Triage
2049 Words
The shadow outside the window vanished as swiftly as a cat leaping from a wall.
Shen Qingwu made no move to chase.
It was not fear that stayed her hand—after seven years of night shifts in the ER, she’d been hounded by drunken men more times than she could count. The reason was far simpler: this seventeen-year-old body had just retched up its entire contents. Her limbs were limp, her heart pounding as if she’d sprinted five kilometers flat. To give chase would be suicide, not pursuit.
She slid down the brick wall, the back of her skull pressing against the cold stone, and closed her eyes.
Her racing heartbeat slowly steadied. She was growing accustomed to this body—or rather, to the dissonance between soul and flesh. Like a new pair of shoes that pinched with every step, a constant, nagging reminder that they were not truly hers.
“Miss?” Spring Peach’s voice came from outside, thick with tears. “Miss, are you all right? I heard you vomiting—”
Shen Qingwu opened her eyes.
Spring Peach stood in the doorway, holding an oil lamp whose flame flickered in the draft. The light carved her face into half-shadow, half-warmth, her eyes red-rimmed and lips still trembling.
Shen Qingwu studied her for three seconds, her mind racing—not wondering “Can I trust this maid?” but doing what she did best in the ER:
Triage.
Triage was the ER’s first line of defense. When patients flooded in, you had thirty seconds to decide: who was critical, who could wait, who was already beyond saving. The call didn’t need to be perfect—just fast.
Now she applied that same logic to the maid standing before her.
Spring Peach’s pupils were normal, not dilated—she hadn’t yet reached the acute stress response stage. Her fingers trembled slightly, but her gait was steady—scared, yes, but her legs hadn’t given way. She held the oil lamp level—the shaking was emotional, not pathological.
Conclusion: Spring Peach was communicable.
“Come in.” Shen Qingwu’s voice came out rougher than she’d intended—the aconitine had scorched the lining of her throat. It would heal.
Spring Peach hurried inside, set the lamp on the table, and turned to fetch water. Shen Qingwu raised a hand. “Don’t. Sit. I need to ask you something.”
Spring Peach hesitated. In her memory, the original Shen Qingwu had never spoken like this. That girl had always been soft-spoken, as if afraid to be heard. But this woman—her voice hoarse, her tone flat—exuded an authority that made refusal impossible.
Spring Peach perched on the edge of the stool, tense and alert.
Shen Qingwu ignored her nervousness, her attention elsewhere: piecing together her circumstances.
Less than an hour had passed since she’d transmigrated into this body. Too much information, too little time. She needed to organize it—like triaging a multisystem trauma patient in the ER, prioritizing what mattered most.
First: Whose body was this?
Answer: Shen Qingwu, a low-ranking concubine in the Shen Manor. A cannon fodder character in the original novel. She’d only read the first thirty chapters before skimming the rest, but that was enough to know this character’s fate—poisoned to death, leaving not so much as a ripple in the story.
Second: Who had poisoned her?
The surface answer was “killed by a rival concubine in a fight for the master’s favor”—that was what the novel claimed. But Shen Qingwu—the new Shen Qingwu—didn’t buy it.
The reason was simple: the poison used was aconitine.
Aconitine poisoning caused numbness of the lips, cardiac arrhythmia, and violent vomiting. The lethal dose was small, but onset was not immediate—it required sustained ingestion to be fatal. The concentration in tonight’s medicine had been high. Without inducing vomiting, she would have died of arrhythmia within two hours.
This was no crime of passion.
And the timing had been precise—administer the poison while the victim was already “ill,” so death could be blamed on sickness. This was not the work of a jealous concubine. Concubines used arsenic—crude, direct, unsubtle.
Whoever had chosen aconitine, controlled the dosage, and timed its administration either knew pharmacology or had someone advising them who did.
Third: Who was the shadow outside?
She’d only caught a glimpse of a silhouette—slender build, quick, silent movements. Not the gait of an ordinary maid. Servants’ clothes rustled, especially at night; this figure had moved without a sound.
That person had come to confirm she was dead.
Once satisfied, they’d left.
Two deductions followed: first, the poisoner was not the shadow—they were the “verifier.” Second, they’d been so confident she would die that they hadn’t bothered to enter and check.
Shen Qingwu sorted through the information and reached a preliminary conclusion:
The original owner’s death was not a simple case of “poisoned in a harem rivalry.” This was premeditated murder. At least two people were involved—one to administer the poison, one to confirm the kill.
But she had no evidence, no means to investigate. All she could do was survive.
“Miss?” Spring Peach spoke cautiously. “Are you… feeling better now?”
Shen Qingwu refocused, her gaze falling on Spring Peach once more.
The lamplight cast light across the girl’s face—she was sixteen or seventeen, with delicate features, but a deep crease between her brows. A line borne of constant, chronic worry. A girl her age should not have such a mark.
Shen Qingwu suddenly recalled: in the novel, Spring Peach had been the original Shen Qingwu’s closest maid. After her mistress’s death, Spring Peach was sent to the laundry quarters and “died of illness” within months.
The novel had never specified the cause. But Shen Qingwu had a new hypothesis.
“Spring Peach.”
