Chapter 45: The Mysterious Illness at the Medical Hall (Part 1)

  Coming down from the mountain waist and walking into Wanghe Village, this familiar mountain city, everything made Li Ranno recall his memories of the past. After passing through several streets, he went straight to the most prosperous area in the city. In front of him, a medical clinic in Shilangzhong came into view.

  This is the only medical hall in Wanghe Village. Li Ruo thought of his experience stealing medicine and secretly smiled, shaking his head as he walked quickly over. He saw that there was already a large crowd surrounding the medical hall, with people seeing doctors and grabbing medicine in a lively scene.

  Li Rengdao walked in and lined up at the back of the queue, waiting quietly for a long time. Finally, it was Li Rengdao's turn.

  Li Ran Dao walked up to the desk and sat down, across from Shi Lang Zhong who slightly raised his head and glanced at him with a hint of confusion, tightly furrowing his eyebrows.

  Once Li Ruo Knife led his younger brother, in the outskirts of the city was chased and bitten by a wild dog, at that time Shi Lang Zhong happened to pass by, knowing that this young man had no home to return to, alone and destitute.

  Shi Langzhong's face turned cold and he hummed faintly: "I don't have time for free consultations here, if you want to grab medicine, I absolutely won't give credit..."

  With a flick of his sleeve, he was about to shoo Li Nian's knife away and call the next one up, when suddenly a loud "pa" sound was heard in his ear, and a silver ingot weighing at least ten taels slapped onto the table.

  Many people around saw this scene, and their faces all showed a playful smile. Ten taels of silver is not a small amount, and this young man took out so much silver to smash the counter, obviously having some grievances against this stingy Lang Zhong. Everyone was interested and waited to see the good show.

  Looking at Li Ruo's expressionless face, then looking at the silver ingot, Shi Langzhong was stunned again, swallowed the rest of his words back into his stomach, nodded and frowned to ask:

  "Alright, alright, I don't know if you're here for a diagnosis or to get medicine..."

  "Seize the medicine!"

  "Is there a prescription?"

  "Oral."

  Having heard this, Shi Langzhong stopped asking questions and picked up the pen on the desk. Then he heard Li Ran say: "Three qian of gentiana, four qian of magnolia officinalis, one portion of xuanming powder, half a liang each of cooked rehmannia and purple perilla, and five qian of eclipta...

  Li Ran recited the names of over a dozen medicinal herbs, and Shi Langzhong found it increasingly strange as he listened. Some of these herbs were common, while others were extremely rare, and few people knew about them; even the stock in his own store was quite scarce. Moreover, these medicines didn't seem to be part of a single prescription, but rather a collection of multiple prescriptions all listed together.

  Shi Langzhong listened to Li Rendao's report, looked at the young man opposite him with suspicion, hesitated for a moment, and didn't ask any questions. He stood up and walked towards the medicine cabinet behind him, grabbed all the herbs, packed them into more than ten paper bags, handed them over to Li Rendao, and said coldly:

  "The medicine is ready, it costs seven silver coins in total."

  As he spoke, he reached out and grabbed the silver ingot on the counter.

  Slow!

  Li Rendao raised the medicine package in his hand, and coldly shouted, "Stop!" Shi Langzhong's hand fell into empty air, and he looked up at Li Rendao with a mixture of shock and anger on his face.

  "Take your medicine and pay up! What's there to discuss? This is the price here, seven silver coins in total, no refunds."

  The people behind saw that something was going on and many of them even gathered around with a smile.

  Li Ran's expression remained unchanged, and he slowly shook his head: "Shi Langzhong, I didn't say I wouldn't give you the money, but the medicine you got for me is not right. I need seven liang of ice crystal, but you only got about three liang. And I need two liang of cold bone fat, but you got six liang instead..."

  Shi Lang was taken aback for a moment, his eyes fixed on the faint Li Ran's knife, and he took a deep breath of cold air.

