The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#443 - Perfect

With Chen Hanqing's help, the ginseng harvest proceeded very smoothly.

Lu Jing had already handed over the fifty-six ginseng plants he dug up on the first day to Gu Caiwei, asking her to help find buyers in the capital.

After Gu Caiwei had someone examine the quality of the ginseng and heard Lu Jing say that more would be delivered later, she even had the idea of opening her own ginseng shop.

Although Gu Caiwei had never run a pharmacy or done related business before, the signature product of her charcoal shop, Red Luo Charcoal, followed a high-end route, and as a result, she knew many nobles and aristocrats, who had considerable demand for ginseng, especially old ginseng that was over a hundred years old.

If she could sell directly to them, she could save a lot of intermediate costs.

However, in addition to the source of goods and customers, there were many other issues to be resolved when opening a shop. At least for the first batch of ginseng, Gu Caiwei, in addition to keeping some for gifts and personal use, sold the rest to pharmacies.

She also took the opportunity to explore the details of several pharmacies in the city, on the one hand to see their purchase and sale prices, and on the other hand to find out from which one she could poach people.

Especially the shopkeeper of the pharmacy, who must be thoroughly familiar with the quality, price, and even efficacy of various medicinal materials. Ordinary people can't do it, even the several capable old shopkeepers around Gu Caiwei can't, so she must poach someone.

However, these things were not what Lu Jing was concerned about.

After giving the first batch of ginseng to Gu Caiwei, Lu Jing started the second wave of planting according to the original plan.

Chen Hanqing was naturally very concerned after hearing this news, but because the soil near the old field had deteriorated, Lu Jing was worried that it would affect the growth of the new batch of ginseng, so he placed the new field a little further away.

Chen Hanqing couldn't find an excuse to follow and couldn't see Lu Jing's planting process, so he paced around the old field anxiously.

Don't mention it, he really came up with a solution in the end.

That is to work overtime!

Yes, that's right. Thanks to Chen Hanqing's reasoned argument, he has now successfully increased his working hours to five shichen (one shichen is two hours) per day.

During these five shichen, he certainly can't leave the old field, but he can take a step ahead and complete the work for the next five shichen after finishing today's work.

In this way, wouldn't he have an extra day of free time tomorrow?

Thinking of this, Chen Hanqing's spirit couldn't help but be lifted, feeling a sense of 'after endless mountains and rivers that bar the road, suddenly a village appears amidst the willows and flowers'.

For this reason, he came to the old field early the next morning, bringing twelve mutton buns and a large bucket of water.

After eating four buns for breakfast, he cheered up and began to pull weeds and look for ginseng. Because he had already worked for a day yesterday, Chen Hanqing now had some experience.

But even so, it still took him a lot of effort to dig out a ginseng plant.

In addition to needing eyesight to find ginseng from the dense weeds, the digging process after finding ginseng was not easy. He had to be very careful. The main body was easy to handle, after all, it was so big in the ground, as long as he was a little careful, he wouldn't touch it, but the root hairs were troublesome.

Each root had to be found from the ground, and it couldn't be pulled off, otherwise it would damage the value of the ginseng.

For this reason, Chen Hanqing also flipped through ancient books and specially found a deer bone, made into a pick to pull the ginseng whiskers.

It was hard work, but he took it as preparation for his own ginseng planting in the future. Thinking of this, Chen Hanqing felt energetic again.

He didn't even feel bitter after working for ten shichen in a row. When he was hungry, he ate a bun, and when he was thirsty, he drank some well water from the bucket. In order not to let Lu Jing find fault, he was even more careful than the first day.

Even with Chen Hanqing's current second-rate master's internal strength cultivation, he felt a burst of fatigue after finishing.

It was not only physical fatigue, but also mental fatigue. Chen Hanqing had even developed a conditioned reflex, and when he saw weeds, he couldn't control his hands and wanted to peel them open to see if there were ginseng and Polygonum multiflorum underneath.

But fortunately, all this hard work was meaningful. Not to mention the one hundred taels of silver a day, the most important thing was that Chen Hanqing finally earned a day of free time for himself.

He had even thought of an excuse for how to explain his running to the new field.

And seeing that the sun was about to rise, Chen Hanqing only returned to his residence for a short rest, washed his face, and slightly recovered his spirit. He didn't even change his clothes and rushed to the new field.

The illusion arrays arranged by Lu Jing were very low-level and couldn't stop Chen Hanqing, a cultivation genius.

It didn't take long for him to break it.

Looking at the lush weeds in front of him and the ginseng seedlings hidden in the weeds, Chen Hanqing's first feeling was shock.

You must know that just yesterday, this place was just a blank space, with nothing at all.

He didn't know what means Lu Jing used to make the weeds here grow to the height of his calf in just one day.

This also made Chen Hanqing more determined to steal Lu Jing's secret planting method.

With this method, even if he couldn't get Lu Jing's pill formula and couldn't take a step further in his internal strength cultivation, at least he could not worry about food and drink for the rest of his life and be a carefree wealthy man.

Thinking of this, Chen Hanqing straightened his back even more, standing firmly on the edge of the field with a determined gaze, secretly vowing that even the Heavenly King Laozi couldn't drive him away from here today!

On the other side, Lu Jing also packed his things and prepared to accompany Wen Xiaoqian to celebrate her grandmother's birthday.

Although he was going for the generous gift, it seemed a little bad to go empty-handed, so Lu Jing picked a ginseng plant that was over two hundred years old from the newly collected batch of ginseng, and two more that were over one hundred and fifty years old, packed them well, and prepared to use them as birthday gifts.

And this time, Wen Xiaoqian didn't sleep in again, and knocked on Lu Jing's courtyard door early in the morning.

Lu Jing opened the door and saw Wen Xiaoqian standing outside, with her hair in a high bun, adorned with small combs and hairpins, wearing a green silk embroidered dress and a yellow silk gold-trimmed skirt.

As a result, Lu Jing almost didn't recognize her. In the past, although Wen Xiaoqian also wore makeup, it was basically just a touch. Her hair and clothes were also chosen to be simple and comfortable, both showing her beauty and not being too troublesome.

But this time, Wen Xiaoqian was obviously prepared to go all out to celebrate her grandmother's birthday.

Not only her clothes and dress, but it could be seen that even every strand of her hair had been carefully taken care of, the angle, color, and even the scent were impeccable.

In the Chen Dynasty, where there was no hair gel or conditioner, Lu Jing didn't know how she did it.

Perhaps only one word can describe Wen Xiaoqian now, and that is perfect.

Perfect from head to toe.