"Good news goes without saying, it must be that the hangover medicine’s formulation improvement succeeded," since Zeng Xuerou called, that was already clear. But since the formulation improvement was successful, what could possibly be the problem now?
"I got the medicine tablet and, for ease of comparison, based on the dosage of Pueraria Root and Mint you previously prescribed for my mom, I brewed a dose. You know, at the end and beginning of the year, my mom has many social gatherings, so having her test it was most reliable. After taking it, she said the effect of the improved hangover medicine wasn’t as good as the brewed medicine." This one drawback was also noted by the "expert" on the note attached to the box of Sanjiu Cold Relief, mentioning that after improving it into a tablet form, the effectiveness would be half of what was expected.
Even with such a result, it was still much more than Zeng Xuerou had imagined. After all, in her initial plan, the forum expert, even if they managed to prepare the medicine, might have demanded a hefty compensation or a share in the patents.
However, the other party, whether due to negligence or being too busy, didn’t make such demands, and didn’t ask Xi Lijuan to convey any such requirements.
"Oh, I thought it was something else. If it’s about the effectiveness, then it’s not a big problem, we can look for older herbs to replace them. Last time, the Pueraria Root and Mint leaves Grandma Zeng bought were very ordinary, the one-year-olds have quite common effects, we just need to find three-year-old Pueraria Root slices and fresh Mint, that should suffice." Xiao Xian breathed a sigh of relief. Using older herbs to compensate for the effectiveness was quite normal for her, but to Zeng Xuerou, it seemed unbelievable.
That day, the slices of Pueraria Root and Mint leaves Grandma Zeng bought, wrapped in kraft paper, how could one discern their age from those? Could it be that herbs also had rings like ordinary trees?
"Don’t worry, go and ask Grandma Zeng about where the herbal market in Beijing is, we’ll head there tomorrow morning to take a look, we are guaranteed to find suitable herbs," Xiao Xian casually chatted about her competition today, and at the end, she asked, "Xuerou, do you think four years can bring about a big change in a person?"
"Four years," Zeng Xuerou’s eyes dimmed. Four years ago, just after her father had passed away, she had fallen from heaven into hell, from a lively and outgoing girl to a person with a deep and gloomy demeanor. If it weren’t for meeting Xiao Xian, she might have continued to sink, "A huge change, huge enough to make you unrecognizable."
The Knei Cup competition was the day after the next. On the second day of the lunar new year, Xiao Xian, carrying a cross-body bag that Zhuo Feng had found in the box — It was purchased by Zhuo Feng not long ago; since Xiao Xian wasn’t home, it had been lying at the bottom of the box.
"Auntie, uncle, Xuerou has come to pick me up," Xiao Xian heard the sound of the horn from downstairs.
Zhuo Feng responded, still holding that somewhat useless gardening manual; Feng Xing raised his head and asked, "Where are you going? Does uncle need to drive you?"
"No need, Xuerou has a car," Xiao Xian hurried downstairs like a bird out of a cage.
"Oh, kids nowadays are really lucky, having a car to drive at such a young age. Back in my days, I worked hard for several years before I bought my first small car, and that too on installments... wait a minute, Ah Feng, how old is Xiao Xian’s friend? How can they be driving?" Feng Xing was startled.
"How could a child drive? They must have hired a driver since they are wealthy; always worrying over nothing, and you always claim to be a tough Shandong man!" Zhuo Feng scolded jokingly, "If you really have free time, accompany me to take that pot of Daffodil over to the Winter Flower Show."
Beijing has a flower and bird market, a fruit wholesale market, and even a book market, but a large-scale herbal market is rarely heard of.
Grandma Zeng had to ask an old acquaintance who was a traditional Chinese medicine doctor to find out about the herbal wholesale market located in a neighboring district. There, herbal shops vary in size from large scale handling tens of thousands of pounds of herbs daily to small scale, where even an ordinary old mountain farmer carrying a basket with freshly dug White Grass Roots counted as a shop.
"According to Grandma’s friend, a large traditional Chinese medicine market is located in Baoding, Hebei, with a place called An Country Chinese Medicine Wholesale Market, which houses half of the herbal world. However, for small operations like ours just starting out, we only need to find a slightly bigger herbal wholesale store,"
Zeng Xuerou was speaking, and they had already arrived at the herbal market in Beijing. At the beginning of the year, there were really quite a lot of vehicles coming from both the north and the south, forcing Zeng Xuerou to park the car in a small residential area nearby.