[English subtitles are available.]
The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty
Episode 25
Bro,
where are we going to have dinner today?
Be serious.
Is this Mr. Lü's house?
My master is still working in the office.
He's not back yet.
It's OK. We're looking for you.
Sir, have some tea.
This is good.
Quite beautiful.
Sir, have some tea.
This teacup is good, too.
It looks exquisite.
The tea is also fragrant.
Officers,
can I ask you,
is there something going on with my master?
You don't know
what's going on with Mr. Lü?
My master
never talks about the royal court's affairs at home.
Does he?
Sir, sir!
Go away!
Sir, sir!
Please have mercy
and help my master.
Sure thing.
Please.
Can I take the liberty to ask
what your names
and department are?
What do you mean?
Please don't get angry.
I only asked so that when my master comes back home,
I can tell him who came by to visit.
The Northern Administrative Court.
Sui Zhou.
Tang Yu, get me a pot of hot water
and a clean towel.
There are so many people in the world.
Some has a stronger body
and some has better martial arts skills.
Why did you let her be my double?
Why?
Since you used her as my double,
and you knew it was going to be a dangerous trip,
why didn't you keep her safe?
Do you still hold a grudge against them?
Are you still…
Don't forget
Dora saved your life once.
Dora just got drunk
so she fell into sleep.
She'll be fine when she wakes up.
She needs a few days' good rest.
Sui Zhou,
I am hungry.
Fan,
you're not allowed to eat
until you clean yourself up.
The Imperial Guards
would do such a thing?
Yes!
Ever since I took office in the capital,
I have received performance assessments by
the Ministry of Personnel and Ministry of Rites every three years
and I passed both assessments with good rating.
The Censorate also gave me first-class rating
in the three categories of
having knowledges in both arts and sciences,
behaving properly,
and accuracy in my paperwork.
Also I am honest, upright
and free from corruption.
I just transferred to the post of expostulator of the Six Offices of Scrutiny from the Ministry of Rites.
So why…
Last winter
your son got typhoid.
You were busy at both work and taking care of your son
so you lost Expostulator's official seal.
It took you two hours to find it back.
That was the only mistake you had made
since you became an official.
It's like trimming your nails.
I can tolerate
trivia matters like this.
Thank you.
Unlike some people who have dirty hands
like they have fungal infection,
you have clean hands.
Otherwise
I wouldn't have allowed you to assist His Majesty together with me
to try to rejuvenate the Ming Dynasty.
Yes, Mr. Wang.
Could it be
those treacherous court officials have found out our plan
so they are looking for opportunities to frame me and others?
Don't worry.
I will handle this for you.
Let me ask you,
do you know which one in the Imperial Guards
came to blackmail you yesterday?
Sui Zhou.
Sui Zhou?
He was wearing a Flying Fish Suit
and showed me his official ID,
saying he was Sui Zhou from the Northern Administrative Court.
Mr. Lü,
how much silver did you lose?
Thirty taels.
Thirty taels?
Commander Wang,
this is not a matter of money.
First of all, it was an insult given to my name..
Secondly…
one way or another,
don't tell anyone about it.
I will handle it.
You can go now.
Mr. Lü, please.
Say it.
Sui Zhou just returned to the capital today.
Yesterday's blackmail
can't be him.
I think whoever did this
was targeting me.
Go investigate this.
No matter what you find,
keep it low-profile and don't spook them.
Yes, sir.
When dirty hands dip into clear water,
they will muddy the water.
This thief is so abominable!
They even broke all the utensil of the kitchen!
Enough talking.
Let's start cooking.
I am starving.
But this pan has a hole on it.
How can we cook rice?
With a jar?
Go wash your face, let me do it.
Just wait for the dinner.
Tang Yu.
Weren't those jars of five-year-old Jinhua Shousheng Wine
in the pantry of the kitchen?
I can't find them.
I only found this half-full jar of wine from Fang County Wine.
They are on the cabinet top against the wall at the west chamber.
There is a new little wine glass on it.
Oh yes.
We changed the place.
There is also a flagon for warming the wine.
I'll bring them together.
I will go with you.
Pei,
why are you so familiar with my house?
I'll go get the wine.
Tang Yu, I…
Uncle Pei has been living here for a while.
Quiet!
Actually the reason is
a few days ago
there was a thief breaking into the house.
I was worried that they two might be in danger.
So I lived in to protect them.
It's more like you took advantage of when they were frightened.
What are you talking about?
They lived in the backroom.
I slept on the floor in Sui Zhou's gym room!
That was tough for you.
I am a man.
I can deal with it.
The wine is coming.
Wonderful.
The poison on this arrow
is not any common poison
like aconit or poisoned-arrow wood.
It is a composed toxin of several different toxins.
