Chapter Twenty: Cold and Sour

  The house for storing medicinal herbs is very large, and inside it is quite tidy. There are rows of neatly arranged shelves on which various medicinal herbs are classified and placed in order.

  In a deeper place, there is another slightly smaller room. The herbs inside are different from those outside and are prepared for the barbarian warriors of the tribe. Ordinary tribespeople cannot enter.

  Even if it's a ordinary doctor who comes here, they often need to hold the hand of the clan leader or Ah Gong to enter that extremely important room for the entire Wushan tribe.

  However, these rules are ineffective for Su Ming. A long time ago, his grandfather had given him a special status, allowing him to enter here freely and easily identify the herbs.

  As he entered the house, Su Ming saw Beiling holding Dusty's hand and walking towards a small room filled with precious medicine. Outside the door, there was an old man sitting cross-legged on the ground, wearing animal hide clothing, thin and frail, with white hair and wrinkles all over his face. He had been meditating with his eyes closed, but now opened a slit of his eye, took the handkerchief handed over by Beiling and Dusty, glanced at it, and then closed his eyes again without any change in expression.

  Su Ming's footsteps slowed down, he knew that Bei Ling did not want to see him, and in the silence, he did not follow her into the small room, but instead walked around the rows of shelves outside, looking at the various herbs on them. Su Ming was very familiar with these herbs, almost every one of which he had picked before.

  Until he had finished watching everything, Bei Ling and Chen Xin still hadn't come out. Su Ming hesitated for a moment, his footsteps slowing down outside the small room.

  "What's wrong, Little Su?" Amidst his hesitation, a hoarse voice came from beside his ear. He looked up to see the old man who had been sitting cross-legged outside the small room, guarding this place for years.

  "Grandpa Nan Song, I'm not La Su anymore..." Su Ming scratched his head and smiled.

  "I remember, your generation's La Su, you've already completed the brutal awakening a few months ago. From now on, I shouldn't be calling you Little La Su anymore." The old man smiled, his eyes filled with warmth.

  "Now that you're here, why not come in? Don't be afraid, I've got Old Nan Song to back me up! Think about it, back in the day I even dared to fight with your grandfather over a woman, what's there to fear!" The old man winked and chuckled.

  Su Ming's eyes widened, this was the first time he had heard of such a thing. He hesitated for a moment before pushing open the small room door with a bitter smile and walking in.

  He wasn't hesitant as the old man said, but he felt that towards Beiling, who had been kind to him, he didn't know how to explain it. So many years had passed, yet the other party was still as cold as ever.

  "Whatever..." Su Ming sighed, and as he pushed open the small room door, he saw a magnificent figure standing beside Dusty who was selecting herbs. The man turned around, furrowed his brow and gave him a cold glance.

  Su Ming's gaze met with his, then he walked towards a nearby shelf, ignoring the two of them, and began to examine the herbs according to the memory of how to refine the Mountain Spirit Powder.

  Chen Xin also saw Su Ming, and she wanted to say something, but hesitated for a moment and didn't speak up. As she grew older, she understood many things and knew more about her relationship with Bei Ling. The tender feelings she had for Su Ming when she was young gradually weakened.

  "Nightshade..."

  "Chrysanthemum..." Su Ming walked slowly in this small room, his eyes scanning over the precious herbs, finally finding the two kinds of herbs he needed to refine the Mountain Spirit Powder.

  "Unfortunately, there isn't the last one..." Su Ming sank into thought, looking over all the herbs in this small room.

  At this moment, Chen Xin and Bei Ling had also finished selecting the required herbs. After saying goodbye to Su Ming, Chen Xin was pulled by Bei Ling and walked out of the room. Before leaving, Bei Ling stopped for a moment without turning back, but calmly opened his mouth.

  "You don't have the physique, these herbs are useless to you! Wasted on you, it's better to leave them for other tribe members, take care of yourself." After saying that, Bei Ling took Dusty and left.

  Su Ming remained silent, looking up at the two figures leaving, without saying a word. Instead, he took another look around the small room and left with the two herbs he needed.

  As Su Ming took out the herbs, the old man sitting at the door with his legs crossed didn't mind, but instead looked at Su Ming with an interested expression.

  "Grandpa Nan Song... isn't like what you think..." Su Ming rubbed his nose.

  "What was I thinking? I didn't say anything about the complicated relationship between you and those two little rascals, no I didn't." The old man burst out laughing.

  Su Ming's face turned slightly red, and he felt a bit embarrassed. Suddenly, an idea struck him, and he squatted down to look at the old man.

  "Grandfather Nan Song, have you ever seen this herb?" Su Ming said, drawing a picture of the herb on the ground.

  The old man smiled, looked down for a moment, his eyes revealing deep thought, and then he slapped his forehead.

  "Isn't this Luo Yunye? This herb is not found in our Wushan, it requires a special environment to grow. Among the nearby tribes, only the Fengquan tribe has it for sale. What do you want it for?"

  "I saw it in a book at Grandpa's place, but I couldn't find it no matter how long I looked for it on Wushan. It turns out it was like this." Su Ming's face showed a look of sudden realization.

  "Of course not, this is a good medicine for the lower-level Blood Condensation Realm cultivators. If the Wind Chime Tribe sells it outside, the price would be too high. However, if you want to buy some, I can let your grandfather take you to a market outside the Wind Chime Tribe, where various herbs are often traded and sold." The old man shook his head with a smile.

  Su Ming's heart skipped a beat, and after asking a few more questions, he stood up to bid farewell to the old man. As he left, he caught a glimpse of the playful glint in the other's eyes from before, and hastily departed.

  Out of the place where herbs were stored, Su Ming walked with a worried heart, trudging through the snow in the tribe.

  "Luoyunye... I can gather all the other herbs myself, but this Luoyunye... Grandpa Nansong said it's very expensive... sigh." Su Ming furrowed his brow and patted himself down, only to find that apart from some stone coins he had taken from Ugly Teeth of the Black Mountain Sect, he didn't have any other money on him.

  In the tribe, it is often a bartering system, with little need for money or material goods. However, once outside of the tribe, in the external world, stone coins are needed to acquire necessary items.

  Stone coins are a type of currency made from special stones, only large tribes can mint them, and once private minting appears, they will face the disaster of extinction by the dominant large tribe in the region.

  After searching his entire body, Su Ming only found three stone coins, all of which belonged to the deceased Yu Chi. As for Su Ming himself, he didn't have a single one.

  "No money, how can I go buy... If only I had a hundred... a thousand stone coins, that would be great... As for the department store, I've heard Grandpa mention its approximate location before. After becoming a barbarian, the tribesmen in the village can all go together, and it's not too far from here..." Su Ming smiled wryly, his head starting to ache slightly.