Chapter 5: Prison Disaster "People's hearts are hidden in their stomachs, who knows you...

Pei Yixue was very sure that the price he offered was lower than that of other drug dealers in the market, but the quality of the medicinal materials was much higher.

No businessman will refuse the benefits unless there are consequences that he cannot bear after taking them.

The only person he has offended so far is the Pei family.

"What should we do?" The head of the caravan, Zhang Xi, was a trusted confidant whom he selected and trained before he set up the medicine field.

"It cost two taels of silver to rent this donkey team. It's one thing if the herbs can't be sold, and it costs extra to haul them back. It's a big loss for Grandma Bay."

The villagers who followed the team all looked at Pei Yixue, waiting for him to make the next decision.

Pei Yixue tapped the wooden frame of the donkey cart with his fingertips and glanced over to the pharmacy. The boss and his employees were busy counting the medicinal materials in the store and would glance over here from time to time.

His guilty conscience and sense of guilt were fully revealed.

He could understand that.

Larger pharmacies have their own fixed sources of goods, and most of the ones cooperating with them are small, unknown shops like this. It is already difficult for them to gain a foothold in the city, and they cannot withstand the slightest setbacks.

The Pei family pharmacy is one of the best in the city, and it only takes a few words to teach the small pharmacy a lesson.

"Go back."

"Boss, we're not going to sell it?" Zhang Xi was stunned. "If we drag it back and then transport it out to sell, the cost will be too high."

Not only is the cost high, but shipping this batch of medicinal materials back and forth can only break even, with no hope of making any money.

Twenty or thirty people make several trips back and forth, but in the end they are just like free porters for others.

Pei Yixue naturally knew it too.

But Xitang County is under pressure from the Pei family, so given the current situation, they can only find other sales channels.

If it doesn’t work in this city, then send it to other counties. I don’t think the Pei family can reach there no matter how long their arms are.

It's a pity that the journey is long. Delivering a batch of medicinal materials to this city can make a net profit of about fifty taels. If it is delivered to other places, the cost of renting a fleet and labor will double.

It changed from fifty taels to ten taels.

If Pei Yixue's medicinal fields did not have a slight yield advantage, it would be impossible to take this route.

Zhang Xi said it well: renting a fleet of vehicles is too expensive and is not a long-term solution.

Pei Yixue decided to train a team of his own.

On the day when the herbs were transported back, he informed Zhang Xi about this matter and asked him to pick a few villagers to go and buy a suitable donkey together the next day.

Donkeys can not only transport medicinal materials, but also help with farm work, reducing the burden on villagers.

And in your free time, you can also take on transportation work to make money.

With the help of the donkey, he can also contract more land and expand the scale of planting.

No matter how you calculate it, you won’t lose.

Zhang Xi has always been thoughtful and efficient in his work. Within two days, he got the donkeys using only four-sixths of the budget.

At dawn, the sky was filled with orange and red morning glow. Twenty-six donkeys stood outside the Wang family's ancestral home, braying "ah-ah-ah" non-stop.

Pei Yixue's head ached from the shouting.

He put on his clothes and went out into the yard.

"Boss, take a look..." Zhang Xi patted the donkey's sturdy front shoulder as if to seek credit, "How is this donkey?"

At a glance, Pei Yixue saw that every donkey had its head held high, looked energetic, had smooth and shiny hair, and had firm and strong flesh.

In excellent condition.

Compared with the old donkeys in the fleet they rented before, they looked very energetic.

But these young donkeys were too energetic and never stopped braying.

Pei Yixue repeatedly asked Zhang Xi and others to drive the donkey to the makeshift shed.

After receiving the praise, Zhang Xi walked so proudly that he showed his power to the donkey team, shouting loudly and pulling the donkeys away.

The donkeys followed the team closely, jumping and skipping as they walked, looking extremely happy.

Pei Yixue felt strange when seeing this.

These donkeys seem a little overexcited.

He thought it was just because different donkeys had different personalities, but it turned out that the abnormality he noticed was not groundless.

After just one night, problems arose among the donkeys.

