“What do you want to see, Young Master? Here we have…” In the spiritual plants store, the employee saw a guest coming in and hurriedly stepped forward to greet him.
Unexpectedly, before he finished speaking, he saw the new customer take out a vermilion token.
The originally enthusiastic expression on his face instantly became more flattering and his words immediately changed. “Young Master, you are here. Our shopkeeper was just talking about you a few days ago. Come inside please!”
Naturally, the man’s changes before and after didn’t escape the eyes of the other people in the store. Once this guy brought the person into a room, someone immediately couldn’t hold back and asked another employee in the store, “Huh? Who is that man? Why are you so enthusiastic about him?”
Don’t think they didn’t see it. The employee who stayed outside had an obvious look of chagrin in his eyes when he saw the vermilion token.
Obviously, he was very annoyed that he didn’t come forward to greet this person first.
It could be seen that the owner of the vermilion token was no stranger to the people working in the store.
“That is our shopkeeper’s guest.” The guy who was questioned smiled slightly and answered in an evasive manner.
“What honorable guest deserves such flattery?” Another big man immediately asked, obviously not satisfied with the answer.
“This… the shopkeeper hasn’t said anything. He just told us to be careful. The people below don’t dare to ask in detail right?” The employee was smiling and making amends. He didn’t leak anything, but he actually leaked a lot.
“This guy…” The big man was obviously very dissatisfied with the answer. He frowned, and his hand went directly to the big sword hanging from his waist.
It looked like he was about to do something.
Before the big man could put his hand on the hilt of the sword, the movement suddenly froze. Even his complexion, originally a bit ruddy from anger, turned extremely pale.
Looking closely, it wasn’t difficult to see that there were fine beads of sweat on his forehead.
It was as if he was under great pressure.
Those with a bit of eyesight knew that this man was under the pressure of a high-level cultivator.
“This guest, we have rules in the store prohibiting the use of force.” The employee kept talking. He was still smiling, but his eyes were already cold with warning.
The rest of the people in the store clearly weren’t surprised to see this.
At present, this might be a spiritual plant store but its main business included pills.
In Xilin County, this was already one of the best money-making businesses. If they didn’t have real skills, how could they keep this huge family business?
In order to ensure the safety of the property in this store, there was always a late-stage foundation building cultivator in charge of this store.
It was only this young man who knew nothing and caused trouble here.
For a while, the eyes of others looking at the paralyzed man inevitably brought a look of watching the show.
From the way the big man could move freely now, it could be seen that the pressure that made him unable to move had dissipated.
Obviously, the person in charge of the store was just trying to give him a warning.
However, the fact that the big man wanted to act due to not being satisfied with an answer showed that his personality was bad.
The pressure was no longer present, but the appearance of being restrained by it was completely seen just now.
Not to mention the undisguised mocking gazes that were now falling on him.
All of this naturally made the big man’s face gloomy. He said viciously, “It is just a rat hiding his identity. Who wants to know your distinguished guest?”
He turned around and left the spiritual plant store. But from the hurried pace and embarrassed back, it could be seen that he knew his words were a bit inappropriate.
If he really didn’t want to know, why become angry after not getting the answer?
There was one thing that the big man wasn’t wrong about. The so-called distinguished guest who was led into the inner room was indeed a bit hidden.
Not to mention the mask on his face, but there seemed to be something hiding the aura of his body.
The moment the spiritual consciousness they spread out touched his body, it was like a stone sinking into the sea. There was no movement.
If it wasn’t for that, the employee in the store wouldn’t have only changed his expression after the man took out the token.
On the other side, Lou Xingyao entered the spiritual plant store with the employee. He didn’t know that he caused such a storm in the store due to his arrival.
Of course, even if he knew, he would only laugh it off.
The big man’s words about him not daring to show his true face?
Lou Xingyao thought it was simply funny.
In a place like Xilin County, it wasn’t strange for people to rob each other. Every time he came to this spiritual plant store, it was a transaction of tens of thousands of taels. If he wasn’t careful, he might be caught one day, and then he would have no place to cry!