And they depend and
interact with each other to get strengthened.
It only takes a little bit poison to spread
along the bloodstreams and circulate all over the body.
When the poison gets into the heart,
then there's nothing we can do.
Now she just started to show symptoms.
What can we do to save her?
This poison is so ingenious!
The tricky part lies in the different toxins' mutual dependence.
Even if you hastily manage to detoxify
one of the toxins,
it will aggravate the rest to attack.
So
we must find out which toxins it is composed of
before we prepare the antidote.
How long will it take?
At least three days.
But after three days,
I am afraid she is…
Can we get imperial doctors for a consultation?
News from Yunhe,
Ma Lin is dead,
by committing suicide.
There must still be someone in the dark aiming at killing Tang Fan.
You guys need to be careful.
Can you ask His Majesty to
get the imperial doctors to do a consultation?
The Imperial Hospital is for the royal family members
which are also their priority.
It's not like anyone can just use them at will.
But, Tang Fan…
Hurry back.
Don't go outside unless it's necessary.
You read all the medical books for nothing?
Didn't you?
You couldn't tell if there was poison on this arrow.
You didn't know what poison that was and
you don't know where to start to detoxify it!
What's the point of you as a doctor?
Fan,
Dr. Pei has wonderful medicine skills.
He will find a way to save Dora.
Ding Rong agrees with Pei Huai's conclusion
that testing and determining those toxins
both take time.
You can't count on imperial doctors, either.
How long will it take?
At least three days.
At the moment
we need to do two things.
First,
let Western Depot find out the ingredients as soon as possible
to determine the method of detoxification.
Second,
I will prepare more tonic prescriptions
to buy some more days for Dora.
Commander Shang.
Mr. Wan.
Why are you so excited?
You look good.
But between your eyes,
your complexion radiates a green color underneath.
It looks like an ominous sign.
Mr. Wan,
The Imperial Guards had such a big scandal,
and you really don't know anything about it?
What's the matter?
You two are so close together.
-Any good news? -Commander Wang.
I recently read some medical books.
I want to feel Mr. Wan's pulse
to give a diagnosis.
What a coincidence!
I also read some medical books
and I am dying to show you what I learnt.
Mr. Wan's pulse is a little restless.
Deficiency outside and excess inside.
This is the symptom of pathogenic wind invading your body.
But while the evil energy is flourishing, the yang energy is also full.
This is the time for a fight between the good energy and the evil.
I beg to differ.
Mr. Wan has a rapid pulse.
It's not the pathogenic wind invasion.
It's a swell of evil heat in his body.
The heat of evil is taking over your body.
The pulse is fast, but weak.
This is a fever caused by deficiency.
Commander Wang,
His Majesty has been waiting for you for a long time.
Am I sick or not?
Commander Shang.
I was confused by what you said today.
What happened?
Sir.
How is His Majesty's appetite these days?
He ate a bowl of fragrant rice for dinner yesterday
and a Babao Bun this morning.
He has a good appetite.
This morning
someone sent some donkey head meat as usual.
His Majesty loved it.
He even drank a small cup of Qiulu Wine to go with the meat.
How about his defecation?
Defecated smoothly.
The medical eunuch and I have both checked it.
It was normal the day before yesterday,
but a little bit dry yesterday.
The weather is dry recently.
Prepare some tonic of moistening the lung for relaxing bowels for His Majesty.
I prepared slow-stewed pear soup from the Court of Imperial Entertainments.
But His Majesty didn't like it.
He doesn't like stewed pear from the Court of Imperial Entertainments and the Royal Kitchen.
They put too many wolfberries
so the stew became too sour.
Tell them to go easy on the wolfberries.
Yes, sir.
You need to take good care of His Majesty.
Although I am few years older than you,
I entered the palace later than you.
It's not too long for me to serve His Majesty, either.
If there's anything I did poorly,
Commander Wang, please do teach me.
Wang Zhi.
Your Majesty.
Come here.
Appreciate this painting with me.
It has such an unworldly charm.
Vivid and magnificent.
It's like compressing the vast land
of our country
onto this small piece of paper.
I am ashamed to admit that
I don't understand
the beauty of this "Vast Land of Our Country" painting.
Don't worry if what you don't understand is just the painting.
Say it.
That Ma Lin of Yunhe
killed himself by taking poisons.
Why did he commit suicide?
Tell me what you thought.
If he was killed,
that's not such of a big threat to us.
But he committed suicide,
that's something we should worry about.
What else do you want to report?
Tang Fan returned to the capital from Yunhe.
It was a very dangerous trip
where he met several attacks trying to kill him.
Fortunately, blessed by Your Majesty,
Tang Fan is safe.
But an Oirat woman
who escorted him back was shot by a poisoned arrow.
