The saying that hospitals are money pits is absolutely true. Li Jiao had to pawn her gold ring to Director Wang, who performed the surgery, promising to redeem it within two days, just to cover the medical expenses.
After paying the deposit, Li Jiao only had the small change borrowed from Da Niu left in her pocket—barely enough for a few breakfasts.
Looking at Qin Lie, who was still on an IV drip in the hospital bed, Li Jiao tucked the blanket around him and said with a smile, “I’m going out for a stroll to buy something tasty. Don’t wander off, okay? I’ve already paid the deposit, and we can’t waste money.”
Qin Lie stared at his leg, pursed his lips, and gave Li Jiao a pitiful look.
Li Jiao’s heart instantly softened. She coughed lightly, leaned over, and gently touched his face.
Noticing Qin Lie blush, Li Jiao seemed to have discovered something amusing and pinched his cheek twice more. “What are you thinking about?”
“Alright, stop teasing,” Qin Lie helplessly grabbed Li Jiao’s wrist, his eyes clouded with gloom. “Maybe we should just go home.”
“We will go home, but not now. Alright, take care of yourself while I’m gone.”
Li Jiao pulled her hand free, tightened her coat, and turned to leave the ward.
She didn’t notice the flicker of regret swirling in Qin Lie’s eyes.
“Tsk, if I’d known you really wouldn’t run away, I would’ve…”
Qin Lie swallowed the rest of his words, closed his eyes, and the usual pitiful, weak, and helpless look vanished entirely.
Meanwhile, Li Jiao left the inpatient building, pondering what she should do next.
The aroma of roasted sweet potatoes wafted from the hospital entrance, making Li Jiao’s stomach growl. She couldn’t help but swallow her saliva.
Walking a few steps forward, she saw vendors selling frozen pears and persimmons, handmade willow baskets, and dried tobacco leaves—all small, low-profit businesses.
Li Jiao frowned. None of these could solve her urgent problem.
Just as she was feeling disappointed and about to turn back, an old man huddled in a sheltered corner by the entrance caught her attention.
The old man was dressed in tattered clothes, with no basket or crate in front of him—only a messy bundle of dead branches.
With no customers in sight, the old man stomped his feet to keep warm but still croaked hoarsely, “Hardwood firewood from the mountains, burns really well! Ten cents a bundle, anyone want some?”
Most people used coal for heating but still needed kindling. However, ten cents for a bundle of firewood was a bit pricey.
Passersby waved dismissively.
Li Jiao initially paid no attention, but as her gaze swept over the dead branches, she suddenly stopped in her tracks.
In her previous life as the heiress of the Li family, she had spent over a decade in the pharmacy with her grandfather, a master of traditional Chinese medicine, and was intimately familiar with the properties of various medicinal herbs.
That stuff didn’t look like ordinary firewood.
Her heart raced with excitement as she casually walked over and crouched down to examine the branches. “Uncle, why are these firewood pieces so thick? Do they burn well?”
As she spoke, she picked up a dead branch with her fair, delicate hand and examined it closely.
The cross-section of the branch displayed beautiful wheel-like patterns, its bark a deep gray, and its texture hard. Instead of the raw, woody scent, it carried a faint, bitter medicinal fragrance.
Li Jiao recognized it instantly—it was Broad-tendon Vine.
Scientifically known as Chinese Green Ox Gall and colloquially called Mountain-Crossing Dragon, this was a miraculous herb for relaxing tendons, promoting blood circulation, dispelling wind, and relieving pain.
It is especially effective for bruises, sprains, and post-fracture recovery.
Moreover, judging by the thickness of each bundle of vines, they were at least as thick as a wrist. In the deep mountains and old forests, it would take at least ten or even several decades to grow this well.
To the untrained eye, this was indeed just a pile of rotten wood for cooking fires. But to a knowledgeable old Chinese medicine practitioner, this stuff was a priceless, irreplaceable sacred medicine for setting bones!
Li Jiao struggled to contain her inner ecstasy, yet her expression remained unchanged.
“Miss, this is good stuff—hard and long-burning,” the old man said, seeing someone finally inquire about the price, eagerly trying to sell it. “I’m just in a hurry to buy painkillers for my wife, otherwise I wouldn’t be selling this firewood I carried all the way out of the mountains so cheaply.”
“Alright, I happen to think the coal stove at the hospital isn’t burning too well. I’ll buy some to use as kindling. Grandpa, there are five bundles here in total—I’ll take them all. Don’t sell them for ten cents a bundle; I’ll give you forty cents, okay?”
Li Jiao nodded, putting on a reluctant expression.
“Forty cents? Fine, take them! Miss, you have a kind heart.” The old man hesitated for a moment, glanced at the sky, and thought of his wife enduring pain at home. Gritting his teeth, he finally agreed.
Without another word, Li Jiao pulled out four crumpled ten-cent notes from her pocket and handed them over.
Just as she picked up the Broad-tendon Vine and prepared to leave, a sharp, mocking laugh came from nearby.
“Well, if it isn’t the extravagant, wasteful little wife from Bed 3?”
Li Jiao turned to see a stout auntie with a fierce-looking face, wearing an apron, standing behind the roasted sweet potato stall next to her.
Li Jiao recognized her—she was the family member of the patient in Bed 5 next to theirs.
Yesterday, before Qin Lie had even been admitted to the ward, this auntie had witnessed Li Jiao pouring a table full of money, and she had been green with envy ever since.
On top of that, with so many people in the hospital gossiping, the news that Qin Lie was a “bad element” and that the money was hush money from the illegal mine had long since spread everywhere.
The auntie flipped the sweet potatoes in the oven while loudly shouting to the idle chatterers around her, as if afraid no one would hear: “Everyone, take a look! Some people are just blessed with good fortune but have no brains. They don’t treat the money their husbands earned with their lives as money at all!”
“Forty cents—that could buy two pounds of good coal briquettes to burn all night. But she goes and buys a pile of broken branches instead.”
The auntie looked Li Jiao up and down contemptuously and spat: “I say, that hush money from the black kid will be squandered by this wasteful woman sooner or later. She’s just a pretty but useless fool!”
The people around didn’t understand the full story, but hearing this, they all pointed and whispered about Li Jiao, their eyes filled with mocking looks as if she were an idiot.
“That’s right, she looks like a clever girl. Why would she buy a pile of firewood?”
“That’s money her husband earned with his life. She doesn’t feel any pain spending it!”
Li Jiao carried the dozens of pounds of Broad-tendon Vine, her hands aching from the strain, but inwardly she sneered.
Oh yes, yes, yes. A bunch of blind fools. Wild Broad-tendon Vine of this age, in the Tongrentang pharmacy in the capital in her previous life, could sell for five yuan per pound after being sliced and processed!
There were at least fifty pounds here!
Forty cents in cost could turn into two hundred and fifty yuan—a profit of hundreds of times over.
Who the real fool was would become clear soon enough.
Li Jiao couldn’t be bothered to waste words on these gossiping women. With a cold snort, she struggled to carry the bundles of Broad-tendon Vine and walked through the hospital entrance under the crowd’s mocking gazes.
Her skin was too delicate, and without realizing it, red marks had already rubbed onto her hands—they looked quite alarming. Having grown accustomed to enduring pain in her previous life, Li Jiao simply ignored them this time.
She was looking for a suitable buyer.
In this section of the corridor, almost everyone had bone-related issues. The Broad-tendon Vine in her hands was in high demand here.