Yes, the old man is indeed the village doctor, but he also works at a pharmaceutical factory and has influence there.
"Then why do you stay in the countryside?"
"The city is too noisy. Besides, it's so much better in the countryside. There's plenty of food and drink to eat and drink."
"All right"
"How about you study medicine with the old man? You haven't gone to university yet anyway."
"don't want"
"You have quite a bit of talent."
"If you're really planning to take on an apprentice, I think Grandpa Huang's granddaughter, Lingling, would be quite good."
"You mean that child? She's alright, but her health isn't very good."
"But didn't you also say that it's treatable?"
"Yes, it just takes too long; it probably won't be possible in less than three to five years."
"That's not hard to say. Why don't you take advantage of these three to five years to teach her pharmacology, and then she can learn to recognize herbs after she recovers? Once she knows most of them, she can graduate from her apprenticeship."
"You think becoming a master is so easy?"
"I don't know if it's easy or not, but I know that Tiger Girl (Lingling) is very smart and intelligent."
Let me think about this some more.
"Sure, if you figure it out, you'll need to pass on a message to Grandpa Huang yourself. Is that alright?"
"Hmph, you little brat, you're not even as good as your mother."
"Yes, my mom is the best in the world."
He started heading down the mountain, quite pleased to know he could sell his medicinal herbs at the county's purchasing station. However, he still needed the brigade leader's approval, which was quite troublesome. He worried that if the brigade found any marketable herbs, he wouldn't be allowed to tell them. But the deep mountains weren't accessible to just anyone; what if someone got hurt? Sigh! That was another problem. Oh well, he'd deal with it later. He'd still have to gather the herbs he found, and if necessary, he could sell them at the market later. Besides, high-value herbs didn't grow in a year.
After figuring it out, I stopped worrying about it. Since it wasn't the busy farming season, I would finish work, have lunch, rest for a while, and then head into the mountains. Since I went into the mountains early, there weren't many people on the outer edges of the mountains at that time. As usual, I would walk around the middle of the mountains to see if my traps had caught any prey. If I saw any medicinal herbs, I would pick some, but I would always keep the smaller ones so they could continue to grow.
Around 5 or 6 PM, they would head out. If they saw Chen Enpeng and his companion, they would show them a common herb and explain what it was, its habits, where it grew, how some preferred shade and some preferred sun, and how some had companion plants or prey nearby, and how it needed to rest, etc. Chen Enpeng and his companion listened attentively, and sometimes, if they found an uncertain herb on the mountain, they would bring it to them for further explanation.
Within two days, everyone in the village, young and old, knew that the three of us educated youths had started collecting medicinal herbs. However, they didn't take it seriously. These common medicinal herbs were all located on the outer perimeter of the mountain. The inner perimeter or even further in was too dangerous for the young educated youths to venture into. Let alone the three of us, even they wouldn't dare to go in. Every year after the autumn harvest, as winter approached, the brigade would organize everyone to go hunting in the mountains and check the boundary between the inner perimeter and the deep mountains, just in case a large prey came down.
Besides, those medicinal herbs aren't worth much. We only let the kids dig them up when they had nothing else to do. A pound only costs a penny or two. It's something we do while digging for wild vegetables and gathering firewood. And besides, money is useless without coupons; grain is still the most reliable.
But they didn't realize that even if it only cost a few cents per pound, it was still better than what they were doing idly in the fields. They could usually finish their tasks two hours early each day; with those extra hours, they could gather countless medicinal herbs. Even if they couldn't go deep into the mountains, they could still manage the central areas.
An adult can easily dig up 10 to 20 pounds of fresh herbs, and after drying them, they'll weigh several pounds more. They can earn at least a dime or two a day, and that adds up to a lot more in a month. Let's not even calculate it as much, just 10 cents a day, that's 3 yuan a month, and they can dig for at least eight months a year, which is 24 yuan. That's enough to cover the expenses of a family of five or six for a year. I still haven't done the math.
Look at Chen Enpeng and his brother. After learning that medicinal herbs could be exchanged for work points for grain and money, they became much more enthusiastic than others. Didn't you see them finishing work two and a half hours earlier than usual? Even if they didn't dig up many herbs, their baskets were never empty; they were always filled with wild vegetables or firewood, much better than the other villagers. They'll find out when the money is distributed at the New Year.
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, next year the village members will be working diligently, eagerly finishing early to dig for medicinal herbs in the mountains. The outer perimeter of the mountains will definitely be expanded further inwards, as will the middle perimeter. The delineation of the area leading into the deep mountains will also be extended further in. However, this is not something I, as a young educated youth, can bring up, nor will Chen Enpeng and the other two. In fact, everyone benefits, so there's nothing wrong with that, is there?
Thus, digging for medicinal herbs in the mountains became a side job for several nearby brigades, so why not do it! This side job depends on how diligent you are; you'll find out when the village distributes money during the New Year.
In the days leading up to the autumn harvest, I had already taught Chen Enpeng and the others about twenty kinds of medicinal herbs. These were all purchased by the purchasing station, and most of them could be found on the outskirts. A very few required going into the inner perimeter. The brigade accountants, Gu Zhenghua and Gu Zhengfu, were in charge of purchasing the herbs. As long as you brought them in, they would buy them all, and you would be credited with work points. When it came time to distribute wages at the New Year, the village would keep 10%, and the rest would be distributed to you according to the weight you brought in.
There's no way to embezzle this money; it's mandated by the county's pharmaceutical factory and the government. The remaining 10% is for the village to buy pesticides or farm tools. But it's not just about giving you money; there are also receipts and other documentation. These are benefits that the government and the pharmaceutical factory negotiated for.
By the day before the autumn harvest, the village had purchased over a hundred catties of herbs. The prices of different herbs varied, but they were all roughly the same. Only a few herbs found in the central area were worth a few more work points, and their prices would be higher accordingly. I estimated that they would be worth two or three cents per catty.
When I met Grandpa Wang, I asked him about the purchase price from the county pharmaceutical factory. Grandpa Wang told me that the price of these medicinal herbs was fixed by the factory, and after the team's deductions, it was about the same. Grandpa Wang also told me that if I collected medicinal herbs that the village wouldn't buy, I could sell them at the pharmaceutical factory's separate purchasing station without needing a certificate from the brigade.
"Grandpa Wang, what's going on?"
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