“Young Master, take a sip of tea first, and the shopkeeper will arrive later.” This employee was a discerning man. The moment he arranged for this guest to sit down, he picked up the teapot and made a cup for Lou Xingyao.
“Thank you for the trouble.” Lou Xingyao raised his hand and put a small jade bottle down on the table.”
If someone who was familiar with Lou Xingyao was here, it wasn’t difficult to find that he not only hid his true face, but even his voice was disguised. It was a huge gap from his usual self.
“Thank you, Young Master.” The employee of the store also knew Lou Xingyao’s style of acting. He knew that if this person made a move, it was at least a medium-grade pill. Thus, the employee hurriedly thanked him with a smile.
The guy here had just put the small jade bottle away when the shopkeeper came in. “I’m late. Young Master has been waiting a long time. I hope you can bear with me.”
The one speaking was a middle-aged man in his 30s or 40s who had a somewhat plump figure.
His smiling face looked slightly like the Maitreya Buddha, but also had a shrewdness and cunning that was somewhat inconsistent with his appearance.
This was the storekeeper of the spiritual plants store, Qian Ran, also known as Shopkeeper Qian.
Don’t look at how Shopkeeper Qian was over 50 years old. He was only in the fourth level of qi condensation, and his qualifications were very mediocre.
But to be able to manage such a huge spiritual plant store in Xilin County, he naturally had great abilities.
Among them, the one Lou Xingyao had the deepest understanding of was his ability to bend and stretch.
That’s right. The shopkeeper of the spiritual plants store who once made Lou Xingyao grit his teeth with hatred after taking advantage of him was this kind-looking Qian Ran.
In the beginning, Lou Xingyao exposed this matter, and Qian Ran was stubbornly unwilling to admit it.
This Qian Ran wasn’t afraid at all, even with the sword intent released by Wen Hanshan.
He shouted about the rules of Xilin County. He refused to admit that he had deliberately suppressed the price of Lou Xingyao’s spiritual plants before.
Who knew that the next moment, he would learn that Lou Xingyao had a large number of medium-grade, first-grade pills in his hands that he wanted to sell, many of them were the fasting pill and rejuvenation pill that never lacked markets.
Lou Xingyao even had a lot of inventory of the even more rare qi replenishing pill and the qi increasing pill.
This Qian Ran was able to immediately change the conversation, saying that the previous transaction with Lou Xingyao was indeed unreasonable and the specifics could be discussed.
AS for how to discuss it, this naturally depended on how much inventory of medium-grade pills that Lou Xingyao could come up with.
There was no need to say more about Qian Ran’s inconsistent, self-slapping behavior.
Lou Xingyao originally didn’t want to continue trading with Shopkeeper Qian after he refused to admit it.
Who knew that the other person could bend or stretch so much?
Then he thought about the previous transactions. He had suffered a loss in terms of price, but on the whole, it could be said that the transaction itself was pleasant.
Now the price could be negotiated, so it wasn’t impossible to continue trading with him.
In the end, Lou Xingyao still agreed to let Shopkeeper Qian take a look at the goods first.
They had traded a few times, and he was well-versed in the personality of Shopkeeper Qian. He was afraid that releasing too many goods at one time would give Shopkeeper Qian an excuse to reduce the price.
In the first deal, Lou Xingyao took out only one-fifth of the inventory.
There were only around a hundred pills for each first-grade pill.
Who knew that one-fifth of the goods were directly accepted by Shopkeeper Qian?
He immediately changed his words on the spot. He said he didn’t check the goods well in the previous few transactions with Lou Xingyao, so that the high-grade spiritual plants were mistaken for medium and low grades. He even made up the difference directly to Lou Xingyao on the spot.
Shopkeeper Qian showed such a conscience. What else could Lou Xingyao say?
Naturally, he agreed to the request to sell the pills in his hands to Shopkeeper Qian.
If so, there would naturally be a dispute over the price.
Naturally, there was no need to talk about the low-grade pills. Shopkeeper Qian would buy them for the price of eight gold for one.
This price almost reached the peak of the spiritual plants store’s price for first-grade, low-grade pills.
