Chapter 106: Very Handsome
Things at Yongfengzhai were not complicated. Sang Luo took Shen An and Shen Ning there. They stayed inside for more than two quarters of an hour and counted the goods and got the money.
Having known Manager Yan for such a long time, Sang Luo privately reminded her before she left that there would definitely be rumors in the county in a few days at most, and she didn't mind selling Manager Yan out at this time. As for the two female assistants in the store, they had signed a contract to sell themselves to the owner of Yongfengzhai, so they didn't need to worry about their own food.
When they returned to Dongfulou, Manager Xu had not left yet. The young man who was familiar with Sang Luo had just returned home. When he returned to the back alley of the restaurant, he saw Sang Luo and her two children moving a bench from the kitchen and sitting in the alley. The young man came over and asked in a low voice about the situation in the north.
As soon as Sang Luo heard it, she knew that Manager Xu had already informed the shop assistants in the building, so she did not hide it and spoke in a low voice.
After hearing this, the young man sighed and said, "I hope there won't be any chaos. It's okay if the grain price goes up. At most, it will drain our family's savings and we will have to eat worse. If there is a real chaos, what's the point of storing grain? What if the county is captured by the rebel army? Even if we have grain, we will lose our lives."
Sang Luo: "Who said it wasn't?"
In troubled times, human life is worth less than grass.
The young man was probably too nervous, his cheeks puffed up and he breathed a sigh of relief, saying, "Okay, Madam Sang, please sit down. I'll go and tell our shopkeeper."
Their family only needed one stone of rice and could not afford more, so his father had already set out to buy miscellaneous grains.
Sang Luo nodded, then thought of something and called him again, "Dong Ge'er."
The young man was called Dong Ge'er. The two brothers had sent Sang Luo home once, so Sang Luo knew his name.
The boy stopped and looked at her.
Sang Luo whispered, "Talk to my family and see if there is any secret place that won't attract attention. We can dig tunnels if necessary and dig holes if necessary. As long as the surface is well covered and the place chosen is not where people would think to hide, and we can hide drinking water inside, we will always have a place to hide when chaos comes."
It would be fine if the county town was not breached, but once the county town was breached, we could only rely on this method to save our lives. She added: "Of course, it has to be well concealed, otherwise we will be wiped out. If the rebel army really breaks into the city, they will be good at confiscating the property of the family, so don't let the whole family be confiscated."
The young man named Dong Ge'er blinked his eyes, as if he saw a way out of the desperate situation. His eyes lit up and he even smiled slightly. He groaned twice and said, "Thank you, Madam Sang. I will let my family know when I get home from work. You are really a benefactor to our whole family!"
Sang Luo smiled: "Not really, your family will figure it out themselves."
In order to survive, people can always unleash infinite potential.
She waved her hand to signal the boy to get busy.
The boy nodded and walked away, this time with a much lighter step.
Shen An saw Dong Ge'er go in and asked his sister-in-law, "Is war terrible?"
Shen Ning also looked at Sang Luo.
The brother and sister originally did not have much idea about war, Sang Luo and Shen Lie seldom talked about it at home. Although the two younger ones knew that their eldest brother and sister-in-law were making preparations, they also thought that their eldest brother and sister-in-law were making preparations and were not too scared. It was not until this moment when they saw Dong Ge'er's reaction that they finally became nervous.
Sang Luo touched Shen Ning's little head: "Be fully prepared to deal with it, it will be fine."
Do everything you can, and don't worry about the rest which is fate.
The brother and sister seemed to understand, but they were not nervous for too long, because they had only been sitting in the back alley of Dongfulou for more than a quarter of an hour when Chen Lie and his group returned with several carts of food.
Sang Luo and the two children stood up and went over to greet them: "So soon?"
Chen Youtian and his companions all had smiles on their faces. They said solemnly, "There are many employees in the grain shop. We buy in bags and have a fixed quantity. We can load the truck in no time."
In fact, because they came out early, even if they waited for a while in the back alley of Dongfulou, they arrived at the grain shop very early. The villagers and Zhou clansmen who were coming to the county were probably just setting out at this time. The lazier ones probably hadn't eaten breakfast yet and hadn't left yet. It would take some time for the guys in Dongfulou who received the news to go home and notify them, so they were considered to be the first group to buy grains in large quantities.
Therefore, even though they were a group of five or six people pulling a cart to the grain store to buy grains, and they bought quite a lot, several dan per person, the clerk at the grain store knew they were from the nearby countryside when he saw that Chen Youtian and his friends were dressed like old farmers in coarse linen clothes, and that Chen Lie and his friends were wearing a pair of badly worn old straw sandals.
We have paid rent and taxes twice this year, and grain prices are still rising sharply. It is not uncommon for old farmers in the countryside to have to rely on bean rice to survive without having rice. So no one asked any more questions, and we just moved as much as you wanted.
Beans are not rare here, so I don’t take them seriously at all.
Sang Luo looked at the grain bags on the carts and felt relieved. As long as everything went smoothly, everything would be fine.
