Chapter 18 The Little Rascal
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Among the crowd watching outside Baohe Hall, the shoe shop owner's eyes lit up. He rushed back to his shop and shouted, "Don't just stand there! Hurry up and make thick soles on all our shoes! Our chance to make a fortune has arrived!"
The shopkeeper's wife, who was doing the accounting, stopped her abacus, looking puzzled: "Does anyone really buy such strange shoes?"
"Madam, you may not know this, but these shoes are called 'inner height increase shoes.' That sucker Master Cheng is exactly looking for a pair!"
Master Cheng was a renowned wealthy man in Shengjing, who had a passion for collecting rare and exotic birds. Despite his immense wealth, he had only one regret: he was rather short in stature.
If these "inner height-increasing" shoes are as effective as Young Master Wen and Miss Lin claim, then these shoes are practically tailor-made for wealthy gentlemen like Master Cheng!
Excellent business opportunity, no worries about sales!
Inside Baohetang, Dr. Qian's medicinal herbs were always in high demand.
The preface requires medicine for catching a cold and medicine for warming the uterus.
Lin Xihe nestled in the octagonal chair, leisurely picking at the hangnails between her fingers, while Qingwu kept a close eye on the apprentice doctor searching for medicinal herbs—it was naturally his responsibility to find the herb that Qingwu had missed copying from the prescription.
Dr. Qian has never been so busy.
With a forced smile on the left side of his face, he repeatedly reassured Lin Xihe to calm down, then turned around and sternly reprimanded the incompetent medical apprentice.
His right cheek turned toward Wen Zhixu, and after a moment of hesitation, he said cautiously, "Young Master Wen, I don't usually keep much of this medicine for regulating a woman's menstrual cycle. I wonder what you... need it for?"
Lin Xihe threw the barbs towards Wen Zhixu, thinking with disdain: "We met by chance at the brothel last time, and this time he's here to get medicine to warm his uterus."
This young master Wen is truly busy with work, surrounded by women.
Wen Zhixu carefully put away the medicine for his mother, his gaze inadvertently falling on Lin Xihe.
Dressed as a servant, she rose at some point, her drowsiness vanished, and she confronted Doctor Qian with renewed vigor: "You wrote the prescription, and your apprentice deliberately omitted the medicine from the copy. Now you think you can just dismiss me with a simple 'the medicine is gone'?"
Dr. Qian cried out that he was wronged: "The warehouse is simply short of this herbal stone."
"If we're short, we'll get the goods from another supplier!" Lin Xihe said without backing down an inch.
"This medicine is out of stock in the entire capital..." Doctor Qian's voice grew weaker and weaker.
"Human life is at stake!"
Dr. Qian inwardly groaned: That's nothing but a hairy beast!
“It’s Lord Bu Bu!” Lin Xihe corrected him, enunciating each word clearly.
"..."
"Are you going to find the medicine or not? Otherwise, I'll put up a banner!"
Nobody understood what the banner was.
"You're being unreasonable!" the doctor's apprentice said, his eyes red.
"Oh, so the perpetrator is trying to pin the blame on the victim?" Lin Xihe said aggressively. "I'm just defending my rights. You made the mistake first, so I'm just right to fight back."
"you……"
"You can do your thing, I'll do mine! You don't even know what a medical dispute is!"
Wen Zhixu paid no attention to the commotion inside the shop. He left the shop, mounted his horse, but unconsciously tightened the reins in his hand. He looked back at Baohetang and asked, "Why is she in such a hurry to get that medicine?"
The horse beneath him snorted: "Hmph—"
Wen Zhixu has known about the flower-stamen stone since childhood. This thing is not a plant, but a rare mineral. When ground into powder, a small amount can be used in medicine, which has a remarkable effect on stopping bleeding and removing blood stasis.
However, the production of flower-shaped stones is extremely rare, and they can only be found in a stone cave in the back mountains of Beijing.
After getting the medicine, Wen Zhixu immediately returned to Shushi Nunnery.
The child who once climbed over the temple wall out of curiosity and got lost in the mountains for three days and three nights has now grown into a seven-foot-tall boy.
"Mother, your medicine." Even though he was tall and straight, when he called out "Mother," his tone still carried the intimacy of childhood.
Master Huici paused slightly on the prayer beads between her fingers, then returned to calm, saying only, "You are very kind, benefactor."
"But my child..."
"Please return, benefactor."
Wen Zhixu slumped slightly, barely managing to maintain his posture. At this moment, the image of Lin Xihe causing a disturbance at Baohetang inexplicably flashed into his mind.
The essence of her "medical disturbance" seems to lie in never stopping once she starts making a scene.
