Simply Trading

She might have left a bruise there, on his arm, with the amount of force she had used to cling onto him earlier, while they half-ran along the tracks.

Qin Feng simply waved a hand at his damaged home as soon as the pair arrived at his pathetic-looking fields. To be honest, it wasn"t in that bad a state. Only a small section of the roof of the same had been torn off by the angry female disciples, who had not been content with beating him up. Which was why he had busied him with his loud sobbing, rather than give an accurate description of what had been done.

After all, he didn"t wish to have Elder Ming accuse him of exaggeration.

Of course, he did not think it would take too much to repair the same. After all, it was just a simple task of repairing the wooden boards and laying the thatching over the same once again. All in all, he doubted that it would take more than an afternoon"s work.

That is, if he was doing it himself. And if he had two good hands.

However, it would not be prudent to do that, since he was supposed to be injured. His left index finger was supposed to have suffered a bad sprain, so he couldn"t take up any heavy work at the moment. Besides, he had every intention of squeezing every advantage that he could get out of the Rear Gardens.

"Your house isn"t too badly damaged. Only the cooking area has been more badly wrecked than I thought was possible. They actually took the trouble to break all of your pots. And do you even have an intact bowl in here?" asked the woman, as soon as she had a look at the wreckage inside the narrow cottage.

"Well, at least they didn"t break my chopsticks. In any case, I doubt I will be able to handle the cooking myself for a while. Apart from boiling everything in that wok of mine. That somehow escaped the havoc that they worked in here."

He pointed out the single utensil in the corner, that had been missed by the ones trashing the place, with a slight smile. "I suppose they were concentrating on breaking my simple table and my stools, and didn"t really look into the corners here."

Those had been broken into pieces that would have fitted into his now-broken stove-c.u.m-firepot. Which meant that he would have to eat on the steps of his cottage until he got a replacement for those pieces of furniture. Which could take a while, he realized, given how no one was about to bother to bring such pieces into the medicine fields.

Lingxi sighed as she looked around the rest of the little hut and took note of what was damaged. Including the roof of the same. The girls had smashed two of the support struts, which led to a good chunk of the thatching falling apart.

"We"ll need to repair the roof for certain. That hole over your cooking area is definitely going to cause you problems right away. And it seems what Elder Ming warned us about is certainly going to be an issue. You won"t be able to sleep comfortably in there without fixing that hole in the roof there, not with the weather getting colder and wetter," she pointed out at once.

Qin Feng shook his head at her, as he held up his left hand, showing off his swollen index finger. "I think I won"t be of much help, if you are thinking of getting me to take care of that now," he told her with a smile.

"Perhaps you should help me take care of my injuries first?"

She shook her head and made a rude noise as she moved quickly to his side. "Why didn"t you remind me that your finger was broken? Are you still in pain? Look at how badly it is swollen!"

Reaching out her hands, Lingxi took hold of his injured limb and slowly began to check it, ignoring his pitiful cries. It didn"t take too long for her to finish her diagnosis of the same either:

"Stop crying like a baby! Even a six year old would be able to endure the pain. It isn"t broken, only badly sprained. It just looks really bad, swollen like that. I should put some of your salve on it, and bandage it to keep you from trying to use that finger for a while. At least until it heals."

Then she shook her head at him, as she s.n.a.t.c.hed up a small piece of wood from the floor. "Luckily, they have left pieces here that would be suitable for a splint. Let"s go over to the bed, where we can sit down and do this," she told him, as she pulled him along.

Qin Feng had to admit that she was better at dealing with his finger than he had expected. At least, she was doing far better than he could have done. Or perhaps that had something to do with the fact that he was only left with one hand, to deal with all of the bandaging?

In any case, she was soon done, and had sat back to look over her handiwork. And from the smile that she wore on her face, Lingxi seemed rather pleased with what she had done.

Then she realized what she was doing, and that he was watching her intently. Which was enough to make her get up from his bed, and step over to the smashed remains in the side of his humble abode.

"I think you are going to have trouble preparing your meals, now that you have lost most of your utensils. I doubt that you even have anything left here to prepare a simple meal. Do you want me to lend you a pot or two, until you can get replacements?"

He laughed, as he waved a hand at the mess of broken shards and splinters on the floor. "I think you needn"t worry about that. I might not be a very good cook, but I should be able to handle boiling rice, even if I have to use a wok. Even when I have only one good hand. I am more concerned about what you and your friends are going to do, now that Elder Xuan has cut off your route to making money off my herbs."

Lingxi merely shrugged in response to that, and gestured at his bed. And his little collection of herbs that she knew had been hidden under the same. "You still have enough to keep you in silver for a while, even if the Medicine Hall is going to bring this sort of trade under their control. And our friends would be willing to pay a little bit more, rather than to do without those medicines.

"After what Lingyuan did to your garden, I think there will be many who are going to be worried that they would have to do without their painkillers, when their time comes around again. And those plants will not just spring up by themselves, even if they were willing to pay."

Qin Feng wagged his broken finger at her. "You are thinking to selling my herbs quietly then? Like a Black Market? Do you think the Medicine Hall is going to allow that?"

"Well, they can"t stop us. And it"s not as if they can be bothered, bringing in those herbs, just for a handful of women. It isn"t worth their trouble, to tell the truth. There are too few of us to make it worth their effort."

"But if Elder Xuan convinces them ..."

He paused then, felt another presence stepping through the wards that he had set around the periphery of his medicine field. But who would be visiting at this time?

Lingxi too, was aware of the visitor, and started for the door at once. She did have her reputation to worry about, and there was a rule that women disciples were not allowed to casually visit their male counterparts, Inner or Outer School.

And although she could say that she was following orders, she certainly wasn"t about to take any chances.

But their visitor soon spoke up, before she could even reach the entrance of his hut:

"Elder Sister Lingxi? Are you there?"

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