Xie Yan went to ask Li Feng about ginseng.
“I heard you have ginseng?”
Li Feng hadn’t dug it up yet. Last time it came up, Lu Yang hadn’t said he wanted any either.
“I want two roots,” Xie Yan said. “When you go dig them, keep the ones with the best age. I’ll pay market price.”
One tael of ginseng cost eighty or ninety taels of silver—he said it with real confidence.
Li Feng looked at him. “You strike it rich or something?”
In truth, Xie Yan could only really afford one. One was enough to make more restorative pills for Lu Yang. After taking those for a while, there’d be no need for something as strong as ginseng anymore.
The other root was something he was asking on Wu Pingzhi’s behalf. He figured Wu Pingzhi might buy two—one to use right away for medicine or soup for his father, and another to keep in reserve.
“Don’t worry, I won’t stiff you. Selling to us is the same,” Xie Yan said.
Li Feng didn’t even know Lu Yang’s prescription included ginseng. The stuff was dug straight out of the mountains anyway—giving one away wouldn’t hurt.
He said he’d give it. Xie Yan refused, insisting on paying silver, looking downright smug.
“This isn’t me begging you anymore. I make money now. I can afford it.”
That smug look immediately irritated Li Feng.
“What are you so pleased about?” Li Feng snapped. “You make a few taels and start spending wildly?”
Xie Yan hadn’t even received his profit share yet, but the deposit alone was two hundred taels—more than enough to buy ginseng.
He lifted his chin at Li Feng, glanced at cart after cart of goods, and asked, “So, I make more money than you, right?”
By that logic, yes.
But scholars had heavy upfront costs. For over a decade, it was all money poured in—no income at all, just losses. Now that he was finally earning something, it meant all that earlier investment had paid off.
Li Feng looked at his scholar’s head and asked curiously, “Do other scholars make money?”
Xie Yan shook his head. “Ever heard the phrase ‘poor scholar’? Most of them are poor. Brushes and ink can be skimped on a bit, but paper can’t. Good handwriting takes practice, homework has to be written. If you study, you have to buy books and read them. Books are expensive. I save money because I have a good memory. A typical student spends fifteen to twenty taels a year. Even if you’re frugal, it’s still around twelve. Any less, and you can’t read enough books or write enough essays—you’re just wasting time. Better to find another livelihood.”
All the scholars Li Feng had met were indeed poor. These days, marrying a scholar wasn’t fashionable anymore.
Back then it sounded glorious—being called a scholar’s wife or husband made people beam with pride. But how life really was, bitter or sweet, they knew themselves, and others could see it too.
Supporting one scholar could drain an entire family.
Xie Yan had made it through. That was a good thing.
Li Feng changed the subject and asked Xie Yan to teach him a few more characters.
They couldn’t grind ink or lay out paper on the road, so Li Feng snapped off a couple of good branches and used them to trace characters on the ground.
Learning characters had to be slow and steady; Li Feng picked selectively. While traveling, he also had Xie Yan recite poetry and talk about scholarship. He listened, memorizing a few grand-sounding, pleasant characters to use later when naming children.
Teaching him to recognize characters—Xie Yan did that. That was fine.
Reciting poetry and lecturing on learning—Xie Yan refused.
“You’re not my husband. Asking for this much—dream on.”
That comeback was solid. Wang Meng and the others burst out laughing.
Li Feng asked him, “You still want that ginseng or not?”
Xie Yan: ?
“Didn’t you already agree to sell it to me?”
Li Feng said, “I’ll sell you one, since we’re relatives. If you want more, you’ve got to work for it. If I tell you to recite poetry, you recite poetry. Tea and water are on me—go on, recite.”
Xie Yan: “……”
He thought about letting Wu Pingzhi do the labor exchange, since the extra ginseng was for him anyway.
But they were friends, and between friends he didn’t want to haggle.
Facing Li Feng, he couldn’t really recite love poems anyway, so he chose verses about mountains and rivers—big, sweeping themes that suited Li Feng’s taste.
A hunter’s brain didn’t memorize books. Xie Yan slacked off on the road, repeating some poems without realizing it. Li Feng didn’t notice at all, which earned him a good round of teasing from Xie Yan.
This trip didn’t involve much cargo, and it was familiar terrain. The rain came and went—no endless downpours. It took six days to reach the prefectural city.
