Chapter 012: The Sickness

"How do you know?" Bai Mian asked subconsciously.

Weng Xuhua sighed and nodded resignedly: "Sure enough, I guessed it right. You came from the mountains with such a strange background. You have no identity and no memory. You even started using a cell phone on the first day. You don't look like a modern person at all. In addition, you have the ability to diagnose and tell fortunes. I am even more certain that you are not a human, but a monster."

"Demon?" Bai Mian suppressed the urge to laugh when he heard this guess and continued to listen to what Weng Xuhua said.

"I have studied medicine all my life and have read countless ancient medical books. Many of them record that everything in the mountains has spirits. Plants, trees and animals are nourished by spiritual energy and can transform into human form after practicing for decades. I used to think of this as just a legend, but after you came, I realized that this might be true. I boldly guess that you are the demon that has cultivated into a spirit in the nearby mountains!"

Bai Mian laughed softly, and Weng Xuhua asked seriously:

"You say, yes or no? Tell me the truth and I promise to keep it a secret. As long as you are kind-hearted, I will tolerate you even if you are a demon."

Bai Mian was somewhat moved. She said seriously, "Master, don't worry. I am not a demon. But it is also true as you said. I am not a mortal. There is a secret behind my identity that even I haven't figured out clearly. So I'm sorry I can't tell you now."

Weng Xuhua was shocked: "Are you... an immortal? Are there really immortals in this world? Oh my, I am so confused. I am so incompetent, how dare I ask an immortal to call me master!"

Weng Xuhua's body swayed a few times, and he seemed to be in awe. He took a few steps back. Bai Mian quickly held his shoulders and said, "No, you have a kind heart, which is enough for you to be my master. Besides, I want to learn Chinese medicine from you. Although our ways of diagnosing pulses are different, in the end, they are both for the purpose of saving others and ourselves. If I learn the skills of Chinese medicine, I can help more people in the future."

Weng Xuhua was moved by his disciple's words: "Yes, immortals are not omnipotent, so what's wrong with becoming a disciple and learning skills? Then we will still be master and disciple from now on, and I will teach you all my skills."

At this point, Weng Xuhua brought up another matter: "You live-broadcasted everything that happened in the store today. This is probably against medical ethics! Whether you are a doctor or a fortune teller, you cannot expose the privacy of the visitor. Otherwise, wouldn't that be a betrayal of the trust of the person?"

Bai Mian showed Weng Xuhua the number of fans on the account: "It is because of this live broadcast room that so many customers came to the store in the afternoon. You can see that today's income is obviously higher than in the past. We make a living by running a store, so we have to be more realistic."

Weng Xuhua sighed: "Even if you don't say it, I understand that many physical stores are in a downturn and need to rely on live streaming to boost revenue. Maybe the times have changed, and my thoughts should also change. But when I think about live streaming the privacy of patients, I feel bad..."

Bai Mian smiled knowingly: "How about this, I promise you, next time before the live broadcast, I will adjust the camera so that it only shoots the patient's hands and not other parts, and I will turn on the voice changer to help the patient change his voice, so that the audience in the live broadcast room will only know what happened but will not be able to recognize who the patient is, and the patient will not die after the incident is over."

Weng Xuhua's frown finally relaxed, and he nodded, agreeing to the proposal:

"Here's a solution. After today, your reputation will be well-known. I'm afraid that people who want to see you for fortune-telling will come to you one after another. You need to have your own table. You can't always occupy my casework!"

"You have to charge for fortune-telling, but according to the old rules, the apprentice cannot charge more than the master," Weng Xuhua said, counting on his fingers. "My registration fee is 15 yuan per time, so your fortune-telling fee can be set at 10 yuan per time. From now on, we will put two tables side by side, write the fees on the table, and let the patients choose. What do you think?"

Bai Mian readily agreed: "Everything will be arranged by Master."

Just then, Gao Jin came back from buying food. Weng Xuhua whispered: "Regarding your identity, I will only ask you this time today, and I will never ask you again. I will talk to your master's wife about it, and no one else will know about our conversation today, so don't worry."

After finishing speaking, Weng Xuhua walked towards Gao Jin with a smile, took the bag from her hand, and the two of them went into the kitchen together to get busy. As today's "hero", Bai Mian was not allowed to enter the kitchen, so she sat at the table and studied the voice changer function of the live broadcast room.

After a while, the dishes were ready. Gao Jin first served each person a bowl of fragrant rice, and then brought the dishes to the table one by one. The first dish was the Shili Xiang roast chicken that she queued up to buy specifically for Bai Mian. The roast chicken here was tender and juicy, and it was even more fragrant after re-roasting. When it was served, Gao Jin specially used chopsticks to pull out a large chicken leg for Bai Mian.