  Li Ran didn't even open the medicine package, and solely by weighing it in his hand, he revealed the hidden truth about the medicine. This ability to identify medicine is quite unbelievable.

  Shi Lang was shocked and suspicious, wondering what kind of background this young man had, to have such profound herbal medicine skills.

  Ice vitriol is a rare medicine, the price is not expensive, but it's hard to find, and there's not much stock in Shilangzhong. So he secretly reduced the amount of ice vitriol and added more cold bone fat. Seeing Li Ran's questioning tone and the suspicious expressions of the people around him, Shilangzhong pretended to be calm, with a hint of disdain on his face, and said coldly:

  "Little one, you know what? Ice cream and cold bone fat have the same medicinal effect, both can regulate cold and heat. In many prescriptions, these two medicines can be completely interchangeable. Moreover, the medicinal properties of cold bone fat are even stronger. I've increased this dose for you without charging you more, isn't that already a great kindness?"

  Li Rendao listened to Shi Langzhong's talk and laughed again. After Shi Langzhong finished speaking, Li Rendao suddenly asked:

  "Shi Lang Zhong, if I use Long Gu's poison as the main medicine, matched with Bing Gan to assist, can I also use Han Gu Zhi as a substitute?"

  "This..."

  Sweat suddenly flowed down from Shi Lang's forehead.

  Bingpian and Han Gu Zhi are both cold in nature, and can be used interchangeably in some prescriptions. However, if Bingpian is used to detoxify or neutralize the toxicity of other herbs, it cannot be replaced by Han Gu Zhi, otherwise the resulting medicine will be a poisonous concoction that can cause death.

  This is a great taboo for pharmacists. If what Li Ruo Dao said was true, Shi Lang Zhong's substitution of medicine for Li Ruo Dao would be no different from murder.

  Shi Lang's face turned extremely ugly, but he couldn't understand how this little kid could be so familiar with the medicinal properties of Bing Ji? That was a rare herb, after all.

  Everyone looked at Shi Langzhong, who was red-faced and ear-red, and of course saw Shi Langzhong's obvious guilt. Everyone had some hidden anger in their hearts. If what Li Ranno said was true, wouldn't Shi Langzhong's attitude towards grabbing medicine be worth people's lives?

  Everyone looked at each other in dismay and suddenly became extremely distrustful of this man.

  Shi Langzhong coughed twice with effort, calming down the anxiety in his heart and nodded slightly: "Mm, I didn't think you'd use borax to detoxify the dragon bone poison. In that case, I indeed grabbed too little borax. Hand over the medicine package, I'll re-make it for you."

  Shi Langzhong took the medicine package, turned around and walked back to the medicine cabinet, still feeling a burning sensation on his face, but in his heart he was furious. Out of nowhere, a young boy appeared and scolded him in front of everyone, causing Shi Langzhong to lose face and credibility. Shi Langzhong hated this young man extremely.

  No more daring to pretend, Shi Langzhong took all the medicine that Li Rendao wanted and handed it back to him. Taking the silver ingot, he found some loose change, Shi Langzhong couldn't wait to drive Li Rendao away immediately, waving his hand towards the back and shouting:

  "Next."

  Just then, several people rushed in from outside the door, carrying a door panel. On the door panel lay a robust man with a pale face, gasping violently like a broken bellows, his throat heaving convulsively. Looking at his hands, they were dark purple and twitching spasmodically.

  His eyes were filled with pain and despair.

  A person carrying a door panel shouted loudly in anxiety:

  "Make way, make way. This is Wang Dahu, the leader of the Hunters' Guild. Everyone please help and let him see Shi Langzhong's condition first."

  Seeing the emergency, many people automatically made way for a path. The several men slammed the door panel onto the stone table in front of them and hastily shouted:

  "Shi Langzhong, Wang Dage was still very healthy in the forest outside the city yesterday, but this morning he suddenly became like this. We don't know what disease he has contracted. We rushed back dozens of miles to find you. You must help us and save Wang Dage!"