After all, according to today’s market, the price difference between low-grade pills actually wasn’t large.
The cheapest fasting pill was 10 gold, and the most expensive qi increasing pill was 15 gold. The price difference wasn’t much.
In addition, almost all the low-grade pills in Lou Xingyao’s hands were fasting pills.
If he really wanted to calculate it, the price offered wasn’t much different from the market price.
However, the two of them had a good discussion about the medium-grade pills.
For example, the fasting pill had the greatest demand but was the easiest to refine. It could only sell for 30 gold at the higher price in the market, even if it was medium-grade.
But if it was replaced with a rejuvenation pill, a medium-grade pill could be worth 100 gold.
As for the qi replenishing pill or the qi increasing pill, the price of the pills for restoring spiritual power and even increasing spiritual power was even higher.
Among them, the qi increasing pill could assist cultivators in accumulating spiritual power and increasing their cultivation, so it was the most expensive and could be worth up to 180 gold.
This time, there could be a price difference of up to 150 gold. Naturally, it was no longer possible to directly set a fixed price.
In the end, the two of them talked about it and made the final plan.
For each medium-grade pill, Shopkeeper Qian would buy it at a price 20 gold lower than the market price.
Correspondingly, Lou Xingyao also needed to sell more top-grade pills to Shopkeeper Qian.
Lou Xingyao naturally refused when he first heard this request. “What top-grade? Don’t make me laugh, Shopkeeper Qian. How can such a rarity be available to a small person like me?”
“Young Master, it might be okay for you to fool a layman with these words but you don’t have to with me!” As he spoke, the shopkeeper picked up the small jade bottle containing a medium-grade fasting pill from the table. He poured out a pill from it and put it in the bowl.
He took out a small jade bottle from his storage bag, poured out a pill from it, and put it in the bowl.
Then he put the bowl containing the pill in front of Lou Xingyao and didn’t forget to explain. “Young Master, look at these two fasting pills. They are also middle-grade, but your pill fragrance is more intense than my one. The distribution of the pill patterns is also more clear and uniform.”
Once Shopkeeper Qian finished speaking, he paused for a moment, obviously leaving time for Lou Xingyao to observe.
Lou Xingyao had never been in contact with other pills before and naturally didn’t know the difference.
Now that he heard the description from Shopkeeper Qian, he couldn’t help carefully observing the appearance of the two pills in the bowl. He found that this was indeed the case.
It was necessary to know that the most important criterion for distinguishing the pill from best, top, middle, and lower grades was the impurity content inside the pill.
But no one could give a specific answer to the content of the impurities inside it before the pill was taken.
Finally, with the efforts of alchemists, the correlation between the appearance of the pill and the impurity content inside it was finally discovered and published.
This was the current standard for distinguishing the pill pharmaceutical grades.
This standard showed that the amount of impurities inside the pill was reflected in the most obvious difference on the outside, which was the pill fragrance and the patterns on the pill itself.
Apart from the best-grade pills, among the pills of the same grade, the lighter the fragrance, the lower the grade, and vice versa.
As for the pill patterns, the patterns were naturally formed by the alchemy fire during the process of refining the pill. No one could fake it, and it was the most important detection method.
Among them, the low-grade pills were shallow, not very regular, and fragmented.
For medium-grade, the pill pattern gradually became clear and obvious. It had a certain regularity.
If it was a top-grade pill, they could even clearly see the direction of the pill patterns, the streamers contained in it, and the faint auspicious clouds inside it.
It was said that for the best-grade pills, the auspicious pill pattern was not only visible, but the pill fragrance could be locked inside without leaking a single bit.
For such a scene, alchemists called it no leakage and no defect. It was perfect.
It was just that in today’s Tianming Continent, the best-grade pills were almost never passed on. Most people could only hear about it for fun and couldn’t tell the truth from the fake.
However, the judging criteria for the low, medium, and top-grade pills were universal.
Avid fan of danmei novels! If you want access to advance chapters, you can subscribe on Patreon. Thanks!
https://www.patreon.com/WhiteLily476