Travel to the mountains and make a fortune in silence

Shopkeeper Wang stared wide-eyed at the he shou wu in front of him, his eyes seemingly spitting fire. He examined each root carefully, muttering incoherently, "These, each one is over a hundred years old! Mu Nan, you're going to make a fortune!"

“These five trees are at least five hundred years old, and the rest are all over one hundred years old, even though they are younger. Mu Nan, are you... are you planning to sell them all?” Manager Wang asked excitedly.

Mu Nan picked out two that were over 500 years old and three that were over 100 years old, saying, "Manager Wang, these five are not for sale for now. Name your price for the rest."

Manager Wang pondered for a moment, then said, "I'll offer five hundred taels of silver for these three, and two hundred taels for the other seven. What do you think?"

"Okay." Mu Nan had known Manager Wang for many years and knew his character well. She trusted that he wouldn't overcharge, so she agreed without hesitation.

"Please wait a moment, I'll go get the silver notes." As if worried that Mu Nan wouldn't sell to him if he was too slow, Manager Wang ran quickly upstairs to get the silver.

Not long after, Manager Wang came in carrying several boxes and a thick stack of silver notes. "A total of two thousand nine hundred taels of silver notes. Keep them safe! These boxes are for you to store the He Shou Wu."

Mu Nan accepted the silver notes, each worth one hundred taels. He carefully counted them in front of him, then gently placed them in his pocket and gratefully thanked Manager Wang: "Thank you, Manager Wang."

Wang Qing'er put the Polygonum multiflorum into the box. She took out a piece of paper from her sleeve and handed it to Manager Wang, saying, "Manager Wang, I would like to buy some of the medicinal herbs listed here. Do you have them all?"

Shopkeeper Wang glanced at the list of medicinal herbs on the paper, his expression subtly changing before he smiled kindly and replied, "We have all of these."

"Then I'll trouble Manager Wang to prepare the medicine for me according to the dosage listed above."

"Alright, I'll go arrange it right away." Although Manager Wang had some doubts, he didn't ask any more questions and went to have someone prepare the medicine.

What Wang Qing'er wrote down were just some spices from the braised meat recipe. There were only three pharmacies in the town, and if she frequently bought from them, it would easily arouse suspicion. She didn't want the braised meat recipe to be leaked at the moment.

Now that she's in the county town, she should buy more to take back. She doesn't need to buy ginger, star anise, cinnamon, or bay leaves yet, as she hasn't found the other spices in the mountains, so she still needs to buy them.

In addition, she added Sichuan peppercorns and black and white peppercorns. Although these spices are also found in the mountains, they are not yet ripe, so she had to buy some.

After settling the bill for the spices, the two left the pharmacy and went to two other pharmacies to buy spices.

After Yunshang was helped back to the courtyard by two maids, she punished the maids.

After Yunshang divorced and returned home, she couldn't bear the loneliness and became entangled with several handsome and strong guards in the mansion.

She even complained that the guards couldn't meet her needs, and often gave them aphrodisiacs, sometimes even taking them herself.

After punishing the maid, she summoned a guard and handed him a cup of tea laced with three times the amount of aphrodisiac. The two then began making love on the bed.

Yunshang vented her hatred for Mu Nan on the guard's body until midnight when the guard died on her bruised and battered body. There was a pool of blood on the bed sheet beneath her, it was unclear whether it was hers or the guard's.

She gently pushed away the guards covering her, dressed herself like a ghost, got out of bed, and called for people to carry the guards' bodies out.

The people in the courtyard were all her trusted confidants whom she had already bribed with plenty of money. Their indentures were in Yunshang's hands, so no one reported her. Tonight was the third guard to be carried out of her room in recent years.

She also had the indentures of those guards; she could simply say that they had offended their master and had been sold off by her, and no one would suspect anything.

The Yun family still believed that Yunshang had changed her personality after the divorce and had been managing her shops well and in an orderly manner.

They had no idea that she had done such a scandalous and disregard for human life right under her family's noses.

Five years later, the truth came out, and Yunmu died of anger, while Yunshang was beaten to death by the Yun family patriarch. But that's another story.

With the thousands of taels of silver she had earned from selling He Shou Wu in her arms, Wang Qing'er kept thinking about how to spend this huge sum of money.

First, she wanted to buy a luxurious carriage; second, she also wanted to buy the grove with white magnolias and the picturesque peach blossom grove.

She could make her own decision about buying the carriage, but she needed to go home and discuss the purchase of the forest with her family. So she put aside the idea of ​​buying the forest for the time being and decided to buy the carriage first.

"Brother Mu Nan, how about we go to the Mule and Horse Market to check out some horse-drawn carriages?"

"You want to buy a horse-drawn carriage in this county town?"

"I'd like to go take a look first and find out the prices."

"Okay. Anyway, it's not far. If you want to go, we'll go take a look now."

The two strolled leisurely towards the mule and horse market. Along the way, Wang Qing'er bought many silk flowers, intending to give them to Mu Qin and Mu Yao when she returned.

Upon spotting a porcelain shop, she eagerly pulled Mu Nan inside, mainly wanting to select some exquisite small porcelain bottles to hold hydrosols.

After carefully selecting items in the store for a long time, she bought several hundred porcelain bottles of various sizes, all of which had excellent sealing properties.

She asked the shop to pack it carefully and paid a deposit, saying she would come back to pick it up later.

The two were strolling leisurely down the street when they suddenly saw a large crowd gathered ahead, whispering and discussing among themselves.

With a strong gossip-loving heart, how could Wang Qing'er miss such a lively scene? So she hurriedly pulled Mu Nan and squeezed into the crowd. Mu Nan had no choice but to carefully protect her and push forward.

After much effort, the two finally squeezed to the front, where they saw three boys kneeling upright on the ground. The oldest was about fifteen or sixteen years old, the younger one was about twelve or thirteen, and the other was about six or seven. In front of them was a sign that read "Selling oneself to save one's mother" in large characters.

At this moment, a person who had just squeezed in looked completely bewildered and asked the person next to him with a puzzled expression, "What exactly is going on?"

"Oh dear! These three children have been kneeling here for days. It seems their mother is seriously ill and they have no money for treatment, so they want to sell themselves to get some money for her medical treatment." The people around seemed to be just repeating what others said and did not really know the truth.