The Duke's Pampered Darling is So Scheming

Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Backup Plan

Just a glimpse of her side profile was enough to tell the woman had a slender waist. She was as delicate as a willow in the breeze, yet possessed an indescribable allure.

It was no wonder Yang Zhen doted on her so much. Her entire wardrobe was on par with that of an official wife.

Ye Chutang quickly averted her gaze and followed Wu Xu inside.

...

Only one of the patients appeared at the government office that day. The other three were reportedly too ill to make it.

She was a woman in her thirties. The moment she saw Ye Chutang enter, she started clutching her stomach and groaning incessantly.

”Lord County Magistrate! I beg you to grant us justice! Ye’s Clinic gave us spoiled medicine and brought us to this state! If a clinic like this is allowed to stay open in Jiangling, who knows how many more people it will kill!”

Ye Chutang couldn’t help but laugh.

Though quiet, her laughter sounded particularly jarring at that moment.

The woman looked over and snapped furiously, ”You still have the nerve to laugh! How utterly arrogant! Lord County Magistrate, you must get us justice!”

Yang Zhen’s gaze fell on the young woman who had just entered, and a flicker of stunned admiration lit his eyes.

He had long known that Jiangling had a Ye’s Clinic, with a Doctor Ye who, at just seventeen, possessed excellent medical skills and was blessed with great beauty.

If she weren’t raising several younger siblings, the suitors would have long since worn down her doorstep.

He had been dismissive of such talk before, but seeing her today, he realized it was no exaggeration.

The young woman wore a pale white dress embroidered with haitang blossoms. She stood tall and graceful, serene and exquisitely beautiful.

Simply by standing there, she seemed to be bathed in a soft glow, drawing everyone’s eyes.

Yang Zhen composed himself and asked with a stern expression, ”Ye Chutang, what are you laughing at?”

Ye Chutang bowed, then looked up and explained with a faint smile, ”I’m laughing because even here in this court, right before the Lord County Magistrate, she is still audacious enough to spout such utter nonsense.”

The woman immediately grew frantic. ”What did you say!”

Ye Chutang turned to face her. ”You just said that if Ye’s Clinic is allowed to stay open, you don’t know how many more people it will kill. Doesn’t that imply I already have blood on my hands? I must be poorly informed. How could something so major have happened without me knowing a thing about it?”

The woman hadn’t expected Ye Chutang to seize on her words and was about to retort, ”You—”

But Ye Chutang didn’t give her the chance, continuing:

”Or perhaps you were just running your mouth? But consider where you are. Not a single word or deed here can be false. If you dare to make such baseless accusations right in front of the Lord County Magistrate, who’s to say how much of what comes out of your mouth is truth and how much is lies?”

Everyone was stunned.

No one had expected this seemingly gentle and demure woman to be so sharp-tongued from the very first word.

Yet, her words were flawless, and no one could find fault with them. The woman’s dramatic wailing had indeed been an exaggeration.

Perhaps knowing she was in the wrong, the woman’s eyes flickered. But with people like her, the more guilty they felt, the louder their voice and the more dramatic their posture became.

Showing no sign of weakness, she raised her voice and yelled, ”Stop trying to twist things! We’re just common folk; we can’t win a war of words with someone as silver-tongued as you! But the fact is, we only got sicker after visiting your clinic and getting your medicine! You have to take responsibility for this!”

Ye Chutang scanned the woman from head to toe. ’She sounds so full of vigor,’ she thought. ’Where is the slightest sign of illness?’

She said calmly, ”You came to the clinic three days ago in the morning. You said you had a headache from exposure to the wind. Because we were out of two of the required herbs, I only wrote you a prescription and told you to take it to an apothecary to be filled. Now you’re blaming me for this? Fine. That’s simple enough to solve. Just produce the prescription from that day. We can have other doctors examine it to see if there’s any problem, and everything will be clear.”

The woman hadn’t expected Ye Chutang to remember the incident so clearly, and her heart skipped a beat in panic.

But she quickly composed herself and snorted, ”It’s been days! Who knows where that scrap of paper is now!”

Ye Chutang had anticipated this answer and nodded lightly. ”That’s also simple. I have a habit of writing two copies of every prescription: one for the patient, and one for my records. As it happens, I’ve brought the ledger with me. I’ll have to trouble the Lord County Magistrate to examine it.”

As she spoke, she retrieved a thin booklet from her sleeve and presented it.

Everyone was stunned by this turn of events.

Ye Chutang had clearly come prepared! Who would have thought she kept a second copy of every prescription she wrote?

”This contains a record of all prescriptions issued by the clinic for the last half-month, noted with the exact time of issuance. The Lord County Magistrate will understand with a single look,” Ye Chutang added as an explanation.

Yang Zhen flipped open the booklet and saw that every prescription was indeed neatly recorded.

He gave Ye Chutang a meaningful look. ”You are quite clever.”

Ye Chutang let out an inward sigh.

’It’s so much trouble without digital records. It literally doubled my workload!’

”Sometimes the clinic gets very busy, and it’s not uncommon to write dozens of prescriptions in a single day. We’ve had patients lose their prescriptions and come back to ask about them before. To avoid any mix-ups, I took the extra precaution of transcribing a separate copy, just in case.”

’And now it’s finally come in handy.’

Yang Zhen waved Wu Xu over. ”Go and fetch a few doctors to see if there is any problem with this prescription.”

Wu Xu immediately accepted the order and departed.

Soon, three doctors were brought over. After examining the prescription, they all shook their heads and said it was a standard formula for treating headaches, with no issues whatsoever.

The woman instantly panicked and cried, ”Who knows if you just added that copy in later! You can write whatever you want in there!”

Ye Chutang blinked. ”An excellent question. That’s why all the prescriptions in this ledger are written sequentially, page after page, leaving no room to insert or alter entries in the middle. Besides, with the Lord County Magistrate’s discerning eye, he should be able to roughly determine when they were written based on how dry the ink is.”

Yang Zhen nodded. ”Indeed. One can tell these were written several days ago, not recently.”

He returned the booklet to Ye Chutang, now seeing her in a completely new light.

’To be so meticulous at just seventeen is truly rare.’

’If she hadn’t provoked the Cao Family, she wouldn’t be in this kind of trouble.’

’Still, I promised Yiyi I’d help her cousin get his revenge. At the very least, I have to keep her clinic shut down for a while longer...’

Just as Yang Zhen was trying to come up with an excuse, the woman’s voice suddenly rose. ”Even if the prescription is fine, the medicine you gave me must have been the problem!”

Ye Chutang’s eyes narrowed slightly. ”What did you say?”

The woman wiped at the non-existent tears at the corners of her eyes and wailed, ”The herbs all came from your Ye’s Clinic! Who knows what kind of poisoned filth they were! Lord County Magistrate! If you send men to search her clinic right now, you’ll surely get to the bottom of it!”