Poor but talented scholar

Chapter 29 Pinellia ternata

Lu Chuan was stretching his muscles under the old locust tree at the entrance of the village when he happened to run into Lu Deshou, the village head, and several clan elders squatting on the edge of the field, smoking in silence.

"If this summer drought continues for another half month, all the seedlings in the fields will perish." Lu Deshou tapped his pipe, his voice filled with despair. "It's both a natural disaster and a man-made one. The money from selling the grain hasn't even warmed our hands before it's all gone to pay our taxes. Life in our village is truly unbearable."

"Yes, with just the meager harvest from the land, we can't even save enough money for medicine when we get sick." Uncle Liu sighed, his withered hand grabbing a handful of dry, hard yellow soil, then slumping it away.

Lu Chuan stood not far away, his ears twitching slightly.

Liutang Village is located in a mountain valley with poor soil and scarce water, so growing grain there is really no future in it.

On his way back to the village, he noticed that the endless rocky hills and the back mountain were covered with a bitter-tasting plant called "Pinellia ternata," which the villagers considered a weed.

This herb is considered unpalatable even by pigs by the villagers, but in the ledgers of the large pharmacies in town, it is listed as an excellent medicinal ingredient for clearing heat and detoxifying after being dried and simply processed over charcoal.

With this thought in mind, Lu Chuan felt at ease.

After the Qingming Festival, the sun began to show signs of becoming scorching, baking the ground until it was burning hot.

Lu Chuan walked and looked around, with his younger sister following behind him, carrying a tattered basket on her back, as they ventured into the desolate, rocky slope behind the village.

"Brother, what are we doing here? This place is full of 'rotten throat grass,' it's very prickly, even cows don't like to eat it." The younger sister wiped her sweat and looked at the thorny vines crawling all over the ground with disgust.

This vine is considered the number one weed by the villagers of Liutang. It twines around crops, has extremely deep roots, and is impossible to eradicate completely.

Lu Chuan squatted down, his eyes burning with the same intensity he had when looking at money.

He stared intently at the clumps of plants that grew extremely lushly, with fan-shaped leaves and small green balls hanging from their tips.

This thing has a bad name in Liutang Village: "rotten throat grass".

Its sap can cause immediate sores if it touches a person, and if a child accidentally eats the stem, their throat will immediately swell up and they will be unable to speak.

The villagers would shovel it up whenever they saw it, fearing that their livestock might accidentally eat it and die.

But Lu Chuan's eyes gleamed with a sharp light. This was no poisonous herb; it was "Pinellia ternata".

In the town's clinic, this is a good medicine for drying dampness, resolving phlegm, and relieving nausea and vomiting. In particular, the "ginger pinellia" processed by secret method is ridiculously expensive.

Lu Chuan taught Xiaoman how to avoid the sap on the leaves and instead pry open the soft soil. Before long, round, white tubers were unearthed.

"Brother, what can we do with this poisonous root?" Xiaoman asked timidly, hesitant to touch it.

"This is called a 'gold nugget'." Lu Chuan continued working without turning his head. "It can be sold for money, and pharmacies need it the most. We'll use the money to buy you a hairpin."

Upon hearing that there was a hairpin, Xiaoman immediately covered her mouth and nodded emphatically, her hands moving even more swiftly than Lu Chuan's. She felt she trusted her brother implicitly.

The two siblings braved the scorching sun, sweat dripping from their chins into the soil, and managed to carry back two large baskets of damp Pinellia ternata.

As he entered the courtyard, he happened to run into Lu Shouye, who was carrying a hoe back. When Lu Shouye caught sight of the pile of white, plump tubers in the basket, his eyes widened in surprise.

With a "thud," the hoe fell directly to the ground.

"Stop right there! Who gave you permission to touch this thing?!"

Lu Shouye jumped up as if his pants were on fire, rushed forward, grabbed Xiaoman behind him, pointed at the Pinellia ternata in the basket, and said in a trembling voice, "This is 'Throtting Throat Grass'! Chuan'er, have you gone crazy from studying too much? Is this something you can bring into the house? Last year, Old Wang's family in the next village had a cow that nibbled on one of these leaves and died in less than half an hour."

"Father, this is called Pinellia ternata. If processed properly, it can be used as medicine..."

"Medicine my ass!" Lu Shouye roared at Lu Chuan, a rare occurrence for him. "What do you know about medicine? Everyone within a hundred miles knows this is poisonous. Even a dog's urine on it would rot at the roots. You're the lifeblood of our family. If something happens to you, how will your father live?"

He snatched the basket from Lu Chuan's shoulder and, without saying a word, tried to dump it into the ditch outside the courtyard.

"Throw it away! Throw it in the deep pit behind the mountain right now and bury it! Xiaoman, go get some soapberry water and wash your brother's hands. Scrub him hard, don't stop until the skin comes off!"

Lu Shouye's hands trembled slightly as he looked at the basket of clean white grass roots, his eyes filled with fear.

In the mind of this old farmer, this thing was a death warrant from the underworld.

Lu Chuan didn't try to take it by force; he just stood there quietly, watching his father's expression, which showed signs of extreme tension.

"Father, if I told you that this 'poisonous herb' could sell for thirty coins a pound at the town's pharmacy, would you still throw it away?"

Lu Shouye froze, his movement of tilting the plowshare over. Thirty coins? He could only earn a dozen coins a day plowing the land.

He mechanically turned his head and looked at his son's overly calm face. The angry words that were about to come out of his mouth were swallowed back by this number.

"Thirty coins?" Lu Shouye swallowed hard, as if he'd heard something out of the blue. "Chuan'er, don't try to fool your father with lies just to keep these poisonous things. This whole mountain is full of rotten grass roots, who would pay for that?"

"The book says it's called 'raw Pinellia ternata'."

Lu Chuan pointed to the round tubers in his basket and said with certainty, "The doctors in the pharmacy have a way to remove its toxins. What they lack is this kind of freshly dug raw herb, because the villagers don't recognize its value and no one dares to dig it up, so the supply of raw Pinellia ternata in the town has always been insufficient."

"I've inquired about it. The staff at Baicaotang said it themselves: as long as they're uniform in size and the dirt is cleaned off, they'll take as many as they want."

Lu Shouye looked down at the pile of clean white tubers, then looked up at Lu Chuan.

He was puzzled. How could these harmful poisons be more expensive than fine white flour?

"Father, it's clearly written in the book that although raw Pinellia ternata is poisonous, it is a miraculous medicine for resolving phlegm and relieving nausea when used in medicine. Doctors in pharmacies will repeatedly process it with ginger juice and alum, and once the medicinal properties become mild, it becomes priceless."

Seeing that Lu Shouye still didn't believe him, Lu Chuan picked up a pinellia from his basket and rubbed it lightly between his fingers. "The price that Baicaotang in town charges for raw medicinal herbs is fixed every year."

"This stuff is everywhere but nobody wants it because people don't recognize its value."

With trembling hands, Lu Shouye slowly placed the basket back on the ground.

He glanced at the two large, heavy baskets of medicinal herbs. Each basket weighed at least twenty catties, so the two baskets would weigh forty catties. If they could really sell for thirty coins per catty... that would be more than a tael of silver!

He rubbed his rough, large hands vigorously on the patched trouser leg, wanting to reach out and touch it, but then abruptly pulled back the moment his fingertips touched the white skin.

"Chuan'er, this...this is a life-or-death deal. If it gets people sick, our family will be completely ruined." Lu Shouye was still worried.