After the excitement, all the donkeys became sick, drooling at their mouths, and some of them even fell to the ground in serious condition.

Zhang Xi collapsed on the ground, hugging the donkey that was breathing out more than breathing in, crying loudly and speaking incoherently.

"You must not die... It's all my fault, it's all my fault!"

When he saw Pei Yixue, his crying stopped abruptly. Because he was too excited, a string of crystal snot bubbles suddenly burst out of his nasal cavity.

He didn't care much about it, just wiped it off and threw himself in front of Pei Yixue and continued crying.

One villager couldn't help but say, "Boss, that donkey dealer must have passed off a sick donkey as a good one, otherwise how could the donkey get sick so quickly? I don't know how that guy tricked us into it, this matter definitely can't be let go!"

Pei Yixue comforted the villagers at the scene and asked them not to worry.

The merchant must definitely look for it, but he must save the donkey first, otherwise he may lose both the money and the donkey, which will not be worth the loss.

The sick donkey had red conjunctiva, rapid and labored breathing, and sticky secretions from the mouth and nose. The preliminary diagnosis was that it was donkey plague.

With timely treatment of donkey plague, Pei Yixue was able to control the mortality rate to less than 5%.

However, these donkeys were previously drugged by merchants to force them to become excited, which exhausted their limited energy, making them very difficult to treat.

In the past, it could be cured with medicine, but now acupuncture is also needed.

Pei Yixue glanced at the donkey pen and saw excrement lying everywhere on the ground.

Asking him to go in and give the donkey an injection... He felt uncomfortable all over just thinking about it.

At this moment, the donkey dealer became even more unforgivable.

He wrote a prescription and asked Zhang Xi and others to ride to the city as fast as possible. Then they split into two groups, one to find the donkey dealer to negotiate the sale of sick donkeys, and the other to buy the medicinal materials needed to treat the donkey plague.

The villagers who went to buy medicine came back early, and Pei Yixue took the medicine and started preparing.

Take 15 grams each of potassium nitrate and rhubarb, 10 grams of white scutellaria and 3 grams of bupleurum, soak them in a decoction, and use bamboo slips to feed the sick donkey the liquid so that the venom can be expelled.

During this period, acupuncture is needed to keep him alive, and it must last at least three days.

Then mash the Guanyin soil, Ailanthus altissima bark and old tea leaves and drink it to stop diarrhea.

He had been busy the whole morning, and the matter at the donkey shed had not yet been resolved when he saw a villager running over in a hurry.

"Oh no! Zhang Xi has been imprisoned by the county magistrate!"

Pei Yixue and the villagers who came to the donkey shed to help were all stunned.

Aunt Zhang, who was standing nearby, caught the villagers and asked, "Why did the donkey dealer who sold the sick donkey not lock up my Zhang Xi?"

The villager paused and continued, "We followed the boss' instructions and took him to the official if negotiations with the donkey dealer failed. Unexpectedly, the county magistrate said that we had no evidence and wanted to see the sick donkey."

"Zhang Xi thought it was a good idea and asked the police chief to come to the village to collect evidence. However, he never expected that the county magistrate wanted to take all the donkeys to the county town."

Aunt Zhang was furious. "It's such a long way. How can we get there with a sick donkey?"

"We said the same thing, but when Zhang Xi negotiated with the government office, he was accused of trying to bribe the officials and was locked up. He was asked to pay fifty taels of silver for bail. Isn't this extortion?" The villagers stamped their feet in anger.

Aunt Zhang was furious. She waved her hand and wanted to rush to the government office to make a scene, to compete with the county magistrate to see who was more shameless.

At this time Pei Yixue spoke.

"Since they want evidence, just take the donkey away."

"But... the sick donkey can't walk by itself." The villager said hesitantly.

"Just spend some money to find Mr. Wang and his men to rent thirteen donkey carts to carry the sick donkey to the county town."

In order to give the donkeys injections to keep them alive, Pei Yixue walked around the donkey shed that was full of stench and excrement for several times, and he felt a little unstable.

