Chapter 225: Digging A Pit
Earlier, Shi Tou had asked Shang Wan if it wasn’t a bit unethical for Qionghua Restaurant, which hadn’t provoked their family, to be inexplicably forced to close its doors.
At the time, Shang Wan just told him to wait.
And now it had come.
Recently, she had even specially taken care of Qionghua Restaurant’s business a few times and hadn’t made any moves against Qionghua Restaurant, but that didn’t mean Young Master Qiao would pass up the chance to cause trouble at her Spiritual Medicine Pavilion.
Shouldn’t she repay this favor properly?
Several simple repayment schemes quickly flashed through Shang Wan’s mind.
To ruin a restaurant, one could start from three aspects: the food, the service, and the reputation.
As long as no customers went to the restaurant to eat, closing down would just be a matter of time.
Of course, the most direct way was still to kill the boss. Without the boss, the restaurant naturally couldn’t continue operating.
As Shang Wan was pondering, Lu Chengjing’s words pulled her thoughts back.
“A Nian’s elder brother instructed in the letter for A Nian to follow Boss Zhong back to the Capital City. Has Boss Zhong replied?”
“Boss Zhong is a very busy man.” Shang Wan put the silver into the wooden box and locked it. “He’ll probably reply only after setting a date to return to the Capital City.”
Yesterday, the child had cried with red eyes, and Shang Wan had wondered what was wrong, but it turned out the child was leaving soon and couldn’t bear to part with them.
Last night, the child had proactively told them the contents of the letter, and Shang Wan had also deduced the truth about the Spiritual Field’s growth from the letter.
Previously, most of the medicinal herbs she sold to the apothecary had been sent to the Border Pass along with other medicinal herbs.
Enemy spies had poisoned the medicinal herbs, and over half the soldiers in the military camp were poisoned, including several generals, and Chu Zhao was one of them.
When the military doctor checked the medicinal herbs, he found that although some had been poisoned, after washing them clean, their medicinal properties were not affected by the poison.
The military doctor prescribed a formula using the available medicinal herbs to delay the onset of the poison, had it boiled and distributed, and at the same time hurried to research the real antidote.
Thanks to that batch of medicinal herbs, the military camp avoided massive soldier casualties, and the several generals survived as well.
The Spiritual Field’s growth was indeed related to saving people, and the more and more important the people saved, the faster the Spiritual Field grew.
The day the Spiritual Field’s quantity shot up like it was on steroids was because the medicinal herbs Shang Wan sent had saved most of the military camp.
Chu Zhao also explained in the letter that the people they had sent to pick up Chu Xu had been ambushed midway.
It happened that chaos had broken out in the military camp, and the father and son couldn’t spare hands to investigate, so they only sent a few secret letters, telling Chu Xu to stay well at the Lu Family and wait until the military camp matters were settled before sending people to pick him up again.
However, Shang Wan and the others had only received one reply letter, and the subsequent letters were nowhere to be found.
If not for Chu Xu sending another letter to the Border Pass this time, the Chu father and son still wouldn’t know that the letters they sent had been intercepted.
It seemed the spies hadn’t been fully cleaned up yet.
Zhong Li had once owed Chu Zhao a great favor, and from the news Chu Zhao sent from the Capital City, he inferred that something big was about to happen in the Capital City.
Chu Zhao had always known Zhong Li was in Qingyang Prefecture, and with trouble brewing in the Capital City, Zhong Li would surely return.
So he specially wrote to Zhong Li, asking him to take his younger brother back along the way and deliver him safely and soundly to Duke Dingguo’s Mansion, considering that as repaying the favor.
Zhong Li agreed readily, and these days he had been so busy he was nowhere to be seen, all preparing to return to the Capital City.
The letter also mentioned one thing: the military camp was tracing the source of those medicinal herbs unaffected by the poison, and now they had tracked it to Qingyang Prefecture.
Thanks to these medicinal herbs, the military camp avoided disaster, and Marshal Chu paid out of pocket, preparing five hundred taels of reward money.
Shang Wan pondered a bit conspiratorially.
