As the saying goes, no merchant is without guile.
In this day and age, how many good men could there be among shopkeepers old enough to have a beardful of gray?
Li Qiuchen did not mind either. He smiled calmly and said, “What’s the matter, Haier-ge? Your father won’t give you spending money?”
Hu Haier said helplessly, “My pa’s so damned stingy, if a corn cob fell on the ground he’d pick it up and suck it over again. What money would he give me? Brother, I really have been a bit short lately. My pockets are cleaner than my damned backside. My pa keeps saying I’m young, and won’t even let me find a proper job. I really don’t have any other way.”
When Li Qiuchen saw the subtle look on his face as he spoke of having no money, he could not help asking, “Got a sweetheart?”
“No, no!”
Hu Haier hurriedly denied it.
But the expression on his face betrayed what was truly in his heart.
There was one, but not quite. More or less at the level of more than strangers, not yet sweethearts.
Seeing his bashful and embarrassed look, Li Qiuchen smiled and said, “That old shopkeeper you mentioned—what mountain goods does he buy?”
“Clubs!”
“Don’t have any.”
What a joke. Do I look like a club to you?
“Clubs” meant ginseng.
Li Qiuchen actually did have goods on him, but he did not want to reveal them.
Aged wild ginseng was the most valuable of all mountain goods.
It was not that ginseng’s medicinal properties were necessarily better than other herbs, but ordinary people were very familiar with ginseng.
As for other medicinal herbs, only apothecaries and alchemists knew their value.
Only ginseng was the universally known king of all medicines.
Even illiterate common folk had heard the myth that a single rootlet from a thousand-year-old ginseng could prolong one’s life.
Even if you knew nothing of pharmacology, you still knew that old hen soup stewed with ginseng was an excellent tonic.
The richer people were, the more they liked the stuff.
That was why its market price had always remained high.
The bloody struggles between mountain traders often revolved around ginseng as well.
In a small market like Qingshitai, aged wild ginseng simply could not be seen.
Even if mountain traders had it in hand, they would only sell it through channels they were familiar with. It would never appear openly on the market.
Conversely, if you brought out something like that at a market, you would very easily be targeted, and would have to take an enormous risk.
Hu Haier was so anxious he scratched his ears and cheeks. He only knew about “clubs”; he knew nothing else.
Of the three hundred and sixty trades, every trade had its own tricks. If making money were really that easy, how would it ever fall to a cart boss’s son like you?
But Li Qiuchen did not want to dampen his enthusiasm. After all, his own identity as a mountain trader was also a kind of disguise.
“Go ask that old shopkeeper if he buys Mountain-Piercing Dragon.”
Hu Haier said blankly, “What the hell is Mountain-Piercing Dragon?”
Li Qiuchen explained it in a way he could understand. “A man eats it, and he can pierce through a mountain.”
“Huh?”
Hu Haier was greatly shocked. “It’s that damned powerful?”
Li Qiuchen said no more. He reached into his robes, pinched off a finger-length piece of dried grass root with his fingernail, and handed it to him. “Take this and ask for me.”
Hu Haier took it, held it under his nose to sniff, then swallowed.
Li Qiuchen glanced at him sideways. “Do you even need it?”
“Of course I don’t need it. My fire’s strong as ever. I just never seen it before, so I’m taking a couple more looks.”
Hu Haier quickly tucked the grass root away with great care, picked up the wonton bowl, drank the remaining soup inside until not a drop was left, wiped his mouth, stood up, and said in a low voice, “I’m going to find the old shopkeeper. You stay right here and don’t wander off. Wait for my news. Don’t worry, I definitely won’t cheat you.”
Definitely won’t cheat me?
That was what all swindlers said.
Since ancient times, no merchant had been without guile. What shopkeeper did not think about earning a little more money?
But it did not matter.
Li Qiuchen was not lacking that small sum. He was looking for an opportunity.
Nearly half the shop owners in Qingshitai Town were surnamed Zhao.
