124 – Tips?

Li Yun walked into the largest and most famous herbal shop by the antiquity market. At the counter, he requested the clerk to bring out the three most expensive herbs in the shop.

Some of the other customers thought he was crazy and arrogant. Most medicinal herbs were not exuberantly expensive, but no one would request such a thing unless they wanted to brag.

“Psh, this is some rich third generation?” a girl whispered.

“Probably just a showoff,” the other customer replied.

“Couldn’t it be one of those inspectors?”

“Nah, he’s too young for that.”

“But look at his clothes, it’s all unbranded. How is he going to pay for those medicines?”

Li Yun ignored them.

“Sir, are you sure?” asked the female clerk. “Our cordyceps are 125k per kilo and our red nest swiftlets are 65k per kilo. Our showcase item is a 30-years old ginseng, it costs 200k yuan. However, we do not take it out unless the customer can buy it.”

“I won’t buy it if it’s not a good product,” Li Yun then showed her his work ID. “I’m a medical doctor. A client needs medicine, so I am not really here to cause trouble.”

The clerk immediately understood and walked to the back to grab the herbs. Doctors may have wealthy patients who would pay anything for good herbal products. Many customers were also curious to see the three most expensive items in the shop, and crowded around Li Yun.

“Ah, doctor, are you a TCM doctor?” asked an elderly lady.

Li Yun tilted his head ambiguously. He caught sight of the elderly woman's slight redness around the neck. It looked unnatural for someone who had a pale complexion. Her face did not look good even though it seemed like she had a healthy body.

“Ma’am, do you have diarrhea, regular stomach pain, loss of appetite, and chills lately?” asked Li Yun, smiling at himself for copying the stereotypical TCM doctor's opening line.

“Ah, yes, it has been like this lately,” she replied, slightly caught off guard by his question.

“Do you use TCM regularly?”

“Yes, all my life.”

“Did you receive a new gift from relatives, tea bags, or herbal medicine?”

The woman’s eyes concentrated to the left, trying to remember the past few days. Most of the time, it was nothing important. Her eyes widened a little, remembering that her nephew returned from a trip to the southern region and got her a present. “Ah, yes, my nephew got me some herbal tea last week.”

“Does it have an herb that resembles a twig?”

The elderly woman nodded again.

“Elder, you should either throw them all out and remove all the twigs,” Li Yun explained. “The twigs may be ephedra, a well-known medicinal with many harmful effects. TCM doctors do not prescribe ephedra unless it is for a rare illness. I suggest you throw it out completely. If you look up ephedra on the internet, I am sure you will understand.”

“Oh, he’s right!” said one of the spectators looking up the side effects of ephedra on Baidu.

Li Yun marveled that the spectators were able to pull up the information so quickly. Some people were odd. They don’t believe doctors, but they will believe anything they find online.

At that moment, the clerk returned with the three medicinal jars and set them neatly on the counter. Li Yun carefully examined the ginseng first, but there was a problem; he wasn’t allowed to open the sealed jar.

Some stores were relatively loose with their no touching policy, but since the three items were the most expensive, they had kept them sealed in glass jars. It was a good sign that the shop knew how to properly store the medicinal, but not when Li Yun needed to test Qivi.

Li Yun stared at them for a while, pretending to inspect their quality. The customers lost interest and returned to shopping around.

“Sir, are you going to buy it?” The clerk was pressing for time.

“I need to verify how many legs are on the cordyceps, it’s important,” Li Yun responded. “It needs nine pairs of feet.”

Cordyceps were fungi that grew from decayed caterpillars. Cordeyceps typically needed nine pairs of feet to be considered complete and authentic.

Li Yun slowly counted each pair of feet. "One... Two... Three.."

"Sir?"

"Dammit! You made me lose my count!" Li Yun glared at the clerk, who backed away a bit.

Eventually, the clerk yawned and moved to another customer who was impatiently waiting for help behind Li Yun.

Using that opportunity, Li Yun quickly opened the jar and touched the ginseng. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to find anything in the thirty years old ginseng. The ginseng was old, but the quality didn’t seem to be the best. He lowered his expectations for the cordyceps and the red nest swiftlets.

Again, no reaction for the red nest swiftlets.

The cordyceps were a bit tricky as there were more than three dozen in the jar. He was going to exhaust a lot of his energy if he used Qivi on every single piece. He was also unfamiliar with how Qivi worked. It was not like a single piece like an antique. The red nest swiftlets weren’t too small, and there were only nine of them, so he was able to check each of them individually.

Li Yun stuck his hand into the jar of cordyceps, and used Qivi. Surprisingly, it worked, and he was able to sense something, but it wasn’t clear. He took each piece of the fungus into his hand. 

Upon using Qivi on a single piece, a flash of an image entered his mind. A bright orange string appeared, wiggling in space. There were two pieces that had a reaction and had a glow around them. Li Yun wondered if it was because the fungus had preserved the qi of the caterpillars, making it more abundant in cordyceps.

Li Yun wasn’t able to touch the remaining after noticing the clerk was about to finish assisting the other customers. He quickly twisted the jars back in place and waited for the clerk to return to the counter.

"I would like there two pieces of cordyceps," Li Yun requested.

The clerk glared at him. After all that time, the guy ordered two pieces of worm.

"Tips?" Li Yun offered extra money to the clerk, who reluctantly nodded and wrapped up the two cordyceps for him.

He returned to the Dong Xuan clinic with the two pieces of cordyceps and the jewelry box.

From his workbench, he began to experiment with the cordycep. Touching the cordycep, he sensed the qi of the cordycep wriggling in his mind and a glow around the item. It was the same image as before.

He broke the cordycep in half, and both halves were able to retain the same type of image, but the glow was dimmer. As he crushed the substance into its powdered form, he could still sense the qi, but the less amount that was in contact, the dimmer the glow.

He mixed in a small amount of neutral binder powder. He was still able to sense the qi until the binder mixture was more than 50%. At that point, he wasn’t able to use Qivi to sense anything.

“So purity of the substance is important,” Li Yun remarked.

Li Yun injected the cordyceps liquid into his body. He sensed the qi entered his dantian and slowly entering the fire element. However, the process was extremely slow.

Looking at the jewelry box, he used Qivi again. There was a glow surrounding the box, and if he concentrated, he would be able to see the same flash of memory from before. 

Li Yun carefully detached the lid from the box. He was able to sense the memory from the main box and from the lid, but the glow was relatively dimmer. He wasn’t planning to crush the item into powder. From the two items, he already had a general idea of how the upgraded Qivi worked.

Afterward, he continued studying the different books on antiques. He needed to find any type of antiques with at least 1000 qi. Although he could sense qi, he wasn’t able to judge what intensity of the glow was equivalent to 1000 qi.

<If you're going to be an ass, at least tip the service workers well.>