Was Shopkeeper Qi so eager to strike at the Spiritual Medicine Pavilion because he had gotten wind of this and wanted to pocket the reward money alone?
If something happened to the Spiritual Medicine Pavilion, as its owner and shopkeeper, she would put all her energy into resolving the trouble there, and naturally wouldn’t care about other matters.
It was quite possible that by the time she got the news, the silver had already gone into Shopkeeper Qi’s pocket.
Tsk, truly vicious.
Last night, she had gone too easy on him.
·
After finishing the accounts, Shang Wan hugged the money box and went to Baohui Money House.
Half the earnings deposited in the money house, half in the space.
After staying in the shop for half a day, Shang Wan was bored into yawning nonstop.
There were too many people working, so she, the shopkeeper, was instead idle.
Shang Wan lowered her head and doodled on the paper, preparing to streamline the staff again.
Besides family members, the final ones left would be Yuan Musheng, Yuan Qiao, Aunt Yao, and Liu Cheng—four people.
Yuan Musheng in charge of diagnosing and dispensing medicine, Yuan Qiao in charge of selling ointment and medicinal powder, Aunt Yao in charge of buying vegetables and cooking, helping Yuan Qiao when busy, and Liu Cheng doubling as shop assistant and delivering medicine outside.
Liu Cheng knew some martial arts and had a sturdy build, so even if he faced someone outside, he wouldn’t be at a disadvantage.
With the four each doing their jobs, plus Shang Wan as shopkeeper, the shop’s matters could be fully handled.
The others would return to the village to make medicine, with Xiao Huan and Shi Tou in charge of checking and settling wages.
Lu Chengjing could still help for now, but after the Mid-Autumn Festival, he would have to focus entirely on his scholarly books.
At the same time, three people dressed as traveling merchants came to Elm Tree Village, acquiring medicinal herbs in the village at prices above market rate, regardless of quality, taking as much as available.
·
“Closing time.”
Shopkeeper Shang called closing at the right hour, greeting the shop assistants to clean and inventory the medicinal herbs. After registering, they would restock the medicinal herbs.
Lu Chengjing handed the calculated account book to Shang Wan.
Using the counter’s cover, Shang Wan directly put the account book into the space.
Such an important thing as the account book had to be kept in the safest place.
Locked the door and went home.
Dusk was falling, and points of firelight appeared at Elm Tree Village Entrance.
Only when getting closer did they realize they were individual torches.
Led by Old Man Wu, about ten people stood at the village entrance.
The torchlight illuminated their faces, flickering on and off, revealing solemn expressions one after another.
Shang Wan secretly raised an eyebrow; something was up.
The others also sensed the off atmosphere, gradually stopping their chatter and laughter, casting suspicious glances over the crowd’s faces.
Shi Tou spoke first, asking, “Uncle Wu, it’s already dark, why is everyone standing at the village entrance?”
“Waiting for you all. Someone is deliberately trying to make trouble for our village.” Old Man Wu waved his hand, and the crowd parted, revealing three people tied up like dumplings behind them.
Under the firelight, the three had bruised and purple faces, clearly having been beaten soundly.
The three had their mouths stuffed tight, able only to make muffled “mmph mmph” sounds, not spitting out a single word.
Glancing over the three, Shang Wan asked puzzledly, “Who are these three?”
“They claimed to be traveling merchants wanting to buy our village’s medicinal herbs at high prices.” Old Man Wu explained the whole matter in detail.
After the three entered the village, they loudly called for buying medicine, at high prices too, attracting quite a few villagers.
The three openly and covertly pried words from the villagers, inquiring about news of Shang Wan’s family.
When Old Man Wu rushed over upon hearing the news, the villagers had already been tricked into saying quite a bit, and some even wanted to go home to fetch medicinal herbs to sell, until Old Man Wu scolded them awake with a few words.
The three found Old Man Wu in the way and tried to incite the villagers to lock him up, but unexpectedly, they themselves ended up locked up.
The villagers had just been momentarily muddled, and with Old Man Wu’s analysis like this, everyone understood.
It wasn’t pie falling from the sky; it was a pit dug for them.
