The Poison Teahouse of Three Clans

Miaohe was ladling tea when the first debt came calling. The cup she passed across the counter settled a shaking hand, then the man in front of her dropped a dead teacher's token beside the saucer and asked her to pay what was owed. She ran a teahouse at the edge of three school lands, where every pot was brewed from spring water that had swallowed qi for five hundred years. That made her tea strong enough to soothe poison and nerves alike. It also made her a target. Miaohe knew poisons, herbs, and the cost of mercy. She kept helping people anyway, even when her own chest tightened and her calm cracked in private. The debts her teacher left behind were tied to real lives, and one cruel elder...