AST 0052 – Visiting the Hundred Medicinal Garden

Before leaving the Yu He Inn, Qing Shui actually had his tofu eaten [1] by Yu He. Feeling extremely depressed in his heart, Qing Shui almost cried. How could this have happened? Wasn’t he the only one qualified to eat the tofu of others? Before Qing Shui and company left, Yu He lightly pinched the sides of his cheeks as she laughingly stated that in the future, all the costs for Qing Shui would be waived should he wish to visit the Yu He Inn.

Qing Yi was smiling in delight after looking at the shy expression on Qing Shui’s face; although she would probably vomit blood if she knew what Qing Shui was thinking in his head. In reality, Qing Shui felt an immense amount of satisfaction, and enjoyed it tremendously when the jade-like hands of Yu He were pinching his face. The only thing that was bothering him was the fact that a strapping young man like him was getting teased like a little boy in public by a woman only a few years older. Qing Shui silently despaired. Could it be that she too wants to treat me like a little kid?

As they returned back to the Qing Clan’s Medicinal Store, Qing Shui was constantly pondering on how to best transplant the herbs from the Hundred Medicinal Garden to the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal. The earlier he could transfer them the better; after all a delay of a single day actually meant a waste of 100 days. Hence, Qing Shui was extremely anxious to revisit the Hundred Medicinal Garden to transplant the medicinal herbs into his spatial realm.

“Mother, I wish to visit the Hundred Medicinal Garden. Do you know how many different varieties of spiritual herbs are there?”

“Approximately 1,200 different types, don’t look down on the fact that these herbs are all of the common grade, the demand for them in the market is staggeringly huge.” Qing Yi replied instantly, appearing to be very familiar with the medicinal business.

“The herbs in the Hundred Medicinal Garden, when would they be considered to have matured? After they have matured, what are the steps that need to be taken afterwards? How do we harvest them?” Qing Shui, seeing how familiar Qing Yi was, continued with his questions.

“There are many different kinds of herbs, thus the methods for cultivating and harvesting, as well as the time taken for the herbs to mature are all different. On average, the period for our herbs to mature would usually range between 10 months to two years. For some of the herbs there are no differences in the effects of the herb no matter if we harvested them a year after they matured or 20 years later. Some herbs, even after harvesting, we would just need to cultivate it as per normal, and after a period of time, we could harvest the herbs again. An example would be the leaves from the tea plants. We would only need to pluck the leaves before drying them, and they would be ready to use as medicine. Most of the other herbs, after they have matured we would be able to use the seedlings produced to re-plant the herbs again.

After finishing her explanation, Qing Yi glanced suspiciously at Qing Shui. She wondered why was Qing Shui asking such in-depth questions.

“Hehe, just a random thought.” Qing Shui ruffled his hair as he sheepishly smiled in response.

“Mother, in the future, just leave all the management of the Hundred Medicinal Garden to me, this way, I will be able to increase my knowledge.” Qing Shui rubbed his hands in glee.

“Hmm, I can agree to your request. Truthfully, there isn’t really much for you to manage over here at Hundred Medicinal Garden. In addition to seeding and harvesting the herbs, the duties includes setting up a store in the streets of the city, and delivering our herbs to auction houses.” Qing Yi briefly explained the crucial things to take note of to Qing Shui.

In the afternoon, Qing Shui spent all his time in the Hundred Medicinal Garden. There were countless herbs being cultivated in here. Some of the herbs sown had a height as tall as a human being, while others were only as tall as the height of a single finger. The herbs looked as though they were planted without any detailed planning, as layers and layers of herbs of different heights adorned the plot of land. However, within this seemingly uncoordinated planting, there existed a sense of beauty.

It appeared that the knowledge gained from reading the three medical books earlier was making itself useful now. Based on the effects of each herb, and the time they took to mature, Qing Shui shifted a portion of herbs which he found useful into his Realm of the Violet Jade immortal.

To his surprise, Qing Shui even found some rare spiritual herbs such as snow lotuses, ginseng and linzhi being cultivated inside the Hundred Medicinal Garden. Qing Shui walked closer to the plot of land that measured about 10 square foot. From his estimations, these rare herbs were about 2-3 years of age. Sneakily glancing around, Qing Shui did what he did best and transferred a small portion of it back inside his spatial realm.

Throughout the entire afternoon, in order to mask his movements, Qing Shui would only choose 3-5 stalks of the best herbs that could be found in the Hundred Medicinal Garden to be transferred into his spatial realm. After a whole afternoon of hard work, the land in the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal was no longer as barren as before. A patch of green could be seen where all the herbs seedlings were transplanted.

Qing Shui did not want to cultivate too many of any one herb. His wish was to fill up all the space inside the spatial realm with a wide variety of herbs. However, this was obviously impossible to accomplish in the short term.

“Hmm, I should go to the storage house”, Qing Shui thought. He wanted to see if there were any herbs that he missed.

The storage house was located near the entrance to the Hundred Medical Garden. Pushing open the two heavy steel doors, Qing Shui stepped inside and discovered that the ventilation in the storage room was very good due to the many small windows embedded on the roof.

There were many tables in the storage room, and placed on them were many sealed baskets and sacks. It seems as though those herbs that were fully dried were placed inside the sacks, and sealed inside the baskets were all the half-sunned and half-dried herbs. The storage room wasn’t that big, only about 30 square feet large. Qing Shui continued exploring the storage house, and as he walked towards the end, he finally discovered what he was looking for. In front of him were many baskets filled with colorful seeds of different sizes, belonging to a variety of different herbs.

“These… The seeds of the rare White Poria Flower, Agony Leaves and White Crane Lingzhi!” Qing Shui excitedly grab a few handful of seeds for each variety. After the time it took to brew a cup of tea, and after he completed his efforts, only then did Qing Shui feel at ease in his heart. In any case, with the amazing effects of the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal, if he did not fully maximize the potential of the realm, then he might as well bang his head on a wall and die for being an idiot.

By the time night had fallen, the efforts shown earlier in the day had exhausted Qing Shui. Despite his exhaustion, he did not fall asleep immediately. It had already become a routine for him to enter the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal for his cultivation every night. With a slight exercise of his will, Qing Shui stepped inside his spatial realm as a surprising sight awaited him…

[1] getting his tofu eaten – getting taken advantage of