BXBX NOVEL Chapter 130: Work to Pay Off Debt_l
No sooner said than done, Jiang Quan found some red paper at home, cut it into diamond shapes, each inscribed with characters like “luck”, “wealth”,
“longevity”, “happiness”, and “prosperity”, and marked at the bottom: Fairy Child Gourd.
He then stuck the red paper to his own gourds. He looked at them and felt very satisfied.
He called over his two young friends, Li Dao and Li He, pointed at the red paper and said to them, “From now on, these gourds will be called Fairy Child Gourds. Do you want in?”
Li Dao and Li He were puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“It means, if you two put your gourds here with mine for sale, I’ll take thirty percent of the earnings from every sold gourd, ” explained Jiang Quan. Li He blinked and seemed a bit reluctant. “Why?”
Jiang Quan held up his chin and said, “Because I sell my gourds at a higher price. You’ll earn more money than if you sell them yourselves. So, are you in or out? If you’re not interested, I’ll find others.”
Li Dao, being quick-witted, immediately consented. “I’m in!”
Having witnessed Jiang Quan’s selling techniques before, he had complete trust in him.
So, that day, Jiang Quan, Li Dao, and Li He went to the market with their donkey cart full of gourds to sell.
Of course, Yingbao was coaxed into joining them as well.
The donkey cart was parked at the same spot where he sold apricots last time. They unloaded ten big gourds and lined them up along the roadside.
“Gourds for sale! Grown by the Fairy Child herself. Want luck, wealth, longevity, happiness, or prosperity? Whichever you choose will come knocking at your door. Hurry up, limited stock! Get them before they are all gone!”
Yingbao was startled by her older cousin’s catchy slogan.
Turns out, he was using her to gain popularity.
“Are these gourds really grown by the Fairy Child?” Someone came over to inquire.
Jiang Quan pulled Yingbao from behind and grinned. “Would I ever lie about that?”
By now, almost half of Chuanhe Town’s villagers recognized the young girl from the Jiang Family. Upon recognizing little Fairy Child, they asked, “How much for the gourds?”
Jiang Quan shows five fingers, “Five coins for the big ones, two for the small ones.”
“What?” The man nearly stumbled, “Are you crazy? Why is this so expensive?”
Five coins could buy an acre of prime paddy field. This boy sure dared to name his price.
“If it’s too expensive, there’s nothing I can do about. In fact, these prices are the cheapest.” Jiang Quan boasted, “Our King Gourd, if you don’t have fifty taels of silver, don’t even think about seeing it.”
“Hmph! This kid must’ve gone mad with his desire for money,” someone shouted angrily.
“Exactly!” Others echoed.
Nevertheless, Jiang Quan ignored them and kept yelling, “Gourds grown by the Fairy Child herself, five coins each. First come, first served. Take it or leave it, miss your chance and you might regret it. Come buy it if you wish to bring prosperity into your life, we don’t wait for laggards.” Yingbao couldn’t help but admire her older cousin.
But what could she do, she was here already.
She gestured to Jiang Quan to come over, “If you’re using my name to sell gourds, how do we split the earnings.”
Jiang Quan grinned and said, “We’ll split it half and half once we’ve earned something. ”
“Alright, that sounds fair,” Yingbao was satisfied.
However, despite Jiang Quan’s loud yelling for an hour, not a single gourd was sold.
Li Dao and Li He began to lose hope, they got up and went elsewhere to take a look, and that’s when they saw the issue.
It turned out that several villagers from East Village were also selling gourds, but only for five hundred coins each, some even as low as two hundred coins.
Such fools!
“Jiang, how about we sell ours for five hundred coins too?” Li He was worried they wouldn’t be able to sell their gourds.
Jiang Quan shot him a glare: “If you wish to sell it for five hundred coins, do it elsewhere. Not here.” He was joking. He’s known as the Fairy Child. How could he be compared to those of ordinary human status? Li Dao also glared at his cousin. “You can’t keep your cool.”
Li He felt wronged, but he dared not refute.
Suddenly, a man rushed over, carrying a child in his arms. He knelt on the ground in front of Yingbao, tears welling up, “Please, Fairy Child, save my child, sob please…”
Yingbao was taken aback, looking at the child in the man’s arms. His complexion was waxen, he was foaming at the mouth, and he was barely holding onto life. One of his legs had turned black and blue, apparently injured by some kind of poisonous creature.
“Quickly, put him down so I can take a look.” Yingbao, not caring about the surprise, hurriedly ordered the man to put the child down.
The man obediently placed the child on the ground.
Yingbao quickly pried open the child’s eyelids to see his pupils dilating. It looked like he wouldn’t hold on much longer.
With a quick movement, Yingbao pulled a pill from her pocket, broke it down and stuffed it into the child’s mouth. Then she pulled out a small porcelain vial from another pocket, which contained the antidote she’d previously prepared, though she didn’t know if it was the appropriate treatment.
After forcing the medicine down the child’s throat, his complexion visibly improved.
Still, Yingbao didn’t let her guard down. She rolled up the child’s trouser leg to find two small points of blood on his calf.
It appeared the child had been bitten by some kind of venomous snake.
After a moment’s thought, she turned to the man. “Go buy a candle.” Without hesitation, the man got up and ran to the grocery store to buy a candle.
Yingbao had him light the candle and sterilize a thin blade over the flame.
Then she used the blade to make a cross-shaped cut on the boy’s wound, allowing the poisonous blood to flow out.
By this point, a crowd had gathered around them.
Despite the murmurs from the crowd, no one raised a question.
After a while, Yingbao fed another vial of antidote to the child, squeezed the area around his wound, and then dusted the wound with her own medicine.
The child’s complexion eased somewhat, and he began to whimper and cry.
Relieved, Yingbao turned to the man and said, “Pay me for the medicine, a total of ten taels of silver.
“Huh?” The man was dumbfounded.
Jiang Quan, spotting the man’s reaction, was not pleased. “What do you mean,
‘huh’? Should the Fairy Child treat your child for free?”
The man quickly shook his head and nervously said, “But… but 1…1 don’t have that much money.”
With a frown, Jiang Quan said, “If you don’t have the money, then you’ll work it off. The Fairy Child’s medicine is all divine, charging you ten taels is already very cheap. Don’t tell me you’ll be so ungrateful as to refuse to pay?
“No, not at all. To save my son’s life, the Fairy Child, even if she asked me to work for her for a lifetime, I will.
This man had only this one boy. He never expected that he would be bitten by a poisonous snake and even Doctor Li was helpless and refused to treat him.
It was out of desperation he brought his son to the Fairy Child.
Now the boy’s face was no longer lifeless, and he could make some noise. Even the purplish color on his calf had faded quite a bit. He knew his son was going to be alright.
At the same time, the man was both overjoyed and distressed. He couldn’t afford the ten taels of silver. Since the Fairy Child asked him to work off the debt, he decided to do so.
Someone nearby said, “Zhao Da, to work for the Fairy Child is your family’s good fortune, you should quickly agree.”
“Yes, bring your son with you. The Fairy Child may continue his treatment.”
People were urging Zhao Da, “You should thank the Fairy Child for saving a life.
Zhao Da came to his senses, knelt down in front of Yingbao, and knocked his head on the ground three times, “Thank you, Fairy Child, for saving him. I will definitely work hard to pay off the medical bill.”
Yingbao was stunned and was about to refuse when Jiang Quan tugged at her sleeve, “We’re not running a charity. There’ll be many more people seeking your medical treatment in the future. Are you going to treat them all for free?
You can’t set that precedent. You have to let him work off his debt..”