Farming to Defy My Fate 17

Chapter 17: The Price of Silver Ear Fungus

It took a full two days to travel from Zhaojia Village to the prefectural city by ox-cart. However, with Liu Hu accompanying the old and the young, Hai Bo and Qin Tong, Zhao An wasn’t particularly worried.

He just didn’t finish the bone broth he had stewed for lunch that day. In the evening, he used it to make a bowl of noodles and didn’t cook any other dishes. Since Zhao An was home alone, he couldn’t finish the food even if he only made a little.

Fortunately, there was the wolf he had captured from the mountain. After being starved for two days, this fellow was even willing to eat Zhao An’s leftover noodles. It also had to drink a large bowl of bone broth every day, and then it would lie contentedly on the ground, baring its belly to the sun.

Zhao An stood more than a meter away, watching it. He could clearly feel the wildness and the power of its muscles and claws as its smooth fur rose and fell with its breathing. But it didn’t spare Zhao An a glance, maintaining a rather arrogant demeanor, showing no intention of surrendering its pride just because it had eaten the food Zhao An provided.

Zhao An didn’t expect to tame a wild beast with just a little food, so he only stood in front of it for a short while before going back to the kitchen to wash the pots and dishes.

The next day was another day to go to the city to deliver strawberries. This time, Zhao An only used half of his ability, producing just over fifty strawberries. However, besides the strawberries, his basket also contained nearly three jin of simply dried gastrodia, all of which he had force-grown recently. They were in perfect condition and quite large.

He was taking the gastrodia to the county town this time to ask for the price at the raw medicine shop. At the same time, he had instructed Hai Bo and Qin Tong to ask about the price of gastrodia in the prefectural city. After deducting the transportation costs between the two places, he would see which location offered a higher price. If the price in the prefectural city was higher, he could directly hire someone to deliver and sell it there. If there was no significant difference in price, selling it in the county town would be more convenient.

Since all the silver at home had been given to Hai Bo to buy grapevines, Zhao An had high hopes for these three jin of gastrodia, waiting to sell them at a good price to cover the money spent on the grapevines.

Before leaving home, he checked the vine binding the wolf again and put a few bones that had been stewing for a day in its bowl. The wolf wasn’t very interested in the bones, but Zhao An wasn’t in a hurry. He knew that if the wolf got hungry, it would probably eat the bones.

Even if it wasn’t easy to train a wolf into a dog, in ancient times, even wild animals could be trained for acrobatics. Just making a wolf guard his house shouldn’t be too difficult.

As for the awareness of animal protection, it was not applicable in this era. Because these large beasts were also one of the natural enemies that humans had to face for survival. In every village, there would be people who were injured or directly eaten by wild animals. If conditions allowed, the county would organize hunters to go up the mountain every year to hunt down fierce beasts, including wild boars and monkeys that would destroy crops.

The wolf had howled in pain for the first two days after being captured by Zhao An, but now it was very quiet. Zhao An felt that his training was showing initial results, so he locked the door with peace of mind, leaving the wolf alone at home while he went to the city.

However, reality was indeed unpredictable. Zhao An didn’t expect that after he left, someone would sneak into his house, as if seeking death.

It was Zhao Tongming’s second son, Zhao Fuxiang. He had just turned seventeen last month, an age where he feared nothing. It was Zhao Fuxiang who had led two long-term laborers to block Qin Tong and tie him up.

When Zhao An had confronted Zhao Tongming’s family, he hadn’t been there. Even though he was later hit with a stick, his fear of Zhao An was not as deep as that of his third brother, Zhao Fukang, and his father, Zhao Tongming.

More importantly, that morning he had seen the strange blue-eyed man take fifty liang of silver from their house, then return to Zhao An’s house, and then leave empty-handed. So, the silver should still be in Zhao An’s house.

As the saying goes, wealth moves the human heart. Moreover, although Zhao Tongming’s family had some assets, he had one wife and two concubines, and had already fathered ten children, both boys and girls. He was not very willing to spend money on his sons. Zhao Fuxiang, having grown up, had only worn a new set of silk clothes for his wedding. Unlike his father, who wore silk clothes every day, he sometimes had to wear his older brother’s hand-me-downs. Naturally, he valued money very much.

For the sake of silver, even though Zhao Fuxiang had long heard the sound of a wolf howling from Zhao An’s house and had heard the villagers mention in their idle chat that Zhao An had captured a wolf from the mountain, he still chose to take the risk. After Zhao An left, he climbed over the wall into his house, intending to find the silver Zhao An had hidden.

However, the reality was that there was no silver in Zhao An’s house. The more dangerous situation was that the wolf tied up in the courtyard had been planning its escape for a long time. It had managed to claw at the vine around its neck with its hind paws until only the last layer of skin remained when it suddenly saw a figure flip over the wall.

