He snatched the Green Spike Grass from Lin He's hand, held it beneath his nose for a sniff, then plucked off a leaf and chewed it.
"This... the medicinal potency in this juice is more than three times that of ordinary Green Spike Grass!" Towering waves surged through Shopkeeper Qian's heart, but he forced himself to look composed.
He coughed, tossed the grass back into the sack, and curled his lip.
"Ahem, the quality is passable, but these leaves are far too plump. Don't tell me they grew in some damp, shady burial ground? If they've absorbed Evil Qi, using them as medicine could kill someone."
"Besides, yours is fresh grass, not ground powder. We'd have to process it ourselves after buying it. That takes time and effort."
Shopkeeper Qian shook his head, putting on a troubled expression. "How about this? Since it wasn't easy for you to come all this way, I'll take a little loss. One copper coin per jin. I'll buy the lot."
The moment Lin He heard that, he started cursing inwardly. You old bastard! Your eyes lit up just now, and now you're playing the big bad wolf to drive down the price? One copper coin per jin? Why don't you just rob us!
He was about to let loose when Su Qiuran spoke first.
"Shopkeeper, let's speak plainly." Su Qiuran dropped her smile, her gaze turning sharp.
"This grass is a superior mutated variety we found deep on the sunless slope behind Green Mountain, after expending the strength of nine oxen and two tigers. You know perfectly well how potent it is."
Su Qiuran paused, then continued, "One copper coin per jin? You're not taking a loss. You're taking us for fools."
"If you think it's too much trouble and don't want it, that's fine. Lin He, load up the cart. Let's ask at the Preserving Harmony Hall up ahead. I'm sure someone will recognize quality."
Lin He immediately caught on. Without another word, he grabbed the mouth of the sack and made to toss it onto the handcart.
"Hey, hey, hey! Don't be so hasty!" Seeing them about to leave, Shopkeeper Qian panicked.
The Preserving Harmony Hall was their sworn rival. How could he let this batch of astonishingly potent Green Spike Grass fall into their hands?
He hurriedly reached out to stop Lin He, squeezing out a smile uglier than a crying face.
"Please, you two! Let's talk this over. Isn't business all about asking for the sky and bargaining down to earth?"
"Then what price do you think is appropriate, Shopkeeper?" Su Qiuran watched him with the ghost of a smile.
Shopkeeper Qian gritted his teeth and held up five fingers. "Five copper coins! I'll pay you the powdered price for fresh grass. Surely that will do?"
"Ten," Su Qiuran said, yielding nothing.
"Impossible! Ten copper coins would buy me scraps of spirit herbs!" Shopkeeper Qian flatly refused.
"Shopkeeper, do the math." Su Qiuran switched into business negotiation mode. "This grass is three times as potent as the ordinary kind. Buy it and mix it into ordinary Green Spike Grass powder, and the result will still be better than what's on the market, while your costs will drop substantially."
"With the profit you'll make between buying and selling, will our ten copper coins per jin really matter?"
Shopkeeper Qian froze. How is this little wench even shrewder than me? She even knows all the tricks of adulterating goods to boost profits!
"Besides." Su Qiuran played her final trump card. "Since we found this mutated variety once, we can find it again."
"If you show enough sincerity today, Shopkeeper, every bit of top-grade Green Spike Grass we gather from now on will go exclusively to your Spring Restoration Hall. How does that sound?"
A stable, long-term supply!
Those words struck Shopkeeper Qian's heart like a heavy hammer. He weighed his options for a moment, then finally slapped his thigh hard.
"Fine! Eight copper coins per jin! That's my bottom line! If you agree, we'll put it in writing!"
Su Qiuran and Lin He exchanged a glance, each seeing satisfaction in the other's eyes.
"Deal."
An assistant brought over a large scale. The two sacks of Green Spike Grass weighed a full hundred and twenty jin. At eight copper coins per jin, that came to nine hundred and sixty copper coins-nearly a tael of silver.
Shopkeeper Qian paid readily enough, having the assistant weigh out a full tael of broken silver to round it up and hand it to Lin He.
"If you two get any more good stock, make sure you remember to bring it to our Spring Restoration Hall." Shopkeeper Qian saw them out with a beaming smile.
"Of course, of course."
After leaving the Spring Restoration Hall, Lin He bounced the weighty piece of silver in his hand, feeling as though he were dreaming.
"Holy shit, honey, you're fucking amazing! Just a few words, and you forced the price up eightfold! With that silver tongue, it's a shame you're not in sales."
"Enough ass-kissing." Su Qiuran rolled her eyes at him, but the corners of her mouth rose despite herself. "That's called business negotiation strategy, understand? Now that we have money, we need to get our equipment sorted out."
"Let's go spend!" Lin He swept out a hand.
Their first stop was the smithy.
The forge blazed inside, and a wave of heat hit them in the face. Lin He immediately took a liking to a black longbow hanging on the wall.
