Chen Xiaoman listened with great interest.
Two years ago, a wild, raving Daoist had told Old Li that his third son had overwhelming fortune coming.
He’d also told Old Li to change his third son’s name to Li Chuyuan.
Old Li hadn’t slept a wink that whole night.
The next day, he got up and, with a wave of his hand, decided to send Li Chuyuan to school.
In Old Li’s own words: “The ancestral grave of my Li family is about to sprout blessings, Chuyuan is bound to become a scholar-official!”
Last year, when Li Chuyuan turned three, he was sent to the village’s private school to study.
“Wow, so Brother Chuyuan is going to be a scholar-official someday!”
Chen Xiaoman felt a swell of admiration for learned men in her heart.
Hearing this, Half-Immortal Zhang shook his head. “Li Chuyuan will be far more than just a scholar.”
Chen Xiaoman asked curiously, “Will he be a provincial graduate?”
The villagers said Landlord Liu’s ancestors had produced a provincial graduate, someone even more impressive than a scholar-official.
Half-Immortal Zhang said with a smile, “Can’t say, can’t say!”
Chen Xiaoman knew Grandpa Half-Immortal didn’t want to tell her, so she didn’t ask again.
Amid the chatting and laughing, all the Wupao had been collected.
A full basket and a half.
Old Li was delighted, and taking some dry rations, he set off with Zhou Daya and Chen Xiaoman for that same medicine shop again.
Seeing the shopkeeper, Chen Xiaoman broke into a big smile at once. “Hello, Grandpa Shopkeeper!”
The shopkeeper laughed along. “Well, well, back to sell more Wupao?”
Chen Xiaoman nodded hard. “We have so, so much Wupao!”
Old Li set the baskets on the counter with a broad smile.
“Shopkeeper, please weigh it for us.”
Seeing the baskets packed full of Wupao, the shopkeeper’s eyes went wide.
“How did you manage to pick this much?”
They’d only sold one basketful just yesterday.
And in less than a day, they already had another basket and a half.
Even if the whole family didn’t sleep, they couldn’t have picked this much!
The shopkeeper began to regret it.
If he’d known they had this much, he shouldn’t have given them fifteen coins a catty yesterday.
Old Li asked quickly, “Are you not buying anymore, shopkeeper?”
The shopkeeper paused, then said, “I can still buy it, but the price will have to come down a bit.”
Old Li’s brows knotted up. “Shopkeeper, you said yesterday that if we came again today, it’d be the same price.”
The shopkeeper looked rather helpless.
“I did say that, but I didn’t expect there’d be this much today.”
Wupao berries were small to begin with, and troublesome to pick.
And plenty of children were competing to pick and eat them.
He’d calculated that when Old Li came today, it would be at most two or three catties.
By the third time they came to sell, he could lower the price a bit.
A few more rounds, and the price would keep dropping, lowering his own cost of collecting it.
The Wupao in the baskets, by rough estimate, came to several dozen catties.
Spending that much money wasn’t worth it.
Old Li was furious.
They’d agreed on a price, and now it was changing just like that.
He was about to go argue with the shopkeeper when Zhou Daya grabbed hold of his clothes.
Zhou Daya stepped forward and asked the shopkeeper, “How much are you willing to pay for it?”
The shopkeeper held up five fingers. “Five coins a catty.”
“Hiss!”
Old Li sucked in a breath of cold air.
That was too big a drop!
Zhou Daya didn’t expect the price to fall this much either, and could only ask politely, “Could you go a bit higher?”
The shopkeeper said, troubled, “Yesterday we were truly desperate for Wupao, so the price was high. Now that we’ve collected most of what we need, we’re not so desperate anymore.”
He paused, then continued, “I can’t have you make this trip for nothing though, so I’ll reluctantly buy it. But the price really can’t go any higher.”
Hearing this only made Old Li angrier.
Wasn’t this just playing games with them?
By his logic, five coins for Wupao was already a loss for them.
Zhou Daya grew anxious too.
Today’s Wupao had cost them money to collect, so it had to be sold.
She thought about trying another medicine shop.
But she was afraid that if they left, that other shop wouldn’t buy it either, and they’d have offended this shopkeeper for nothing.
