Chapter 65 — The Medicine Peddler

CHAPTER 65

The Medicine Peddler

Shi Feng’s first customer wanted proof, a discount and credit.

Tao Laifu stood before the little board that served as a counter, turning an ointment jar in hands cracked white by lime. He inspected the lid, the bottom and the line of quantity on the side. Now he seemed to be searching for a fourth direction from which the price might improve.

“Two spirit stones?” Tao Laifu said softly. “That’s... a lot, young master.”

Shi Feng pointed to the marked line.

“For that much,” Shi Feng said calmly.

“The... the stall across the lane has a bigger jar,” Tao Laifu mumbled.

“Then compare what’s inside,” Shi Feng said.

Tao Laifu looked across the lane. The rival jar was certainly bigger. So was the amount of water sloshing under its badly fitted lid.

“Come over here, brother!” Hu Kang, the fat seller at that stall, shouted. “Bigger jar, lower price!”

Tao Laifu shuffled his feet. Then he put Shi Feng’s jar down, went red, and held out his hands.

“Will it mend these?” Tao Laifu asked.

Shi Feng studied the deep cracks without drawing qi or putting on any airs as a healer. Lime dust lay in the creases. One split was torn open again and again by lifting rough sacks.

“It’ll help the cracks close,” Shi Feng said. “Wash off the lime first and use a thin layer. Cover the worst split while you work, or the medicine will spend all its strength fighting the sack.”

“Will one jar last the season?” Tao Laifu asked.

“Not if you put it on your whole family,” Shi Feng said.

Tao Laifu nodded and looked at his hands. He seemed to have hoped for more.

A passer-by paused behind him and leaned over the jars. Shi Feng told him plainly that the other pot was a common wound wash. It couldn’t cure ruined meridians, it couldn’t grow back a limb, and no secret blessing came with it just because the buyer looked rich.

The passer-by laughed at such foolish honesty and walked on.

Tao Laifu watched the man go and leaned closer.

“Business is slow, young master,” Tao Laifu whispered. “Maybe... a little cheaper?”

“The first sale buys the next ingredients,” Shi Feng said.

They went back and forth until the market bell rang. In that time Shi Feng could have mixed another small batch. He thought of charging for the conversation, then decided the world already held enough men like Ma Zheng.

At last Tao Laifu counted out the stones with careful fingers. Then, very shyly, he asked for a spoon.

Shi Feng handed him a clean wooden sliver for spreading the ointment. Tao Laifu’s eyes slid to the full spoon lying beside the open sample jar.

“That one is better,” Tao Laifu said quietly.

“That one belongs to the stall,” Shi Feng said.

Tao Laifu bowed twice and left with his jar and his instructions.

“One jar since dawn!” Hu Kang crowed across the lane. “You’ll be selling your board for firewood by the new moon!”

“One jar, honestly sold,” Shi Feng said without raising his voice. “How many of yours came back to be returned?”

Hu Kang’s face went purple and his mouth shut with a snap. Shi Feng thought coolly: a man who waters his ointment fears only one thing, and that’s a customer who can read a line on a jar.

Across the lane, beneath a silk-shop awning, Ling Qingzhu lowered her eyes. Her veil hid her smile.

She didn’t come to watch him. She came to choose cloth for a new lining, and instead she found her husband seriously explaining cracked hands like a physician of thirty years. Ling Qingzhu was startled. She didn’t know he could speak so smoothly to strangers! Yesterday the dead swordsman’s notes were a pile of paper. Today they were a profession.

And the argument over the spoon! Her husband finally met a customer meaner than himself!

Ling Qingzhu’s heart gave a small, unwilling jump at the sight of him patiently wrapping the jar, and she was annoyed with herself. Her expression stayed perfectly composed. She bought her cloth and left before he could look up.

Shi Feng wrote down the sale. Two stones received. Ingredients, vessel, fuel and stall fee came off, and the margin that remained was small but real.

I made something useful, he thought, and a stranger paid for it without being lied to. This was a different kind of victory from a fight, and a cleaner one. That pleased him more than the stranger’s haggling annoyed him.

By late afternoon the other jars were still unsold. He wrapped each one, checked the lids and carried the board home under his arm. Ling Qingzhu sat beneath the pear tree, sewing with a concentration that suggested the needle personally offended her.

“So? How many did the great physician sell?” Ling Qingzhu asked, without looking up.

“One sale,” Shi Feng said.

“One,” Ling Qingzhu said, pulling her thread tight. “One whole jar. Should I light incense?”

Shi Feng put the jars in the shade and gave her a long look.

“Were you buying cloth, or counting my customers?” Shi Feng asked.

“I was choosing cloth,” Ling Qingzhu said, much too fast. “The silk shop is on that street. Streets are public.” She bent over her sewing, and her ears turned red.

Shi Feng went to cook supper. He didn’t mind her amusement. It only meant she was watching, and that was something. One real customer was worth more than a hundred imaginary admirers, he decided, even when one admirer was a beautiful wife who found his little board entertaining.

That night, once Ling Qingzhu’s breathing on the bed slowed into sleep, he slipped into the kitchen. He practised a short extraction beside his furnace, with Granny Qin’s brazier smoke drifting through the window. It failed when his qi thinned at the joining stage. He noted the point, swallowed the residue and washed the vessel.

The street business must pay for practice before practice could pay for a pill business. He wouldn’t mix up the two stages just because the knowledge in his head went so far beyond them.

Three mornings later, Tao Laifu came back.

Shi Feng saw him coming and reached beneath the board for the same ointment. The man held out both hands before he said a word.

The deep cracks were closing.

“Two jars,” Tao Laifu said, and bowed.

Shi Feng looked at the hands again. The cloth over the worst split was clean and freshly changed. He had followed the advice exactly.

“The same preparation?” Shi Feng asked.

Tao Laifu lowered his voice. “One is for my wife’s elbows,” Tao Laifu said.

“Cracked from work?” Shi Feng asked.

“Mostly,” Tao Laifu said.

Shi Feng explained the smaller amount she should use and wrote it on the second lid. Tao Laifu paid at once. His expression was almost respectful.

“Young master,” Tao Laifu added, almost shyly, “the men at the lime yard are asking where I got my hands back.”

“Tell them the board is by the silk shop,” Shi Feng said.

Tao Laifu nodded. Then, very shyly, he asked whether two jars earned him the spoon.

They didn’t.

From the silk-shop awning, Ling Qingzhu watched the familiar customer leave with both jars. A returning buyer was more convincing than a first one.

She wondered what it would cost to hire one.

The next buyer asked for medicine for an old limp. Shi Feng examined the description, then shook his head. The salve could help cracked skin; it could not repair a badly healed bone.

He directed the man to a physician and watched a possible sale walk away. Tao Laifu, waiting beside the awning, nodded to himself. When he returned to the lime yard, he repeated that refusal along with the story of his closing wounds.

Shi Feng learned about it when two more labourers came looking for the same small jars—while across the lane, a clerk wearing the green lapel of Zhou’s Medicine House stood beneath the tea awning, quietly copying down every price on Shi Feng’s board.