When she reached him, she suddenly gasped softly.
"Oh dear. I am so sorry, Mr. Everworth," Jessie said, bowing deeply."It seems we did not bring enough. This was the last batch. I sincerely apologize."
She bowed lower.
The old man felt his scalp prickle.
He didn't know why, but every instinct in his body suddenly began screaming at him.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
"Th-That's not necessary," the old man said quickly, forcing a stiff smile.
"Please, Miss Jessie, you don't need to bow any longer. Please stand up."
Jessie paused for a fraction of a second.
Then she straightened.
"Yes, sir. My apologies."
She took one small step back.Then another.
Before quietly returning to Grace Piao's side, resuming her previous position behind Grace's chair as if nothing had happened.
The old man slowly exhaled, though he hadn't realized he had been holding his breath.
He did not know why he felt like he had just escaped something.
But for the first time since entering the meeting room, he understood what it meant to be in a beast's territory.
At the head of the table, Grace Piao said nothing.
But her eyes moved slightly, resting on him for a brief moment.
As if she had just finished confirming something.
Anyone in their right mind knew that people close to the Piao family were not ordinary people.
What the old man didn't know—
Was that when Jessie bowed, a thin needle had already slipped out from her sleeve.
So thin it was almost invisible.
The tip was coated in a clear poison.
A slow-acting poison.
It did not kill immediately.
On the first day, nothing would happen.
On the second day, a fever.
On the third day, pain.
By the seventh day, without the correct treatment, the person would die—and no one would know why.
Because this poison was once a medicine.
A powerful one.
But if one herb was removed from the formula, the medicine became a deadly poison that could not be traced.
And the cure could not be made by simply adding the herb back in.
It had to be added at a specific step, removed, and then added again later in the process.
If done incorrectly, the cure would fail.
This method had been discovered centuries ago by a member of the Piao family and recorded in her research diary.
Jessie was one of the few people alive who knew how to make both the poison—
And the cure.
If the old man had said one wrong word while she was bowing,
he would have been a dead man walking.
And he would never know why.