Chapter 21: Kid, go get the medicine!

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“So he’s not the medicine boy after all! Oh dear! Doctor Wei, you must be very careful and double-check everything. Don’t let him mess up the dosage! Medicine isn’t like ordinary vegetables—you can’t just add a little more or less carelessly.”

The patient finally realized the situation and broke out in a cold sweat.

Wei Yuanzhi was stunned as well. He hadn’t expected this child to be so audacious as to touch the medicine cabinet at will.

“Rest assured! Every herb sold at my Rejuvenation Hall is guaranteed in quality and quantity. Within a hundred miles around, our reputation is impeccable. There won’t be the slightest error!”

After calming the patient, he hurriedly picked up the steelyard scale and personally reweighed the herbs that Lu Shijiu had measured. As he worked, he silently thanked his timely discovery—if Lu Shijiu had mixed all the herbs together, it would have been a huge problem.

One by one he weighed them, and finally his old eyes widened in surprise. “This… this is exactly right, down to the last bit!”

Everyone’s expression toward Lu Shijiu changed immediately.

“Have you ever learned to use a steelyard scale before?” Wei Yuanzhi asked her.

Lu Shijiu shook her head. “I just watched this young man weighing the herbs and figured it out myself.”

The medicine boy standing nearby almost spat blood in frustration. He had been carefully weighing herbs with great caution, practicing for over half a month to steady his hands. Yet this unknown child just watched a few times and learned immediately.

This time Wei Yuanzhi was silent even longer.

“Hey, kid, why don’t you help me pick the herbs for this prescription?” A young man who had been watching the commotion handed the prescription to Lu Shijiu with a smile.

Wei Yuanzhi’s eyebrows twitched. “Wait!” He returned to the desk, took up a brush, and quickly wrote out a list. After blowing lightly on it, he handed it to the medicine boy.

“You pick the Baiji herb as well. Let’s see which of you two can be faster and more accurate.”

“Master?” Baiji looked at him hesitantly.

“No worries. I just want to see what kind of skills this child really has!” Wei Yuanzhi stroked his beard reassuringly.

“Come on, come on! I want to see too!” The young man urged eagerly.

The patients waiting behind leaned forward with their necks stretched out. “Hurry up and compete! We want to watch too!”

Baiji saw his master nodding his head and had no choice but to take another set of steelyard scales and a stack of cut oil paper from under the cabinet, placing them in front of him.

He stood, while Lu Shijiu, being a bit short, had to stand on a stool to reach the counter, so there was a stool on her side.

At Wei Zhiyuan’s signal, Lu Shijiu picked up the steelyard scale and began fetching herbs from the drawers, then climbed onto the stool to pour them onto the prepared oil paper.

“Hey, that child doesn’t even look at the prescription?”

Someone immediately noticed the oddity.

“She doesn’t even look at the cabinet, always goes straight to the target.”

“Didn’t you notice how nimble her movements are?”

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“Although she has to climb the stool, her speed is not slow at all.”

“I just don’t know if her speed compromises accuracy in measuring the doses.”

Everyone was murmuring. Passersby, seeing the lively scene at the Rejuvenation Hall, also gathered around to watch the spectacle.

Before long, Lu Shijiu had gathered all the herbs on the prescription. Baiji was still weighing; he hadn’t picked five more herbs yet.

“Wow, that speed!”

Everyone was stunned. Previously, at other clinics, the medicine boys picked herbs at a more leisurely pace, and no one thought much of it. But now, in comparison, they felt the old medicine boys had been too slow.

“If every pharmacy had someone like this, we’d save so much time waiting for medicine.”

“Exactly! All that repeated checking of herb names, counting drawers, weighing again and again… it just wastes time!”

“Don’t be so quick to judge. Fast doesn’t necessarily mean accurate. Anyone in this trade knows that after placing something on the scale, you need to wait a bit. Look at how quickly that child works.” Some voiced a different opinion.

“Maybe the kid is just a prodigy?”

“Doctor Wei, hurry and check the herbs she picked. See if the quantities are accurate.”

Those who came to watch were dying to know. No one wanted to see the slow, methodical medicine boys anymore. They wanted to see the results from the super-fast child.

Wei Zhiyuan’s face darkened several shades. This morning, his Rejuvenation Hall had been as noisy as a teahouse; this afternoon, it had turned into a theater.

At some unknown moment, a dense crowd had gathered at the entrance.

“Doctor Wei, stop dithering. How about I help you verify the results?” An old man with white beard and eyebrows smiled at him from the doorway.

“That’s Old Doctor Zheng from Ancient Life Hall.”

Zheng Zhongyuan stroked his beard and nodded. “Come to see the novelty!”

The crowd grew even more excited.

“Clear out, clear out! This isn’t a theater!” Wei Zhiyuan said grimly as he tried to disperse them.

“Doctor Wei, don’t chase us away! Hurry up and check, I’m dying to know!”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s unfair to only show us half the fun. This in-between state is keeping me up at night!”

Seeing that he couldn’t chase them off, Wei Zhiyuan picked up the steelyard scale Lu Shijiu had used and began checking the herbs she had chosen.

“Well? Well? Is the dosage accurate?”

Almost as soon as he put down the scale, the crowd eagerly asked.

Zheng Zhongyuan looked at Wei Yuanzhi’s expression and guessed what was going on, but he still wanted to verify for himself.

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Ignoring protocol, while Wei Zhiyuan was momentarily distracted, Zheng Zhongyuan grabbed the scale and began double-checking herb by herb.

“My ancestor Hua Tuo! It’s exactly right down to the last bit!”

With his exclamation, the crowd immediately erupted in excitement!

“Truly a prodigy among us!”

“My goodness! I’ve only heard of prodigies on stage before, never thought I’d see a real one in my lifetime!”

Among the crowd’s amazed murmurs, Wei Zhiyuan looked at Lu Shijiu with mixed feelings.

Baiji was even more dumbfounded. How could such a person exist in this world?

“The excitement is over. Everyone, please disperse!” Wei Zhiyuan snapped back to reality and hurriedly tried to send everyone away.

The crowd was reluctant to leave.

“Don’t chase us off! I want to pick medicine here too!”

Someone squeezed through the crowd, holding up a prescription. “Kid, pick the medicine!”

Lu Shijiu was puzzled. Why were these people so idle? Did everyone have nothing better to do than watch her pick herbs endlessly?

Still, she knew she should seize the benefits due to her.

“Grandpa Wei, is there payment for picking herbs?”

Dozens of eyes immediately turned toward Wei Yuanzhi.

He clenched his teeth and said, “There is!”

“Alright.”

Lu Shijiu nodded satisfactorily, took the prescription, and quickly began picking herbs.

“Me too! Kid, let me pick herbs!”

Lu Shijiu rushed through prescription after prescription, busy beyond measure.

Baiji was dumbfounded but dared not idle. He busied himself trying to find tasks.

In the end, he was reduced to a small assistant wrapping oil paper for Lu Shijiu.

Not because he wanted to, but because no one wanted him to pick herbs. If he didn’t find something to do, his master would have kicked him out in a heartbeat.