Chapter 89 A ghost blocked the way in the daytime
He Danggui retracted back a little and persuaded Madam Luo in a low voice, “You are sick, Grandma. This pill is just a temporary emergency medicine for refreshing, and it’s just a palliative. Therefore, you should take care of yourself!”
“Top-class pills?!” Before Madam Luo replied, Mammy Tang also shrieked, “Jeez!” He Danggui’s shoulder shook because of the super high volume. “Third Miss, you… you have made the top-class pills, right?” Mammy Tang asked. So far as she knew, to make the top-class pills, people should filter out of the crude dregs of a decoction with a precise percolation pot, just leaving the best part, and then combine it with the special honey which was most suitable for this medicine to melt into pills. San Qing Tang gathered pharmaceutical seniors of the whole Yangzhou City and even the whole southern area together, but there were no more than 10 people who could make first-class pills! Third Miss was illiterate and had no precise pharmaceutical tools. How could she make the top-class pills?
“No, no, Grandma and Mammy Tang, you all misunderstood.” He Danggui explained hurriedly, shaking her small hands, “I mean that more than a dozen of raw materials for the pills are prepared by me according to the prescription in the book. Uh, to be honest, it’s just to fill the prescription and weigh the medicine. But these four pills are not made by me. How can I have such abilities? These pills are actually from a Master in the Taoist temple. A few days ago, she said that she was making pills and if I didn’t mind, she would help me to make them. Therefore, I gave the prepared medicinal materials to her and got these four pills after half a day.”
“Oh?” Madam Luo became excited, and she felt not dizzy and chest pain anymore. She asked gladly, “Which Master has such a magic skill? How old is she? How long has she been a Taoist nun?” Madam Luo thought excitedly, “There was such a pharmaceutical master hiding in Yangzhou City. I must invite her to San Qing Tang, or buy a nearby house for her to practice. While making pills, she could also teach other people in San Qing Tang to make pills.”
He Danggui recalled in confusion and said, “Age? She may be 40 or 50 years old. Her face is a little bloated, so it’s hard for me to recognize... As for how long she has been a Taoist nun, it may be a long time. As far as I know, Master Tai Chen is very good at making pills. It seems that her skills are because of paternal teaching and influence. Someone of the elder generation of her family was a Taoist priest and liked making pills very much... What a pity.”
“For what?” Madam Luo and Mammy Tang asked at the same time.
“Oh, I think it’s a pity for Master Tai Chen.” He Danggui tilted her head, “What a nice person she is! What a superb pharmaceutical skill she has! It’s a pity that she has been taken away by the government. Those people said that she made Xingyang Powder and Jinfeng Yulu Powder secretly. Grandma, what kind of medicines are those?” He Danggui asked curiously.
The faces of Madam Luo and Mammy Tang changed from the pink of excitement to dull black, then to light green. At last, both of them hurriedly pushed away the small wooden box which still contained three pills, and they shook their hands in disgust, as if they were stained with something dirty. “Throw it away! Quickly!” Madam Luo cried. However, she didn’t realize that with the stimulation of drug efficacy, verbal communication, and mood gap, she was much better now. But a few minutes ago, she was still sick and leaned against Mammy Tang.
As He Danggui was about to speak, Miss Ji, who got off to check the situation, hurriedly came back and said, “There is no herbal medicine shop in this street, but only a small Li’s Inn. In addition, because our horses were out of control just now, many passers-by and vendors in the street were frightened and suffered losses. In my opinion, since Madam Luo and Mammy Tang feel very uncomfortable, let’s stay at the inn first, and then I’ll compensate for losses of the vendors one by one...”
“No, Madam is fine now.” Mammy Tang interrupted her, “Ji, you stay here to deal with the compensation. Later, you can take the gharry of Third Miss behind us to leave. We’ll go home for treatment first.”
“What?” Miss Ji gazed at Madam Luo and found that Madam Luo had recovered the vitality. She stared at a wooden box on the small desk straightly. And then Miss Ji nodded and said, “Oh.” She was very puzzled, but the vendors on the other side of the street were making noise. At present, she had no time to ask. Then she took the money bag from Mammy Tang and got off.
Mammy Tang instructed loudly, “Gui Banjiao, let’s set off. We must hurry home.”
Gui Banjiao stared at the horses bitterly and cried, “Madam, there is something wrong! There is something wrong! The hooves of our horses won’t move. What should we do, Mammy Tang?”
“Bah! Bah! Bah!” Mammy Tang said angrily, “Madam is just fine. How dare you say that there is something wrong with her! It’s your profession to train horses and drive them. It’s no use talking to us!” Then she took out a string of 1,000 qian from her pouch and threw it to Gui Banjiao. “Go and see if they want to eat something on the side of the road. Buy it for them quickly. We’ll continue on our way!”
Gui Banjiao took the copper cash, but he still looked bitter. He pointed to the three horses in front of the gharry and said, “You didn’t understand my words, Mammy Tang. It’s not that our horses ‘don’t want’ to leave, but they ‘can’t’. They are fixed on the ground just like stone stakes!”
Mammy Tang was about to scold him for talking nonsense, but she found that the three horses stood motionlessly as he said. More accurately, their lower bodies were motionless, but their upper bodies were frantically struggling back and forth, as if their four hooves had been grasped by the invisible hands which stretched out from the ground. When Mammy Tang saw this scene, she could only describe it with the word “strange”. She was shocked, “Is there a ghost blocking us?”
He Danggui could not conceal a snort of laughter, and her veil was blown, “How could it be?”
