Zhu Qinghe first set aside Meng Cheng's wages, along with his share of the wound medicine, and placed them beside his bed.
"We'll inspect the wheel tomorrow morning. Have the pharmacist in the shed look at your foot first. If you miss the next few days' work, you'll be compensated as we agreed before setting out."
Meng Cheng had already braced himself against the bed boards, but after hearing that, he slowly sat back down. He pointed at the list. "The wooden supports were old ones from the cart. If they're no good anymore, put that on me. The cart bed was cracked already, too. You all saw it."
"Old cracks don't count as new damage." Zhu Qinghe marked a spot on the paper. "The broken wheel does. Before we set out this time, nobody knew the collapsed road would turn out like that."
The medicine shop's assistant stood beside the lamp and asked whether the bundle of herbs that had fallen into the ditch could be counted as a loss incurred while he was moving the goods. He said he had failed to tie the bottom tightly enough, so the contents spilled when Chen Xiuyuan cut the rope.
Chen Xiuyuan interrupted him. "I cut the straps to get him out first. Without unloading the basket, the wheel would have pinned his foot. However tightly you'd tied it, I would still have had to push it then."
The assistant looked at Zhu Qinghe as though he wanted to add something, but she raised a hand to stop him.
"Record what happened clearly, and record each person's actions under their own name. Handle the damaged goods according to the agreement."
She listed the spilled herbs as losses in transit, then inspected the two bundles with wet outer wrappings separately. One was still dry inside and could be kept; the herbs near the opening of the other had soaked up muddy water, so she had the assistant set them apart. A shortage was no reason to mix them into the ingredients awaiting use.
Watching her pick out the ruined ingredients, Chen Xiuyuan remembered how, back in Red Sand, Lu Yong had insisted on slashing the price of the entire batch, including the herbs Auntie Sang had carefully dried. Yet the woman before him was willing to keep picking out unusable portions from goods she had already bought.
He asked, "Does this little bit you've separated count as a loss too?"
"Of course. However little it is, some of the money spent on ingredients went into it."
"What about our escort pay?"
"Paid in full. You brought the man back, and you delivered the herbs that could be saved."
Zhu Qinghe separated the two shares of escort pay, Shi Lei's larger and Chen Xiuyuan's smaller, just as agreed earlier. She also allotted enough wound medicine for Chen Xiuyuan's scrapes and asked whether he felt any other discomfort.
He moved his right arm, then stopped in pain as he raised it above his shoulder. "I hit it here. Nothing's broken."
The pharmacist came over to examine him and told him not to bear heavy loads on that side for the next two days, or to keep hacking away as usual just because the skin wasn't broken. Chen Xiuyuan agreed. As he put away his money, his fingers touched the bottom of the pouch, and only then did he realize his palm was still trembling faintly.
That little pouch of copper coins weighed more than he had expected.
The earlier compensation still had to fill the hole left by the Broken Stream trip, but this payment was his to arrange as he pleased. What grain to buy, how much to reserve for his training expenses-he no longer had to wait for Elder Shi to pull that old cloth pouch from the bottom of the cupboard.
Auntie Sang was sorting out her own payment for the herbs. Seeing him lost in thought, she asked whether he wanted her to take his money back with hers for safekeeping. He shook his head and tied the pouch shut.
"I'll buy some grain tomorrow morning first. Please help me see which seller doesn't mix in stale bran."
She smiled. "Now that's something I can help with."
Early the next morning, Meng Cheng's foot was still swollen. The pharmacist changed his dressing and only allowed him to move about briefly with a crutch. Zhu Qinghe reserved a place for them to wait for a cart. Once the medicine shed's own cart arrived from elsewhere, they would ride it back to Red Sand first. The broken wheel stayed at the shed in its original condition for the compensation assessment. The old wheel could still manage a slow journey, and Meng Cheng insisted on watching over his cart and bringing it back with him.