When Zhao Fuxiang saw the wolf restrained by the vine, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Just as I thought, he mused. Since Zhao An dared to raise a wolf at home, he must have a way to control it and not let it run around biting people.

Reassured, he walked around the pillar to which the wolf was tied, intending to go into the main hall from the other side and then search the inner rooms for any hidden silver.

But just as he turned, the wolf, which had been lying listlessly on the ground, suddenly leaped up. Although Zhao Fuxiang was young and agile, and with a primal sense of crisis, he managed to duck and dodge the pounce, he was still badly shaken by the fall.

“Aiya~!” Zhao Fuxiang cried out. The wolf, however, howled with heavy breaths due to its own mistake. At the same time, the ferocity in its eyes became even more distinct. It wanted to kill the human before it. Even if it wasn’t the one it hated the most, just being a human was hateful enough.

Zhao An was still unaware of what was happening at home. He was with the owner of the raw medicine shop, carefully examining each piece of gastrodia, as if endless mysteries were hidden under the wrinkles of each piece of skin.

Although Zhao An didn’t know how to appraise gastrodia, seeing the shop owner nod repeatedly and the increasingly relaxed expression on his face, he knew that the price of his goods should not be too low.

Then he heard the owner of the raw medicine shop stroke his goatee and say, “You said you have some more gastrodia of such good quality. How much is there in total?”

“Those are fresh. I still need to dry them. Tell me the price for these first. If the price is right, I’ll have more gastrodia to sell to you in the future. If it’s not suitable, I’ll go to the prefectural city to sell it. Anyway, good things are never hard to sell.” Zhao An didn’t hide his intentions and told the shop owner truthfully.

The owner saw that Zhao An had no intention of leaving him any room to take advantage, so he quoted a very honest price. “I’ll give you three qian of silver per liang. I just weighed it. The gastrodia is a total of forty-five liang. I’ll give you a total of eight liang and eight qian of silver. What do you think?”

Zhao An was still a bit unfamiliar with the hexadecimal weight calculation method. After careful calculation, he confirmed that the owner’s calculation was correct. However, the price of gastrodia was a bit lower than he had imagined, not like the legendary hundred-year-old ginseng that could sell for hundreds or thousands of liang.

So Zhao An didn’t immediately take the silver. Instead, he looked at the medicine shop’s shelves and asked the owner, “Do you have ginseng seeds here?”

Ginseng seeds were also considered a medicinal ingredient, but the owner shook his head. “No ginseng seeds. We have five-year-old ginseng here, only five liang of silver. Do you want to buy some to stew with chicken? It can replenish qi and nourish the body.”

For ginseng, five years was too short. For Zhao An to spend so much money to eat it, he felt it was not worth it at all. So he was about to take the money and leave, but his peripheral vision caught sight of a medicine cabinet with the words “Silver Ear” written on it.

He suddenly remembered that before large-scale cultivation, silver ear fungus should have been a very valuable luxury item in ancient times. Although he couldn’t directly use his ability to force-grow fungi, silver ear fungus grew on wood, and Zhao An could still easily force-grow it.

Silver ear and wood ear were both fungi. Why fungi could be force-grown with a wood-elemental ability was not within the scope of scientific explanation. Besides, abilities themselves were not scientific.

The thought flashed through his mind, and Zhao An said with a slightly excited voice, “Boss, are you also selling silver ear fungus here? Can you show me some?”

“Of course. Silver ear fungus is one liang of silver per liang, but you can buy a smaller amount.” The owner said as he directly opened the medicine cabinet, took out half a piece of silver ear fungus, and held it up for Zhao An to see.

Zhao An was indeed a little disappointed after seeing it. The dried silver ear fungus had already lost its vitality and could not be replanted.

It seemed that the idea of directly buying some medicinal materials from the pharmacy to cultivate back home was not feasible, because most of the medicinal materials here had been dried or steamed and baked.

Now he could only hope for his next trip into the mountains. At that time, he would carefully search among the dead trees and fallen leaves for wild silver ear or wood ear fungus. This was the same principle as selling grapes when the strawberry season changed. He couldn’t have gastrodia to sell all year round; that would be too strange.

Zhao An regretfully left the pharmacy with the money, planning to go to the butcher’s shop to buy two more leg bones before the morning market closed.

But not long after he left, he once again ran into Hu Sheng walking with Feng Shaoping. This was their first meeting after many days of separation.

That little unspeakable thought in Zhao An’s mind seemed to have long since drifted away with the passage of time. But when he saw this person again, his heart still couldn’t help but skip a beat. So he went up to greet him. “Young Master Hu, did you like the strawberries I sent you last time? The grapes I planted outside are almost ripe. I’ll bring some for you to try next time.”