Resumo do episódio 15 de Unveil: Jadewind
> Resumos de Unveil: Jadewind
Consort Li suddenly vomited blood and passed away shortly after recovering from a previous illness. Upon investigating, Physician Song, the Imperial Medical Director, observed that her purple fingertips and pale eyelids indicated chronic poisoning rather than a sudden natural death. Li Peiyi visited the Consort’s dark chambers and learned from a maid that the Consort avoided candles to preserve her complexion.
On the vanity, Li Peiyi found various refined cosmetics, such as Jade Dust face cream and angelica root powder, which helped the thirty-seven-year-old Consort maintain a youthful appearance. However, the most suspicious discovery was a stash of unmarked medicinal pills hidden inside a lampstand. Testing revealed these were non-toxic "Xiaoyao" pills used to balance qi and blood. Li Peiyi discovered that a female technician named Pei Yu had secretly visited the Consort to take her pulse ten days prior.
At the Imperial Medical Office, Li Peiyi found Pei Yu being punished with copying medical texts by Physician Song for her lack of discipline. Pei Yu admitted she had been providing beauty pills for the Consort in secret, as female technicians were forbidden from prescribing medicine. She insisted her recipe—containing safflower and gleditsia spines—was harmless. However, she soon realized that her pills contained a small amount of veratrum, which becomes lethal when combined with ginseng.
Li Peiyi confirmed that the Consort’s mother, Madam Zheng, had recently sent high-quality ginseng, which she had personally boiled with ginger into malt candy to mask its taste. Consort Li had been consuming this fatal combination unknowingly for days. The Emperor fined Physician Song three months' salary for his lack of oversight but left Pei Yu’s punishment to Song’s discretion.
Song later explained to Li Peiyi that he had rescued Pei Yu, an orphan with a natural genius for medicine, years ago. Despite her blunt personality, her talent had often saved him from difficult medical dilemmas. Days later, a seasonal epidemic began to spread through the palace. While visiting the Imperial Medical Office, Li Peiyi witnessed Medical Supervisor Huang prescribing a general "Cinnamon Twig Decoction" for the sick.
Pei Yu boldly interrupted, arguing that the treatment was unsuitable for patients who were not sweating or had specific pulses, as it could worsen their condition. Supervisor Huang took offense, but Li Peiyi silenced his gossip by challenging him to bring any evidence of Pei Yu’s alleged "crimes" to the Bureau of Palace Ladies. Amidst the chaos of the epidemic, the Neishi Cheng of the Yeting Palace, who was responsible for distributing supplies to the sick, went missing.
Li Peiyi and Xiao Huaijin searched his quarters and found his boots left by the bed, suggesting he had been surprised in the middle of the night. Xiao discovered the eunuch’s body hidden behind a cabinet; he had been killed with a heavy iron tea kettle. Blood spatters on the victim's collar suggested the killer was suffering from the epidemic, as the pattern matched blood coughed up during a violent fit.
When Li Peiyi and Xiao Huaijin entered the side hall to find the culprit, many desperate patients vied to confess. Eventually, an elderly patient named Old Chai admitted the truth. He explained that as the epidemic worsened, the Neishi Cheng and his staff had become neglectful out of fear of infection, leaving the sick with only one meal and one dose of medicine a day in a cold, damp hall.
Old Chai had sneaked into the eunuch’s room to steal food for the weakest patients and struck the official in a panic when he threatened to call the guards. Li Peiyi moved the selfless man to a private room, but he succumbed to his illness that same night. The situation became critical when the young prince also contracted the illness.
With existing treatments failing, Li Peiyi suggested that the Emperor gather prescriptions from everyone in the Imperial Medical Office to benefit from collective wisdom. However, when Pei Yu pointed out a fatal flaw in a prescription submitted by a senior physician, she was met with verbal abuse and dismissed because of her gender.
Li Peiyi arrived to end the confrontation, warning the senior doctors that whether the issue was incompetence or a deliberate attempt to seek fame at the risk of the prince's life, the Bureau of Palace Ladies would investigate every detail.
