Chapter 6: If Not a Good Minister, Then a Good Physician
Hai Bo took the thirty wen and bought nearly fifteen jin of new rice. He also traded for five eggs, planning to boil them and then cook them in the braising liquid to make braised eggs.
Zhao An had also mentioned wanting to eat eggs; otherwise, Hai Bo would have preferred to trade for some green vegetables or radishes to make pickles. The jar of pickles they had made when they first arrived in Zhaoj-ia Village had lasted the three of them until now.
However, the Young Master had been injured and sick for some time, and his body was weak. Now that he had learned immortal arts and could grow immortal fruit to sell for money, their lives should no longer be difficult. It was only right for him to eat some eggs every day to regain his strength.
Thinking of the hardships of the past few weeks, Hai Bo felt a wave of sadness. But as he looked up, he saw Zhao An sitting on top of the wall.
“Young Master!” Hai Bo cried out in alarm, nearly dropping the cloth bag of rice and eggs in his arms.
Zhao An was still looking in the direction Ah Wu had fled. Hearing the voice, he turned to look at Hai Bo and smiled sheepishly. He immediately pushed himself up with his hands and vaulted off the wall.
When his feet hit the ground, he felt a numbness in his soles, but he still maintained a calm and composed appearance. He walked up to Hai Bo and said, “When I went to the city today, I saw a master who could leap up to the second story of a tall building with a single bound. It reminded me that I also learned martial arts from a master when I was a child, so I wanted to test my current strength. It seems I haven’t lost all my skills.”
Because of his recent injury and illness, Hai Bo had been overly cautious with him. Although climbing the wall was an impulse, he also wanted to take this opportunity to show that his body was healthy enough, so Hai Bo wouldn’t be so restrictive with him in the future.
Zhao An walked to Hai Bo’s side, took the bag from his hands, and headed into the house. Following behind Zhao An, Hai Bo couldn’t help but recall how both the Madam and Nanny Zhou had once praised the Young Master for being quite talented in both scholarly pursuits and martial arts. At the time, he had been serving the Old Master and hadn’t paid much attention to the Madam’s praise for the Young Master. But thinking about how the Young Master had beaten up Zhao Tongming a couple of days ago, he suddenly felt that the Madam might not have been exaggerating.
Zhao An put the rice bag into a clean rice container and asked casually, “Hai Bo, how did you get back so quickly?”
“I happened to see the Liu Song family milling rice, so I traded for some and came back,” Hai Bo said as he washed his hands and went to check on the braising meat. “Besides, I knew the Young Master must be hungry after going out without eating, so I wanted to quickly get some rice to cook for you.”
Hearing this, Zhao An indeed felt hungry and offered to wash the rice for cooking. He had just scooped some of the slightly yellow new rice from the bag when Qin Tong snatched the earthenware pot from his hands. Hai Bo chimed in from the side, “Young Master, don’t linger in the kitchen. Be careful not to get smoke in your eyes. If you have nothing to do, you should go back to your studies.”
Zhao An really wanted to retort, Do I look like someone who studies? Besides, he remembered the upcoming plot of the story. The love entanglement between the emperor and Consort Li would go through several more trials. When Consort Li was in trouble, as the emperor’s true love, her life would not be in danger. But as a cannon fodder character, Zhao An couldn’t guarantee that he would be as lucky as last time and keep his life.
So, he would much rather read some of the leisure storybooks characteristic of this era. Unfortunately, among the dozen or so books Hai Bo had painstakingly carried back from the capital, there was nothing of the sort.
Pushed out of the kitchen by Hai Bo, Zhao An sat down at the desk in his room and began to consider what he should do in the future. With the experience of selling strawberries, perhaps he could plant a few more fruit trees. After all, no matter how rare strawberries were, he couldn’t sell them year-round, or people would surely become suspicious.
He didn’t mind showing his peculiarities to Hai Bo and Qin Tong, but he still had to hide himself from the unfathomable people outside.
Besides growing fruit, he also wanted to continue going up the mountain to find some precious medicinal herbs. With the limited number of times he could use his ability, it was of course better to force-ripen plants with higher intrinsic value. If it weren’t for the purpose of improving grain seeds, just force-growing some rice or wheat wouldn’t even be enough to feed himself, let alone buy clothes and other daily necessities.
Thinking about searching for medicinal herbs, he unconsciously took out a brush and paper and began to write down the names of herbs he remembered, from the most common licorice and astragalus to the expensive ginseng, notoginseng, dendrobium, gastrodia, and fleeceflower root. As he wrote, he tried to recall what these plants looked like. Some he remembered, but some were very unfamiliar. Even though he had specifically looked up a plant encyclopedia because of his wood-elemental ability, his purpose at the time wasn’t to study medicine, so he hadn’t paid special attention to medicinal plants. Instead, he was more interested in plants that could be used as combat aids, like thorny roses and brambles, or corrosive pitcher plants and rafflesia.
He filled a whole sheet of paper, but he only truly recognized about a third of the varieties.
Hai Bo came to call Zhao An for a meal and saw the list of medicinal herbs he had written. “Is the Young Master thinking of having some tonic herbs prescribed to recuperate?”