Chen Xiuyuan and Auntie Sang chose grain at the small stalls outside the shed. The cheapest sack smelled musty when opened. He had meant to take only the edible portion, but Auntie Sang simply told him to move on to the next sack. People who trained already used up more, she said; however much he wanted to save, he shouldn't mistake buying spoiled grain for a bargain.
They ended up buying somewhat less grain than planned, but the kernels were clean. They also added a small packet of salt and a length of hard-wearing coarse cloth. The cloth merchant tried to offer him dyed fine cloth, but he spread out his cuff to compare them and chose the thicker piece.
Elder Shi had asked him to pick up coarse cloth to mend the sleeves he wore out practicing his saber. It was nothing special, yet he felt it twice before rolling it up and laying it on the grain sack.
He kept part of the remaining money rather than rushing to spend it all. The rolled edge on the old short saber needed fixing, and if he truly wanted a saber of his own someday, he couldn't keep using Elder Shi's belongings to block beasts' armor.
When they returned to the medicine shed, Zhu Qinghe was dividing ingredients for the assistant and telling him to move the outermost basket into the shade. Chen Xiuyuan lent a hand, picking out a few stalks with gray undersides to their leaves and setting them aside.
"Weren't these picked out at the market already?" she asked.
"Auntie Sang taught me how to check. You have to turn this side over."
Zhu Qinghe picked up one of them and asked him, "Should this batch be moistened first or processed directly? Do all the rootlets stay?"
Chen Xiuyuan answered the first part, then stopped at the second. He only knew how well this kind of herb had been dried and remembered which part Elder Shi had said must not get damp. He had never actually handled what happened once it went into the pot.
"I don't know these later steps."
Zhu Qinghe did not answer for him. She turned, took several repeatedly folded sheets of paper from her bag, and laid them on the table.
"If you want to learn, learn the whole process. If all you know is how to choose good ingredients, you can still ruin them over the fire."
The papers contained basic lesson notes on medicinal food preparation. They began with identifying ingredients, then moved on to combinations, preparation, and heat control. The final pages also recorded how to check the finished product, how to store it, and what kinds of people should not consume it.
The ink varied in darkness, with additions squeezed into the margins in several places. Clearly, the notes had been revised during teaching. Chen Xiuyuan read for a while before finally finding the name of an herb he had recognized at the market, only to see another name beside it.
"All of this counts as medicinal food?"
"These are the basics I teach my assistants. If you want to refine pills, you're still a long way off." Zhu Qinghe looked into the medicine shed. "To cook up a suitable potful, you first need to know who you're making it for. Something that replenishes Qi and blood isn't necessarily suitable for someone with old injuries and weak meridians."
Chen Xiuyuan glanced toward the place where Meng Cheng was resting, then thought of Elder Shi's knees.
"If I learn how, will you buy what I make?"
"Only if the finished product is suitable. Start with this practice recipe, make small portions, and don't dump all your good ingredients in."
"How much do the notes cost?"
Zhu Qinghe smoothed the pages flat and pointed at a line. "Once you learn these things, fewer of the ingredients dried in your village will go to waste. When you have acceptable finished products in the future, let me inspect them first and give me a chance to negotiate a price. I'll cover this copy."
He asked whether he could use it himself afterward and sell to other buyers. Zhu Qinghe answered readily: these were ordinary basic methods, and she wouldn't use them to bind him to the medicine shop. If they ever came to a legacy that required a separate price, they could discuss it then.
Only then did Chen Xiuyuan accept the notes, tucking them into dry cloth, away from the parts of his clothing soaked with sweat.
Receiving the papers did not cause a skill he already knew to appear out of thin air on the Panel. The unfamiliar terms remained unfamiliar. There were even two he did not know how to read, so he asked Zhu Qinghe on the spot, then noted the names commonly used in Blood Stone beside them.
When they left by cart that afternoon, Zhu Qinghe gave him a suitable sample, specifically marking the day it had been made so he could examine its color and consistency after it cooled once he got home. She did not prepare every ingredient for him. Whatever he lacked, and where to find it, remained for him to figure out.
