Speaking of Xing Yuesen, he was young and ambitious. He had been studying since childhood and had decent natural talent. Unfortunately, he came from a non-political background; he was the son of a merchant family.
That day when Xing Yuesen encountered Xu Yi at the temple below Yilu Mountain, he was deeply moved, especially remembering that phrase: “Those who serve as officials serve the people, those who study medicine serve the people, both serve the people.”
It just so happened that there was a small examination at the private school. His literary thoughts flourished, and he expanded this “theory of serving the people” into a full argument. He achieved third place and was praised by the teacher in front of everyone for making great progress in his writing.
Even Xing Yuesen’s close friend was surprised and asked him when he had gained such insights.
Xing Yuesen smiled without answering, instead asking in return: “Do you know Xu Yi who lives on South Street?”
His friend frowned: “Xu Yi from South Street? Why would I know him?”
Xing Yuesen: “…”
He suddenly didn’t want to share such an interesting person as Xu Yi with his friend.
Clearly someone several years younger than him, yet his experiences and knowledge were no less than his own.
Such a person, just as Teacher Liu said, was wasting his talent by not studying.
Of course, Xu Yi was different from others. Even if he didn’t study, he could still make something of himself. Xing Yuesen believed this was something he couldn’t compare to. He should make more friends like Xu Yi, not like his current friend who, upon hearing someone lived on South Street, immediately displayed disdain.
Moreover, his grandfather suffered from gout and hadn’t improved for a long time. Yet, the prescription Xu Yi gave him had even Doctor Chen from Miracle Hands Hall praising it repeatedly.
Combined with the Four Wonders Pills that Xu Yi prescribed, taking this medicine and these pills together, Grandfather Xing’s pain immediately eased. Although he still couldn’t get out of bed and walk around, it still shocked the entire Xing household.
“Just tell me, who is this Xu Yi? How is it that after you came back from your ten-day holiday, your thinking has changed so much? You didn’t write essays like this before.” His friend held onto him and wouldn’t let him leave. Previously, the two had similar abilities, but this time Xing Yuesen’s sudden leap forward gave him a great sense of crisis.
This time, it was Xing Yuesen’s turn to frown: “He’s just someone I happened to meet. He dropped out of school recently and stopped studying. I was just asking if you knew him.”
“Oh, I see.” His friend let go of his hand. Thinking about his earlier behavior, he asked somewhat awkwardly, “Want to go to the bookshop together later? I heard new story books arrived, it’s the sequel to ‘Madam Xue.'”
“Madam Xue” was a trending romance novel. The Madam Xue depicted in it was a flesh-and-blood character who dared to love and hate. After divorcing the merchant’s son, she got together with a scholar preparing for examinations. She even brought a large dowry to support the scholar, giving him travel money to go to the capital for the examinations…
Xing Yuesen fell silent: “…”
He suspected his friend was doing this on purpose. He had never liked reading such story books.
“No, I still have schoolwork to review.” Xing Yuesen declined his friend’s invitation.
Later, he was going to find Xu Yi.
–
Xu Yi left late. This time he took an ox cart with a younger driver.
This new driver was a chatterbox. Whenever they passed somewhere, he had to comment on it for a bit. For Xu Yi, this was actually quite enjoyable.
The driver had been to many places. He didn’t just pick up passengers in this area. Occasionally, he would also drive his ox cart to Tongchuan Prefecture.
Xu Yi asked him what Tongchuan Prefecture City was like.
“Those city walls are so tall and grand! Much more prosperous than our Yanting County. The food sold there is even more refined, and the prices are expensive too. I heard a bowl of almond milk costs twenty wen, and fragrant drinks cost fifty wen per serving!” The driver said proudly, puffing out his chest.
The other passengers exclaimed in surprise, these prices were too expensive!
They thought Yanting County’s prices were already quite high, but it turned out the prefecture city was twice as expensive.
The driver chuckled: “Naturally! Never mind the prices being expensive, the housing prices there are even more expensive. I heard a house in the prefecture city can sell for over a thousand strings of cash, and there’s still demand but no supply, you can’t even buy one!”
“Hiss, “
Over a thousand strings of cash, when had they ever seen so much money?
Xu Yi blinked and asked him: “How long does it take to get there?”
The driver said: “More than two days. You’d have to stay overnight at a courier inn along the way.”
