The prescription

After dinner, Ye Huan held Jingjing in his arms on a lounge chair outside the courtyard, watching the stars and telling her fairy tales. Half the courtyard was still being renovated and was a little messy, so he had moved the lounge chair outside.

Only when Bai Jie finished her work and came out to head home did Jingjing reluctantly say goodbye to Uncle. After just one afternoon, she had already grown very attached to him. Uncle was so nice. He gave her sweet candy, played with her, and gave her a huge chicken drumstick and fragrant meat.

That night, even Jingjing's dreams were sweet, and so were Ye Huan's. He suddenly felt that having a child might be rather nice. Then he sighed again. What woman would be willing to marry him out here in the mountains?

She would definitely insist on buying a home and settling down in the county seat or town or something, and he would never agree to that. He had finally managed to return to the village. What was the point of going back to the county seat? He might as well have stayed in Shenzhen. It was even more prosperous there.

His mind wandered all night, thinking of his ex-girlfriend one moment and some movie star the next. The next morning, he miserably discovered that he had had a wet dream.

After getting up and washing, he scrubbed his pajama top and bottoms clean and hung them on the second-floor balcony. Luckily, he was the only one living upstairs.

When he went downstairs, he found Jingjing playing alone in the living room. He walked over and picked her up. "Why are you playing all by yourself, Jingjing?"

"Morning, Uncle. Mommy and Grandma went to work in the vegetable fields. They told me to wait here for you." Jingjing was delighted to see Uncle again.

"Oh, I forgot. They have to pick vegetables first thing in the morning." Ye Huan patted his head. "Have you had breakfast, Jingjing?"

"Yes, I ate with Grandma and Mommy. Grandma told me to tell you there's congee in the pot, and to remember to eat when you get up." Jingjing had remembered Grandma's words well.

"Mm-hmm, what a good girl. I'll go have breakfast." After washing up, Ye Huan filled a bowl with congee and brought out a plate of side dishes, then two boiled eggs. He cracked and peeled them, eating one himself and giving the other to Jingjing.

Jingjing happily held the egg and kept Uncle company while he ate breakfast. The workers outside had already started working, so it was a little messy and dirty. After eating, Ye Huan carried Jingjing outside.

The village was full of busy people now, all working hard to grow their own vegetables well and prove to others that they were no worse than Ye Huan. Unfortunately, Ye Huan knew nothing about this. Otherwise, he would only have had two words for them: "Heh, heh."

If hard work could beat cheating, what would be the point of cheating? Everyone might as well just work hard.

The only people in the village who were not working in the fields now were either children under seven or eight or elderly people over seventy. Even being ten was no excuse. Half-grown boys and girls were all working in the fields too. In the mountains, that was perfectly normal.

So Ye Huan met hardly anyone along the way. Jingjing rested against his shoulder, playing with Xiaobai as Xiaobai followed behind. Then Ye Huan arrived at his grandfather's house, and Saihu bounded out, wagging his tail so hard he looked ready to take flight.

"All right, all right, you simp." Ye Huan laughed and patted the dog's head. It turned out Little Flower had followed him inside too, with Little Tangyuan behind her.

"Morning, Uncle." Little Tangyuan greeted him when she saw him, then took Jingjing by the hand. The two little ones chattered away about who knew what. Ye Huan realized he actually could not understand them.

Little Tangyuan was less than a year older than Jingjing. Her parents worked at a shoe factory in Dongguan and only came home once a year, at the end of the year, so she got along well with the other children her age in the village.

She was also more outgoing than Jingjing. After all, their family circumstances were different.

"Grandpa, what are you doing?" Seeing his grandfather rummaging through chests and cupboards, Ye Huan asked curiously.

"Some things need airing in the sun, or they'll get moldy," his grandfather said with a chuckle. These were all his treasures, to be left to his eldest grandson someday.

Ye Huan nodded. He could see them now and recognized several of them. He had seen his grandfather take them out before.

"Keep these two prescriptions safe. They're treasures." His grandfather handed him two prescriptions. Ye Huan knew they were his grandfather's unbeatable prescriptions for treating internal and external injuries. Someone had once offered five hundred thousand for them, but his grandfather had refused to sell.

Ye Huan looked them over. That worked too. Nowhere was safer than his Spirit Spring Space, so he nodded without standing on ceremony. These were precious assets his grandfather was leaving him.

Besides, these prescriptions mostly used herbs unique to the mountains and were unsuitable for mass production. He had never thought of selling them either. He would simply treat them as family heirlooms and pass them down from generation to generation.

His grandfather smiled happily too. No one but his eldest grandson could hope to get his treasures. Now he was getting ready to explain them to him in detail, one by one. In time, he would hand everything over to his grandson and enjoy a carefree retirement.

Although Ye Huan recognized many of them, he still listened attentively to his grandfather's explanations. In this area, he could not catch up to his grandfather even on horseback.

Grandfather and grandson spent the whole morning happily chatting about all sorts of mountain delicacies and treasures. The two little girls also chattered until their heads were covered in sweat. Ye Huan wiped their sweat from time to time, then poured them some cooled boiled water to drink.

Only when he heard his mother calling them to eat did Ye Huan help his grandfather up, put everything away, and head home for lunch with the two little girls, two dogs, and a wolf.

"I went to the wooded plot today and saw that the chickens were getting pretty big, so I caught one. Have a taste," his mother said, handing him a spoon.

Ye Huan nodded and took a sip of chicken soup. "So fresh and delicious." Then he tore off both drumsticks, giving one each to Little Tangyuan and Jingjing, and filled a bowl of chicken soup for his grandfather. Everyone began eating.

As expected of a free-range mountain chicken raised on Spirit Spring Water. This flavor is incredible. After tasting it, Ye Huan began looking forward to raising livestock too. This was even simpler. He only needed to drip some Spirit Spring Water into the water trough over by the wooded plot every few days.

"Let's slaughter a pig another day and see how it tastes," Ye Huan said.

"It's far too early for that. We'll have to wait until the end of the year at least. They're not very big yet," his mother said.

"Oh, all right, then."

"That Manager Du tried the watermelon and said she wants three to five a day, around twenty jin each. She wants you to name a price." After finishing a bowl of chicken soup and praising it to the skies, Ye Huan's father got down to business.

"I checked. They're mostly over twenty jin, up to around thirty jin each. A thousand apiece feels like a bit of a loss. They're too big." Ye Huan nodded as he spoke.

His father nodded in wholehearted agreement. The villagers had long since learned how expensive Ye Huan's vegetables were, so Bai Jie showed no surprise either.

Ye Huan picked up his phone, found Manager Du's contact, and sent her a message. "Limited to three watermelons a day, fifteen hundred each."

Before he had even put his phone down, a reply arrived: "Deal!"

Ye Huan nodded. Everything this year was an experiment. They could properly discuss a price next year. So he told his father, "Dad, take three watermelons every day. Fifteen hundred each."

"All right. You didn't plant many in the first batch. At three a day, they'll probably only last a little while."