"Shopkeeper Xu, we have to wait a little longer. You guys can sit here for a while. Chen Lie and I have to go to the pharmacy to prepare some herbs. Do you have any herbs to prepare?"
Several people shook their heads. The medicine was too expensive and they couldn't afford it at the moment. Chen Youtian said, "We don't have any money left. Let's save some money for a while."
Zhou Dalang took the task. He took out two ingots of silver, each weighing one tael each, and gave them to Chen Lie, saying, "Ah Lie, can you help me with the medicine I prescribed? These two taels of silver are the fixed amount my father asked me to prescribe. You and your sister-in-law can help me decide which ones to buy. It's up to you to decide, and we'll pay half of the consultation fee."
Before his father left, he told them to buy medicine for Sang Luo, and all they had to do was buy it. Zhou Dalang couldn't give the money to Sang Luo, so he gave it to Chen Lie.
Chen Lie had already seen Zhou Cunzheng's admiration for Sang Luo, so he didn't refuse. He said "OK", took the money, and handed it to Sang Luo.
Chen Youtian and others were watching over the grain. Sang Luo went back to the kitchen to say hello to the people inside, and brought out a bench for them to sit on. Then she went to the drugstore with Chen Lie, Chen An and Chen Ning.
Things like ginseng, especially those of good vintage, will be bought by all pharmacies, it’s just a matter of who offers the highest price.
The two men took the ginseng to all the pharmacies and clinics in the county one by one. In the end, the clinic offered the highest price, thirty-nine taels.
Sang Luo and Shen Lie were not very clear about the price of ginseng, but they were in urgent need of money. Apart from the few drug stores and clinics in Qiyang County, they could not find other buyers for the time being. Both of them were satisfied that the ginseng that was more than 30 years old could be sold at this price.
The infirmary owner handed the money to Chen Lie. Chen Lie still remembered what he had said, that the money was for Sang Luo, so he said, "I'll keep it for you first."
Sang Luo wanted to laugh, so she nodded and let him do it.
After selling the ginseng, the two men did not leave in a hurry. Instead, they asked the shopkeeper and went to line up next to the doctor.
Although it was called a queue, there was actually only one woman in front of them, and it didn't take long before it was Sang Luo and her friends' turn.
The old doctor looked at Sang Luo and the other three and asked who was feeling unwell. Sang Luo smiled and shook her head, "No, I'm not feeling unwell. Old doctor, we are going on a long journey and we will have to cross mountains and ridges on the way. I want to prescribe some medicine for us on the way."
"Oh." The old doctor nodded. Going out to prepare medicine is rare in poor families, but it is common in wealthy families. The distance between counties in Daganchao is quite far, and it is not easy to travel. If the distance between two counties is particularly far, if you get sick on the way, there will be no way to seek medical treatment.
He looked at Sang Luo and the others. They were not well dressed and their families were not wealthy. Seeing that Sang Luo was the one who was talking, he pointed to the stool in front of the examination table and asked her to sit down. Then he asked, "What medicine do you want to prepare?"
This is something to talk about. Sang Luo thought about it and combined the experience of modern family medicines to roughly state the demand. She mentioned colds, fever reduction, gastrointestinal discomfort, diarrhea, bruises, and detoxification of insect and snake bites. Finally, after thinking about it, she added the golden wound medicine.
So many... If the old doctor hadn't seen that the young couple had just sold ginseng, he would have been afraid that they wouldn't be able to afford the medicine for each prescription.
The old doctor didn't say anything. After listening to Sang Luo, he also gave a brief account of what he had to say.
The requests that Sang Luo made became a string of professional terms such as clearing away heat, relieving exterior symptoms, warming the middle and regulating Qi in the old doctor's mouth, which left her confused.
Of course, this didn't matter. She asked the old doctor to help write the corresponding symptoms on each prescription, similar to the modern drug instructions. Since it was medicine for two families, she asked for two copies.
The old doctor looked at her in surprise and asked, "Young lady, can you read?"
Sang Luo nodded: "I know all the commonly used ones."
"That's rare." The old doctor smiled and asked Sang Luo about the quantity she wanted. Because Sang Luo wanted a lot for each item, he estimated that the total price would be nearly nine taels of silver. Since she was a big customer, he did not refuse. He simply wrote down various indications at the bottom of the prescription as she requested, and asked his apprentice to tie the prescription to the corresponding medicine bag when packing the medicine.
Sang Luo saw that the words on the prescription were so fancy that she couldn't recognize most of them. However, the applicable symptoms and instructions for use at the bottom were taken care of by her. Although they were also a bit fancy, she could still recognize what the words were. She smiled and thanked the old doctor.
Getting medicine is a time-consuming job, especially since Sang Luo needs a lot.
After instructing the medicine boy to separate the Zhou family's and her own money, the Zhou family's two taels of silver ended up with more than 190 wen more, while Sang Luo spent nearly eight taels.
The most expensive items are wound medicine and detoxification pills. Not to mention the wound medicine, there are wild beasts in the mountains, and one doesn't know if they will encounter bandits later, so they must be prepared.
