Old Man Li had three sons. The eldest, Li Chengfu, had a wife surnamed Zhao, and under them were two sons and one daughter, the eldest son had gone to the county seat to work as an apprentice, the younger son stayed by their side, and there was also a daughter around the same age as Li Jiaojiao.
The third son, Li Chengxing, had one daughter and one son with Hu shi. Hu shi’s maiden family was fairly well-off, so she was generous with money, and on top of that she was good at pleasing Deng shi. In the Li family, aside from Deng shi’s own daughter Li Chengju, Hu shi was the one most in Deng shi’s favor, even Li Chengfu’s wife, Zhao shi, wasn’t as favored by Deng shi as Hu shi was!
Deng shi swept a glance over Li Jiaojiao and Hu shi. “What are you still standing around for? A lazy donkey takes forever at the millstone to pass its waste [1]a lazy donkey takes forever at the millstone to pass its waste (lan lu shang mo shi niao duo, 懶驢上磨屎尿多) Slang, mocking someone for dawdling and making excuses to avoid work jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3381407_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3381407_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, look what time it is already, does taking a shit really need this long? Are you all waiting for me to come wait on you?”
Li Qiao pulled Li Jiaojiao and walked off.
Deng shi shouted after them, “Go pick up some firewood! No firewood, don’t bother coming back to eat!”
Li Qiao pulled Li Jiaojiao along, grabbing a basket on the way. “Sis, let’s hurry up the mountain! If we’re late, we’ll have to walk far to find any firewood!”
Children in the village had to help with household work from a very young age. Kids as old as Li Qiao were already going up the mountain and out to the fields. The household needed firewood all year round, so the village children got up early each morning to go gather it on the mountain.
Li Jiaojiao pulled Li Qiao back. “We’re not gathering firewood today! Come on, Sis will take you to buy something to eat!”
Li Qiao tilted his head up. “Sis, have you gone crazy? Where would we get silver from?”
The five taels of silver the Chen family had given Li Jiaojiao as compensation had long since been taken by Deng shi. In Deng shi’s words, since Li Jiaojiao had been jilted, if her dowry wasn’t generous enough in the future, she’d probably never be able to marry at all!
Wang shi and Li Chengcai hadn’t voiced any complaint and had obediently handed the silver over to Deng shi.
“I dug up some herbs on the mountain. Come on, let’s go ask at the pharmacy in town!”
Li Jiaojiao quietly took Li Qiao back home. She dug the chuanxiong out of her basket. Since she didn’t know how to process the herbs properly, she just crushed it up and wrapped it for Li Qiao to carry, then took her brother’s hand and headed to town.
The nearest small town to Xunshui Village was called Xingfeng Town. Starting from Xunshui Village, it took about half an hour on foot, roughly six li away. Li Qiao was young, and after walking for a while, he couldn’t go any further.
Carrying the herbs on her back, Li Jiaojiao had to carry Li Qiao for stretches of the way too, and was soon gasping for breath from the effort.
After finally reaching Xingfeng Town, Li Jiaojiao took Li Qiao and found the town’s only pharmacy. There weren’t many people inside, two apprentices and a middle-aged male physician. When he saw someone come in, the physician didn’t even lift his eyelids. One of the apprentices ran over. “Miss, are you here to see the doctor, or to get medicine?”
Li Jiaojiao looked delicate and lovely, and Li Qiao was cute and well-featured too, so the apprentice couldn’t help glancing at Li Jiaojiao a second time.
Li Jiaojiao wore a light blue top covered in patches and washed pale from wear, with a pair of black trousers below, and straw sandals with her big toes poking out, clearly a poor family’s child. Looking as pretty as she did, though, he didn’t mind glancing at her twice.
With that thought in mind, the apprentice raised his head to look at Li Jiaojiao again.
“Do you all buy medicinal herbs here?”
Hearing this, the apprentice realized she wasn’t there to see a doctor or buy medicine, and immediately frowned. “Go on, go on, we don’t buy herbs here!”
