Chapter 96 – Competition (2)

　　Every medicinal herb merchant pride themselves to have the sage apothecary’s herbs for sale; unfortunately, the sage apothecary was an odd person who enjoyed teasing the herbal merchants that chased after him. Plenty of times he would have processed herbs, but instead of bring them to the merchants himself, he’d have all individuals from all walks of life to deliver for him, and set the prices to be higher than normal herbs, but lower than the top notched ones.

　　Many of the medicinal shop’s shopkeeper weren’t good at identifying his work and would inadvertently dismiss the sage apothecary’s representative. That’s when the sage apothecary would jump out of nowhere and identify himself and made some comments, causing many to regret deeply for their actions.

　　After words had gotten around, many of the well-known medicinal shops would spend a lot of time learning to identify the work of the sage apothecary. In addition, they would further have their younger generation to also focus a lot of their attention on being able to identify the work of sage apothecary, so as not to miss any opportunities to work with the sage apothecary. And Jimin Hall was one of these shops.

　　Twenty or so years ago, Jimin Hall was but a small medicinal shop that nobody has heard of. Yet, with their abilities to identify the work of sage apothecary, they were able to bring in a batch of herbs processed by the sage apothecary himself and that was how their businesses and reputation began to grow. After twenty years of hard work in their business management, Jimin Hall now has shops all over Dongling with capital almost rival that of Baicao Hall, which had been around for over a century.

　　Gu Ye’s technique was taught to her by the sage apothecary after he had fully absorbed the content from the Compendium of Materia Medica, so naturally it combined some of the sage apothecary’s uniqueness. The younger generation of the Bai’s had been studying the sage apothecary’s work since they started learning about herbs, naturally Bai Ji could easily spot the telling signs of sage apothecary’s work.

　　The quality of these herbs were good, albeit the technique was that of a novice. The little girl said she did these himself and Bai Ji didn’t doubt that, but he also believe that her technique has a lot to do with the sage apothecary. Sage apothecary has a disciple who had already completed his apprenticeship and nobody has ever heard of him having his own disciple. In addition, most master apothecary would never accept a female disciple, with the exception of that goofy and uninhibited sage apothecary…

　　Bai Ji took a look at Housemaster Zhou and trust that he had the same idea as well. Why else would he spent so much of his precious time in front of a stall of a common-dressed young girl. Bai Ji’s pupil contracted slightly: No, he’d rather make a mistake on it than miss the opportunity of coming across any herbals that have anything to do with the sage apothecary.

　　“Young Miss, I will take this entire basket of herbs!” Housemaster Zhao and Bai Ji pointed at the basket of processed herbs almost simultaneously.

　　Housemaster Zhao still has the smile on his face even though he didn’t seem to be really smiling and said, “I have always heard that you have always been a properly-behaved young man. Naturally you know how to respect someone who’s senior to you.”

　　“I have always heard that Housemaster Zhao has always be protective of those from a young generation. On top of that, Baicao Hall’s has unlimited capital and been around for over a hundred years, I trust that Housemaster Zhao would not fight with a youngling over a basket of herbs.” Bai Ji was still courtesy, but his tone was decisive.

　　Seeing how pulling his age card wasn’t working, Housemaster Zhao turned to the little girl stall owner and said gently, “Young Miss, you said earlier that I was free to pick what I want. I won’t ask for the discount, but do your offer still stand?”

　　Gu Ye just finished nodding before Bai Ji anxiously chimed in, “Young Miss, I inquired about this basket of herbs first. According to the rules of the herbal market, when we are in discussion over prices and, before one side clearly expressed their intent to withdraw, you can’t sell the products to another party.”

　　“Well, that’s not right, young man. Young Miss merely kindly filled you in on that piece of huang jing because you seemed really interested in it. Never once did either one of you had expressed any interest in any sort of trading, so I wasn’t breaking any rules of the herbal market here.” Reasoned Housemaster Zhao without backing off.