Don’t mention it; he didn’t know if it was an illusion or just a psychological effect, but after drinking half a cup of water, that stifling feeling in his chest disappeared.
This Ganoderma water is good stuff.
Uncle Huo was convinced of this fact, and his appreciation for Chiang Xiao’s generosity grew.
By the time the aunt brought in a man who knew a bit about medicine, Uncle Huo already felt completely fine and even stood up to walk around a bit.
"Brother, you scared me to death. What happened? Weren’t you going to move that ancient tea tree?"
As soon as this matter was mentioned, Uncle Huo’s spirits visibly dimmed, and he shook his head with a heavy sigh. Waving his hand, he was so downcast that he momentarily couldn’t speak.
The man who followed in—the one who had run over to call for help earlier—blurted out: "That’s just a dead tree!"
Hu Xibing was also startled.
And Uncle Huo’s cousin, after a moment of stunned silence, actually fell to the ground with a thump, murmuring with a vacant look in her eyes: "Isn’t that going to result in a huge loss? It’s over, it’s all over, oh Lord, what are we going to do?!"
Uncle Huo sat back on the bed, hung his head, and sighed again.
Chiang Xiao gave Hu Xibing a meaningful look, and the two of them stepped out into the yard, which was when Chiang Xiao noticed that several tea trees were also planted in this courtyard.
It seemed that Uncle Huo truly loved tea.
"Brother Hu, it looks like Uncle Huo has run into some trouble. Does he still have the mood to take us up to the tea garden?"
Hu Xibing let out a sigh, his complexion not looking too good. "I know what’s going on."
It turned out that their line of work not only involved growing and selling tea, but also gambling on tea.
Previously, Uncle Huo had acquired a wild tea tree from an old mountaineer. The tea tree was wild, and the mountain was ownerless, so whoever discovered it first could claim it. The mountain man found Uncle Huo and said he wanted to sell him the tea tree, but Huo had to find people to dig it up and get it out himself.
At that time, Uncle Huo was with a few other tea merchants, and one of the merchants from another province overheard and insisted on getting involved, claiming he wanted that ancient tea tree.
They went to the mountain together and saw the tea tree with their own eyes, but none of them could identify its variety. However, one pound of tea leaves picked from the tree, once processed, produced tea with an incredibly fragrant and exquisite aroma, the finest among teas.
As a result, the value of this tea tree soared instantly.
Several tea merchants expressed their interest, continually bidding. In the end, only the merchant named Lu from out of the province kept up with Uncle Huo, raising the price again and again to a staggering level.
Chiang Xiao listened in astonishment, never having thought that tea gambling was a thing, and quickly asked: "So in the end, Uncle Huo won the bid for the tea tree, how much was it?"
"One Hundred Thousand Yuan." Hu Xibing crossed his index fingers to form a cross and shook his head: "That’s a huge sum of money. But Uncle Huo saw the future value of that ancient tea tree, even saying that if it could be properly cultivated, he could earn back ten or a hundred times the investment. But..."
But the tea tree was dead.
Chiang Xiao fell silent too.
It’s the eighties now! Not even households earning ten thousand yuan were common, One Hundred Thousand Yuan! That was a sum beyond the imagination of ordinary people! This amount of money must have been significant for Uncle Huo as well, or else he wouldn’t have fainted from distress.
Suddenly, Chiang Xiao thought of the Black Soil on her own Space.