Zhao An said, “When I’ve saved up some money, I’ll go buy a few medical books to read. Maybe I can become a physician in the future. As the saying goes, ‘If not a good minister, then a good physician.’ I can’t be a prime minister like my father, but maybe I can be a good doctor.”
After saying this, Zhao An also felt that this was a very good idea. If he became a physician, he could not only make good use of his wood-elemental ability but also find a career to establish himself in this world.
Hearing that Zhao An wanted to become a physician, Hai Bo hesitated, but he didn’t say anything to refute it. In his heart, he still held a sliver of hope. After all, Consort Li was still in the palace, so it wasn’t entirely impossible for the Young Master to have a chance to return to the capital.
But when Hai Bo thought about the reasons for the Old Master and Madam’s deaths, his expectations for Consort Li diminished greatly. If the Young Master was willing to be a physician, have children, and live a good life in the countryside, it didn’t seem like a bad thing.
The two soon arrived at the dining area in the main hall. Besides three large bowls of rice, there was a small plate of thinly sliced braised meat, a small plate of steamed and baked fish, and a large bowl of wild vegetable soup.
To be honest, the spread was not lavish, but the aroma of the braised meat filled the air, quickly whetting one’s appetite. Zhao An soon discovered that apart from himself, no one else dared to touch the plate of braised meat. This time, he didn’t try to persuade them. He just quickly finished his meal, ate some more of the baked fish, and left most of the braised meat for Qin Tong, who had been craving it for a long time.
As expected, after Zhao An left the table, Qin Tong began to feast. Although the flavor of the braised meat wasn’t authentic—the braising liquid was newly made that morning and the meat hadn’t been braised for long, so it wasn’t very flavorful—when the thin slices of braised meat entered his mouth, Qin Tong still felt a sense of bliss.
While Zhao An’s family was happily eating meat, Ah Wu had already run back to Zhao Tongming’s house to report the news.
“I told you the second branch of the family has always been cunning and deceitful. With a daughter as a consort in the palace, it’s impossible for them to be so poor they can’t even afford to eat. They probably have money buried in that house. Tongming, you’d better provoke him less in the future.” Zhao Tongming’s mother, Madam Li, had been a beauty in her youth, but she had become somewhat harsh in her old age, though her mind was still very sharp.
Zhao Tongming picked up a piece of mutton from the dried bamboo shoots, chewed on it, and said to Madam Li, “Mother, you didn’t see the miserable state he was in when he was sent back. Now he’s all alone, with just two servants. As long as we get rid of those two meddlesome servants, we can snatch however much money he has.”
After saying his piece, Zhao Tongming swallowed the mutton in his mouth. He suddenly thought this was a great idea. Without those two servants, Zhao An alone would be easy to deal with.
Thinking of this, he stopped arguing with his mother and instead looked at his eighteen-year-old eldest son, Zhao Fuping, and his seventeen-year-old second son, Zhao Fuxiang. This matter could be handed over to his sons to give them a chance to grow up and prove themselves.
Madam Li knew her son well. Seeing his expression, she knew he was up to no good. But the thought of the money possibly buried in the second branch’s house tempted her, so she said nothing.
At this moment, Zhao An was unaware that someone was plotting against him again. With no immediate food shortage, he was only planning that since he didn’t have to sell strawberries tomorrow, he could go up the mountain again.
The next morning, after using his recovered ability to make the strawberries bloom with little white flowers again, he took Qin Tong up the great green mountain behind their house.
This time, after reaching the stream, they began to search for useful medicinal herbs in the woods where they had found the strawberry seedlings. But apart from finding a few wild lilies by the water, they still only found the usual plantains, dandelions, and the like.
They had specifically gone up the mountain to find medicinal herbs this time, and even had rice balls and braised eggs for lunch on the mountain, but still came up empty-handed. As a result, when Zhao An returned home, he only brought back a large handful of wild vegetables, and Qin Tong carried a bundle of firewood, so the trip wasn’t a complete waste.
The next day, as planned, they went to the city to sell strawberries. This time, they didn’t keep a bowl of strawberries for themselves, so they sold them for over three hundred wen.
Manager Feng was also very quick to pay this time. It was clear that the strawberries were selling very well, and the money he was making was far more than three wen per berry.
But Zhao An didn’t ask. After all, the man had connections with the county magistrate. He took the money and led Qin Tong to buy two jin of pork. This amount had to last for two days, so the portion they could eat each day wasn’t much. So, he also bought two leg bones. The broth made from the bones was very delicious, even when used to cook wild vegetables.
Besides wild vegetables, he also wanted to eat some other vegetables. However, transportation in ancient times was too troublesome. In Changxi County, which was close to Jiaozhou, it wasn’t even easy to get a head of Chinese cabbage. But as he wandered through the market, he saw wild rice stems. He spent two wen to buy five of them and also bought a handful of garlic sprouts, planning to make a stir-fry back home.
He was more restrained with his spending today. After buying the vegetables, he still had three hundred wen left. He planned to go to the bookstore to see if there were any books like the Compendium of Materia Medica. If he found a suitable one, he would buy it. He suspected that the reason he hadn’t found any medicinal herbs on his last two trips up the mountain might not be because there were none, but because he hadn’t been able to spot them.