And there were differences between Boss Zhao and Boss Zhao.
When they encountered a mountain trader who had just arrived, someone who looked unfamiliar, the shopkeepers would tacitly lower their prices, then tell you with perfect confidence that once you walked out that door, you would never be offered this price again.
Hu Haier had followed his father to Qingshitai seven or eight times, and on one of those occasions, he happened to run into a mountain trader from elsewhere. The man had mountain goods in hand but could not sell them for a decent price, while his family urgently needed money. Unwilling to let them go at a loss, he had truly found himself with no road to heaven and no door into the earth.
By some strange twist of fate, that mountain trader had stumbled into a certain shop. The old shopkeeper inside was exceedingly righteous. After examining the quality of the mountain goods, he offered a price that satisfied the mountain trader. The mountain trader thanked him a thousand times over, grateful to the point of tears.
That scene happened to fall into Hu Haier’s eyes.
Any man had thoughts of building a career; the only difference was the scale and depth of that ambition.
Hu Haier had always wanted to make money, but his father felt he was still young and would not let him go out into the world. He only said money was hard to earn and shit was hard to eat, and that at Hu Haier’s young age, he could not withstand the storms outside.
The words were right.
But Hu Haier always had that thought in his heart and had long been itching to try.
He felt that this old shopkeeper was righteous, and that doing business with him would surely make money.
Li Qiuchen only wanted to laugh after hearing it.
This foolish child did not think about it. If something others offered three copper coins for, he offered five, then how had such a man who did not understand the rules not been squeezed out by his peers by now?
There had to be something to it.
The shop where the old shopkeeper was located was called “White Affairs Hall.” Just hearing the name, one knew it was not a place for proper business.
Its location was very remote, with little customer traffic. Yellow paper, incense, and candles were displayed at the entrance. Li Qiuchen took one look, and his fantasies were utterly shattered.
What exactly was I expecting?
Hu Haier patted his chest and guaranteed that the old shopkeeper was very easy to talk to, and was also very interested in the Mountain-Piercing Dragon he had brought over.
But in Li Qiuchen’s view, that was not the case at all.
The old shopkeeper was not young, yet his body was hale and sturdy. From his clothes and accessories, one could tell he was not short of money; at the very least, he was not someone relying on the meager earnings of White Affairs Hall to support his family.
Just the string of beads he was rolling in his hand could probably buy half the shopfront.
His attitude was indeed very good, and his tone very amiable. But rather than a businessman, he seemed more like someone with nothing better to do, humoring a child in his nonsense.
“This is not bad.”
He took Li Qiuchen’s Mountain-Piercing Dragon—this was a root-and-rhizome type medicinal herb, looking more or less like Chinese yam.
Ordinary top-grade dried Mountain-Piercing Dragon would at most be one chi long and as thick as a finger.
This Mountain-Piercing Dragon of Li Qiuchen’s was top among top grade. After being stimulated by his Pharmacist’s Blessing, it had more than a hundred years of maturity.
The old shopkeeper was someone who knew his goods. The moment he saw it, his eyes lit up. He held it in his hand and carefully examined it for a while, then looked up and smiled. “Little brother, what rank do you hold at home?”
“Rank three!”
This was the cant of mountain traders. “Rank three” referred to the mountains.
“May I ask which three?”
“Three zhang and three on the ground!”
Three times three made nine, meaning the three teachings and nine schools. “On the ground” also implied lowering one’s head; lowering the head made one three fen shorter, showing respect to you as the greater man.
This was a polite phrase among mountain traders.
When traveling outside, one would inevitably run into friends of the jianghu. Gangs had even more complicated cant among themselves. Mountain traders did small business and were unwilling to fight with others. If you asked about their background and roots, they would say they were merely nameless nobodies from the lower nine ranks, not worth mentioning.
Li Qiuchen had learned these code phrases in Songlin Village from passing mountain traders. In truth, he did not know much either. If the questioning continued, he would be exposed.