Chapter 354 - The Foshan Journey (Part 7)

She opened the cloth wrapping, and inside was indeed an Embroidered Spring Saber—a miniature one, apparently custom-made for her. "Pretty, isn't it? What a pity I don't have a small-size Flying Fish Robe to go with it. Wearing a Flying Fish Robe with this saber at my waist, standing duty before His Majesty—that would be glorious!"

Huang Tianyu shook his head. This girl was some kind of uniform fetishist?

"I've heard His Majesty is a handsome and refined man..." Li Yongxun began daydreaming, her eyes growing misty. "If only I could stand duty before him, even just once. That would be worth dying for."

"And then he'd notice you and select you for the palace..." Huang Tianyu recalled Ming-fangirls he'd encountered before—quite a few had fantasized about becoming palace maids, attendants, or concubines to Chongzhen. Apparently such fangirls existed everywhere.

"If His Majesty were to take a fancy to me, naturally as a subject I would comply," Li Yongxun said dreamily. "But I'd be satisfied just standing duty before him."

Seeing her lovestruck expression, Huang Tianyu found it both amusing and endearing. He could only chuckle awkwardly.

They ordered a boat bound for Foshan and had all the luggage moved aboard.

Yang Shixiang had spent the night at a familiar establishment and returned just past midnight. When they set out this morning and he discovered that the singing girl Qianqian from yesterday had suddenly changed clothes and joined their party, he assumed Doctor Liu had been moved by lust and taken her in. Liu San didn't bother explaining, simply saying Qianqian was going to Foshan to visit relatives and they were doing a good deed by escorting her. Yang Shixiang even warned Liu San about picking up women of unknown origins, lest he fall victim to the "pigeon scam." Liu San smiled wryly and promised he'd be careful—"I don't want to bring her either!"

Throughout the journey, Liu San instructed Gao Di to keep a close eye on Li Yongxun and watch for any mischief. Once aboard, Li Yongxun remained well-behaved and caused no trouble. She spent all her time in the cabin pestering Huang Tianyu to tell her about the world's wonders. Huang Tianyu, a former military enthusiast and shut-in, had no worldly tales to tell. He could only spin stories from travel forums he'd browsed in his netizen days, weaving wild tales to entertain her.

Through their conversations, he also learned something about the girl. She was an only child, her mother had died early, and she'd been raised by her father alone. This "elopement to resist marriage" was also her way of protesting her father's failure to consult her. But to Huang Tianyu's eyes, she showed none of the grim determination of someone defying an arranged marriage. It seemed more like she'd found an excuse to go traveling for fun.

After running away from home, Li Yongxun had headed straight south for Guangzhou. Since she had a distant relative in Foshan, that provided a fallback if things got desperate. Besides, she'd heard Guangzhou had many novel and amusing things. Along the way she'd encountered several dangerous situations, but her badge—borrowed from one of her father's colleagues—had always gotten her through. Having grown up exposed to her father's work, she knew something of tracking, concealment, and various underworld tricks. Ordinary street hustlers were no match for her.

"Uncle, what's this thing made from?" Li Yongxun still couldn't forget the tomato sauce. At every meal she forced Huang Tianyu to produce the bottle, and his carefully hoarded ketchup—originally meant for spreading on steamed buns—ended up mixed into her rice. She even invented tomato sauce congee, tomato sauce pickles... Eventually she just grabbed a spoon and ate it straight. Half the bottle was consumed this way. Huang Tianyu had never seen anyone this fond of ketchup.

"It's tomato ketchup. Made from a fruit called tomato."

"Tomato? Grown in Guangzhou, I suppose."

Huang Tianyu gave a vague reply. He didn't want to mention Lingao to this girl, lest it slip out and she demand to go there too.

"Probably brought in from some foreign place," he said.

"Uncle, give me this ketchup, won't you?" The girl was utterly shameless. Twenty-eight-year-old Huang Tianyu had never had such a cute girl hang on him, calling him "uncle" so sweetly. He agreed immediately.

Liu San, learning of this, demanded she trade her "Supreme Bliss Powder" in exchange—the stuff had nerve-numbing properties and might serve as reference for the Health Department to develop plant-based anesthetics.

Apart from this ketchup-for-powder exchange, the journey passed without incident. On the morning of the third day, the boat arrived at Foshan pier. The group disembarked.

Yang Shixiang was familiar with the area, so he first led the servants and luggage to find lodging. Liu San's party had developed a profound appreciation for the inconveniences of ancient travel. Though it was barely past ten in the morning—normally prime business hours when one could handle affairs and book a room later, since reservations were available everywhere in modern times—in this era, if you didn't secure lodging quickly, you might find no rooms by evening.

Huang Tianyu hired two sedan chairs to send Li Yongxun off. This time she made no fuss, directing them to the address. When they arrived, it appeared to be a respectable household. Li Yongxun called for someone at the gate to deliver a message, and shortly several maids emerged to escort her inside. Huang Tianyu was also welcomed into the reception hall for tea.

A man who appeared to be the household steward came out to make pleasantries, inquiring about the journey's circumstances. Huang Tianyu gave the pre-agreed story: a chance meeting on the road, concern for her traveling alone as a young woman, thus the escort.