"Boss, how much for that bow?" Lin He asked, pointing at it.
The blacksmith was a burly, bare-chested man. He glanced at Lin He and shook his head. "Young fellow, that's a powerful bow made from hundred-refined steel and black python sinew, with a full hundred-and-twenty-jin draw weight. An ordinary person can't draw it at all. You'd better look at the hunting bows beside it."
"Can't draw it?" Lin He grinned. He stepped forward and took down the black bow, gripping its stave in his left hand and hooking the string with his right.
"Hah!"
Lin He gave a low shout, the muscles in his arms suddenly bulging. With a creak, he effortlessly drew the supposedly hundred-and-twenty-jin bow into a full moon!
The blacksmith's eyes nearly popped out. "This... how is that possible?"
How could this soft-skinned kid have so much strength?
Lin He let go. With a deep thrumming sound, the bowstring shook the air, producing a heart-quaking note.
"I'll take it!" Lin He nodded in satisfaction. "Give me a quiver of refined-steel wolf-fang arrows, too, and one of those short-handled chopping knives over there. A sharpened one."
Still too stunned to recover, the blacksmith mechanically quoted a price. "Six hundred copper coins for the bow and arrows, a hundred for the knife. Seven hundred total."
Lin He paid without hesitation, slung the longbow over his back, and tucked the short blade at his waist. His sense of security instantly soared.
Only then did the blacksmith come to his senses. Seeing that Lin He carried himself like a complete archery novice, he hurriedly cautioned him.
"Brother, I don't use bows much myself, but I did learn a few things from my grandfather."
"Grandfather told me it's best not to loose a bow without an arrow. It can damage the bow."
"As the saying goes, 'Ease the string back slow; haste will burst the bow!'"
Lin He was taken aback. That's a thing? To be honest, this was his first time holding a bow, so he really had no idea.
"Oh, oh, I see..."
"But the quality and craftsmanship of my black python bow are exceptional. If you really draw it a few times to show off, it won't matter," the blacksmith added proudly.
"All right! Got it!"
With their remaining few hundred copper coins, the two went to the general store.
They bought fifty jin of fine white flour and thirty jin of good rice. Now that they had money, who would still eat those throat-scraping coarse grains?
They also went to the butcher's for five jin of pork belly streaked with fat and lean, bought two live chickens, and picked up a pile of seasonings, including oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar.
Finally, Su Qiuran insisted on spending fifty copper coins on a thick new quilt.
"That wreck of a house lets drafts in from every side at night. I'm so cold I'm practically getting arthritis. We can't skimp on this," Su Qiuran said.
By the time Lin He was pushing the handcart, piled like a small mountain, along the road back to the village, the sun had already slanted westward.
"Lin He, our goals are very clear now." Holding the new quilt, Su Qiuran began planning their next steps.
"First, keep using diluted essence of the sun to accelerate the Green Spike Grass's growth and maintain our cash flow."
"Second, all the extra essence of the sun goes toward tempering your body and improving your combat power."
"Third, starting tomorrow, I'm putting you through hellish practical combat training."
"O-fucking-kay!" Lin He laughed, his steps growing lighter.
By the time they returned to the ramshackle wooden house in Emerald Mountain Village, it was completely dark.
Lin He carried their supplies inside and lit a newly purchased oil lamp.
In the dim yellow lamplight, the formerly dilapidated house finally had a trace of life, thanks to the rice, flour, and new quilt.
Su Qiuran went to the kitchen to work on dinner, planning to make white-flour steamed buns with braised pork belly. Meanwhile, Lin He eagerly took his new bow and arrows into the courtyard.
Whoosh-
His first arrow flew so far off course it might as well have gone to his grandmother's house, burying itself in the dirt at the foot of the tree.
"Lin He! Are you cross-eyed? The target's straight ahead! Where are you shooting?" Su Qiuran's furious shout came from inside.
"A mistake! Purely a mistake! It's mainly because this bow's so stiff. I'm not used to it yet!" Lin He flushed and hurriedly drew a second arrow.
He took a deep breath, recalling the archery tutorials he had watched online in his previous life, and stood with his feet apart and his back straight.
The great strength he had gained through body tempering kept his bow hand as steady as Mount Tai, without the slightest tremor.
He focused, calmed himself, and aimed.
Whoosh-
This time, the arrow became a streak of black lightning. With a thunk, it buried itself deep in the trunk of the large tree thirty paces away, its tail still trembling violently.
"Got it!" Lin He clenched his fist in excitement.
"Not bad. You're not a complete idiot." Su Qiuran appeared in the doorway with a plate of fragrant braised pork belly.
"Hurry up and eat! You need a full stomach to have the strength to keep training tomorrow."
Lin He looked at the woman in the doorway. Though she sat in a battered wheelchair, her eyes were unusually resolute, and an inexplicable warmth suddenly welled up in his heart.
"Coming, honey! Be right there!"