Pharmacies all had their own herb suppliers and generally didn’t buy from outside, at worst, they could go gather herbs on the mountain themselves.
Li Jiaojiao frowned. “Not even Chonglou that I dug up myself? A very large stalk of Chonglou!”
The apprentice apparently hadn’t gotten to learning about Chonglou yet, and just kept waving his hand for them to leave.
Hearing Li Jiaojiao’s words, the middle-aged physician looked over at her. Li Jiaojiao’s clothes were shabby, but she had an exceptionally lovely face. He frowned. “You know medicinal herbs?”
Li Jiaojiao froze, right, the original body didn’t know herbs. But how should she put it?
Li Jiaojiao glanced at Li Qiao beside her, thought for a moment, and said, “I learned a bit from my grandfather when I was little!”
Wang shi’s father had passed away a few years ago, when Li Qiao was still an infant.
As she spoke, Li Jiaojiao took out her basket. When the physician saw that the once-whole stalk of Chonglou had been snapped by Li Jiaojiao, he looked a bit regretful. “The root is completely intact, why is a section missing from the middle?”
“I didn’t expect to find one this big, and I accidentally broke it! It shouldn’t affect its potency though, right?”
The physician looked up at Li Jiaojiao, then swept his eyes over the herbs in the basket. They were all common herbs, but fairly complete as a set, and he asked, “How many days did it take you to gather these herbs?”
Hearing this, Li Jiaojiao knew there was a chance here and couldn’t help feeling excited. “I dug them up this morning! I also know how to process herbs, but there wasn’t enough time!”
At this, the physician couldn’t help looking Li Jiaojiao over a few more times. He himself often went up the mountain to gather herbs, but finding this many herbs in such a short time, all in decent condition, and even finding a stalk of Paris polyphylla among them, was truly rare.
“Go on, take these from her!”
The apprentice looked at his own master in surprise. The physician looked at Li Jiaojiao. “You recognize herbs, and you know how to process them too, not bad! Our shop is short on prepared rehmannia root lately. If you can bring us some, the price… I’ll give you two taels of silver a catty!”
Li Jiaojiao was overjoyed, she knew how to process rehmannia root! At such a high price… she nodded rapidly. “Don’t worry, I’ll definitely bring you the finest prepared rehmannia root!”
These were all raw, unprocessed herbs, so the price wasn’t high, since the physician would still have to process and dry them himself, and there was too much moisture in them. Even so, this time, Li Jiaojiao sold them for over one hundred and sixty wen!
Li Qiao’s hands trembled with excitement. As Li Jiaojiao was leaving, she made a point of asking the physician’s name. The physician told her, “My surname is Zhou, call me Physician Zhou! Which village are you from?”
“Xunshui Village!”
Hearing it was Xunshui Village, Physician Zhou looked at Li Jiaojiao once more.
Walking out of the pharmacy, Li Qiao excitedly pulled at Li Jiaojiao’s hand. “Sis, we earned money, so much, over a hundred wen, Sis, Sis!”
Li Jiaojiao held her brother’s hand. “Come on, Sis will take you to eat something good.”
Xingfeng Town already had quite a few passersby that morning. Li Jiaojiao pulled Li Qiao along. “Qiaoqiao, what do you want to eat?”
Li Qiao licked his lips. “Sis, can I have a meat bun?”
Hearing this, Li Jiaojiao couldn’t help feeling a pang in her heart. Li Qiao was a sensible child. Deng shi held all the power in the household, and everything the family ate, wore, and used was entirely up to her. Over the years, the two siblings hadn’t even gotten a few feet of new cloth for holidays, every time, it was Wang shi pawning her own dowry items to make up the difference. So he never said what he wanted to eat.
She remembered, a few months ago, Hu shi’s two children came back from their maternal grandfather’s house, each holding a big, plump white meat bun in hand. That day, the air was full of the smell of meat buns, and Li Qiao had stared at them the whole time, swallowing hard, without saying a single word.
“Sure!”
Meat buns cost two wen each, and one meat bun was enough to fill a child up.
Li Jiaojiao waved her hand and bought ten meat buns all at once!
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