CHAPTER 635: CHAPTER 38: GINSENG SHORTAGE

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After delivering Xiao Xian to "Plum Rice Ball", Wang Shuai also brought down the medicines and courteously suggested going in to greet Mei Nian.

According to seniority, Mei Nian is of the same generation as Wang Shuai’s great-grandfather, and even a generation above Zhang Lvxiao. The Wang family is an old clan, and although the Mei family has declined now, Wang Shuai still dared not take them lightly.

After entering the pharmacy, Mei Nian was not there, and Pharmacist Huang was in charge of hosting the two.

After sending Wang Shuai away, Xiao Xian asked about the whereabouts of Mei Nian. She remembered that Mei Nian had a cold constitution and needed to move south during the winter to avoid the cold.

"The proprietress did not go south to avoid the cold this time. I don’t know if the proprietress has ever mentioned the Xu Family to you. The Xu Family has always been engaged in the medicinal herb business in the south, and recently, I don’t know why, the Xu Family has been making frequent moves," Pharmacist Huang brought up the recent business of the pharmacy, looking worried.

"Plum Rice Ball" looks unimpressive, but it actually has some influence in the traditional Chinese medicine market across North China.

Unlike what Xiao Xian saw, the main profit of the pharmacy does not come from the wholesale of common herbs, but from a small batch of high-priced, advanced medicinal materials.

"Beijing is close to the Three Eastern Provinces, and every year during the holidays, according to domestic tradition, it is customary for juniors to give gifts to their elders, and subordinates to their leaders," Pharmacist Huang explained the difficulties faced by the pharmacy this year.

Ginseng is one of the highly sought-after annual gifts. In previous years by February, the pharmacy would have dozens of kilograms of Century-old Wild Ginseng in stock, but this year, let alone Wild Ginseng, even the ordinary ginseng at the ginseng market has been much less, and "Plum Rice Ball" has run out of stock several times.

A customer can come once and it’s okay if there’s no stock, they might come a second time, but if they come twice and there’s still no stock, it’s hard for them to come a third time. The business of the pharmacy has been greatly affected.

"Ginseng mostly comes from the northeast, does the Xu Family also have influence in the northeast?" Xiao Xian knows that the domestic ginseng production areas are in the northeast.

However, Pharmacist Huang added more, centuries ago, when the natural environment was better, there were distributions of Wild Ginseng in Southern Gan, Southern Yu and Ji, and Lu Xi, but unfortunately, they can no longer be found now.

"That’s beside the point. The proprietress received news that the Xu Family, especially around the Heilong River area, has been buying up large amounts of ginseng land. Many of the regular suppliers with whom the proprietress has contact have been uncontactable," Mei Nian is very particular about the quality of the ginseng, and the suppliers she contacts are reliable ginseng buyers and ginseng gardens with stable production and quality, and there are only a few supply channels.

From the second half of this year, these channels have been cut off one by one, and by the time Mei Nian noticed, it was already close to the year’s end, and both Wild Ginseng and garden ginseng supplies couldn’t keep up.

"How long has it been since Uncle Master left?" Xiao Xian has been busy with the Section C renovation project at North Campus and is completely unaware of outside matters, but from the last incident of Xu Lan Ya selling fake ginseng at the pharmacy, she could roughly deduce that the Xu Family in the northeast ginseng had already harbored ulterior motives for a long time.

Mei Nian has been away for almost half a month.

A month ago, an old regular customer of the pharmacy pre-ordered a Century-old Wild Ginseng.

Mei Nian managed to get one from the Changbai Mountain area right away, agreeing to pick it up before the new year.

But the unskilled clerk at the pharmacy accidentally sold that ginseng half a month ago.

Only some old ginseng roots were left in the store, fortunately, the customer, considering the pharmacy’s good face, took the roots to use temporarily and said to come after the new year for the ginseng.

Mei Nian asked around the city and really couldn’t find suitable Wild Ginseng, so she had to go to the northeast herself.

Pharmacist Huang also knew about Mei Nian’s health condition, the last time she went to the Heavenly Mountain area searching for Tianshan Red Lotus, it greatly harmed her vitality.

This year the north has been severely cold, with snow accumulating more than a dozen centimeters thicker than in previous years, and the climate in the Changbai Mountain area is probably even harsher.

"Can we contact Uncle Master? Ask her to come back, it’s just Century-old Wild Ginseng, this batch of medicinal herbs I brought this time includes dozens of ginseng, the quality won’t be worse than Wild Ginseng." These ginseng were found by Xiao Xian in one of the scenario simulations in class, from Wanlin Hills, and at the time she didn’t specially mind, just thinking it’s better to take than to leave them, unexpectedly they now really came in handy.

Hearing Xiao Xian say this, Pharmacist Huang started to carefully inspect the medicinal herbs Xiao Xian had brought over.