A snort of laughter sounded out of the gharry at the same time, “How could it be?” Not only were the words exactly the same as that of He Danggui, but also they spoke at exactly the same time, so the two voices overlapped coincidentally.
He Danggui frowned and looked at the person who laughed. He was the man who had just shouted the menservants down. They didn’t come face to face just now, so when she heard his mature voice, she thought he was a middle-aged man. Now she found that he had bright eyes and a smile on his face. Actually, he was a youth about 17 years old. Then she took a closer look at his dress. He wore a blue Tang-style cap and a bright blue robe embroidered with silver threads. The lapel in the front of the robe was erect like a cape collar. And he wore the double silver-gray tassels around his waist and a pair of boots embroidered with a flying phoenix with silver threads. From his accent, He Danggui guessed that he might be a Childe of a noble family in Yangzhou City.
When she looked at him, he also looked at her from top to toe, with a flash of interest in his eyes. Then he immediately turned to Madam Luo and said with a smile, “It’s my fault to frighten you, Madam Luo. I didn’t know that you were sitting in the gharry just now. I’m so sorry that my menservants said unkind words to you. As for these three horses, I controlled them by a little means because I feel that their behavior was abnormal.”
Madam Luo was a little familiar with the handsome boy in front of her. After listening to his words and from his tone, she recognized that he knew her clearly. She thought for a moment and then asked, “Are you Yang, the Childe of Feng’s Family in the South of Yangzhou City? Are you the nephew of Jiu Gu (whose full name was Feng Jiugu)?” At first, she was only a little familiar with him. But when she recognized him, she found that he had exactly the same eyebrows as the boy that Feng Jiugu had showed to her, and he also had two deep dimples when he smiled.
“I didn’t expect that you should remember me, Madam Luo.” The Childe smiled and bowed, “Feng Yang salutes to you, Madam Luo. May good fortune be with you.”
Madam Luo was surprised to see the Childe in front of her. She narrowed her eyes and said with a smile, “You are really Yang. Your aunt often mentions you. She said that this year, people of Feng’s Family told her that you have come back from the north, and you have grown up and become competent. You’re really a big boy now!”
Although Feng’s Family was also a big and influential family in Yangzhou City, it was different from the aristocratic families such as Luo’s Family, Guan’s Family and Sun’s Family. Feng’s Family and Luo’s Family didn’t have much interaction with each other. If Feng Jiugu didn’t live in Luo’s Family, Madam Luo would never meet Feng Yang, a boy of the younger generation.
No one in Feng’s Family was the official in Imperial Court. They started by shipping three generations ago. Their ancestors had about 4 small freighters to do cargo business on the Grand Canal. In the early years, they killed several Mongolian soldiers and joined the rebel army to escape the arrest of the government. However, they joined the Han Army of Chen Youliang. After a few years, they left after finding that the situation was bad. Then they went back to the Grand Canal to develop shipping business. Now Feng’s Family was a new aristocrat in the south with great wealth, which had two branches, Feng’s Family in the capital and that in Yangzhou City.
Feng’s Family in the capital no longer only focused on shipping. As early as 20 years ago, they opened a “Lu Feng Escort” with Lu’s Family in the capital. The reputation of Lu Feng Escort was good. There had not been a case of missing or destroying the goods more than a decade. Now it had developed to nearly 100 branches, becoming the first escort in the Ming Dynasty. Feng’s Family in Yangzhou City was still doing business on waterways. But Feng Yilian, the leader of Feng’s Family in Yangzhou City, liked to make friends with the people who brandished spears and sticks in Jianghu. Later, he gradually gathered a group of such people and established a sect called “Caobang Organization” in Jianghu. In recent years, Caobang Organization had grown rapidly and was implicitly stronger than the Beggars’ Organization which was spread all over the country.
In the Ming Dynasty, the sects in Jianghu were divided into black and white sects. The black sects could do anything to make money, for example, robbing, opening casinos, smuggling salt and iron, trafficking in human beings, even special intelligence trading and espionage assassination trading. As long as the employer could know the specific situation of that sect, he could talk to them if he wanted to do any secret things. The life of many famous people had been marked prices clearly, which was especially convenient for officials who were rich and eager to let their political enemies disappear.
The white sects were operated in two forms. One was that people of the sect retired from the world and the other was that the people worked in the society. The former focused on self-cultivation. They often built schools in famous mountains and rivers and had little contact with the outside world, such as Shaolin Temple of Mount Song, Wudang Sect of Mount Taihe, Daguomen Sect of Wuyi Mountain, Hongmen Sect of Dali, etc. The latter had no big differences from the common commercial firms or escort agencies except for opening martial arts schools to teach apprentices and organizing competitions. Because many sects had a certain popularity, when they started a business, they could scare off the gangsters.
Caobang Organization was one of the most popular commercial firms in recent years. With the strong support of unimpeded waterway transportation, Feng’s Family had achieved great success in business all over the country, covering all aspects of the common people’s food, clothing, shelter and transportation. Although Feng’s Family was not like Luo’s Family and Guan’s Family which did business with the royals, it could not be denied that the financial resources and power of the new aristocrat, Feng’s Family, was over 10 times larger than Luo’s Family, the “old aristocrat”.
Although they all lived in Yangzhou City, Luo’s Family only dealt in the trade of medicinal materials of the Imperial Palace, so it did not interfere with Feng’s Family. They just had a friendly and alienated relationship. Even if the masters of Luo’s Family in the sedan met those of Feng’s Family on the street, they would just nod, smile and then pass by. They had nothing to do with each other for a decade in Yangzhou City.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel