Chapter 4 Tongrentang

  Out of the hospital is the main road of Gusu City, Ganjiang Road.

  It was already late August, and for Suzhou City, the weather was still very hot and humid, with a smell of wet asphalt in the air.

  Song Jian stretched out his hand and hailed a taxi, then arrived at a Tongrentang pharmacy.

  In China, the most famous pharmaceutical chain brand is Tongrentang from Beijing.

  "In the north, there is Tongrentang; in the south, there is Qingyutang." This phrase has been passed down since the Qing Dynasty, but now it's a bit inappropriate. Nowadays, Tongrentang has long had a brand effect throughout China, while Qingyutang, due to poor management, only has a relatively loud reputation in Hangzhou and its surrounding areas.

  Tongrentang's medicine is expensive, but it is indeed genuine.

  As soon as I got off the car, a fragrance of medicine wafted from afar.

  Song Jian took a deep breath and smelled this familiar scent, feeling carefree and relaxed.

  This Tongrentang pharmacy is very large, divided into a front hall and a back yard. The front hall is very clean, with a long rectangular counter separating the people picking up medicine from the medicine cabinets. Behind the counter are the red wooden medicine cabinets with gold lettering, densely packed with rows of medicine containers, each with a golden square label on top, looking very bright.

  Occasional knocking sounds came from the backyard, which should be a place for processing and manufacturing medicinal materials.

  Song Jian walked up to the counter and handed over his prescription.

  A young Chinese medicine practitioner wearing a white coat took the prescription and looked at it, furrowed his brow, saying: "Such a large quantity?"

  Song Jian simply said "uh-huh" and said: "It's used for bathing."

  "Oh, Chinese herbal bath, I'll help you grind it into powder later." This pharmacist is quite enthusiastic.

  Song Jian nodded and said, "Thank you."

  Song Jian's prescription is indeed very large, with each medicinal material weighing over 200 grams. Fortunately, it was Tongrentang, if it were other pharmacies, the storage volume of medicinal materials would not be enough.

  A variety of Chinese medicinal herbs, after being measured with a tray, are first placed on the counter.

  Song Jian's eyes scanned these medicinal materials, and he secretly sighed that the quality of the current medicinal materials was really poor. Although they were much larger in size, their efficacy was far inferior to those in his lifetime during the Song Dynasty. Song Jian understood in his heart that this was also a side effect brought by chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Originally, these wild medicinal materials, after being cultivated artificially, only grew in size but not in efficacy.

  "Four hundred grams of Atractylodes," the young pharmacist poured a heap of medicinal materials onto a large square piece of grass paper, muttered to himself, and then turned around to fetch the next medicinal material.

  Song Jian furrowed his brow and said: "What I want is White Atractylodes, why did you give me Atractylodes lancea?"

  White Peony and Cyperus have the same effect, both can treat spleen and stomach diseases, and the shapes of the two medicinal materials are also very similar. Generally, unfamiliar pharmacists cannot distinguish between them.

  "Huh?" The pharmacist turned around, looked at Song Jian with a puzzled expression, then looked at the medicine on the table and said: "That's right, I gave you white peony."

  Song Jian's hand slightly stirred the pile of medicinal materials and said, "This is Cyperus."

  "How is that possible? Did I just open the wrong medicine container?" The young pharmacist said, opening again the container with "White Peony" written on it, took a look inside, and then took out two pieces of medicine. With a smug expression, he said: "See, I didn't take the wrong one. This is indeed White Peony. I'm always very careful with my work, how could I make a mistake?"

  Song Jian said seriously: "Younger brother, what I want is Bai Zhu, but you gave me Cang Zhu. I think it's because your pharmacy made a mistake when filling the medicine, after all, the 'Cang Zhu' and 'Bai Zhu' medicine containers are next to each other."

  "How is that possible!" The young pharmacist was a bit impatient this time, "You asked for Atractylodes, I gave you Atractylodes, this is indeed Atractylodes, are you the pharmacist or am I?"

  Just as Song Jiangan was about to speak, an old man walked out of the back door.

  The old man was wearing a white robe, but the white robe was stained all over with unknown stains from fiddling with something.

  "What's going on? Xiao Zhang, you should have a more proper attitude towards customers." The old man walked over and first criticized the young pharmacist, Xiao Zhang.

  "Yes, sorry Master, sorry to this friend, but I'm sure I won't be wrong, this is indeed White Atractylodes." Little Zhang apologized to Song Jian, but he still felt aggrieved and thought he was right.

  "Hmm?" The old man glanced at the medicine on the counter, his expression changed slightly, picked up a piece of medicine from the table, sniffed it, then walked to the drawer labeled "White Peony", opened it and sniffed again.

  "What's going on!" The old man suddenly jumped up, staring with his eyes wide open, looking at Little Zhang and loudly asking.

  "What...what's wrong, Master?" Little Zhang had never seen his master so angry before.

  "What's going on? Why is there Atractylodes in the 'White Peony' medicine container?! Who did this?! Get him over here!" The old man was really furious. Although he was usually gentle, he couldn't stand his apprentices making mistakes with the medicinal herbs.

  "Master, it's... I'm the one who did it, how could I have done it wrong?" Little Zhang almost shed tears, he was over twenty years old and had just graduated, but after being scolded by the old man, he felt extremely terrified.

  Song Jian sighed and said, "Old man, young people making mistakes is unavoidable, don't scare him."

  The old man suddenly remembered Song Jian by his side and hastily accompanied him with a smile: "Sorry, sorry, fortunately the young man you know the medicine, otherwise... Ah, although the matter is small, but the medicine is related to the patient's life and death. Every small mistake may lead to big trouble."

  "The old man is right," Song Jian replied.

  The old man looked at Little Zhang and said, "You quickly grab the medicine, after grabbing the medicine, hurry up and re-examine the entire medicine container for me to see if there are any mistakes. Having followed me for three months, you can't even tell apart Cyperus rotundus and Angelica dahurica, it's infuriating."

  "Yes, yes, Master," Little Zhang hastily lowered his head and got back to work.

  The old man had a few points of curiosity about Song Jian, at this age, people who can distinguish between white peony and cyperus at a young age are not many, even among those professional Chinese medicine graduates, they may not be able to recognize several medicinal materials.

  "Are you proficient in traditional Chinese medicine?" The old man asked a sentence, using the two words "proficient".

  Song Jian smiled slightly and didn't answer, he now just wanted to quickly take the medicine and go home to treat his illness.

  "The medicine is ready, I'll help you grind it into powder. Also, I've packaged the half catty of sulfur separately for you." Little Zhang said quietly to Song Jian.

  "Be careful." Song Jian nodded in thanks.

  Xiao Zhang took the medicinal herbs to grind them into powder. Just then, there was a "creak" sound, and the glass door at the front of the hall was pushed open again. A thin-faced man, dressed like a migrant worker, walked in.

  The man's face was very dark, and his eyes were evasive. Song Jian took a glance and already knew that this person must be accustomed to cheating. Although Song Jian didn't learn much about physiognomy, compared to those fortune tellers in modern times, he was much stronger.

  "Carrots, will you take them?" The man walked up to the old man and asked in a low voice, with a strong Northeastern accent.

  The old man was also a keen observer. He took one glance and saw that the visitor wasn't a good person, but still nodded and said: "Of course, however we only accept genuine ginseng."

  "Big brother, you're kidding, of course it's a real ginseng. I found it the day before I came here to work, in a mountainous area in our Northeast," said the middle-aged man, taking out a small paper box from his pocket and opening it to reveal an exquisite little ginseng.

  The old man narrowed his eyes, took a look, and thought to himself: "Damn it, I didn't expect the scammer to cheat even Zhou Wenyi. When I was working in the pharmaceutical management department of the Industrial and Commercial Bureau, you hadn't even married your wife yet."

  After staring at that ginseng for just two glances, Zhou Wen's expression had already become serious. This ginseng was actually real.

  "Wait a minute, I'll go get something from the backyard." Zhou Wenyi took another look at the ginseng and then hastily walked into the backyard.

  Song Jian's eyes swept over the ginseng, first furrowing his brow, then shaking his head, and finally lowering his head without saying another word.

  Soon, Zhou Wen walked out with a magnifying glass and a small test tube in his hand, which contained some **.

  After carefully observing the ginseng under the magnifying glass, Zhou Wen opened his mouth and said: "Brother, can I take a little bit of ginseng whiskers? Don't worry, it's very small."

  The peasant worker nodded and said, "Brother, do as you please. I was just thinking of asking you to check if this is really ginseng. In that mountainous area, I found five more."

  "Five!" Zhou Wen took a deep breath, then put a small piece of ginseng into the test tube, shook it a few times, and soon the liquid in the test tube turned blue.

  "It's true!" Zhou Wen exclaimed in his heart, "And judging from the color, it's obvious that the ginsenoside content is very high. Plus, based on the appearance of this ginseng, it's definitely not a cultivated one, but a genuine wild mountain ginseng."

  After making these judgments, Zhou Wen's face returned to its normal expression, and he looked at the migrant worker, saying: "This ginseng, 2,000 yuan per stem, I'll take it. If you raise the price any higher, I won't buy it."

  Zhou Wen still has a good heart, although the price of ginseng can be speculated to tens of thousands per branch, but for ordinary patients, they will choose artificially cultivated ginseng to treat diseases. After all, artificially cultivated ginseng can be bought for several hundred yuan per catty, and although its efficacy is slightly lower, it is still effective in treating diseases. Therefore, the more important value of mountain ginseng lies in collection.

  "So many?... I'll go back right away, bring the remaining four and sell them to you, Big Brother! I thought they'd only be worth 200 yuan." The man's face was extremely excited.

  Zhou Wen took 2,000 yuan and handed it over to the migrant worker, saying: "You go get the rest of the branches, I'll wait for you here."

  He went away happily.

  Zhou Wen gently stroked the ginseng, his face filled with excitement. A genuine ginseng can truly revive the dead and prolong life, whereas the cultivated ginseng nowadays doesn't have such great effects.

  At this time, Little Zhang walked out with a black bag, and after the medicine was crushed into powder, its volume became very small.

  "It's a total of 7,362 yuan," said Little Zhang. There are several precious medicinal materials inside, such as Sanqi powder and pangolin scales, which are very expensive. This price is already quite reasonable.

  "It's enough to give 7,000. For what happened just now, I should also thank you, young man. Otherwise, the medicine would have been misplaced and no one would have known." Zhou Wen said with a smile, he still had a good impression of Song Jian.

  Song Jian didn't pretend either, it's best if he could save a little, after all, he was short of money now.

  He picked up the black pouch, thought for a moment, and then pointed to the old ginseng, saying: "Old man, be careful with fire." In ancient times, "walking on water" referred to losing one's way, but in the field of traditional Chinese medicine, it means playing with fire. Song Jian was reminding Zhou Wen not to misjudge things.

  Zhou Wen smiled confidently and said, "Thanks for reminding me, little brother."

  Song Jian knew that Zhou Wen Yi hadn't listened and didn't say much more, carrying the five-kilogram heavy medicinal herbs, he walked out of Tongrentang with difficulty.