When Ergouzi returned to their temporary gathering place, Laifu and the others had long since come back. Seeing him moving about alone, they naturally couldn’t resist another round of teasing.
Everyone mistakenly assumed he was simply too thin-skinned and embarrassed to go with them, and had ended up sneaking off by himself to visit the hidden doors.
There was no way to explain this in detail, so he could only pinch his nose and accept the joke.
Ergouzi sat down next to Old Moneybags Huang. He pondered for a long time before finally speaking up.
“Landlord, are you selling your land on Snake Mouth Mountain?”
“What? You want to buy it? The mountain is nothing but rocks. It doesn’t even have water. What do you want to buy it for?”
Old Moneybags Huang looked at Ergouzi in deep confusion.
Just a few months ago, this boy couldn’t even afford to eat and wore pants that exposed his bare buttocks. Now, he was actually harboring thoughts of buying land.
“Landlord, that piece of land is all rocks anyway. It’s not good farmland, so you might as well sell it to me.”
“No, no! Even the poorest land is a family heirloom to be passed down to future generations.”
Old Moneybags Huang waved his hand, firmly rejecting him with no room for discussion.
Ergouzi felt somewhat disappointed by the refusal, but he couldn’t blame Old Moneybags Huang.
If it were him, as long as he wasn’t starving to death, he would never casually sell his land either.
Ergouzi grew increasingly hesitant, not knowing where he could find a piece of land to establish himself.
Though many places appeared to be barren wasteland, they all actually had owners.
It was fine to leave the land idle and overgrown with weeds, but the moment anyone dared to clear and cultivate it, the owner would immediately appear.
He couldn’t even find a single plot of land to call his own. He held a treasure gourd in vain, with no way to put it to use.
For now, it seemed the only path was to keep practicing with his master and pass the Martial Scholar examination. Perhaps there would be a turning point in the future.
The next day, just as dawn broke, Old Moneybags Huang called for everyone to push their carts to the County Yamen.
When they pushed their wheelbarrows to a side gate outside the County Yamen, the yamen hadn’t even opened yet. The lords inside had not yet risen from bed.
By this time, the entrance was already crowded with commoners waiting to deliver their Tax Grain.
Everyone was clamoring, each man trying to squeeze forward and occupy a better position.
In past years, there had even been instances of people being crushed until their bones broke, or squeezed to death entirely.
“Stop squeezing!”
“Line up properly, all of you!”
A yamen runner finally appeared. With a large saber at his waist and a leather whip in hand, he began lashing the tenant farmers who failed to line up obediently.
Old Moneybags Huang’s group could only obediently take their place at the back of the queue.
They waited in line for over half a shichen before the yamen’s main gates finally opened, and the queue slowly began to move forward.
They waited for another three shichen until Old Moneybags Huang’s group finally reached the entrance. Laifu shouldered a sack of rice and was just about to rush inside.
Bang!
A kick flew straight at his face, booting Laifu directly out the door and sending him sprawling flat on his back.
“That’s it for today! Come back tomorrow!”
Then, with another heavy thud, the side door slammed shut.
Laifu climbed up from the ground, rubbing his aching buttocks and grimacing, but he dared not voice his anger.
Looking up at the sky, the sun was still quite high. There was at least enough time to hoe several fen of land before dark.
It couldn’t be helped. The official lords had their rules, and they could only comply.
To keep the position they had so painstakingly lined up for, they could only stand guard at the entrance and rest there for the night.
He still refused to give up, wanting to try peddling his Great Strength Pills again.
After letting Old Moneybags Huang know, he headed off on his own.
The street where Hong’an Hall was located wasn’t far from the County Yamen. It was considered the most prosperous district in the county town.
Furthermore, there were three medicine shops on this one street alone.
The medicine shop at the very end of the street was named Rejuvenation Hall. It was the smallest of the three, and so deserted one could catch sparrows at the door.
In broad daylight, a young man was sprawled over the desk, fast asleep.
Ergouzi walked into the shop and coughed twice, finally startling the youth awake.
The young man rubbed his eyes. “Are you here to see a doctor, or to buy medicine?”
“Are you the doctor here?”
Ergouzi looked at the youth before him. He had fair, clean skin and wasn’t much older than Ergouzi himself. He hardly looked like a doctor.
No wonder business was so poor. Who would dare let a beardless boy treat their illnesses?
“Yes! I am the doctor of Rejuvenation Hall. Don’t let my youth fool you. I learned my characters at three, studied herbs at five, studied medicine at seven, memorized the pulse secrets at nine, and by eighteen, I had thoroughly read the medical classics…”
This doctor probably knew he appeared far too young and was trying hard to explain that he truly knew how to heal people.
“Could you take a look at this for me?”
Ergouzi changed his strategy this time. Without immediately mentioning his desire to peddle pills, he placed a Great Strength Pill into the youth’s hand.
The youth accepted the pill, squinting as he examined it closely.
Perhaps eager to prove his professional skill, the youth stared at it for a long time, examining it with extreme care and focus.
Eventually, he scraped a bit of powder off the pill and tasted it with his tongue.
Squinting as he carefully savored the taste, his brows first furrowed tightly, then smoothed out. His eyes lit up, shining with sudden delight.
“This object is sweet in taste and warm in nature. It can nourish Qi and strengthen the spleen, fortify the center and boost vitality, strengthen the body and build health… It can be classified as High Grade.”
