“There is no sign of any poisoning that I am familiar with,” said the apothecary putting down his ePad with Madam Baihu’s blood analysis report. “Most likely, is that you are having a local reaction to the thorn. Just as anyone would from a stress reaction after experiencing a shock.”
Madam Baihu wanted to turn on the man and tear his heart from his living body and eat it in front of his dying eyes. Instead she smiled at the only man who knew he could say anything to her and get away with it and relaxed her body on the couch and let the acupuncture needles clear the pathogen from her blood. She watched him from half closed eyes. He was a Jade Dragon. No, he was her Jade Dragon and also the Jade Dragon as far as the White Tigress Society was concerned. It was he who had the final say as to which girls she could put to work, which ones she should sell on and of course which ones were Golden Jewels, Black Pearls or White Jade to be trained up for future auction and initiation into the White Tigress Society.
Dr Jing Shen had been her first Jade Dragon as an intern White Tigress, what twenty years ago. She hadn’t been his first intern to educate in the Art of the Bedchamber, but she had ensured that she, had been his last. She had manipulated everybody she could to ensure his success and so hers, and they had arrived where they were today because of that mutual benefit. Dr Shen wasn’t completely aware of all these past machinations. He had been too busy attending medical school and then on memorising all the traditional medicine texts. His graduation from Shanghai University had been one of her proudest moments and Shen was now the most powerful man she knew; and he knew it.
Dr Shen smiled knowingly, “you, let your guard down for a pretty face, and got bitten by a viper for your efforts. You must be more careful.” He turned off his ePad and stood up to look out his floor to ceiling windows at the forest, and the river curling it’s way through the narrow valley below and then open up into a small double bend a flood terrace in the shape of the Taijitu - the Map of Supreme Reality. He drew adeep breath as if to imbibe from the qi of the valley then turned and picking up the swab and tray proceeeded to remove the needles. First from between her big and second tow, the fire point of Sujueyin - the liver channel. Then from just up from outer crease of her elbow, the water point of Shouyangming - Arm bright yang.
He huffed to himself. He hated the new anatomical names, they had no poetry and conveyed none of the depth of meaning as did the old names for the channels. How can Large Intestine convey the meaning of how much sunlight fell on the arms of a standing body at noon. This demand to conform to the language of science caste aside so much wisdom and traditional knowledge. Shen shook his head and removed the last needle in her upper lip just below where it joined her nose.
At least this will stabilise your awareness while the herbs cleanse your blood from whatever has poisoned you,” and he turned to place the used needles in the to be sterilised tray. He listened to her every movement. How clean they were, how precise, how controlled, and smiled to himself. Only a fool, or a Dragon turns their back on a Tiger, and smiled ot himself again “Your empire is under attack and this Flower Bud may be more poisonous than my diagnosis or these machines can tell me!” and he waved a hand nonchalantly at the equipment lining the wall of his clinic.
Baihu nearly hissed at him for mentioning the attacks on her operational matters. Still he knew just about everything about everything. A tall man from the southern provinces, with a beautiful mother taken as a trophy bride by a rich european trader, he had learnt very early in life that to survive in modern China you had to learn fast, never forget anything, especially everyones weaknesses and perversions.
As a doctor he had become very wealthy, very fast. As a student of the Daoist arts for nearly his whole life, it was easy for him to become a Jade Dragon – an escort for the White Tigress Society. Shen had soon realised though that he had to become ‘The Jade Dragon’, and so the only male the White Tigresses would regard as more powerful than themselves.
He turned to her and watched pitilessly, the woman who was about to be destroyed though she did not realise this. He could see all the influences coming together and knew that some new organisation was making it’s move against her. To do so they would be taking on the entire White Tigress Society and even if successful, they would never be able to rest. It would be a crime war greater than anything seen in Asia since colonisation and the Opium Wars. Shen pursed his lips, he would have to get her to leave before the final onslaught began or it would be time for him to leave his beloved mountain palace and he did not want to do that.
“You need to resolve these attacks on your shipments!” he stated matter of factly, before what ever poison has been given to you over the last weeks begins to take effect.
Baihu went white with anger but refrained from tearing his head from his body like on that stupid news report. “You can be very infuriating Jing Shen, and it is not a becoming attribute of yours! What then is to be done?”
He smiled at her and savoured the moment. What he was about to do was why his last Daoist master had turned him away saying he had become a poisoned dragon and needed to live in the gutter for a while to realise his mistakes. Well this mountain side palace was not the gutter, but he was a poisoned dragon!
“Kill your russian plaything spy, take your special girls and run to the most fortified compound of the Society and live out your days there!” He didn’t wait for a response. “It appears that you have been given a composite poison. Those scratches a month ago. The sting the next week. That itch last week and today the kiss of a thorn. Very poetic really. Whoever it is, has planned this with great detail and cunning.” He turned to her and she was frowning at him her eyes wandering all over him and then to the windows.
“You have scales instead of skin,” she said then fainted. He grabbed her before she hit the floor and felt her nails scratch his arm. It stung and he looked with dread at the red marks and the trickle of blood on his arm. His head tingled, and he watched in terror as her hands grew long talons and her skin became fur covered.