The county magistrate was in a critical situation and it was impossible for him to get the money.

He would rather rent a cart and haul the fifty taels than give it to the county magistrate for free.

I am even more unwilling to swallow this loss.

But there is still a problem. Physical evidence alone is not enough. If the donkey dealers insist that they directed and acted out this incident to slander them, they will have no way to defend themselves.

Just as they were discussing how to find the source of the sick donkeys and the witnesses.

One of the villagers asked, "What's the name of the donkey dealer?"

When the villager learned that the donkey dealer's name was Sun Long, he slapped his thigh and said, "What a coincidence!"

The villager's distant cousin lives in Caoba Village, less than ten miles away from here. There is a big donkey breeder in the village. They happened to sell a batch of sick donkeys the day before yesterday, and the person who bought the donkeys was Sun Long.

Everyone worked together, some did so to get witnesses, some did so to rent cars.

While the villagers helped drive the donkey onto the cart, Pei Yixue took a few showers and then followed them to the county town.

Beat the drum to start the court.

After examining the sick donkey, the county magistrate lowered his head and whispered something to the legal advisor beside him, then banged the gavel in his hand.

"Sun Long, do you have anything else to say?"

The donkey dealer bowed to the people in the hall and said, "Sir, they are slandering me. The donkey is sick now, but it was in good health when I sold it to them!"

"There were so many people in the West Market at that time, and everyone was watching."

The county magistrate clapped his gavel again and asked Pei Yixue, "Do you have anything to say?"

"Yes." Pei Yixue said, "Donkey plague cannot occur in such a short time, and it will not have such serious symptoms. It looked normal when it was bought, but in fact he tampered with it and used a drug that can make the sick donkey excited.

If you don't believe me, you can take the blood of a donkey and mix it with the lime powder supernatant. In a few moments, pale yellow crystals will appear. "

The donkey dealer beside him looked gloomy for a moment, and then retorted: "Your Excellency, I know nothing about this matter. On the contrary, this person knows so much, he must have had a conspiracy long ago."

"Bullshit!" Zhang Xi couldn't help but swear, "We're still spending so much time and effort and money to carry the donkey here and there, are we slandering you?"

"People's hearts are hidden in their stomachs. Who knows what you are thinking?"

Zhang Xi and the donkey dealer started arguing in the court.

When the county magistrate called a halt to the investigation, Pei Yixue pointed out that he had a witness.

In addition to the villager who sold the sick donkey to the donkey dealer, he also invited five or six people who knew the situation.

However, the donkey dealer insisted that the batch of sick donkeys had already been slaughtered and sold for meat, and were not the same batch as this group of donkeys.

The donkeys got sick because of Pei Yixue and his gang’s frame-up.

The county magistrate slammed the gavel and ordered Pei Yixue to prove that these donkeys were the ones sold by the villagers, otherwise he would be charged with false accusation and disrupting the court.

Since the donkeys were raised by the villagers from childhood, the characteristics of several of them were provided.

For example, one of them had a thumb-sized piece missing from its left hind hoof; another had a bean-shaped brown birthmark behind its ear, etc.

However, the county magistrate and the donkey dealers once thought that it would not be difficult to know the characteristics of the donkeys in advance since they had them, so they could not confirm that these donkeys were from the same batch.

The county magistrate asked, "Pei Yixue and Zhang Xi, do you have anything else to say?"

"Damn it, come here, tell me, why is this donkey different from those donkeys? If you can explain it, I will kowtow and call you daddy!" Aunt Zhang, who has a bad temper, squeezed out from the crowd at the back in one step.

"How dare you! How dare you openly insult an official appointed by the imperial court." The county magistrate slammed the table several times, furious, "Come here, drag this untouchable to the prison!"

Aunt Zhang, who was dragged by the bailiffs, became even more arrogant and the conflict intensified. Pei Yixue and others tried to mediate but to no avail. They could only watch Aunt Zhang being dragged away.

But the same problem awaits them: how to prove that these donkeys are from the same batch.

If they cannot prove it, they will also be punished.