Chapter 19 · Who Called the Healer?

"You're not allowed in here."

Su Liyue's voice hit me before I even cleared the doorway. She stood in the center of the plague ward, her pale green robes spotless, her hair pinned so perfectly it could've been carved from jade. Behind her, two junior physicians froze mid-step, eyes darting between us like they'd just walked into a domestic.

I kept walking.

"Funny," I said. "Last I checked, the warlord told me to figure out what's killing his people. That means I go where the bodies are."

"The warlord," Su said, "entrusted the Imperial Medical Bureau with containment protocols. You are a guest consultant. Not a ranking physician."

She didn't raise her voice. Didn't need to. The junior physicians stepped back anyway, putting her between me and the rows of pallets lining the walls. Thirty, maybe forty patients. All of them coughing. All of them pale.

I stopped three feet from her. Close enough to see the tiny muscle jumping in her jaw.

"Guest consultant," I repeated. "That what we're calling it now?"

"It's what you are."

"Then consult me this." I pulled the folded paper from my sleeve—