I'm glad Tang Fan is fine.
Her name is Dora.
That arrow was highly toxic.
I'm afraid
she might die.
Ding Man.
Yes, Your Majesty.
Let Director Wang take some imperial doctors
to go diagnose her.
Yes, Your Majesty.
Another culprit in Yunhe's case was a man named Li Zilong.
This person is extraordinary
with wide networks.
Officially, he has bought many courtiers.
In the society, he befriends with underclass and underworld.
And I don't think he's purely after the money.
He's up to something else.
Check this Li Zilong's background.
Since this person has such a great influence,
he must be a man
of great talent and resources.
Find out what he wants.
If I can give him that,
we can put him in an important position.
But if I can't give what he wants,
we can't have him in the world.
Yes, Your Majesty.
Mr. Jiang and Mr. Shi from the Ministry of Personnel,
Mr. Zhao from the Ministry of Works
and three other officials in the Court of Imperial Entertainments and the Hanlin Academy
have been blackmailed by someone.
Why didn't those people
report the blackmailing to the court?
Are you stupid?
If these people's money was clean,
they would report it to the court asking them to investigate.
So
they had to give the money
when they were blackmailed.
If you ask me,
they're bad and stupid at the same time.
How can someone
be blackmailed so easily?
Yes.
But the one who blackmailed them
was an imperial guard.
Commander Shang.
This must be someone
trying to frame us Imperial Guards!
Can be it someone who's targeting us?
Your Imperial Guards
and my Eastern Deport are not the same department.
Can you stop saying "us"?
Commander Shang,
I always thought we have
built up a rapport.
Besides,
as they say, if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold.
When a nest is overturned, no egg can remain intact.
Let's not let anyone stab us at the back.
You know,
recently Western Depot
recommended many choices of officials to His Majesty.
They have their own people
in posts of the Six Offices of Scrutiny and six ministries.
That little punk is gaining more and more members of his clique.
You think I don't know that?
The eunuchs always want to get control of the court and cause chaos.
No. I wasn't talking about you.
I was talking about Wang Zhi.
No wonder this morning
you two used me to do a little speech.
He even said
there was an evil energy inside me?
Bah!
He was trying to
frame our Imperial Guards for something we didn't do!
He's targeting you.
You need to be careful.
Don't let him use Imperial Guards as a tool
at such a critical moment.
Commander Shang,
how should I deal with this situation?
Isn't that Sui Zhou
close to Wang Zhi in private?
Since he schemed against you,
you can use his scheme to go against him.
Doctors,
do you reach any conclusion?
Mr. Tang.
The symptoms are unpredictable
with chaotic pulse.
It's difficult to make a conclusion.
Do you know what kind of poison caused it?
We only know it's not any common poison.
Mr. Wang,
you are an experienced doctor.
Do you have any idea?
I am sorry that I don't.
If it was a common disease,
we would be able to apply medicine according to her disease.
But this…
Let's go.
Goodbye.
These people are in high positions in the Imperial Hospital
but no one tried their best to treat the patients.
They forgot doctors' professional ethics.
What should we do now?
Right now we can only use some Huanxu Tonic to sustain her life
to buy some more time.
But this tonic will make the body temperature rise sharply.
She is very weak now
so I'm afraid she can't stand the heat.
Is there any other way?
Yes.
But…
Tell me.
Use ice
to cool her body from outside.
Where can we find ice
in this season?
Sui Zhou,
every chunk of ice in the royal ice storeroom
is recorded.
Anyone who lost it
would bear serious consequences.
So I can
only find you some broken ice
and condensed ice in the ice cellar.
Thanks a lot.
If you need more,
you can ask the pharmacies.
Pharmacy?
Pharmacies have their own resources
so they may be able to buy ice in the black market.
Thank you.
Venom of Pointed-scaled pit viper.
Ink.
Tang Fan?
Ink.
There are also venom of Green Monkey Toad and Common Nandina.
I have memorized them.
They are really malicious.
They used five kinds of extremely poisonous venoms to make the poison.
I'll go work out the antidote.
Wait.
So there should be two other toxins we are not sure.
Following this idea,
there are three to four different possibilities.
How many days will it take?
The further you study the antidote,
the more difficult it gets.
Seven days.
Seven days…
Mr. Ding,
let me see you out.
Thank you, Mr. Ding.
Good bye.
Mr. Ding needs another seven days to work it out.
I hope the Huanxu Tonic can buy her some more time.
This is all the ice we have for now.
Use it.
I will find another way to find some more.
Sui,
I will go with you.
Let's go.
Yes, yes.
Since Mr. Sui needs ice,
of course we have ice for you.
Mr. Sui, please wait for a moment.
OK.
Master!
Master.