Back in Red Sand, they met up with the combat soldiers who had stayed behind, sold off Blood Stone's remaining herbs in separate lots at the previously agreed prices, and obtained the grain and salt they would take back. Shi Lei found a group they could travel home with, arranged for Meng Cheng to ride in a cart, and put Chen Xiuyuan in charge of watching the rear instead of carrying heavy crates.
One of Lu Yong's men passed their resting place, noticed the changed wheel, and asked whether they had suffered a loss by taking the East Slope route. Meng Cheng was moving his injured foot onto a wooden stool. He looked up at the question. "Hurt my foot when the road collapsed, and got paid all the same. Which part did you want to ask about?"
The man glanced at Shi Lei and said no more.
Chen Xiuyuan placed the last sack of grain on a fellow traveler's cart. Feeling the notes inside his clothes, he turned the mouth of the sack slightly toward himself, making sure the end of the rope would not rub through it.
By the time they reached Blood Stone on the evening of the hundredth day since his return, the swelling and pain in his shoulder had eased somewhat, though he still had to raise his arm slowly. People Meng Cheng knew took him back to his lodgings, agreeing to check his foot again in a few days. The cart fee and compensation for the broken wheel each had separate written records, and no one urged him to resume driving the very next day.
Elder Shi sat outside the door and only looked up when he heard Shi Lei's voice. Chen Xiuyuan set down the grain and coarse cloth, then first laid the borrowed saber beside the old man's knees.
"A small section of the edge rolled. I blocked a beast's armor while rescuing someone. I'll pay to have it repaired."
Elder Shi turned the saber over to inspect it, asked exactly where the impact had been, then had him bare his shoulder.
"What about your leg?"
"A scrape. The pharmacist examined it."
"Sit down and talk. Does standing make you look less hurt?"
Chen Xiuyuan could only sit on the low stool and finish recounting how the cart had become trapped, how they had rescued Meng Cheng, and how they had delivered the herbs afterward. He did not make the beast's retreat into a tale of driving it off single-handedly, nor did he leave out how the rope had rubbed Shi Lei's hands raw while he steadied the cart. Only after hearing that he had held the narrow gap without pursuing it down into the ditch did Elder Shi set the saber back on the table.
"Leave the saber here for now. I'll return it after I've looked it over. Once your shoulder heals, come run through a couple of rounds with me using a wooden saber."
Chen Xiuyuan agreed and took out the money he had earned, separating out the portion for meals and grain. The old man pushed half of it back, telling him to keep it for his next trip. He did not argue over the rest, but spread out the coarse cloth he had bought and held it against his old sleeve, worn shiny with use.
"This length will be enough for two rounds of mending."
Elder Shi took it and felt it. "Why did you choose something so thick?"
"It'll stand up to wear. The thin one cost a few coins less, but after one patch I'd have to buy more."
The old man chuckled, rolled the cloth into the sewing basket, and finally asked about the paper packet he had tucked away so carefully.
Chen Xiuyuan took out the notes and practice recipe together and placed them before Elder Shi. The old man first turned to the end and read the directions for use, then returned to the beginning and tapped two herb names.
"If you go looking under these names tomorrow, Auntie Sang could bring you two different things."
"They're not the same?"
"The names in East Slope differ quite a bit from ours. And here, what they want is root bark. What you picked out to show her yesterday still had the whole woody core attached."
Chen Xiuyuan pulled the paper closer and read the tiny character he had overlooked. Only then did he notice that the recipe also listed an order of steps beneath it. He had thought that, since he recognized most of the ingredients, he could begin practicing simply by cooking them together in a pot. Now he had to ask all over again before even taking the first step.
Elder Shi placed an empty bowl beside the papers.
"If you want to learn, lay out the ones you recognize tomorrow morning first. Anything you get wrong stays out of the pot."