Caught between a rock and a hard place.
The shopkeeper didn’t press them, and simply waited quietly.
Who would have expected the little girl to ask him in her babyish voice, “Grandpa Shopkeeper, do you still need Wupao?”
The shopkeeper said with a smile, “You sold us so much yesterday, we’re not really short of it anymore.”
Old Li snorted coldly inside.
Yesterday he’d said he wanted to buy more, and today it had changed already.
Chen Xiaoman sighed, “Grandpa Shopkeeper is so kind, still wanting to help us.”
The shopkeeper felt pleased inside, and waved his hand with a smile. “You all have it hard too, I’ll help where I can.”
Old Li was so angry his beard bristled and his eyes bulged.
So squeezing down the price was for their own good, was it?
What was this girl going on about!
Just as he was about to send Chen Xiaoman away, he heard her ask the shopkeeper in her babyish voice, “Grandpa Shopkeeper, why don’t we go check other medicine shops first, and if they won’t buy it either, could Grandpa Shopkeeper help us buy the Wupao then?”
The shopkeeper was stunned.
Old Li said quickly, “The shopkeeper is a good man, he’ll surely agree.”
Old Li felt Xiaoman had just vented his frustration for him.
You old fox, didn’t you just say buying our Wupao was for our own good?
Then we’ll go sell it elsewhere first, and if it sells, you won’t have to trouble yourself.
If it doesn’t sell, we’ll ask you to help us out then.
Zhou Daya was delighted too.
Now this shopkeeper would have no choice but to agree, whether he wanted to or not.
She said, “If we can sell it somewhere else, we won’t bother the shopkeeper.”
Old Li’s weathered hands yanked the two baskets off the counter, one on each shoulder.
“Come on, let’s go check next door.”
Zhou Daya immediately scooped up Chen Xiaoman.
Chen Xiaoman turned around and waved her arm hard at the shopkeeper.
“Bye-bye, Grandpa Shopkeeper!”
Old Li said cheerfully, “Shopkeeper, if the others won’t buy it, I’ll come find you again, all right?”
The shopkeeper couldn’t sit still anymore.
Once they walked out that door, they definitely wouldn’t come back.
The other medicine shops were also desperately short of Wupao.
Why had he gotten it into his head to try to lower the price?
His thoughts were still racing when the three of them had already reached the doorway.
Zhou Daya was still saying, “That medicine shopkeeper really is a good man.”
Old Li cleared his throat. “That’s for sure. We’ve barely met him a few times, and he’s already looking out for us.”
Hmph, so you wanted to play the good man, did you?
Then we’ll let you go all the way with it.
The shopkeeper couldn’t hold back any longer, and called out toward the door, “Wait!”
The three of them stopped in their tracks.
Old Li looked at him, puzzled. “Something wrong, shopkeeper?”
The shopkeeper’s face burned with embarrassment, but he still said, “This Wupao, I’ll still buy it at fifteen coins a catty.”
Old Li waved his hands repeatedly. “No, no, that would put you in a hard spot.”
Chen Xiaoman nodded in agreement.
The shopkeeper hurried over and grabbed Old Li’s arm. “It’s no trouble at all, I just remembered, a friend of mine asked me to collect Wupao for him.”
“Is that so? Then won’t our Wupao be too much?”
Old Li asked the shopkeeper “worriedly.”
Chen Xiaoman blinked her big eyes and asked him too, “Grandpa Shopkeeper, how much does your friend need?”
Whatever was left over could always be sold to another shop.
The shopkeeper’s face burned even hotter.
He cleared his throat and said, “I’ll take all of what you have.”
Old Li was about to speak when Zhou Daya kicked his foot.
He stopped pressing the point and said, “Well, all right then, that saves us the extra trip.”
The shopkeeper let out a breath of relief and led the three of them inside.
He took out a large scale from under the counter, hooked it to the baskets, and had Old Li help him weigh it.
After pouring the Wupao into the shop’s own baskets, he weighed Old Li’s basket too, calculated the total weight of the Wupao, and tapped away on his abacus for a moment.
“Taking off the weight of the baskets, sixty-seven catties in total, I owe you one thousand and seven coins.”
As he said this, the shopkeeper’s face twitched with the pain of it.