The second dish was a large pot of soft stewed pig's trotters with soybeans. The pig's trotters were cut into small pieces, and the skin and meat were stewed until they were soft, sticky and chewy, with the aroma of soybeans that made people drool at the smell.

The third dish was blanched Chinese cabbage, which was exceptionally light and perfectly balanced the greasiness of the first two dishes.

After all the dishes were served, the three of them picked up their chopsticks and finished the meal amid laughter and chatter. From the back, they looked like a family.

After dinner, Weng Xuhua called Bai Mian to a room upstairs alone. This room was located at the end of the corridor and was usually locked. Weng Xuhua took out a small key from somewhere, opened the door, and took Bai Mian into the room.

As soon as he entered, Bai Mian smelled a rare fragrance. He saw that the room was filled with cabinets of various sizes. These cabinets were full of traces of time, and the fragrance came from the cabinets.

Weng Xuhua opened the window of the room. There were green mountains outside the window. He said proudly: "This is my secret base. It stores all the precious things I have learned since I started studying medicine. Look, these cabinets are full of precious medicinal materials. Some of them I collected from the villagers, some I dug up in the mountains myself, and this -"

Weng Xuhua walked to a large vermilion cabinet. The cabinet was as tall as a person and the paint on the corners had peeled off.

"This is where I keep my books. Since I started studying medicine, I have kept all the valuable books here."

As he spoke, he opened the cabinet door, crawled into the cabinet, and began to rummage through the pile of books. After searching for a long time, he came out holding an old book. The book was extremely thick, like a huge dictionary, and "Chinese Herbal Medicine Collection" was written on the cover.

Weng Xuhua opened the book and showed it to Bai Mian. Each page of the book recorded a kind of Chinese herbal medicine. There were not only beautiful hand-drawn pictures, but also detailed text explanations. Even a layman could easily understand it.

"Start learning from this book," Weng Xuhua handed the book to Bai Mian, "From today on, you can study on your own in your spare time by referring to this book. First, learn to identify herbs, and then I will teach you other things."

Bai Mian thanked her master and returned to her bedroom with the book in her hands. Just as she placed the book on the table and prepared to open it to read, a white light suddenly flashed before her eyes, and a voice announced in her ear:

"Report to the host, you have gained thirty points of good karma today. The current good karma value is: 30."

"Spiritual Truth?" Bai Mian immediately recognized that this was the voice of the system. "How much good karma is needed to restore magic power?"

"Report to the host, the good karma value is calculated once a day. You can get 10 points of good karma for each fortune-telling. Every time you increase your good karma value by 100 points, your magic power will have a new breakthrough."

"knew."

Bai Mian leaned comfortably on the pillow and looked out of the bedroom window. Ci Xin Tang was close to the mountains, and the air was very good. Through the window he could see the twinkling starry sky and a bright moon.

The bed in the bedroom was very soft, and Bai Mian accidentally overslept. When she went downstairs the next morning, Ci Xin Tang had already opened for business. A group of people gathered at the door, making a lot of noise. She knew without asking that they came to see her for fortune-telling.

"Finally left!"

Lame Brother pushed the door open yelling. Bai Mian noticed that there were several bloody marks on his face, as if he had been scratched by a cat. She couldn't help but feel a little strange. Lame Brother has always been good at fighting, so how could he suffer such a big loss?

"Brother Lame, what happened?" Bai Mian asked.

Lame Brother raised his head towards Bai Mian in annoyance, showing his wounds: "Isn't it all because of your words 'Please come early tomorrow'? Because of what you said, those uncles and aunts came to line up early in the morning. When I opened the door of the store, a group of aunts rushed in. The two in the front started to quarrel. They both said that they were the first to come and wanted to be the first to have their fortune told. As they quarreled, they started to fight. I went to separate them, but I was accidentally injured by them!"

As he said this, Lame Brother looked at his face with some distress and complained: "Look at what I scratched, it's all disfigured!"

Bai Mian smiled apologetically. It was indeed her fault for not thinking this through. She only asked everyone to come early tomorrow but did not set any specific rules, which caused chaos for everyone.

"Where are they now?" Bai Mian asked.

Lame Brother pointed outside and said, "Well, they were taken away by a police car. I couldn't lay hands on a woman, so I couldn't pull them apart. Seeing how they were fighting, I was afraid something might happen, so I called the police. The police took both of them away."

"Luckily you're here, otherwise this store would have really turned into a fight," Weng Xuhua said with a smile as he took out a bottle of iodine and rubbed it on Cripple's wound. "Today you've been injured at work. When we pay you this month, we'll definitely compensate you."

