At the third quarter of the Chen hour, the West Market's herb district was fragrant with the scent of ginseng rootlets. Xiao Moli's green robe cuffs were damp with morning dew as she stared blankly at the "herb-protecting grinning face" pasted on the medicine cabinet—Huwa's carving knife had chiseled a smiling face wearing a golden hairpin onto the ginseng label, yet on the Notopterygium Root label, he had carved a rustic face with rolled-up trouser legs, its abacus-bead eyes staring respectively at the handwritten notes reading "veins as fine as silk" and "scars three parts thick."
"Master Xiao, look closely," Zhang Yifan's abacus beads bounced across a wild mountain ginseng. "When noble ladies buy ginseng, they want 'long reeds and dense rings'; a single root can trade for a hundred bushels of wheat." Suddenly pointing to a pile of scarred Notopterygium Root stacked in the corner, he continued, "What poor folks scramble for is 'thick skin and solid pulp'; three cash worth can brew a pot of cold-dispelling soup—" The abacus beads rolled over the pile of Notopterygium Root into the shape of a drug grinder. "The wonder of the mercantile path lies right on the balance beam between these high and low prices."
Suddenly, Huwa brandished his carving knife and rushed toward an astragalus stall, carving a grinning face holding a steelyard on the coarse burlap fabric, its abacus-bead eyes fixed on the marginal note reading "Do not discard if insect-damaged": "Brother Fan! Uncle Li's…
Chapter 80