As for the detoxification pill, it was just a casual question from the old doctor, and Sang Luo decided to order it herself. Ordinary snake venom removal medicine, Angelica dahurica mixed with Ophiopogon japonicus decoction, only costs 39 wen per dose. But the detoxification pill that the old doctor mentioned costs one guan of money per pill. According to the old doctor, with this detoxification pill, people in Sichuan and Shu can survive, and one pill can save a life.
Sang Luo would definitely prepare such good things if she had the conditions, so she gritted her teeth and ordered three.
The area where she spent more than Zhou Jiahua was on golden wound medicine and detoxification pills. She ordered six bottles of golden wound medicine, and these two items alone consumed nearly five taels of medicine, while the other three taels were commonly used medicines.
Chen Lie saw that the golden wound medicine and detoxification pills cost five taels. He moved his lips as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he said nothing.
It is indeed dangerous in the deep mountains. Although he and Dashan can find some simple hemostatic herbs, they are far inferior to what can be found in the clinic. With so many people of all ages involved, it would be better to be adequately prepared.
The medicines were finally picked out. Because a lot of them were needed, the clinic specially gave two large cloth bags, which were packed separately for Zhou's family and Sang Luo's family. They were two quite large bags, especially for Sang Luo's family.
Chen Lie picked up one bag in each hand.
As he was holding the medicine, his eyes turned to Sang Luo several times.
The Zhou family bought a lot of medicine because they have a large population, but there are only four people in their family. The many medicines that Sang Luo prepared have actually taken into account the situation where other families may need emergency medicines but don’t have them, right?
After all, medicine is really expensive. The Chen family is fine, as they can go hunting in the mountains to earn some money. The Lu and Shi families will prepare medicine, but not necessarily so completely.
"Where are we going now? Back to the back alley of Dongfulou?" Chen Lie asked Sang Luo after leaving the clinic.
Sang Luo shook her head. She looked at Chen Lie's clothes. He was wearing only a thin autumn shirt and a piece of animal skin. She felt cold just by looking at his arms.
"To the clothing store."
Before Chen Lie realized why he was going to the clothing store, Sang Luo had already walked forward and hurriedly took Chen An and Chen Ning to catch up.
The clothing store was not far from the clinic, and they arrived there in a short while. Sang Luo went in and looked around, then pointed at a thick winter coat, pointed at Chen Lie standing behind him, and asked the shopkeeper, "Do you have a size that fits him?"
The shopkeeper took a look at Chen Lie's figure and smiled, "Yes."
He bent over and rummaged through the cabinet, and soon took out a jacket that was the same one Sang Luo had just seen.
Seeing that Chen Lie was holding medicinal herbs in both hands, Sang Luo simply took the jacket, shook it open, and held it up to demonstrate on Shen Lie.
Broad shoulders, long top and long sleeves.
Chen Lie's ears gradually turned red, visibly.
Sang Luo's attention was on the clothes. She gestured to see if the sleeve length was suitable. She also lifted up her cotton pants, took a look, and signaled to Chen Lie: "Do it yourself?"
Chen Lie's face flushed immediately: "I can do it myself."
He hurriedly placed two large bags of medicinal herbs on the counter, and when he took the pants from Sang Luo's hand, he didn't even dare to meet Sang Luo's eyes.
After making some random gestures, he forced himself to remain calm and said, "Okay."
Sang Luo thought it was okay, so she turned to the shopkeeper and said, "Please find him a pair of thick cotton shoes."
The shopkeeper smiled and took out a wooden ruler, calling Chen Lie: "Young man, sit over here, take off your shoes and let me measure the length of your feet."
Chen Lie awkwardly sat down next to the wooden stool pointed by the shopkeeper and asked the shopkeeper for a wooden ruler: "I'll do it myself."
The shopkeeper readily handed it to him and explained the measurement method.
He turned his back to Sang Luo, quickly took off his shoes, measured them, reported the number to the shopkeeper, and quickly put his straw sandals back on.
After hearing this, the shopkeeper took out a pair of shoes from the cabinet and asked Chen Lie to try them again.
This set fits the bill.
It is more expensive to buy ready-made clothes than to buy fabrics and make them yourself. In addition, Chen Lie is tall, and Sang Luo chose a thick style, so the whole set of clothes from head to toe cost two strings of cash, nine hundred coins.
Sang Luo went back and forth with the shopkeeper, and finally got the shopkeeper to give her two pairs of cloth socks, and the deal was done.
He borrowed a small room at the back of the shopkeeper's house and asked Chen Lie to change his clothes, shoes and socks. When he came out again, he looked completely different.
It is much better than the messy leather outfit, and the cloth shorts also make the man look very handsome.
Chen Lie felt a little uncomfortable wearing the thick new clothes. He held his skin with one hand and adjusted it with the other hand. When he raised his eyes and saw Sang Luo staring at him up and down, his ears began to feel hot again.
"Can I see it?"
Sang Luo smiled: "Why not? It looks great."
She took out the money and gave it to the shopkeeper without hesitation. She lowered her head to count the money and didn't notice that Shen Lie was grinning because of that beautiful remark.
Brother and sister Shen An and Shen Ning looked at their eldest brother and smiled secretly with their hands covering their mouths.
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