The steward expressed his thanks and asked where they were staying, then saw them out.

Huang Tianyu had barely returned to the inn when someone arrived bearing six gift boxes. They came from that very household. Yang Shixiang seemed quite pleased.

"That family certainly knows proper etiquette." He picked up the accompanying card. "There's also an invitation—apparently they value this young lady highly and want to host us for a meal."

The card was on plum-red paper, signed "Lin Ming offers respects." Judging from the name, it was probably an ordinary merchant household. Scholars wouldn't give such a simple name, Liu San surmised.

"I'd rather not go to dinner—let's decline," Huang Tianyu said, unwilling to waste time on socializing. He was eager to begin his investigation of Foshan's handicraft industries.

"They've sent an invitation," Liu San said. "We should at least observe the courtesies. Besides, we'll need to come and go from Foshan frequently in the future. Having an acquaintance here would be helpful."

Yang Shixiang agreed heartily. The banquet was for the next day. Since they'd found lodging smoothly and it was only just past noon with time to spare, they decided Liu San and Yang Shixiang would first pay a visit to this trip's primary objective: Yang Runkai Hall. Negotiations for cooperation weren't likely to succeed on the first try—best to get started early.

They prepared four gift boxes from items brought from Lingao—mostly local products—and hired two sedan chairs to convey them to the pharmacy.

Foshan Town, together with Hankou in Hubei, Jingdezhen in Jiangxi, and Zhuxian in Henan, was called one of the "Four Great Towns." Its commercial prosperity during the Ming and Qing dynasties rivaled even Guangzhou. The local porcelain and silk were major exports, and industry and commerce flourished tremendously. Guildhalls from all eighteen provinces were established here—truly a crossroads of the realm.

Liu San's party had been walking through the streets for over half an hour when they spotted an archway ahead. A strong medicinal scent reached their nostrils—they must be arriving.

The sedan chairs stopped. Gao Di came to lift the curtain, and Liu San stepped out. The pharmacy before him was impressive! He'd been to the original Beijing Tongrentang location, but even that was slightly inferior to this.

The storefront was seven bays wide, all two stories tall. The center bay served as the main entrance, while the other six housed warehouses. Drugs were stored upstairs and downstairs, and the smell was intense.

Yang Shixiang led him through the main gate into the front courtyard. The flagstone-paved yard was crowded with sedan chairs, carriages, sedan bearers, drivers, and attendants waiting about—bustling like a marketplace. In the center of the courtyard, two mat-roofed pavilions had been set up on either side of the pathway. Inside sat various pots and vessels, with people queuing. Apparently they were serving tea and drinks.

But then a rank, musky smell reached his nostrils. On the west side of the courtyard—partitioned off by stone barriers—was a deer pen housing several sika deer. Since it was already early summer and quite hot, the deer lay listlessly beneath an awning. Still, this attracted many onlookers.

This customer-attraction gimmick was something Liu San had only read about in books. He couldn't help studying it more closely.

"Yang Runkai Hall's Whole Deer Pills and deer antler are famous," Yang Shixiang said. "Our ancestors built our fortune on these."

Whole Deer Pills supplemented the kidneys and essence, nourished vital energy and cultivated the foundation—a major tonic. In a commercially prosperous place like Foshan, wealthy people congregated. Naturally there were many who had "the ailment of kings." No wonder the Yang family had grown rich on this.

"My family originally lived in Liaodong in the drug trade. It wasn't until my great-great-grandfather's generation that we moved to Foshan. That's how we came to have this craft," Yang Shixiang explained his family history. "Originally there were several family friends still there, but after affairs in Liaodong deteriorated, they all probably perished. Alas!"

So the Yang family had originally come from Liaodong—this surprised Liu San considerably.

"Why didn't Runshitang make these pills?"

"Who would buy them in a place like Lingao?"

"Your Lingao might not have buyers, but Qiongshan certainly does, and Leizhou and Lianzhou have buyers too. With this formula in your hands, there's actually great potential."

"'Whole Deer,'" Yang Shixiang said. "Such things aren't easy to obtain. They must be live deer, kept until autumn when the medicine is compounded, then slaughtered. Someone must tend them daily. My father thought about it too, but buying and raising deer is so expensive that a small shop like ours couldn't sustain it."

They ascended the stone steps. Above the main hall hung a black plaque with vermillion characters proclaiming the shop name: "Yang Runkai Hall—De Branch." Below it, two more hanging plaques with gold characters on black background read "Authentic Medicinals" and "Traditional Preparation Methods." The rear wall on both sides was lined with honeycomb-style herb cabinets and drawers, their lacquer polished to a glossy black. The shop counter ran horizontally across the center of the hall. Above the cabinets were additional carved decorative shelves displaying blue-and-white porcelain jars containing pills, powders, ointments, elixirs, and medicinal wines. Above these hung various seated plaques with inscriptions like "Efficacious as an Echo," "Scouring Mountains and Seas," and "Sage of the Marketplace"... The décor was extremely lavish and elegant—a world apart from Yang Shixiang's Runshitang. Even in modern times, no Chinese medicine shop came close to this grandeur. Liu San couldn't help but marvel.