The youth rattled off a whole string of words to show how professional he was. Ergouzi couldn’t understand much of it; he had just cooked the pills casually.
“I have a bunch of these pills on hand, and I want to sell them to you. I wonder if you’ll take them?”
Ergouzi pulled out a large handful of pills, placed them on the counter, and asked cautiously.
“I’ll take them!”
“Of course I’ll take them! I want as many as you have!”
To his surprise, the youth’s response was incredibly bold and straightforward.
Overjoyed, Ergouzi hastily untied the large bundle from his back.
He had made a whole dou of Great Strength Pills, but this cloth bundle could only hold about five or six sheng. The rest were still in his gourd, and it wasn’t convenient to take them out here.
He opened the coarse cloth bundle, revealing several hundred pills inside.
Ergouzi casually plucked one out, tossed it into his mouth, and slowly chewed.
“Try eating one too. The more you chew, the more fragrant it gets.”
The youth didn’t stand on ceremony. He grabbed a pill, popped it into his mouth, and slowly chewed.
Indeed, the more he chewed, the more fragrant it became. What’s more, the taste reminded him of a certain rare spiritual item he had once eaten.
“It is quite good indeed. How much do you plan to sell them for per pill?”
Ergouzi pondered the price in his heart. He had previously dreamed of selling them for ten wen a piece, but that was indeed a bit of wishful thinking.
After facing failure after failure, his expectations had become much more realistic.
A sheng of grain cost twenty or thirty copper coins, and one sheng could make about fifty pills.
Even if he sold them for just one wen a pill, he would still make a profit. Now that he was selling them as medicinal ingredients, he should at least ask for two wen a pill. New chapters come out on novelping . com first.
Thinking of this, he had already raised two fingers.
However, seeing the young man’s eager look, he felt he could sell them for a little more.
So, he cautiously extended a third finger.
Three wen a pill meant about one hundred and fifty wen per sheng—an absolute fortune. Ergouzi felt a bit nervous, terrified the youth would furiously accuse him of being too greedy and reject him outright.
“Alright! No problem!”
To his utter shock, the youth saw his three fingers and agreed instantly, without the slightest hesitation.
Unreasonably, a pang of regret rose in Ergouzi’s chest. He should have tried asking for four wen.
Still, a person shouldn’t be too greedy. A steady stream lasts longer.
The youth spread the bundle wide open, and the two of them began counting the pills together, taking half the day to finally finish.
“A total of two hundred and eighty-five pills, at thirty wen per pill…”
The youth muttered, his fingers clattering loudly over the abacus beads to calculate the total.
“T-thirty wen a pill?”
Ergouzi doubted whether he had heard correctly. His asking price had been three wen.
His heart pounded wildly against his ribs. Twisting his fingers together, he secretly tried to calculate how much money this meant.
Such an astronomically high price was something he hadn’t even dared to imagine. He still had over a hundred shi of grain sitting inside his gourd!
If he converted it all like this, he might even surpass Old Moneybags Huang in the future and become the richest man in Snake Creek Village!
“Ah? Weren’t you asking for thirty wen a pill?”
The young man paused his fingers over the abacus, looking slightly troubled.
“Three hundred wen a pill would be far too expensive. Though your pills are quite good, they aren’t worth quite that much.”
He thought Ergouzi was trying to sell them for three hundred wen a piece. He was beginning to regret not asking clearly just now and agreeing too readily.
“Right now, the most expensive Origin-Nourishing Foundation-Fortifying Pills in Anchang County sell for ten thousand wen a piece. Although your pills are good, they still fall far short of the Origin-Nourishing Foundation-Fortifying Pills.”
“I can only offer you at most fifty wen a pill. Is that acceptable?”
Ergouzi was still swimming in the shock of thirty wen, yet who could have imagined that the young man would actively raise the price to fifty wen himself?
“Mm! That’s fine!”
“Alright, then we will calculate based on fifty wen.”
The crisp sound of clicking abacus beads rang out again.
“A total of two hundred and eighty-five pills, at fifty wen a pill, makes fourteen thousand, two hundred and fifty wen.”
Having finished the calculations, the youth used a small scale to weigh out fourteen taels of silver and counted out two hundred and fifty copper coins, handing them all over to Ergouzi.
Receiving the bright, shining silver, Ergouzi wrapped it all carefully in his cloth bundle, tied several dead knots in the fabric, and finally tucked it securely against his chest.
Even after walking a long way from Rejuvenation Hall, Ergouzi still felt somewhat dazed. He had been thoroughly knocked senseless by this sudden windfall of wealth.
His mind kept spinning, calculating how much the remaining grain in his gourd could sell for.
How much silver could he earn every year from now on?
If he cleared and cultivated all the wasteland on Snake Mouth Mountain, how much more could he earn?
At the thought of this, his heart swelled once again with anticipation at the prospect of buying Snake Mouth Mountain.
If he could just marry Old Moneybags Huang’s Second Daughter, then perhaps, for the sake of his own daughter, the old man might let him buy Snake Mouth Mountain.
But she was the beauty of the village, and the daughter of its richest household to boot. A lowly tenant farmer like him could never reach so high. It was nothing more than a foolish dream.
For now, the most practical course was simply to farm the land, save up his money, and steadily practice his martial arts.