Courier inns were a type of lodging that could both accommodate guests and store goods, mostly set up in the city outskirts, near river docks and such places.
Learning that Tongchuan Prefecture City was so far, Xu Yi fell silent for a long while and temporarily dismissed the idea of going out to explore.
There’s no need to rush. He still needed to improve his present situation first.
The ox cart swayed and rocked along. Before long, it stopped at Golden Goose Mountain.
Today, Xu Yi didn’t plan to go to Yilu Mountain again, but wanted to explore Golden Goose Mountain instead.
Golden Goose Mountain was located near Goose Stream Town, South of Yanting County. One side of the mountain was near Yanting County, but the journey was much farther than to Yilu Mountain.
Getting off the cart, Xu Yi handed the driver two wen and respectfully asked if he would pass by again in the afternoon around the wei hour.
The driver said: “Sure thing. The pilgrims coming to Golden Goose Mountain all want to return at this time. We always give them a ride.”
He had taken Xu Yi for a pilgrim visiting the Golden Goose Temple on top of Golden Goose Mountain.
Xu Yi didn’t deny it. After thanking him, he shouldered his basket, led Little Huang, and step by step climbed the stairs built with blue stone bricks. After walking for about fifteen minutes, he faintly smelled incense. Then, turning around a bend, a solemn temple appeared before his eyes.
He bowed at the bottom of the stairs, then turned his feet in another direction, entering the mountain forest along an unfrequented small path.
Aside from the trees around Golden Goose Temple showing signs of human activity, walking another twenty or thirty minutes inward, there were almost no traces of people.
Little Huang barked uneasily. Xu Yi stopped and squinted as he surveyed the surroundings.
Then, just a few steps away from him and Little Huang, he discovered a bamboo pit viper.
This snake, also called the green bamboo snake, was a common highly venomous snake species. It was coiled on verdant vines, motionless, looking like a pure green creeper, yet its eyes were fixed intently in Xu Yi’s direction.
As if waiting, inviting Xu Yi to come closer.
Xu Yi raised an eyebrow, led Little Huang around it, and walked away. Encountering a bamboo pit viper proved there were other bamboo pit vipers present here. For the rest of the way, Xu Yi walked even more carefully.
While searching, he stopped from time to time to dig up fresh medicinal herbs.
His luck had always been good. He dug up several stalks of chuanxiong. Chuanxiong had the effects of promoting blood circulation and qi flow, dispelling wind and relieving pain. It could be used for many ailments and was a very valuable Chinese medicinal herb. It could be used in many prescriptions with particularly wide applications. If he could dig up more, Xu Yi planned to keep some in reserve for future use.
Although he was currently mainly making money by selling herbs he gathered, he also needed to prepare for his future as a traveling physician.
After digging half a basket of medicinal herbs, Xu Yi sat on a rock to rest.
Last time when he climbed the mountain to gather herbs, he lacked experience. After bringing tools for digging herbs, he hadn’t brought anything else.
This time he learned his lesson. He not only brought water but also brought food.
The dried vegetable flatbreads he bought yesterday, even though they had cooled and hardened, when taken out from the oil paper, still carried the enticing fragrance of food.
Both he and Little Huang were hungry. He broke off half a flatbread to feed Little Huang, and the rest went into Xu Yi’s stomach.
Since he was resting anyway, he looked around at the surroundings. Green mountains and wilderness, pristine and natural, his nose filled with waves of fresh earth and wild forest fragrance carried on the spring breeze. Looking up, there were towering shade-providing shrubs. Looking down, there was blue-green moss and fallen leaves decomposing into fertilizer, along with various plants.
Suddenly, he saw purple flowers growing in the wild grass in the distance.
These flowers seemed inexplicably familiar. Xu Yi hurried over to look closely. Sure enough, this was an entire patch of danshen flowers.
The purple-blue petals opened in a pagoda shape, standing upright and bending downward, looking particularly delightful.
Spring and autumn were both seasons for harvesting danshen. The danshen at this time grew plump and full. When dug up, they were a foot long. After removing the residual roots around the main root and cleaning off the soil covering the outer skin, you could clearly see the brownish-red outer skin.
Danshen was good stuff, and such a large patch growing here would definitely sell for a lot of money.
Xu Yi immediately felt full of energy. And halfway through digging, he had already figured out how to spend this money.