The herb that saved Fu Tingxin’s life was Autumn Night White.
If only the fruit juice is taken orally, it can have an anesthetic and pain-relieving effect, neutralizing all snake and scorpion venoms, with almost no possibility of addiction. However, if processed and inhaled, it becomes an addictive “White Dew Powder”. Moreover, long-term users of Autumn Night White will experience internal bodily changes, and in rare cases, they might contract a plague-like disease that is incurable, leaving them to await death.
Even more terrifying is that once this herb takes root, nothing will grow around it. The Autumn Night White in Southern Frontier grows in rock crevices deep in the mountains. Locals consider it a toxic plant and immediately uproot and burn it thoroughly to prevent its widespread proliferation.
Duan Guihong said, “In the fifth year of Yuantai, the entire Alamu tribe of the Eastern Tatars was annihilated.”
Fu Shen’s heart suddenly skipped a beat. “What does Your Highness mean?”
“Zhonyan is not as soft-hearted as you imagine,” Duan Guihong said directly and coldly. “Do you think learning his compassion is enough for a military commander?”
After Fu Tingxin’s recovery, he collected the herb seeds gathered by Duan Guihong and secretly dispatched people to scatter them extensively in the Alamu tribe’s pastures. Months later, the Autumn Night White sprouted and grew, destroying the pastures and causing massive sheep deaths.
Fu Tingxin captured a group of Eastern Tatars, making them drink water mixed with the blood of the infected, then releasing them back to their tribe. Many Alamu tribe members consequently contracted the epidemic and were ultimately swept away by the returning Northern Yan cavalry, leading to their total extinction.
“In Tatar legends, the symbol of plague is the ‘Impermanent Grass’, which refers to Autumn Night White,” Duan Guihong said coldly. “Now do you understand why the Tatars hate the Fu family so deeply?”
This history is not widely known, partly due to its confidential nature and partly because it is deeply unethical, so even historians dare not record it. Fu Shen had dealt with Eastern Tatars for years and had heard rumors about the “Impermanent Grass,” believing it to be just a legend.
In the Alamu tribe’s territory, a great fire burned for days and nights, consuming the swaying flowers of the “Impermanent Grass,” its shadow forever looming over the grasslands.
