Jing Shu shook her phone, the metal casing feeling cool against her palm, and sent the recorded clip to Zhou Bapi. When the time came, even if President Tie tried to backpedal on his verbal promises, he wouldn't be able to deny the evidence.
President Tie nodded with a sunny smile that didn't reach his eyes, showing no hint of regret for his hidden agenda. "Silly girl probably doesn't realize it. Even if she is able to solve a few cases, if Wu City loses the overall competition there will be no vice chair position left for her. The whole association might be downsized or merged with others."
As for how to throw the blame for the failure, President Tie already had a draft speech prepared in his head: "The culprit was Zhou Baqi's stubbornness in the matter. He ignored advice and brought in a girl who knew nothing about the science of the apocalypse. The little miss had a big temper and boasted in public, then suffered a crushing defeat on the stage. Not only did she lose face for the Wu City branch, but she also caused heavy losses to the association's resources."
The group swept down from the third floor to the first, their footsteps echoing in the stairwell. The lobby was roaring with a wall of noise, packed with Medicinal Herb Association members consolidated from other regional branches and with the Ta City challengers who stood in proud clusters.
Jing Shu hadn't noticed the change when she first arrived, but now she saw that the central testing racks had been cleared away to make room for a boxing-style platform in the center of the hall. Herbs were arranged in neat rows on the stage, each with its own digital diagnostic device positioned behind it, the screens flickering with data and status lights.
President Tie hustled Jing Shu up onto the wooden platform and barked the opening line to the crowd: "Make way. Make way. Wu City is finally here with our genius. Ta City, you're done for. Let the genius onto the ring to settle this."
Jing Shu: "..."
Jing Shu bit back the urge to plant a boot in the man's ribs as President Tie shoved her forward. If it weren't for the convenience of securing the vice chair position through this challenge, she would never wade into this mud of local association politics.
The already noisy hall grew even louder as people surged forward to see the new arrival. She cursed inwardly at the sudden attention. If this bit of showboating failed in front of everyone, she would be able to throw her face in the trash. President Tie's little abacus beads were clicking fast in his mind as he calculated the odds of his own survival.
Jing Shu stepped onto the spotlighted ring, the bright beams of light highlighting the dust motes in the air. An old man with a big black mole at one corner of his mouth narrowed his eyes at her. This was the Ta City lead, Cheng Qingzi. He figured President Tie had dragged up a scapegoat to take the fall for the branch, and confidence warmed the old man's chest.
"Comrade genius from Wu City," Cheng Qingzi said pleasantly, though his voice was sharp. "You've two options for the challenge. First, state the remediation method for the plant and get our unanimous assent for the theory. Second, remove the disease from the plants by hand right here on the stage."
Jing Shu shifted her gaze to the three remaining specimens on the rack. Great. She didn't recognize two of them at all, their leaves and stalks entirely unfamiliar to her. The third herb she happened to know from her own garden. What luck she had.
Truthfully, whether she knew the botanical names or not made little difference to her actual treatment method.
"Well?" Cheng Qingzi drawled, leaning against the edge of the platform. "Which one will you tackle first? The delicate Tianqi, the dying 'snakeberry' in the pot, or the Paris polyphylla that refuses to sprout?"
Jing Shu knew Tianqi by its reputation as a medicinal root. But Paris polyphylla; wasn't that the name of a villain in a game she had played once? It was also the name of an actual herb?
Her eyes flicked toward the side. Inside the Rubik's Cube Space, she pulled up the reference packs she had downloaded before Earth's Dark Days began, while she maintained a steady smile on the outside. "Before we begin the trial, just to confirm: today's challenge is to diagnose and treat medicinal plants and resolve cultivation problems; is that correct?"
Cheng Qingzi nodded, his gaze fixed on Jing Shu.
"Then if you present a plant that's not a medicinal herb and try to muddy the waters with a fake, that has to count as one point for our side, yes?"
The crowd stirred at her words, a low murmur of surprise rippling through the hall.
"It has to. That would be fraud in the middle of a contest."
"Of course it counts; otherwise it's cheating the system."
