Chapter 1035: Enduring Humiliation and the Dancer of the Republic of China (10)

The old village chief seemed to be thinking about something. He looked at Shi Chu with cloudy but shrewd eyes and said, "Xiao Chu is indeed very skilled. He can hunt wild boars and bears all by himself. If you can use your skills on the battlefield, you may be able to earn military merits and become an officer or even a general."

When Shi Chu heard what he said, his unhappy mood disappeared immediately and he said, "Old village chief, you really think highly of me. I even thought I could be a general. Unfortunately, I value my life very much. I finally escaped and found a quiet place to live. I don't want to live in fear anymore."

"That's right, everyone has their own aspirations." The old village chief sighed, "You have to be alive to be a general, so you'd better be a hunter honestly, get married and have some children..."

Shi Chu was suddenly choked. It was impossible to get married, unless he married a boy.

But now that the war has broken out, she is bored, so she might as well do some business and donate some money and food to the army in the future.

So Shi Chu started to get busy. She would take the prey she hunted in the mountains to the town to sell. She soon saved some money and then bought a small shop in the town and started selling precious medicinal herbs. Some of the herbs came from the mountains, which she found when hunting, and some came from her space. Her space had all kinds of medicinal herbs and she would never lack supply.

No matter when, precious medicinal herbs are always treasures that are in short supply. Not many people in the town can afford these precious medicinal herbs, but there are always smart and far-sighted businessmen who see the huge profits here, so they find Shi Chu, explain the pros and cons to her, and want to buy goods from her to sell in other places. Du Xing is one of them.

Shi Chu didn't want to go out and work hard, but he also wanted to make money, so he examined several people and finally chose Du Xing. Du Xing was ambitious, smart and cunning, but he was a decent person and did things with principles. He would not lose his moral bottom line for money.

So Shi Chu signed a contract with Du Xing, delivering the medicinal materials to Du Xing on a quarterly basis, asking him to transport them to other places for sale, with the profits divided into 40% and 60%.

Even though it was a turbulent time, there were still many people who were rich and valued their lives. The medicinal herbs that Du Xing transported out had no trouble selling, and Shi Chu quickly became a small wealthy woman.

Then she was not satisfied with selling precious medicinal materials. After she had money, she began to collect various common medicinal materials everywhere, preparing to build a pharmaceutical factory. She had a lot of prescriptions. In this era of frequent wars, medicines are very precious strategic resources. She could just use the prescriptions to make medicines to save lives.

Although there are many common medicinal herbs in her space, they are different from precious medicinal herbs. Precious medicinal herbs are rare, and she can say that she found them from the mountain. However, the number of common medicinal herbs is too large, and it would be abnormal for her to find so many by herself, so she has to hide her tracks.

So in addition to purchasing medicinal herbs, she also took out the seeds of the herbs and distributed them to the villagers of Huangshi Village to plant, telling them that she would come to buy them after the herbs were planted.

The benefits of Shi Chu's good relationship with the villagers in the first two years became apparent. The villagers believed that Shi Chu would not deceive them, so without any hesitation, in addition to the land for growing grains and vegetables, they planted the medicinal seeds given by Shi Chu in all other vacant land.

Shi Chu would occasionally teach them about the habits of medicinal herbs and how to plant and maintain them...so even if it was their first time planting, they were able to do very well.

So except for the first batch of medicinal materials that were purchased from outside, all the subsequent medicinal materials were grown in Huangshi Village and other nearby villages.

The medicinal herbs grown in Huangshi Village in the first year were sold at a good price. Everyone was very happy and praised Shichu highly. When they visited relatives and friends, they would inevitably talk about it. As a result, people from several nearby villages also became interested in growing medicinal herbs and came to Shichu to get seeds from her.

Shi Chu naturally would not refuse. He went to various villages to study the climate and soil, and then gave the villagers the herbs suitable for growing there.

By the second year, Shi Chu had harvested a lot of medicinal herbs. She hired people to help with preparing the herbs, and the number of workers in the pharmaceutical factory was also increased... So she single-handedly improved the living standards of Huangshi Village and several other nearby villages. Now when people see her, it's like seeing Guanyin Bodhisattva.

Of course, the medicines she made were never a problem to sell. Du Xing was no longer just selling her precious medicinal materials; these medicines were the bulk of his business.

However, the pharmaceutical business at the beginning developed too fast and easily attracted attention. Moreover, this is not the world of strict laws, but a world where corruption is rampant.

Her pharmaceutical factory is making a ton of money every day, who wouldn't be jealous?

Although Huangshi Village is usually quite peaceful and nothing major happens here, isn't that because it is poor and remote? In the past, even if you wanted to make money, you couldn't. But now it's different. Isn't Shichu Pharmaceutical Factory a big fat sheep?

After learning that the owner of the pharmaceutical factory was a young man under the age of 20, the county magistrate of Lincheng began to set his sights on the pharmaceutical factory.

Although Lincheng County Magistrate Chen Daofa was also sent by the higher authorities, his ancestors were all in Lincheng, and he bought the position of county magistrate with money. He just wanted to be a local tyrant in his hometown. As the saying goes, the emperor is far away and the sky is high. He is a smart man and knows that there are wars everywhere these days. If he goes to other places to be an official, he might be beaten at any time; but if he stays in his hometown, he will be very safe.

When Chen Daofa became the county magistrate, his relatives and friends naturally followed him to prosper. The four words "collusion between officials and businessmen" clearly explained the interest relationship between them.

The largest pharmacy in Lincheng used to be opened by Chen Daofa's brother-in-law, but after Shichu's pharmacy and pharmaceutical factory opened, the pharmacy's business suddenly became much worse, and finally almost no one came. After all, the drugs sold in Shichu's pharmacy were good and cheap, while the drugs sold in Chen Daofa's brother-in-law's pharmacy were expensive and poor, and even had fake drugs. In the past, people bought from him because they had no choice, but now they have a choice, right? Everyone votes with their feet.

The brother-in-law complained to his brother-in-law several times, saying that someone was recklessly trying to steal his pharmacy business. He also exaggerated the profits of Shichu's drugstore and pharmaceutical factory by several times, which successfully aroused Chen Daofa's greed. So Chen Daofa discussed with his brother-in-law how to take over Shichu's pharmaceutical factory and drugstore.

Shi Chu had this great ability to build a cornucopia of pharmacies and pharmaceutical factories, but he didn't have the corresponding power to protect him. In the eyes of Chen Daofa and his brother-in-law, wasn't he just like a fat sheep dangling in front of their house with "Come and kill me" written on his forehead?

(End of this chapter)