Chapter 77: Selling Ginseng, A Pleasant Deal

“I like collecting these little things,” Chu Yue said softly, smiling as she looked at the young man. “Misprinted stamps are so interesting—I want to take it back and show the others. This one’s worth eight cents, right? I’ll give you ten. How about it?”

Her tone was gentle, her face pleasant, and her bright eyes looked straight at him.

The young man clearly had just started working—still fresh and inexperienced. When Chu Yue looked at him like that, his heart suddenly skipped a beat.

What ten cents or eight cents? Since she liked it, he ended up selling it to her for the listed eight cents without even thinking twice.

After Chu Yue walked away with the misprinted stamp, the young man stood at the post office door scratching his head before it finally dawned on him:

“Darn it! I forgot to ask her name!”

Chu Yue held the misprinted stamp, practically glowing with delight inside.

She knew that in a few decades, the rarer and more flawed a stamp is, the more valuable it becomes. Sometimes a tiny little stamp could be worth an entire house.

She planned to keep this one in her private collection—one day, she’d leave it to Lu Yuanbao.

She tucked the stamp into her dimensional storage space and then headed for her next destination: the traditional Chinese medicine shop—to sell her ginseng.

As soon as she walked in, a shop assistant greeted her:

“Comrade, are you here for medicine? Do you have a prescription?”

Chu Yue shook her head.

“I’m not here to get medicine. I’ve come to sell herbs.”

The assistant immediately waved her off.

“No, no, no—we’re a proper pharmacy. We do business with approved vendors, not just anyone who walks in.”

The pharmacy had a fixed list of trusted foragers and suppliers. A complete stranger like Chu Yue, just showing up to sell herbs? The assistant didn’t even want to talk to her. He waved dismissively, motioning for her to leave. And he was only being polite because she was a young woman.

If it had been a middle-aged man pestering like this, he probably would’ve thrown him out outright.

But Chu Yue wasn’t intimidated by the assistant’s bad attitude. She looked around the store and spotted a slender, bespectacled middle-aged man on the side, probably in his fifties—tall and lean, with the air of someone in charge.

She walked straight over, pulled out the ginseng from its box, and handed it to him.

“Boss, this is good stuff. Are you really not even going to take a look?”

The shopkeeper glanced up at Chu Yue’s youthful face, frowning instinctively, thinking she was just another girl overestimating herself. But the moment his gaze landed on the ginseng, his eyes lit up.

The shopkeeper set down the herbs in his hands and walked over for a closer look.

Chu Yue broke off a thin piece of root from the wild ginseng’s lush root system and handed it to him.

“Here—try it. It’s pure wild.”

Seeing her actions, the shopkeeper immediately realized: this girl knew her stuff. Even if she didn’t know much about herbs, she understood how to do business properly.

Whether it was good or not—he’d know the moment he tasted it.

The shopkeeper chewed the ginseng root a few times, and his eyes glinted with appreciation.

He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked at Chu Yue.

“Miss, what price are you asking?”

Chu Yue opened one palm and used it to discreetly shield her other hand, on which she raised two fingers, subtly signaling the amount.

In any era, there was always a black market—especially in the apocalypse, and even here in the 1970s. Back when Chu Yue was trying to survive in the end times, she had traveled with survivors from all over the country and learned plenty of tricks.

With windfall deals like this, you never shout about it.

The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow in surprise at her practiced movements.

Two hundred yuan—that was the market rate for ginseng of this quality.

“Alright,” he agreed readily.

When he handed her the money, he folded it and slipped it into her hand discreetly, keeping it hidden within his sleeve the entire time.

The assistant at the pharmacy widened his eyes, but no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t make out the exact transaction between Chu Yue and the shopkeeper — how much money had exchanged hands.

He only saw Chu Yue, after receiving some money, reveal a satisfied smile and say to the shopkeeper:

“Shopkeeper, you’re a straightforward man. If I get my hands on any more good stuff, I’ll come to you first.”

The shopkeeper, now without the disdain from earlier, nodded with a smile:
“Remember, this is the Pei family pharmacy — come find me anytime.”

—

Once outside the pharmacy, Chu Yue found a quiet spot, pulled out the money, and counted it: a full 200 yuan, all crisp and brand-new notes.

Adding that to the 300 yuan she had brought with her from the Chu family, she now had 500 yuan total!

Chu Yue patted her pocket, completely satisfied.

Big money had to be made, but small profits couldn’t be missed either. She had carried down plenty of pine nuts and Chinese yams, and once she sold them at the afternoon market, she could easily earn another dozen or twenty yuan.

—

Meanwhile, after the shopkeeper received the ginseng, he placed it carefully in a box lined with red velvet. Each root was fastened with fine thread for stability, and then he turned and headed to the accounting room at the back of the pharmacy.

“Young Miss, look—today our pharmacy acquired something really good.”

Inside the room sat a young woman dressed fashionably, with permed curls. She was calculating figures with her head down. When she looked up slowly, she revealed a pair of seductive, sharp phoenix eyes.

In her arms was a child around four or five years old, who looked pale and weak. Coughing lightly in her embrace—
Cough, cough.
It seemed like he had a cold.

—

As Chu Yue left the pharmacy, it was nearly noon — just about time for her meeting with Pei Hanchuan.

She hurried toward the state-run restaurant they had agreed on.

Since it was close to the New Year, the streets were crowded. A teenage boy around 17 or 18 brushed shoulders with her.

Chu Yue immediately stopped in her tracks, frowning as she watched the boy’s back.

She wasn’t hurt —
He was a pickpocket!

Chu Yue was cautious and meticulous. Anything valuable went straight into her personal space; she never kept it in her pockets.

When the boy had bumped into her, she had clearly felt him slip a hand into her pocket. His speed had been incredibly fast — clearly a seasoned thief.

He didn’t succeed with her, but he’d definitely succeeded with someone else.

And just then—

“My wallet! My wallet is gone— Oh no, my wallet is missing—!”

From the roadside, an elderly woman with silver hair suddenly cried out.

She looked about seventy, not extravagantly dressed, but her clothes were clearly high quality. Her hair was neatly styled, her appearance clean and well-kept, and her face full and healthy — completely different from the typical frail, undernourished old ladies.

No wonder the pickpocket had targeted her.

The elderly woman stumbled forward, trying to chase after the thief.

Chu Yue made a split-second decision — she grabbed the old lady’s arm, set down the bamboo basket from her back, and said quickly:

“Grandma, wait here for me. I’ll go catch that thief!”

Before the words had even finished leaving her mouth, Chu Yue’s figure had already shot forward like a drawn arrow.