Chapter 319 - 284: The Desire to Earn Money
Chapter 319: Chapter 284: The Desire to Earn Money
Xiao Man passed quaint, old-fashioned pawn shops and traditional medicine shops that smelled of fragrant herbs. She stepped into each one to take a look, but they only had a few gold and silver items for sale and nothing worth a second glance. She did, however, end up spending quite a bit of time in the herbal medicine shops.
These days, besides filling prescriptions, the herbal medicine shops also sold patent medicines and tonics in their glass display cases. The packaging was completely different from what you would find in the pharmacies of the future. Some products were even stored in porcelain bottles and bowls, like herbal jellies. To put it nicely, the packaging was simple and elegant; to be blunt, it was clumsy and rustic. Xiao Man examined each item carefully, finding it all rather endearing and interesting.
She briefly scanned the wall of small wooden drawers with her Divine Sense and found that every shop was more or less the same. They were well-stocked with common herbs, but their collections of rare ingredients were extremely limited. For instance, wild mountain ginseng, Lingzhi, and cordyceps were scarce, and a couple of the shops didn’t have any at all.
These were rare herbs to begin with and quite difficult to obtain. With the Reform and Opening-Up in the 1980s, the country’s borders opened, and many overseas medicinal merchants returned to buy up herbs at high prices. They plundered large quantities of precious herbs and smuggled them abroad, which dealt a heavy blow to the domestic market. Many famous pharmacies were deeply affected, so it wasn’t surprising that they currently had no ginseng or Lingzhi to sell.
Xiao Man had learned about this situation by chance, overhearing a conversation while shopping in Liaozhou City. Dad Tang had taken Grandpa to visit an herb farm, and she and Hao Hao had tagged along. When no one was looking, she had transplanted a dozen freshly cultivated ginseng seedlings into her Treasure Pearl Space. Wild mountain ginseng only grew in the Great Northeast; she had never heard of it growing in the South. The seedlings were thriving in her Treasure Pearl Space, but she had no idea if they would actually produce ginseng.
Considering that she might need a lot of money if she really did find some antique treasures, Xiao Man sold three stalks of Purple Ganoderma and some other herbs like Tea Parasite, Iron Hua, and He Shou Wu at two different pharmacies. The shop owners knew their goods and could see that her herbs were all of the highest quality. Their faces filled with shock and ecstasy, and they repeatedly asked if she had more herbs to sell at home. They told her to bring them all, promising to buy as many as she had.
Xiao Man didn’t say much, only offering a few vague replies. Under the owners’ eager gazes, she calmly collected her money and left. The weather was cold, and she wore a winter hat with the brim pulled down to half-cover her eyes. It enveloped her small head so that not a single strand of hair was visible, and her chin and mouth were bundled up in a scarf. She wasn’t afraid of them scrutinizing her. And these two old, established pharmacies were indeed honest in their dealings. Perhaps because they were in Beijing, the prices they offered were several times higher than in Wancheng. The three stalks of Purple Ganoderma alone fetched nine thousand yuan. She remembered the two slightly smaller stalks she had Grandpa sell, which only brought in a thousand yuan—and even he had been thrilled with that.
It wasn’t that Xiao Man was short on money. Last year, Dad Tang had opened a bank account for her and deposited a considerable sum all at once to cover her middle school tuition and allowance, letting her manage her own expenses. Grandpa Tang, Grandma Tang, and the two Gu family elders also gave her pocket money by depositing it directly into her account. Moreover, when Gu Shaojun went abroad for three years on a government scholarship, he had left his entire fortune with her, telling her to buy whatever she fancied and to think of it as a gift from him...
But everyone has the desire to earn their own money, even if it’s just to prove their own capabilities. Xiao Man was no exception; she was an ordinary person, after all. She always felt more comfortable spending money she had earned herself. Besides, if she came across any desirable ancient artifacts or jade, it would surely cost a lot. If she could handle it herself, she wouldn’t have to bother the adults.
