her neck. "It’s all there. Every coin, counted twice."

The chest, once unlocked and opened, revealed row upon row of gold coins stacked with the meticulous care Lu Feng had come to expect from Lin Laifu even in the worst of circumstances.

"Bai Bao," Lu Feng called toward the doorway, where his guard had been waiting silently the entire time, close enough to hear everything but wise enough not to intrude. "Load this into the carriage."

Bai Bao stepped forward, hefting the chest with a soft grunt of effort, and offered Lin Laifu a respectful nod before carrying it out toward where Old Ma waited with the horses.

Once he’d gone, Lu Feng turned back to the bed, his expression settling into something harder, more focused.

"Whoever did this to you is the same group that tried to take Han Lin from the market today," he said. "I’m certain of it now. Iron Fang."

Lin Laifu’s eyes sharpened despite his exhaustion. "They’ve moved against you directly, then. I’m guessing you didn’t ask of Black Rat merely on ’coincidence’."

"I didn’t and now, they’re making heir presencenmore pronounced." Lu Feng agreed. "Which means it’s time I stopped simply reacting to them."

"You have something in mind."

"I’m going to build a plan," Lu Feng said. "Something that doesn’t just fend off the next attack, but ends this properly. Catches them in one move, all at once, before they get the chance to come after anyone else I care about."

For the first time since Lu Feng had walked into the room, something like his old fire flickered back into Lin Laifu’s eyes.

"I’m eager to hear it," he said. "And even more eager to help you carry it out, the moment I can stand without my knees shaking."

"You’ll get your chance," Lu Feng said. "But not before you’re properly recovered. I don’t need a business partner who collapses halfway through a plan because he refused to rest."

Lin Laifu huffed something that might have been a laugh, might have been a cough, and sank back further into his cushions, his lady immediately fussing with the blankets around him.

"Rest," Lu Feng said again, rising to his feet. "I’ll come back once I have something worth showing you. When I do, we start work on it immediately."

"I’ll hold you to that too," Lin Laifu murmured, already fighting to keep his eyes open.

Lu Feng lingered a moment longer at the doorway, watching Lin Laifu’s lady smooth the blankets and press a damp cloth to his forehead with hands that trembled far less than they had an hour ago, before he finally turned and walked back out through the dim corridor.

The servants he passed on his way out no longer moved with the same hushed, funereal steps they had when he’d arrived. Word of Lin Laifu’s recovery had clearly already begun spreading through the household, and something in the air itself seemed to have loosened, the way a held breath finally lets go.

Outside, Bai Bao stood waiting by the carriage with the chest of gold already secured, and Old Ma sat up on the driver’s bench looking considerably less grim than he had on the ride over. Neither of them asked what had happened inside. They didn’t need to.