Chapter 10 – The Prince Regent (2)

Zhao Xi was anxious because there were wolves in the mountains and Shen Fei would starve if she didn’t get to return before dark. She wasn’t so much scared of the wolves as the bull she had rented. She couldn’t think of forcing the poor, miserable animal to go up the mountain in that state, and couldn’t make it all on her own with all of her things. It seemed likely that Shen Fei might have to go hungry tonight.

Zhao Xi noticed, amidst her wandering thoughts, that the staff was being very inefficient in weighing the medicine, thereby prolonging the already slow process.

As he was weighing another set of medicine on the scale, she blurted out, “No defective ones there, it’s three liang.”

The staff ignored her and continued with the weighing and found that she was right. The medicine that he was weighing was exactly three liang, with no defects.

He looked at Zhao Xi with a frown, opened another pack and checked the goods.

“That one is broken and its efficacy is affected, but the rest is good. One liang.”

He looked at her with suspicion this time, while checking the medicine. It was exactly as she said, one Liang.

“That one is three lian,” Zhao Xi offered.

With a sigh, the staff roped her in for help in the shop. With her help, the screening and weighing of medicine was done within an hour. They did have a disagreement on the last bag of kidney ferns that Zhao Xi insisted was nine liang, but which was actually two jin.

He weighed them again to confirm and found out that the difference was more than one jin. However, he kept it to himself because he did not want to burden her with the truth since he had been so helpful, so he weighed the awetos for her.

Zhao Xi had about ten awetos in total, and they were all top tier in terms of their perfection. He bought them all for about ten liang of silver.

Zhao Xi was content with the bargain she made in the store and left for her home. The staff was still in doubt about the kidney ferns and confused by the mistake Zhao Xi made, when she seemed to be accurate in all other calculations.

He weighed the ferns again. They were still irrefutably, two jin.

The guy was perplexed. What went wrong? He thought. She was so indisputably accurate with all other materials except this!

He was determined to get to the root of this confusion, when his eyes fell on the materials on the countertop. He realized that all other medicinal plants and herbs were dried, except the kidney ferns which were fresh. The dried and fresh materials were priced differently. He realized, with sweet relish, that two jin of fresh kidney ferns would weigh and be priced the same as nine liang of dried ones.

Good heavens! She seems to be an expert on this!He thought and went after Zhao Xi to express his gratitude on saving him from such a blunder, but she was already gone.

*

Meanwhile, Zhao Xi was busy bargaining with a peddler on the prices of the quilts she so wanted to buy. She wanted to buy two of them so they would be enough to cover Shen Fei fully. The peddler, however, was adamant and offered to reduce the price to 320 wen only if she bought all three together.

“How about I give you 1000 wen for three of them?”

The peddler froze for a moment, opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

“Sure, I’ll sell them to you at a loss on my part.”

Zhao Xi smiled, in the assumption that she had made a good bargain, took the quilts and left, all the time thinking what a deal, indeed!

She tied the quilts into a bundle and placed them on the cart. She noticed a chair which she could hollow out in the middle for Shen Fei to use as a commode. The peddler offered her a good bargain if she took two together, so she decided to take an additional chair, thinking that she could place it outside, so that Shen Fei could enjoy a good amount of sunshine daily. She proceeded to finish rest of her shopping and prepared to leave.

As soon as she reached the village, she unloaded the things and carried them to the cave on her own, through the mountain. She had to make two more trips to get all of them to the cave. She felt sweaty, dirty and exhausted, and rightly so! The first thing she wanted to do was feed Shen Fei, though. He must be starving!

As she stepped into the house, she saw that Shen Fei was holding a book which contained her master’s portraits of the most beautiful men she had met in her adventures.

“Do you like them?”

Shen Fei remained silent, but Zhao Xi was undaunted, she was used to his lack of response at this point.

“That belonged to my master. She made a portrait of all the beautiful men she wanted to be with. She even ranked them by their looks!”

Zhao Xi poured a glass of water, she was famished. She walked to the bed and sat on the side, flipped to the last page of the portrait book, and indicated the empty space in one of the pages.

“Master said the one who topped the list was so unbearably beautiful that she couldn’t fathom putting it down in a portrait.”

Zhao Xi remembered her master’s eyes glazing over whenever she talked about that man, as though she would have traded her soul for a glimpse of him just once. She would rant about how she wanted to break his legs and imprison him with her for a lifetime!

“That man is the Prince Regent, the one who rules the country today.”