“Yes, miss.” She stood at once, rigid with deference.
“Sit.” The command was calm, unyielding. Spring Peach hesitated, then sank back onto the stool.
“I’m going to ask you some questions. Answer truthfully. You don’t have to tell me everything, but do not lie.”
Spring Peach’s shoulders twitched, as if stung by a bee.
Shen Qingwu noted the reaction but did not press. She simply asked: “How many days have I been ‘ill’?”
“Th-three days, miss.” Spring Peach’s voice was barely a whisper. “The night before last, you suddenly complained of stomach pain, then developed a fever. Steward Zhou sent for a doctor, who said it was a cold and prescribed medicine. But you didn’t get better—you only grew worse…”
“Is any of that medicine left?”
Spring Peach shook her head. “It’s all gone. The last bowl was tonight—” She trailed off, her face paling as realization dawned.
Shen Qingwu didn’t need her to finish. The last bowl had been forced down her throat that night, and Spring Peach had watched. Had not stopped it.
Could not stop it.
Shen Qingwu understood. In this place, what power did a maid have? She could not even protect her own life, let alone her mistress’s.
“One more thing.” Shen Qingwu said. “Who came to visit me these past three days?”
Spring Peach paused, thinking. “Concubine Li sent a maid once to check on you. Steward Zhou came too, bringing some food. And…”
She hesitated, her voice fading.
“Who else?”
“Concubine Zhao.” Her voice dropped even lower, almost inaudible. “She sat for a while, didn’t say a word, then left.”
Concubine Zhao.
Shen Qingwu filed the name away. In the novel, Concubine Zhao had been a nonentity—barely mentioned, a ghost in the harem. But why would a “nobody” take the trouble to visit a dying concubine?
Maybe simple courtesy. Maybe not.
“All right.” Shen Qingwu said. “Go rest. I’m fine.”
Spring Peach opened her mouth as if to say more, but finally just nodded and rose. At the door, she turned back suddenly. “Miss… you’ve changed.”
Shen Qingwu raised an eyebrow.
“Not in a bad way!” Spring Peach hurried to clarify, flustered. “Just… different. Before, you always spoke so softly, as if afraid to be heard. Now….” She struggled for words. “It’s like you’ve become someone else.”
Shen Qingwu was silent for two seconds, then smiled. Her lips curved upward, but there was no warmth in her eyes—not that the smile was fake, either.
“Near-death experiences have a way of putting things in perspective.”
Spring Peach bowed her head and slipped out quickly.
The door closed with a soft click. Shen Qingwu’s smile vanished.
She pulled a diary from under her pillow—the first thing she’d noticed when she’d woken. A palm-sized booklet with a plain silk cover, its edges frayed from use.
She opened it to the first page.
Graceful handwriting, slightly hurried. The entries were mundane, trivial: “Fine weather today; sat in the courtyard to sunbathe.” “Spring Peach made porridge with too many red dates—far too sweet.” “Concubine Li came to pick a fight again; I avoided her.”
The daily life of a seventeen-year-old girl. Small joys, small grievances, ordinary and unremarkable.
Shen Qingwu flipped through the pages, her speed increasing. Most entries were much the same—eating, sleeping, enduring petty bullying, fleeting moments of happiness.
Until the third-to-last page.
The handwriting had turned chaotic, the strokes pressed so hard they nearly tore the paper:
“They’re not good people.”
Next line:
“I heard something.”
Next:
“I don’t know what to do.”
The last page held only one sentence.
Shen Qingwu’s fingers stilled.
“I know what they’re doing.”
Seven characters. No subject, no object, no time or place. But Shen Qingwu noticed a detail—
The ink was different.
All previous entries had been written with the same ink: dark, slightly bleeding, ordinary pine soot ink. But these final seven characters were lighter, of finer quality, as if written with a different brush and a different batch of ink.
They had not been written at the same time.
At some point, the original owner had secretly added this sentence, using different materials to avoid detection. She hadn’t wanted anyone to find it.
But why? If it was just a diary, why go to such lengths to hide a single line?
Shen Qingwu closed the booklet and slid it back under her pillow. She leaned against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.
The original owner had discovered “what they were doing.” Then she had died.
Was there a connection?
No proof. But seven years in the ER had taught her one immutable truth: when a patient says “something feels wrong,” you listen—even if every test comes back normal.
This diary was that “something feels wrong.”
Outside, a cat yowled. Shen Qingwu glanced at the window—the shadow did not return.
She closed her eyes and began to make a mental list.
Like writing a progress note after a complex case. Now she needed to write herself a survival plan.
Known:
The original owner was murdered, not killed by illness
At least two perpetrators were involved, using professional methods
The original owner discovered a secret before her death
Someone came to verify her death tonight
Concubine Zhao visited the original owner before her death
Unknown:
The identity of the killers
The nature of the secret the original owner discovered
Who the shadow outside had been
Whether she was safe now
To the last question, she already knew the answer.
No.
If the killers discovered she was alive, they would come again. Before that happened, she needed to make herself harder to kill.
Shen Qingwu opened her eyes. Her gaze fell on the oil lamp, its flame small but stubbornly alight, dancing in the dark.
She needed a plan.
- Writer