He looked at the woman dressed in a brownish-gray nun's robe, his lips pursed, a hint of stubborn resentment in his eyes: "Mother, I'm determined to brew this medicine today. You chant your sutras, and I'll do my best."
"..."
The feeling of a gentleman encountering a rogue.
Master Huici remained silent and walked towards the chanting room.
The sound of chanting Buddhist hymns drifted from above the Shushi Nunnery, mingling with the bubbling sound of boiling medicinal liquid.
Wen Zhihou listened patiently to his mother reciting scriptures outside the room.
After reciting the prayer, Abbess Huici looked into the compassionate eyes of Guanyin on the altar, but her voice drifted out the door: "...What do you want to ask?"
Wen Zhixu began, "Mother, are there any flower-shaped stones on the back mountain?"
Very few people know about the flower-shaped stone.
Years ago, a wandering physician came to Shushi Temple to ask for porridge. Later, he went up the mountain to collect herbs and accidentally obtained a flower-shaped stone.
After being ground into a fine powder and used in medicine, it was found to have hemostatic and blood-stasis-removing effects.
The divine physician, without concealing his abilities, told the nun in the temple the location of the Flower Stamen Stone.
The nuns practiced medicine and helped the needy. When collecting herbs, they would bring some flower petals and stones to give to nearby pharmacies, providing them free of charge to poor people in need of treatment.
Over the years, the flower stalactite has become a magic weapon for medical merchants to make money.
“Those unscrupulous medical merchants have chiseled away the flower-shaped stones from the rocks in the mountains, and then smuggled them out of the country by merchants, selling them at high prices to the Hu people.” Abbess Huici said with great concern, “Flower-shaped stones are becoming increasingly rare in the world.”
"Why do you ask about this stone, benefactor?" Her gaze fell on Wen Zhixu. "Are you... injured?"
Wen Zhixu bit her lower lip: "Mother, you clearly care about me, don't you?"
Huici stood up and said in a dismissive tone, "Benefactor Wen, please return."
"..."
Wen Zhixu only learned the superficial aspects of Lin Xihe's unruly behavior; when it comes to shamelessness, he is ultimately far inferior.
However, this kind of shamelessness did have some effect—at least his mother's address to him had changed from the distant "benefactor" to "benefactor Wen."
Finally... I've improved.
The setting sun cast a long shadow on him.
Silence devours time.
Suddenly, the ancient bell was struck, and in the lingering echo, Wen Zhixu found a yellow fortune slip in his hand. The characters, written in vermilion, were dazzlingly red, strikingly similar to the brushstrokes his mother had taught him to practice calligraphy. He abruptly looked up and met a pair of clear eyes.
Those eyes bore a resemblance to Lin Xihe's.
Wen Zhixu stood respectfully with his head bowed: "Madam Lin."
The man replied, "She is dead."
Wen Zhixu remained silent and had no choice but to change his address to: "Master Huixin".
"Yes," Huixin, dressed in a monk's robe, finally responded, "This is a peace talisman that Huici wrote for you. Please keep it safe."
Wen Zhixu carefully tucked the fortune slip into his clothes and subconsciously pressed his chest.
“You don’t need to come for the porridge,” Huixin said calmly. “Huici has been a nun for many years; she’s more comfortable here.”
"But I'm worried about her health."
On the fifteenth, when Wen Zhixu was distributing porridge, he noticed that Huici's face was ashen and her figure was thin, and she was coughing lightly with her mouth covered from time to time. He quickly prepared medicine for her cold and sent it to her, but Shushi Nunnery had already closed its doors to visitors.
“You don’t need to come again, benefactor.” Huixin looked at him calmly.
Those eyes always reminded Wen Zhixu of Lin Xihe, and this association inexplicably stung his heart.
Wen Zhixu choked up: "Can't I even ask for a bowl of plain porridge?"
He said no more and walked towards the gate of the temple without looking back.
Huixin called out "Benefactor" and "Benefactor Wen" several times, but the stubborn young man didn't turn his head.
Abbess Huixin stomped her foot abruptly, her monk's shoes making a heavy thud on the bluestone slab. She almost shouted, "Wen Zhixu, you little brat!"
At the mountain gate, the little boy who had once gathered soil for the crabapple tree stopped at the sound and turned to look at her.
“Madam Lin,” he gazed at her intently, “if your daughter were to come and visit you, calling you ‘Mother,’ would you see her or not?”
The glint in Huixin's eyes vanished instantly, and her voice was as soft as a sigh: "He'er... she's sick."
She was so sick that she could no longer speak, and so sick that she could no longer recognize her mother.
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