Augusta wasn't letting it go.
She stared hard at my earthen oven and raised her voice.
"Without fluid dynamics and thermodynamics, there's no way you could build a constant-temperature kiln like this."
She opened her tablet and pulled up an elaborate 3D model.
Then she turned to the camera and lectured in a tone that came from somewhere far above me.
"Lola, I know you were raised by some backwater family. You've never had a real education."
"But this internal structure has to be precisely calculated..."
She wanted to pin me to the pillory of the uneducated using her wall of academic knowledge.
I yawned and brushed the dirt off my hands.
"What dynamics?"
"My grandfather calls it a heat-focusing hearth."
"The whole point is the serpentine flow technique."
"You stack it along the mountain's airflow, and the fire burns strong and the heat spreads even."
I sealed off her scientific challenge with a set of mystical theory she couldn't follow at all.
The comment feed exploded again.
"Serpentine flow technique, holy hell!"
"Half of me thinks it's superstition, half of me thinks it's incredible."
"So science ends where mysticism begins?"
Right then, a scream tore across the edge of the camp.
One of the crew directors clutched his stomach and dropped to the ground.
His face had gone bluish, his lips purple, his whole body convulsing.
He'd swallowed some kind of deadly wild berry.
The medical team would take half an hour to reach us, even at their fastest.
Augusta's eyes lit up and she rushed straight over.
She started analyzing the type of toxin, reciting the first-aid manual at high speed.
"We need to induce vomiting immediately, replenish electrolytes, keep the airway clear..."
Theory, all of it, laid out point by point.
But she just stood there, hands shaking, not daring to lay a finger on the director foaming at the mouth.
Her scientific theory was useless when a life was on the line.
I walked over and pushed Augusta out of my way.
I only glanced at the director's tongue and lips.
Then I turned, reached down at the roadside, and tore off a few unremarkable, saw-edged leaves.
I crushed the leaves, pried the director's mouth open, and shoved them in.
Then I turned to Nathan. "Get him up and moving. Make him vomit."
Nathan instinctively tried to stop me.
"Lola, you can't just do this. It could kill him!"
I looked at him coldly. "If you want him alive, do it."
Nathan was shaken by the way I said it, and hesitated before hauling the director up.
Everyone else held their breath at how reckless I was being.
Augusta sneered off to the side. "You fed him weeds? Anything goes wrong, it's all on you!"
A few minutes later.
With a violent heave, the director threw up a large pool of black water.
His purple lips, against all odds, flushed back to a healthy color.
His breathing steadied bit by bit.
I spoke flatly.
"That's the companion plant of the heartbreak vine. It's called reviving leaf."
"It cures that poison specifically."
"This is how nature checks and balances itself. Works a lot better than your chemical formulas."
"If we'd waited for your helicopter to fly in the antiserum, the grass would've been growing over his grave."
Dead silence all around.
That one move shattered Augusta's confidence in her theories.
The way Nathan looked at me changed completely.
From the earlier scrutiny to something like deep awe.
The comment feed went from mockery to a flood in an instant.
"Master, take me as your student!"
"Fake heiress? This is the god of medicine reborn!"