She wouldn’t sell the herbs in her space recklessly. Once she reached the Qi Refining Fifth Level, she would be able to concoct top-grade elixir pills. Then, the herbs’ uses would extend far beyond simply curing illnesses and saving lives. The top-grade elixir pills currently in her space were ones the previous owner had left behind in the Pill Furnace. There weren’t many left, so she needed to advance her cultivation as quickly as possible. Only when she could craft them herself would she feel secure.
The Antique Street was quite crowded. Both the elegantly decorated, tidy shops and the randomly set-up stalls along the sides had plenty of customers. Xiao Man strolled about aimlessly, looking here and there. Sometimes she would stop in front of a shop window to admire the antiques inside. To others, she just looked like a little girl who didn’t know anything, wandering around out of boredom. No one paid her any mind. In truth, she really didn’t know the first thing about antiques. She was just glancing around, relying entirely on her Divine Sense to scan for things. She was currently at the Third Level of Qi Refining, so her Divine Sense could only detect activity within a fifty-meter radius, and it consumed Spiritual Power. Therefore, she didn’t keep it active all the time. The process was a bit like village boys hunting for frogs in the fields at night with a flashlight. After wandering for over two hours, she did manage to find a few pieces of ancient jade that contained Spiritual Energy. But as expected, the prices were astonishingly high. The cheapest one was a hundred and sixty thousand yuan—and this was 1980, when a hundred and sixty thousand was an enormous sum!
All the money Xiao Man had on her added up to nearly a hundred thousand yuan. She tried to haggle, but seeing she was just a child, the shopkeepers didn’t pay her much mind. Out of politeness, they just smiled and told her that if she liked it, she should have an adult from her family come.
Xiao Man was incredibly frustrated. ’If I’d known this much money wouldn’t be enough for anything, I would have saved those stalks of Purple Ganoderma and the other herbs from my space!’ They were no ordinary items; their true value was far more than ten or twenty thousand yuan. ’Selling them for cheap to people who didn’t know their worth... it hurts just thinking about it!’
After hitting a wall in the shops, Xiao Man went back outside to browse the small stalls. There, she actually found two pieces of jade: a fist-sized piece of green jade and a flat, crystalline piece of white jade about six inches wide. Both were uncarved, and both contained Spiritual Energy. What’s more, the asking prices weren’t expensive—at least, not compared to a hundred and sixty thousand yuan. For Xiao Man, it was a joyous discovery.
After a round of bargaining, Xiao Man bought the two pieces of jade for twelve thousand yuan and placed them in her space. She had learned her lesson this time. ’Since all I need is the Spiritual Energy, I don’t have to go for those exquisitely carved antiques. They’re priceless works of art, and I don’t have enough money for them right now.’
From then on, Xiao Man focused exclusively on the small stalls. She subsequently bought four more jade items and two small carvings made of Vajra Wood. Then, her luck absolutely exploded: she stumbled upon a Mystic Iron Short Sword. It was a genuine ancient artifact. Holding it, she could feel not just Spiritual Energy, but a deep, condensed Spiritual Power!
All of this cost her less than twenty thousand yuan.
Xiao Man felt like she was getting one incredible bargain after another. Beaming, she was in a great mood and decided to keep browsing until the street vendors packed up for the day.
As she passed another shop, Xiao Man was drawn in by the beautiful porcelain displayed in the window and pushed the door open to go inside. A young assistant wearing a special long-robed uniform came up to greet her. Xiao Man was just about to pull down her scarf to speak when a glance to her left, at the group of people sitting on a sofa in a small reception area, instantly killed her mood.
She never would have thought she would run into Wu Xiaowen and Tang Yaxuan in a place like this. And the man sitting close to Wu Xiaowen, wiping her hands with a handkerchief—wasn’t that Bai Lihua? She had seen him at the banquet.
Hao Hao had said that Bai Lihua and Wu Xiaowen were once engaged, meaning they had a romantic past. More than a decade had passed. They had both married other people and had children of their own. ’So what’s the deal with them acting like this in public?’