A man from the Ta City group rushed up to the edge of the ring, jabbing a finger at Jing Shu. "If you don't understand the science, keep quiet. There are only a few herbs up here. Anyone can tell them apart at a glance. You think everyone before you is blind, and only you're able to see the truth?"
Cheng Qingzi frowned and waved the man down with a sharp gesture. "Which one are you claiming is not an herb?"
"That one," Jing Shu said, pointing to the wilted plant in the pot. "That is clearly a rosehip, not a snakeberry. Snakeberry is toxic to the touch. The fruit is solid and inedible for humans. Rosehip is hollow inside and perfectly edible. See? It's wilted from the heat, but it's still edible."
Jing Shu reached out and plucked a small red fruit, popped it into her mouth, and chewed the tart flesh. As a kid she had once eaten a real snakeberry as if it were a snack during a trip. The aftermath had been unforgettable: a painful stomach pump and an enema; a double-barreled medical procedure. She would never again confuse a snakeberry with a rosehip.
The hall exploded with noise.
"Damn it, no wonder nothing worked no matter what we tried with the nutrients. It was never a snakeberry in the first place."
"They look identical in this light. Ta City said what it was and we took it as gospel truths. I didn't even think to question the label on the pot."
Cheng Qingzi shot a glare at the trembling fellow in the corner who had prepared the samples, then checked the plant for himself. He crushed a fruit between his thumb and forefinger. The center was hollow.
"Idiot," Cheng Qingzi snarled, flinging the crushed rosehip aside into the dirt. "I told you to bring tough medicinal cases to the stage, not to pad the numbers with fakes." Compared with the complex medicinal profile of a snakeberry, a rosehip didn't count as an herb here, even if the two were dead ringers in appearance.
The man shrank back into the shadows behind the platform. He clearly knew the deception had been deliberate.
"One point to Wu City," Cheng Qingzi said, breathing hard through his nose, the long hairs on his mole bristling with irritation.
Jing Shu turned toward President Tie with a sunny look. "President Tie, does my point count toward the task?"
President Tie managed an awkward but civil smile that showed his teeth. "It counts. It must count."
"Looks like she's some real weight in this field."
"Of course. President Tie has bragged about her plenty to the board. Spotting that error at a glance takes real grounding in the basics."
President Tie's heart twisted in a sharp spasm of pain at the undeserved praise.
Whatever the case was, she had clawed a point back for Wu City and the face of the branch had been saved a little from the disgrace.
Jing Shu moved to the second case on the rack: the Paris polyphylla that refused to sprout. She frowned at the stubborn rhizome. Her recent reading had just reminded her that Paris polyphylla is notoriously difficult to cultivate in a laboratory. The technology for mass production wasn't fully cracked by the scientists. Soil chemistry, elevation, and a dozen other factors demanded absolute precision.
Propagation required careful division of the plant. In crude terms, you cut a piece off the plant body, disinfect the wound, and set it to root in the dirt, and it regrows into a new plant. There were countless reasons for the process to fail.
If the judges expected her to identify and test each environmental factor; cough; she didn't have that kind of lab time for the challenge, nor the full specialized technique. Division standards for rhizome segment length and thickness were exacting, and the cut needed a specific wood-ash dressing to prevent rot. She had never grown the herb herself.
The masters from Ta City had set this one to stump Wu City by forcing them to produce a full, written method on paper for the board. It was like having a poisoner brew a toxin with ninety-nine steps and then demanding the specific antidote. Who would be able to do that on cue in front of a crowd?
Cheng Qingzi put away his condescension and smiled, though his eyes remained cold. "Little master, how will you handle this non-sprouting Paris polyphylla? Will you state a theoretical method, conduct a hands-on trial on the stage, or review the solutions proposed earlier by the others?"
No sprout meant no growth, which meant no medicinal harvest would be possible.
Jing Shu shook her head slowly.
Then she reached out with both hands and, crack, snapped the precious Paris polyphylla in half.
A collective gasp of horror rippled through the hall. Cheng Qingzi's jaw dropped open. Heaven help him, what had he just seen?
Jing Shu casually stuck the broken segment into the fresh soil of the pot, touched the surface with a secret smear of Spirit Spring from her finger, and said, "Done. It will sprout within two days. Please don't imitate this lost technique at random. You won't be able to learn the secret of it."