In the morning mist of Banxian Medical Hall, Huwa was leaning over the medicine cabinet, carving a "sun-shielding ghost-face" onto a bamboo hat for a Traveling Physician. His carving knife slipped on a bamboo leaf, distorting the ghost-face's tongue into the shape of an abacus bead. Su Wanyue was just about to tap him on the rear with her riding crop when she saw Traveling Physician Wang stumble frantically into the doorway. The wooden ghost-face carving on his bamboo hat was left with only half a smiling face: "East-side Su! Butcher Liu from the south of the city is claiming our 'Renxin Ledger' is a scam, and he's storming this way with a cleaver to smash the medical hall!"
"What's there to panic about?" Zhang Yifan emerged from the accounting room, clicking his abacus, the beads stuck with some osmanthus candy Huwa had secretly slipped him. "Go dig out his apothecary bill first—" He suddenly pointed at Huwa's carving knife. "Go on, take apart the ghost-face wood carving on his medicine pouch, and tell him if he doesn't get a smiling face, his wounds will take thirty percent longer to heal."
From the front hall came the thunderous thud of a cleaver chopping against the bluestone floor, and Butcher Liu's bulbous, wine-red nose stood out sharply in the morning light: "I owe five qian for medicine, so why the hell is it recorded in the Renxin Ledger? Do you take me for a beggar?" Just as Su Wanyue was about to speak, Zhang Yifan handed over a prescription paper with a ghost-f…
Chapter 59