The Blessed (Book 1)

119. Hiring People to Build his Big House (1)

 “You don’t do business?”

Seeing him freezing there, Ling Jingxuan cast a cold glance at him. Of course he’d go to see the magistrate, but not now. About his medical skills thing, he didn’t want so many people to know. Instead of being begged to save people, he’d rather an undisturbed busy life.

“Ah? Yeah, sure…”

Coming to his sense, the shopkeeper hurriedly dropped the confusion in his head, cleared his throat and then put on a smile, “Sir, would you like…Ahem…what medicine do you want?”

At first, he meant to ask him whether he wanted to see a doctor or get some medicine, but as he thought that even the plague could be prescribed by him, the shopkeeper switched his question resolutely and stiffly. His medical skills would be much high. How could he ever need him to make a diagnosis for him?

“Do you have any donkey-hide gelatin? Cloves, aconite, lime, pepper, tortoise bone, deer antler, golden dog kidney, each for twenty-five gram, snakeskin, purple flower, dodder, each for five gram, and musk, two gram.”

A series of medicine names came out from his mouth so naturally, everyone in the shop dropped their jaws. After quite a while, the shopkeeper said with cold sweat all over, “We got everything you want, only no donkey-hide gelatin. I guess you don’t know. That’s very precious, exclusive to the imperial family. And only the head of the imperial hospital knows how to make it.”

“Really?”

Picking his eyebrow, that was out of his expectations. He planned to buy some for his mother’s nutrition, but now he was told only those women of the imperial family had the privilege to use it. Such hush hierarchy! Never mind. After going home, he’d spend some time to cook some for his mother, just had no idea whether there was a place to buy the raw material-donkey hide.

“Please prepare the medicine I want. By the way, do you have silver needles for sale?”

Ling Jingxuan asked as he walked to the counter with Yan Shengrui. And the shopkeeper followed aside respectfully, “Yeah, but the price is a bit high, and the quality is not so good. If you got a friend in the prefecture, maybe you can ask him to buy you some from there.”

Silver needles were divided into a lot of kinds. For a small place like here, it was already hard to scrape a whole set together, of course the quality couldn’t be guaranteed.

“It’s OK. Show me.”

Finding a chair to sit down, Ling Jingxuan said so casually, the quality of the silver needles would not affect the acupuncture, it only depended on the doctor’s own medical skills.

“OK, childe, just a moment.”

Hearing that, the shopkeeper turned into the backyard, after quite a while, he came back holding a cowhide bag. Ling Jingxuan took it over and gently opened it, inside of which was a long line of silver needles of different length, over twenty in total. The thinnest one was like human hair, and the shortest one was only more than ten mm. Each was giving off cold silver light. He pulled one out and checked it carefully, then nodded with satisfaction, “Hmm, not bad. I want it. Do you have any other medical devices?”

This set of needles were not so good, but fortunately all were made of silver, much better than those commonly used stainless steel needles. He remembered that in his previous life, in order to get a set of silver needles, he specially went to a famous craftsman in a mountain in the west, and it spent him a huge fortune to buy it. Really good things are hard to get even if you have money.

“Medical devices?”

The shopkeeper was confused. Except gold and silver needles, are there any other medical devices?

“Forget about that. Is the medicine all prepared?”

His reaction had given him the answer. Ling Jingxuan also no longer struggled on that. He put away the silver needles and was ready to go. As for things like scalpels, maybe he could only have them specially customized, just in case. What if some day someone in the family could only survive from a surgery? No scalpels would add a lot of trouble. So he’d better make preparations in advance.

“Yes, all prepared. What’s your name, if I may ask? To tell you the truth, the magistrate thinks highly of your medical skills, and has been looking for you. Before he left the town, he told me that if I ever see you again, I should invite you to go to town…”

Taking over the medicine package the worker handed to him, the shopkeeper still wouldn’t give up persuading him. Before Ling Jingxuan didn’t give him the chance to finish his words. He raised a hand to stop him, “Tell the magistrate for me, my medical skills are just average, not worth his praise. I just happened to recognize that kind of plague the other day. Oh, how much?”

He’d invite trouble in only if he got mad. In an era where the common people totally had no human right, once people heard about his superb medical skills, endless trouble would come after.

“Ten taels of silver. At least tell me your surname, maybe?”

Looking at the man who was standing by Ling Jingxuan’s side silently cowardly, the shopkeeper asked gingerly.

“Not necessary.”

Speaking of which, Ling Jingxuan took out a ten-tael silver ingot and threw it to him, then took the medicine wrap and turned to leave with Yan Shengrui.

“Childe…”

The shopkeeper still wouldn’t give up and chased out, but they only left him the butt of that tall carriage. Watching the carriage move farther and farther away, he heaved a long sigh. Having contacted with him for two times, he could feel that the magical doctor was a man hard to get along. He just didn’t understand, is there any doctor why doesn’t want his name to be known to all so he could save more people? Why did he look so not interested, even kind of disgusted about it?

“Musk, dodder, antler, clove… Jingxuan, you want to make that kind of medicine, don’t you?”

After sitting steadily inside the carriage, Yan Shengrui looked at him thoughtfully, holding his own chin. His amorous eyes were full of excitement and curiosity. Those things are used to make aphrodisiac? Is it possible his Jingxuan already can’t wait???

“What are you thinking about? Don’t worry, it will never be used on you.”

With an eye, Ling Jingxuan could tell what he was thinking. He rolled his eyes helplessly. It was true he was trying to make aphrodisiac, but not use it on himself. He was not that ‘thirsty’. Besides, who said the prescription of aphrodisiac could only be used to make aphrodisiac? Nothing is absolute, especially medicine. Using the same prescription, if using different procedures, one could make different medicine. Some might save people, while some might be deadly poison.

“Er…what if you let me dream a little longer?”

As soon as the dream was shattered, Yan Shengrui glared at him with anger. He knew there wouldn’t be such a good thing. After he kissed his cheek last time accidentally, there hadn’t been any progress now. How could there be such a great leap? Alas…Wondering when I can kill him again?