"That's more like it." Lame Brother muttered and stopped complaining.

After applying the iodine, the people waiting at the door became impatient and opened the door and shouted inside:

"What's going on in your store? Why are you so slow and still not open for business?"

"That's right, I've been waiting at the door of the store for two hours. If you don't open the door, I'm going to pee my pants!"

"That's nothing, I came here at five in the morning!"

"I came here at three in the morning, don't try to snatch it from me!"

Bai Mian was about to go out to stop the quarrel, but Lame Brother limped out in front of her. He opened the door and shouted to everyone, "Stop quarreling! Fortune telling will be a lottery mechanism in the future. It's fair and everyone has a chance!"

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone suddenly quieted down, ready to listen to Brother Lame announce the rules. Everyone else in the store looked at Brother Lame in confusion, only to see Brother Lame smile smugly and push a lottery machine down from a truck parked at the door.

"Is this... a double-color ball?" someone in the crowd asked.

"It used to be a lottery machine for the double-color balls. Now, after my modification, this machine can hold a total of 100 balls. Three balls will fall out each time it is shaken. We will use this machine to decide who will get the chance to have their fortune told!"

"From now on, the lottery will start at 9 o'clock every morning. The first 100 people lining up at the store door will receive a number, and then the candidates and order of fortune-telling will be decided based on the number dropped by the lottery machine. Do you understand? Now start distributing numbers!" shouted Cripple Brother.

After hearing the rule, the crowd immediately lined up in a long queue, waiting to get their number tags from Lame Brother. Bai Mian noticed that there were quite a few young people in the team, and some of them were obviously from other places. It seemed that his live broadcast had a great influence.

"You have prepared this trick, how come I didn't know about it?" Bai Mian looked at Lame Brother in surprise.

Lame Brother chuckled: "Of course, I'm an expert at repairing things. Usually, I'm the one who fixes anything that's broken in the store! When I heard you say that yesterday, I knew this would happen this morning, and I guessed it right!"

"But why are you helping me prepare all this? Don't you not believe in fortune-telling?" Bai Mian teased him.

Lame Brother did not deny it: "Yes, I don't believe in fortune-telling, but who can resist money? You can increase the flow of customers to the store. If the store's business improves, it will be a matter of time for the boss to raise our wages. So, you are our little god of wealth, and of course I have to think about you!"

Weng Xuhua looked at the lottery machine at the door and suddenly said thoughtfully: "This machine...why does it look so familiar?"

Lame Brother shook his head and said, "This is the machine from the lottery shop in Zhenshang. Didn't the lottery shop in Zhenshang go bankrupt two days ago? All the things in the shop were sold at low prices, so I brought the machine here. Not only that, but also a row of tables and chairs from their shop. I hired a truck to bring them here. Now our shop is very popular, and there are a lot of people coming to watch every day. Those uncles and aunts are all elderly and have bad legs and feet. They have to have a place to sit when they watch the excitement, right?"

"Okay, let's put tables and chairs in the store and sell some sour plum soup. Everyone can come and kill time, and this will become a milk tea shop!" Weng Xuhua said humorously.

After Brother Lame dealt out the number cards, he started the lottery machine. The small ball in the transparent glass cover spun rapidly, and finally three balls fell down one after another. Everyone held their breath, waiting for Brother Lame to announce the three numbers.

Lame Brother took a look at the machine and shouted loudly: "No. 08, No. 17, No. 43 stay, the rest of you go back!"

The crowd immediately made dissatisfied sounds. Some people left with their heads down, while others stayed to watch the excitement. Only the three people who were drawn were excited and lined up to walk into the store.

Today's three fate masters are all young women. The first fate master sat down at the table. Bai Mian put his phone aside as usual and started the live broadcast. Fearing that the fate master would feel troubled, Bai Mian specifically instructed: "The live broadcast room has used a voice changer. If you are worried about leaking your privacy, you can use a pseudonym."

The master nodded and spoke of his problem with an anxious look:

"Master, my name is Zeng Li. Since two months ago, I have always been unlucky. I suspected that I was entangled by something, but I had no idea. Until last week, I finally knew why -"

Zeng Li said as she took out a piece of yellow paper from her pocket: "I found this by chance at the door. Last week when I came home, I accidentally kicked the door mat crooked, and a yellow corner was exposed under the mat. I picked it up and took a look, and found that it was a folded talisman. Look, there are black words on yellow paper, and the words seem to be written in blood. Although I can't understand what is written, I felt it was spooky at first glance. I must have been cursed by this thing!"

She handed the talisman over and carefully unfolded it in front of Bai Mian. Bai Mian looked down and immediately recognized it -

"This is a life-borrowing talisman."