One Year

Asking For Help (2)

"I need you to lie down." She told him as she place her teacup down onto the table.

She saw how he hesitated when she asked, but he took her to his bedroom. Siri took a quick look around the room before she made her way next to his bed. He got into bed by himself laid straight looking at her.

Siri started from his toes and pinched it. "Can you feel this?"

"No."

"Tell me to stop if you can feel this." She said as she dragged her finger up his leg with her finger.

"Stop." He told her as her fingers stopped just above his hip.

"No feeling, no control. Hmmm." She said. "Can you turn around for me and lay on your stomach?"

He did what she said as she pulled up his shirt up to reveal the small of his back. And there is where she found what she was looking for. Siri had been reading books on poison and poison that affected qi, which in turn will cause the qi core to be contaminated. It was an interesting read and here was her first case on how to cure it. Although the evidence of his poisoning was very light, she could still see the poison markings that was evidence to the poison.

"You've been poisoned." She told him. Her fingers traced the poison marking slowly and in her mind it came out as a bird, but not just any bird, an eagle. "Its and eagle. The poison marking is so light that it makes me think that the poison that was administered is a slow acting poison in which the poison marking will show with the passing of time. The evidence of the poison marking is so light that if I wasn't this close to you, no one would be able to see it. That is why no one has been able to diagnose you"

She traced over the eagle again so he could make it out. "The eagle represents strength. Do you know that? It also helps me identify which poison was used to cause you to lose feeling, control and strength in your legs. The poison has invaded your governing vessel dantian, here." Siri pointed to the middle of his back. "And here." She pointed to his third dantian located on the small of his back. "The poison has invaded and infected your dantain cores."

"What poison was it?" He asked as he held his anger inside of him. He didn't want to scare off Siri with his violent rage that he could go into when he's extremely angry.

"I'm 90% sure that you were poisoned with the Crippling Silver Petal."

"90%?"

"Well I've never seen a Crippling Silver Petal poisoning before, only read about it. So... I can not be 100% sure." Siri said. "From what I read, the Crippling Silver Petal is a slow releasing poison that cripples the legs. Thus the name Crippling. The Silver Petal comes from a rare flower called Moonlight Silence that only grows on the side of a mountain cliff that faces the moon. It takes 50 years for the Moonlight Silence to grow. Once it matures, harvesting the delicate flower takes a steady hand and patience. Should any damage come to the flower, the potency of the flower would be reduced by half."

Siri pulled down his shirt and he flipped over to his back to look at her as she sat next to him, on his bed to talk to him.

"After the flower is harvested, it needs to be planted right away into a planted pot with a soul core of a Earth Bound Martial Stage beast. The soul core helps keep the flower alive while being transported. To turn the flower into poison, I read that, one must only use the silver petals. Thus the name Silver Petal. For the poison to work, one petal dried and grounded up must be fed to the victim and every 6 months another petal would have to be fed to the victim until the last petal is plucked. By the end of the last petal, the usefulness of the victim's legs could never be cured." She told him. "How long since the use of your legs stopped working?"

"Since I was 18...so 7 years now." He told her.

"There is 18 petals on a Moonlight Silence. 7 years, you have already been fed 14 petals which means we have four chances to catch the culprit who has been poisoning you for the past 7 years."

"How can we catch them?" He asked.

She sat in silence for a while, thinking of ways the poisoner could use the powder.

"Tell me what you're thinking." He asked her as he turned his head to look at her.

"The powder has to be eaten so they are either mixing it in your food or they could mix it in your tea or wine." She said. "Do you have a special treat you eat every now and then? Or a drink you like to drink regularly?"

"Yes." He said. "I have a favorite pastry that I only eat every couple of months because it takes a long time to gather the ingredients. And I drink a special wine given to me by a close friend every now and then."

"Stop eating them for two years and stop drinking the wine. Even if the pastry you eat isn't poisoned or the wine, we never know until we catch the culprit." She told him. "From now on only have one person do your cooking and your serving. Only one person to be in charge of cooking and the same person to serve you from kitchen to table. And only drink tea made from that one person. No more wine for you as well. They could put the powder inside the wine before you drink it. Should anyone offer you any food or wine, decline it. Should they try to make you eat or drink something, even if that person is the King himself. Remember it. For that person is likely the culprit."