Mr. Sui needs a batch of ice.
How much should we quote him?
I was wondering which Mr. Sui he was talking about.
It turns out to be you.
There is no ice in my pharmacy.
But I…
Go in there.
Mr. Li,
your clerk just said that there is ice,
why is it suddenly gone?
We will pay you for the ice.
Mr. Sui,
you are not in the Imperial Guards now.
I am not afraid of you.
Even if my Huichun Pharmacy does have ice,
I won't sell it to you.
What can you do about me?
Do you want to arrest me again?
You are such a snob!
Sui, let's go!
If I offended you before,
I hope you can forgive me.
I didn't hear
the last sentence you said.
If I offended you before.
Say it again!
If I offended you before,
please forgive me.
I am grateful to that.
That owner is such a bad person!
How could he bully you like that?
He is not that bad.
Not bad?
He humiliated you!
He is just an ordinary person.
Ordinary people have feelings
and they want to vent their anger.
This is normal.
He sold ice to us in the end anyway,
so he has helped us.
The real bad guys
would just say things you want to hear.
Do you understand what I mean?
But you lowered your head to him.
This is such a humiliation to you!
Compared to human's life,
humiliation is not important at all.
I get even more confused.
When you experience the pain
of seeing your most important person gone,
you'll naturally understand it.
I don't want to experience that!
I will never leave you,
I'll never leave you guys.
Don't say that.
You never know
what will happen tomorrow, or even in the next moment.
What's going on?
Sir.
Commander Wan
told us to take you to the Northern Administrative Court
saying he has something to ask you.
OK.
I will go back with you.
But can you get someone
to take Dong and these two ice cubes home?
Sure.
Let's go.
Come on.
You two, have some water.
Uncle Guo.
Thank you, Uncle Guo.
Uncle Guo.
This pile of firewood
should be enough for you to pass the winter this year.
Yes, enough.
Please stay here for a meal.
Honey,
honey!
Honey!
Why didn't you cook for us
instead you just hide in here crying?
They were at the same garrison!
Why can they return home safe
while my son died in battlefield?
My poor son!
Don't cry.
Let's go.
Intentionally got poisoned?
Who will be the test object?
Me.
Ding Rong has extracted a certain amount of toxins
from the poisoned arrow
which is enough for him to analyze.
We can use the arrow
to test my reactions to the poison.
But there is no antidote yet.
This is too risky
for you to test it by poisoning yourself.
I am a doctor.
Only when I have tried it first-handedly
can I accurately describe symptoms and feelings
so that we can make the antidote as soon as possible.
Starting from the phrase of being poisoned,
my body
can probably stand about a dozen antidotes.
No, this is too dangerous.
Let me finish.
If
all the antidotes don't work on me,
that means you guys need to try
several other possible antidote combinations
for the formula of the poison.
No.
I can't let you do that.
Let me do it.
I'll be fine. Let's don't argue anymore.
No problem.
Let me get ready to test it.
Don't worry.
Put it over there.
OK.
Tang,
Sui was…
Why are you so stupid?
Yu.
I'm not stupid at all.
You have known Pei for a long time.
Don't you know what he's capable of?
He can cure any disease.
But still, you can't try it yourself.
If he is the test subject,
how can he have the energy to study the antidote?
And
Dora was poisoned because she wanted to save me.
It's only right that
I test the poison for her.
What if something happens to you?
Don't worry.
I believe
in Pei.
Nothing will happen to me.
You silly boy.
Why don't you drink it?
The decoction is getting cold. Drink it.
Come on.
Wait, I'll decoct another bowl for you.
Pei, wait.
I have something to discuss with you.
Sure.
You have been helping me so many times over the years.
Now can you help me one more time?
If something happens to me,
take care of my sister and Cheng…
Don't talk this nonsense to me!
Wait for my medicine.
Where's Sui Zhou?
Let me ask you,
from 3 to 5 in the afternoon of the 28th day of last month,
where were you?
Who were you with
doing what?
And can anyone testify for you?
I just returned to the capital yesterday.
Then from 3 to 5 early in the morning on the 5th of this month,
where were you?
Who were you with
doing what?
And can anyone testify for you?
I just returned to the capital yesterday.
From 9 to 11 the night before yesterday,
where were you?
Who were you with
doing what?
And can anyone testify for you?
I just returned to the capital yesterday.
You!
Answer the questions!
Do you want to die?
Leave.
Sui Zhou,
you've been working under me for so long,
you should know how I do things.
I'll only ask you once.
You have to answer me truthfully,
or things will get ugly.
From 9 to 11 the night before yesterday,
where were you?
Who were you with?
And can anyone testify for you?
I just returned to the capital yesterday.
OK.
Just back to The capital, huh?
You two,
put him into jail.