Rebirth: Making a Fortune in Ancient Times

Liu didn't drink the juice after all, but told Xia Yu to keep it safe, saying that she might need it someday.

After dinner, Xia Yu was stopped by Shijiu as she was about to enter the house.

"Miss, I smelled blood when you came out of the house. Did you sense anything unusual inside?"

Xia Yu didn't expect that Nineteen's nose was so sensitive, but seeing her somewhat serious expression, she still earnestly told her the lie.

"I just did an experiment, I bled a rabbit a little, that should taste like that." He then patted Nineteen on the shoulder reassuringly.

"Don't worry, it's nothing. Don't you know how good I am at light-footedness? If something really happens, I can still escape."

After saying that, she returned to her room, planning to make pills from the fruit peel and sell them to the villagers who were preparing to go to war. Originally, she wanted to give them away for free, but after thinking about it, she decided that she should charge them money instead.

Finally, Xia Yu mixed flour with honey and fruit peel, then rolled it into pills the size of black beans. One fruit made nine pills, and three pills sold for one tael of silver. He wouldn't sell any pills with fewer than three. This way, the treatment for external injuries was effective without causing the wounds to heal too dramatically.

So, the day before, the village chief had informed everyone to take some commonly used pills with them for the soldiers going to war. The very next day, news spread that Lord Wenfu had used various precious medicinal herbs bestowed by the Emperor to create a valuable pill that could treat external injuries. The cost of making one pill was as high as fifty taels of silver, but Lord Wenfu, out of consideration for his fellow villagers, was willing to give them away for three pills at one tael of silver. Purchase was voluntary; there was no pressure.

When this news spread, everyone in the village, young and old, was shocked.

Some expressed gratitude for the Emperor's boundless grace, for Lord Wenfu, and for the Zhang family's righteousness. For every praise, there was a slanderous accusation.

“Father, do you really believe that little fool can be so good? I don’t believe that pills worth 150 taels are only being sold for one tael of silver. Instead of selling his pills, we should go to town and find a doctor to prescribe some proper medicine.” Wang Pingping said to her parents.

“Yes, how could she have concocted such excellent medicine for knife wounds in just one day? I think Pingping is right,” Wang Pingping’s mother advised her husband.

“But she’s a village lady, why would she need to lie like this? The Zhang family isn’t short of a tael or two of silver,” Wang Pingping’s father raised his question.

“Even one tael is still silver. Who would complain about having too much silver?” Wang Pingping’s mother said.

"Alright, I'll do as you say. Go to town and buy me some medicine for my injuries." Wang Pingping's father was about to leave and didn't want to have a conflict with his wife and daughter over this, so he went along with what they said.

"I'll go now, you stay home and rest!" Wang Pingping's mother said as she led her daughter out the door. They had their own oxcart, but there were quite a few oxcarts going to town from the village entrance now, several trips a day, and it was more cost-effective to take one than their own.

After the mother and daughter left, Wang Pingping's father took out one or two taels of silver from the box and headed towards the Zhang family's house.

When he arrived, there was already a long queue, and everyone was paying for medicine with silver.

Xia Yu used bamboo tubes, about the thickness of a thumb and an inch long, to hold the pills. She first boiled these bamboo tubes in a pot, and then soaked them in the pool of water in her spatial dimension overnight. Putting the pills into these treated bamboo tubes would preserve their medicinal properties.

She would give a message to everyone who came up to buy medicine.

"Take one pill once a day. In case of emergency, you can take three pills at once." (Additionally...)

"This medicine should only be taken if the military doctor cannot cure the patient."

So everyone said that the medicine given to them by Wenfuxiangjun was life-saving.

Many villagers still believed her, even though the pill looked like a lump of dough. Some of the wealthier families wanted to buy more, but Xia Yu refused. However, she promised that if the pills weren't sold out by the time everyone was about to leave, those who wanted more could buy them.

The amount of fruit in her space was limited, and she had already used forty fruits this time. It would take several more years for new fruits to grow, so she dared not touch the remaining fruits.

Although Xia Yu thought her medicine wasn't expensive at all, she still had fifteen pills left unsold after making them according to the number of soldiers she recruited.

Nineteen checked the register of people who came to buy pills today. The number of pills and the amount of silver matched. Indeed, a few people had not come.

However, with over a hundred people, Xia Yu and the others couldn't immediately figure out who hadn't come to buy medicine.

As the group was checking names one by one, Wang, Li, and Jin Xiaoqiao from the old house arrived. However, all of them had anxious expressions on their faces.

Upon meeting, Wang asked anxiously...

"Xiaxia, are you sold out of those pills? Could you sell us a few?"

Xia Yu then remembered that although no one in her family had been conscripted, her aunts still had their brothers and nephews. How could she have forgotten about them?

"Eldest sister-in-law, second sister-in-law, Xiaoqiao, how many people from each of your families went?" Liu asked from the side.

“Sister-in-law, my sister-in-law’s family has two older brothers and one nephew who were conscripted. My brother Xiaoqiao was also conscripted. This time, eight brothers and six nephews from my family were conscripted.” As Li spoke, tears streamed down her face.

After saying that, he turned to Xia Yu and said

"Xiaxia, I know this medicine is rare. I don't want to get three pills for each of them. As long as each person has one, it's enough for me as their sister and aunt to do my best."

Xia Yu looked at her second aunt's somewhat red and swollen eyes and knew that she was going through a lot of mental anguish. If she only cared about her own brothers and nephews, she would be letting down her other uncles and nephews. But if she shared the money with them all, she was afraid that something might happen to her brothers.

"Second Aunt, please don't worry. We still have some medicinal herbs at home, which I originally planned to keep for our family. In that case, I'll make the pills tonight, and you can come and pick them up tomorrow, is that alright?"

"Yes, yes, thank you Xiaxia. Second Aunt thanks you." Li Shi hurriedly agreed excitedly. Xia Yu's words were something she hadn't dared to imagine before coming. Originally, she had already asked Wang Shi and Xiao Qiao to give her one pill from each dose of medicine. Although she felt somewhat sorry for her sister-in-law and niece-in-law, she had no choice but to do so, shamelessly, thinking of the dozen or so people from her maternal family who had gone to war.

Finally, Xia Yu gave the remaining medicine to Wang Shi and Jin Xiaoqiao. As for Li Shi's medicine, she would come to collect it tomorrow.

Liu was initially embarrassed to accept the money, but Wang and the others insisted on giving it to her.

“Sister-in-law, just keep it. This money isn’t from our own pockets; our family gave us some. We’re already benefiting from this, so we certainly didn’t give it to them for nothing.” Wang firmly placed the silver on the table, and then the group went back first.

That evening, Xia Yu picked five more fruits and made fifteen doses of pills. She then packed them into small bamboo tubes according to the number of people Li needed and gave them to her.