Once there, they found an inn.
Li Feng didn’t listen to Lu Liu and still chose the communal bunk room.
They’d all been driving carts, and even the mules cost money to stable. If they could save, they would.
Li Feng left Wang Meng and the others at the inn to rest, while he escorted Xie Yan to the prefectural academy.
Xie Yan had a young page with him, but even so, with Li Feng helping carry luggage, it was easier for both of them.
They memorized the route from there to the academy.
“We’ll be staying in the prefectural city for ten days,” Li Feng said. “If you need anything during that time, come find us. If you don’t see anyone, leave a message with the innkeeper. Once I hear, I’ll come find you.”
Xie Yan took note. Hearing that Li Feng and the others would only be there for ten days, he realized he wouldn’t be able to go home for the Mid-Autumn Festival, and he sighed softly.
After walking a few more streets, he noticed how familiar Li Feng was with the roads and gave him a sideways look.
“You’ve only been to the prefectural city once, right?”
Li Feng had spent several days wandering around on his last visit and had memorized everything worth remembering.
Judging by how things sold last time, the small amount of goods he’d brought this time wouldn’t even take ten days to sell.
He planned to have the brothers hang around the docks for a while, find work hauling cargo. By squatting at the docks day after day and chatting with the dockworkers, they could get a deeper sense of the local power structure.
Right now, they had no backing and no roots. Asking around recklessly would only get them into trouble. Hauling cargo was exhausting, but they weren’t afraid—they had plenty of strength.
When people chatted, names always came up—this boss, that lord. You’d hear who couldn’t be offended, who had feuds, who had old grudges, which families were enemies. That was usually enough.
A city wasn’t that big. The most chaotic place was the docks. The local toughs in the city were tied to the docks, or were part of the same groups. They just hadn’t matched faces to names yet.
Since they’d be doing business at the docks regularly in the future, Li Feng wanted to start there. Making connections inside the city was too hard—they didn’t even have a foothold.
Seeing how planned and thoughtful Li Feng was—selling goods but also cultivating connections—Xie Yan glanced back at the others. Everyone was working hard. There was life beyond romance. That realization made him feel even more settled.
He said to Li Feng, “If you run into any trouble, you can also come find me at the academy.”
He didn’t have much of a network in the prefectural city yet, but he could ask at Wu Pingzhi’s household. Their family had shops in the city and knew people. He wouldn’t promise major help, but at least they could pass along information, so Li Feng wouldn’t be stumbling around blind.
At the academy gates, Li Feng didn’t walk him any farther. Xie Yan went in with his page.
After the examinations, Xie Yan had formally requested leave from the academy. He had a student token and an official letter approving his leave, signed by the academic commissioner. After the gate attendant checked them, he led Xie Yan inside, had him rest briefly in the tea room, and soon a teaching officer arrived to take him to the dormitory. On the way, they discussed scholarship, the officer lightly probing Xie Yan’s level.
It hadn’t been long since the exams, and the provincial exam was coming up. The officer assumed Xie Yan wouldn’t dare slack off. Given his ranking, he was placed in Class A.
The Class A dorms were better—two people per room.
The page’s living conditions were much worse. Pages usually slept on bedding laid out under the bed.
After seeing it, Xie Yan felt that wouldn’t do.
It was fine for now—he did need help at the beginning.
In a few days, he’d send the page back to the inn to find Li Feng and return to the county with them.
But the page had received strict orders from Wu Pingzhi: no matter what, he was to return home with Xie Yan.
It was hot anyway; sleeping on the floor wasn’t a big deal.
His reasoning was blunt and wild. “My young master said that if I stay here watching over you, and something happens to you, at least I can go home and report it.”
Xie Yan: “……”
He’d scold him properly once they got home.
Meanwhile, Li Feng returned to the inn and realized they still needed to rent a private room—bathing would be easier that way.
He decided that the five brothers would take turns. Ten days total—each person got the room for two days.
After bathing and changing into clean clothes, he selected a variety of mushrooms and went to Denggao Tower to see Boss Yu, asking if he wanted any goods.
Boss Yu had an agreement with Lu Yang—three to five hundred jin per year. Last time they’d delivered three hundred; two hundred were still outstanding. With the rainy season arriving, it was peak season for wild mushrooms, with countless varieties. Li Feng wanted to see if Boss Yu was interested in expanding the menu.
