bullyxtreme Chapter 158 The Tragic Queen with Space 15
Chapter 158 The Tragic Queen with Space 15
Ting He looked around the grain shop for a long time, picked out a few good varieties and ingredients, and then asked:
"Shopkeeper, why are there only these kinds of grains here? Where should I go to buy some medicinal seeds or material seeds?"
The shopkeeper didn't quite understand what she meant, so he said:
"A grain shop sells grain seeds. What other seeds do you want, young lady? You have to go to a herbal medicine shop for medicinal herb seeds. As for material seeds, I'm not sure. I've never heard of any material. Turn left and walk two shops from here. There's a herbal medicine shop that sells medicinal herb seeds. Sometimes, some foreigners will bring things to that shop for consignment. Maybe they'll have the material seeds that young lady wants."
Upon hearing this, Ting He nodded and thanked the shopkeeper. He asked Old Lady Lin for one or two taels of silver and ran out, saying that he was going to buy some cakes. Old Lady Lin, who was packing grain, didn't care. She had a huge sum of money in her hands now, and it was no big deal to give it to Zhaodi to play with.
After walking around the herbal medicine shop, no servants came to ask her what she wanted to buy. They were all busy wrapping herbs. Ting He stood in front of the cabinet and identified the unfamiliar words one by one. She finally recognized a few things that looked like spices. She was lucky. She spoke directly:
"Pack these spices for me."
Then a servant ran up the mountain and said:
"Girl, are you here alone? Are your parents here with you? These herbs are from foreign countries and are a bit expensive. You should ask your parents to come along."
Ting He shouted shamelessly:
"Who am I looking down on? Pack them all up for me. I have money."
After the servant helped her wrap it up, he said:
"Five taels of sincerity."
Ting He's mouth suddenly opened wide, and he said in disbelief:
"Five, five ounces? I don't need that much. Just pack me a piece of each spice."
The servant was not angry. Instead, he packed the herbs again with a smile and said:
"It's already been packed. It's 800 wen."
Ting He breathed a sigh of relief and was just about to take the one or two taels of silver when he heard a commotion in front of him. Ting He hurried over to see what was going on. After watching for a while, he realized that it was a wandering merchant from a foreign country who sold his goods to a middleman, and ended up getting less money. After arriving here, he discovered that the medicinal materials he had originally sold were actually twice as much in value. He couldn't help but come over to ask for an explanation.
Ting He looked at the medicinal herbs he had and found out they were actually star anise, fennel, peppercorns and the like used in modern cooking. Because they tasted bad and had no effect, they were left here and could not be sold. As for the remaining bags of seeds, System Lao Liu said they should be tomato seeds from foreign countries, and some seeds of tropical fruits, but they did not know their value, and could not be sold even after being brought to the Duan Dynasty.
There are also several packets of red and black seed-like seeds. Lao Liu said that they might be seeds of red ginseng and black ganoderma lucidum, but they were collected by people after falling in the wild. In fact, they are dead and cannot be planted at all, so they are worthless.
Ting He watched the shopkeeper curse and swear as he used only a few dozen coins to buy the ingredients seeds and red ginseng seeds brought by the foreign merchants. She rolled her eyes, squeezed forward and said:
"This taste is so special. I saw the old man received these for a few dozen coins. I really like this taste. Can you sell all of these to me? Is two hundred coins enough?"
Zhang Lao frowned and looked over. She looked like a village girl who was born and raised there. Her clothes were not too fancy. These two hundred coins were the expenses of an ordinary farmer for half a year, so he shook his head and refused.
"Young lady, please don't make fun of me. I'm busy right now. If you need anything, you can go over there and ask the servant for it."
After saying this, Mr. Zhang was about to leave, but Ting He pulled his sleeve and said:
"Don't judge a book by its cover. I've just bought 800 coins of medicinal materials, and I still have 200 coins left to spend. I'm just trying to get 1000 coins to give to your pharmacy. If the store owner is so unhappy, I think I'd better go buy from somewhere else."
Mr. Zhang frowned and thought for a while before saying, "Wait a minute, young lady. I bought the seeds for fifty cents, and I'll sell them to you for sixty cents. You don't have to pay two hundred cents. If you think it's appropriate, you can go to the front and pay the money."
When Ting He heard about this good thing, he immediately nodded and thanked with a smile:
"Thank you very much, I will come again next time."
Just after paying one tael of silver, spending 850 coins, and getting 150 coins back, she was about to leave with the package when she heard the voice of Old Lady Lin. She immediately ran to the source of the voice and shouted from a distance:
"Grandma, I bought some good stuff. Have you finished buying food?"
After the two met up, Tinghe bought a pound of cakes and used the remaining money to buy five strings of candied haws. Then they got on the village chief's carriage and rushed back to the village. Boss Lin hummed a song with pride, Tinghe nestled in Old Lady Lin's arms and talked about everything, and Uncle Lin was in a daze with a sad face.
This strange group slowly wandered back to Linjia Village. Boss Lin first moved the grain back to Old Lady Lin's room, and then he ran to return the ox cart.
After Uncle Lin came back, he returned to his room without saying a word, and then closed the door tightly, as if isolating himself from the whole world.
He sat quietly beside the bed, his eyes empty, as if he had lost all his vitality. And what about Mrs. Lin? She didn't seem to care about Uncle Lin's condition, and even seemed a little indifferent.
She continued to do her own things, occasionally glancing at Uncle Lin's room, but quickly looking away, as if there was nothing worth paying attention to in there. The atmosphere in the whole family became extremely heavy, making people feel an unspeakable depression.
Ting He took out the herbs at the right time and said:
"Grandma, the store owner said that these are rare items brought over from foreign countries. I thought, let's use these spices and herbs to braise the meat again. Maybe it will taste better. If we can really make braised meat, wouldn't our Lin family have another way to make money? At that time, whether it's my uncle's college entrance examination or Gensheng's study, it will relieve a lot of pressure."
It would have been fine if she hadn't mentioned her uncle. As soon as she mentioned him, Mrs. Lin's face instantly became extremely gloomy, and her eyes widened as if burning with rage. She cursed in a sharp voice:
"Don't mention that good-for-nothing to me. I didn't support him in his studies just to have him hang out in brothels. He's a damned thing. It's really unfortunate for my Lin family. All the hard work we've put in over the years has gone down the drain..."
Her tone was filled with anger and disappointment, as if she had completely lost her patience and confidence in her uncle. As she spoke, the air around them seemed to freeze, and people felt an invisible pressure.