Now Doctor Mo recalled how, when he had first entered the room, Han Li had insisted on keeping the door open. It seemed his opponent had laid this trap from the very beginning — a scheme to use the reflection of sunlight. At such a young age, this boy had been thorough enough to devise such a meticulous and vicious chain of stratagems, luring an old hand like himself straight into the snare with almost no way out. The depth of this boy's cunning was utterly at odds with his age and experience. Could he truly be some heaven-born genius, a prodigy reincarnated?
The more Doctor Mo turned it over in his mind, the more a chill crept through him. Cold sweat poured ceaselessly down his entire body.
After this defeat, Doctor Mo's wariness toward Han Li grew even more pronounced. He faced his opponent with extreme caution, not daring to strike rashly for the moment.
Han Li, for his part, seemed to have his own reasons for holding back — he merely stared at Doctor Mo without the slightest intention of attacking. The two of them settled into an uneasy standoff, glaring at each other across the room.
After a brief stretch of awkward silence, Han Li suddenly spoke a sentence that left Doctor Mo utterly dumbfounded, frozen on the spot.
"Doctor Mo, let's call a truce. Or I could surrender — what do you think?"
Having said this, Han Li flicked his wrist and casually tossed his weapon to the ground at his feet. He bared a row of clean white teeth and flashed a bright smile at Doctor Mo, looking for all the world like a simple, guileless village boy.
"Surrender?"
At first Doctor Mo thought he must have misheard. But the meaning quickly sank in. He glanced at the iron cone Han Li had discarded, and he didn't believe a word of it. With a venomous tone, he shot back: "What trick are you playing? Don't think for a second I'll buy your nonsense. If you wanted to surrender, you could have done it from the start — why wait until we've fought to the death before pulling a stunt like this?"
Han Li smiled faintly at Doctor Mo without responding, seemingly accepting the accusation by his silence. The two of them slipped back into a standoff.
After a short while, Doctor Mo suddenly seemed to think of something extraordinarily amusing. He doubled over, clutching his abdomen with both hands, and burst into hearty laughter — a deep, unrestrained peal of mirth, tears even leaking from the corners of his eyes.
"Ha ha! Ha! Ha ha! That's… that's truly hilarious. I actually forgot something so important. I actually went at you with real blades and real moves like some fool." Through his halting laughter, Doctor Mo's words came out slurred and indistinct.
Han Li furrowed his brow slightly, then relaxed with a carefree expression. He glanced toward the window, the smile at the corner of his mouth deepening, and spoke in an unhurried tone: "Doctor Mo, don't you think we've been wasting too much time? It really ought to be coming to an end."
Doctor Mo paused mid-laugh, momentarily stunned.
He slowly straightened up, set his face into a cold mask, and stared at Han Li expressionlessly. After a long moment, he finally answered in an icy, rasping voice: "I agree. It is time to bring all of this to an end."
Suddenly both of them brimmed with confidence, as if each held the decisive trump card to force the other into submission.
After a stretch of silence, it was Han Li who spoke first. He was utterly confident in what he held in hand, certain it would make Doctor Mo back down and abandon any further schemes.
"Doctor Mo, do you realize that your life is in my hands?" The moment these words left his lips, they were enough to startle anyone.
"My life — in your hands?" Doctor Mo sneered repeatedly, his face full of disbelief.
"Don't you feel something peculiar about your wound?"
"Nonsense. I clearly saw — there was nothing on that short sword of yours that—" Doctor Mo started to retort, but halfway through, his complexion shifted drastically. He remembered that the blow that had injured him was not from the short sword at all, but from the concealed cone.
"It seems I needn't say any more. Doctor Mo already understands what I mean." Han Li gazed at him with a cheerful grin.
"Even if that's so, so what? Don't forget — your knowledge of medicinal arts was taught by me. What poison could I possibly be unable to cure?" Doctor Mo's expression quickly returned to normal, his voice steady.
"Heh heh! I forgot to mention — the substance on my blade is called 'Silk of Entangling Fragrance.'"
"Silk of Entangling Fragrance?" Doctor Mo let out a low gasp of alarm, clearly caught completely off guard.
"That's right. You must know just how potent that particular poison is, Doctor Mo." Han Li drawled in a teasing tone.
"Rubbish! How could you possibly have prepared that poison? I never leaked even the slightest detail of its formula." On the surface Doctor Mo still put up a brave front, apparently refusing to believe Han Li's words. But the strange sensation emanating from his wound told him in his heart that what he was hearing was eight or nine parts true.
Seeing that Doctor Mo still refused to concede, Han Li sighed and had no choice but to explain further.
"Don't forget, Doctor Mo — you left your entire medical library open to me back then. The formula was tucked away inside some obscure pharmaceutical text. If I hadn't read so carefully, I might have missed it entirely."
At that, Doctor Mo finally remembered. When he had originally obtained that recipe, the sheer number of ingredients and the tedious complexity of the steps had made him fear he would forget something. So he had copied the entire process — the method of preparation and every ingredient needed — onto a slip of paper in meticulous detail, and slipped it between the pages of some book. Later, so many things had happened that he had completely forgotten about that scrap of paper. Never had he imagined it would fall into Han Li's hands and bring him this enormous trouble.
"Come — let's sit down and properly discuss terms for a peace agreement." Han Li spoke with full confidence.
Doctor Mo let out a humph and ignored him, his mind straining to recall everything he knew about the preparation and effects of "Silk of Entangling Fragrance."
The name "Silk of Entangling Fragrance" sounded harmless enough — even evocative, conjuring pleasant, fragrant images. But its potency was as unrelenting as a lovelorn woman's yearning, seeping into bone and marrow, impossible to bear.
(End of Chapter)