Early the next morning, as soon as it was dawn, I set out with the new clothes Lin Xiaoyu bought for my parents.
The non-holiday highway was flowing smoothly, and a few hours later, we arrived at Lin Xiaoyu’s hometown.
I parked the car outside her courtyard, carried large and small bags and pushed open the half-opened iron door.
Mother Lin was sitting in the yard picking vegetables. She raised her head when she heard the noise, and a smile instantly appeared on her face.
But when she looked past me and found that there was no one behind me, her smile visibly dimmed.
"Auntie." I said hello quickly.
"Xiao Chen is here," Mother Lin said with unconcealable disappointment in her eyes.
"Xiaoyu...she didn't come back together?"
“She has to go to work today and can’t take leave. She really can’t leave.” I quickly explained and picked up a few shopping bags in my hand.
"These are the clothes Xiaoyu specially took the time to pick out for you and your uncle. The weather is getting colder, and she is thinking about adding some thick clothes for you."
Mother Lin took the bag, looked down at the clothes inside, and then the disappointment on her face softened: "This child, he works by himself. She is so busy, and she spends money randomly thinking about us. "
She looked up at me: "You must be hungry after driving for so long? Come in and rest, I will cook some vegetables, and I will have dinner soon."
"Thank you, aunt, for causing you trouble." I followed her into the house.
I sat on the bamboo chair in the main room and drank a cup of hot tea to dispel the fatigue of the long drive.
Mother Lin called again to urge Father Lin to come back from the fields.
Hence not long after, Father Lin came in with a hoe and saw me, with a simple smile on his dark face: "Xiao Chen is here."
I quickly stood up and passed the cigarette. After a few words of greetings, he got down to business and cut to the chase: "Uncle, would it be convenient for you to take me to see the medicinal materials at my uncle's place now?"
Father Lin lit up his cigarette and nodded cheerfully: "Okay, he should be weaving bamboo baskets at home now. Let's go, I will take you there."
He turned around and walked into the house. As if he remembered something, he turned back to me and said, "By the way, bring two bottles of wine. My cousin will like this one, so he can talk."
With a thought in my heart, I quickly walked to the trunk of the car and took out the two bottles of Moutai that I had planned to use to bribe Father Lin: "Uncle, do you think this wine is good?"
Father Lin took it and saw that it was Maotai: "You can't use such a good wine. His tongue can't taste it. Don't waste a good thing."
As he said that, he took the two bottles of Maotai and turned back to the house. After a while, I came out with two bottles of common local liquor: "This will do. Let's go, his house is at the east end of the village."
It was not far away, so I walked with Father Lin and arrived in front of a blue brick house at the east end of the village.
In the field at the courtyard gate, a man in his fifties was sitting on a small bench weaving a bamboo basket.
"Construction, are you busy?" Lin's father raised his voice to say hello.
Tang Shu Lin Jianshe raised his head, saw us, put down his work and stood up: "Why are you here? Who is this?"
Father Lin turned sideways and moved me to the front: "This is Xiao Chen, Xiao Yu's friend, from the city."
Uncle Tang looked me up and down: "Are you Xiao Yu's partner? Yes, you are a very talented person."
I was a little embarrassed by his direct look, so I responded humbly: "Hello, uncle, just call me Xiao Chen. I'm taking the liberty to disturb you this time."
I don't want to disturb you, come and sit in the room." My uncle enthusiastically let us into the main room.
Father Lin put the wine he brought on the table: "I know you like this, so I brought two bottles with me."
When my uncle looked at the wine, his eyes narrowed: "You still understand me!"
After hearing this, my cousin didn't ask much about the purpose. He just said, "Wait a minute." Then he turned and entered the back room.
A moment later, he came out with a dark brown ceramic jar, the lid of which had just been opened.
A strong and unique medicinal fragrance immediately filled the air. He took out a few slices of dark black and evenly sliced medicinal herbs and handed them to me:
"The wild aconite harvested from the mountains behind us is used. It is prepared in strict accordance with the ancient methods passed down by the elders, after several processes. The full-term Heishun Tablets have sufficient medicinal properties and the toxicity has been eliminated." He patted the clay pot and said, "These wild raw materials are getting harder and harder to find, and it takes a lot of time to prepare. There is only so much left, I think it only weighs two or three kilograms."
I took the few black films and pretended to look at them.
Actually, I don’t know how to identify the quality of this medicinal material.
I completely approved of it out of my trust in my father Lin and my cousin.
"Good stuff, really good stuff." I praised repeatedly and carefully put the medicinal materials back on the table.
Hunter saw that I knew the goods, and enthusiastically pulled me to sit down: "Come on, don't just watch, it's dinner time, and have a couple of drinks with your uncle!"
I wanted to refuse, but Father Lin also supported me: "Xiao Chen, don't be polite when you get here, it's rare for your cousin to be happy."
I couldn't refuse the hospitality, so I had to sit down at the square table.
After a few glasses of local shochu, the conversation started: "Xiao Chen, don't look at this black pornographic film that is inconspicuous now, but it is worth a lot of money!"
"The key lies in this raw material, wild aconite. The medicinal properties of those grown in the ground are far inferior! The ones grown in our back mountains are the ones that really absorb the essence of the world."
He sighed: "But this wild one is getting harder and harder to find every year. You have to go through the old forest. My old bones can't climb such a high mountain now."
I followed his words and asked: "Isn't the cultivated one not good at all?"
"It's not completely impossible, but just like domestic chickens and free-range chickens, can they taste the same? It takes a lot of effort to prepare, and the heat and time are different, and the effect is very different."
The rarer and harder this medicinal material is to find, the better it is for me.
This means that even if the recipe is made public, it will be difficult for others to imitate products with the same efficacy, which is equivalent to establishing barriers at the source.
我给他倒满酒：「叔，不瞒您说，我投了家小药店，正急需这味好药做主打。要是以后还想长期要，您看有没有办法能稳定供应？钱方面，绝对不是问题。」
堂叔醉眼朦胧地看了我半晌：「小伙子，这不是钱"I just said, wild ones are hard to find! My inventory is based on what I saved in the past. Even if I am willing to go up the mountain now, I may not be able to find enough materials."
"Even if I find some occasionally, it is time-consuming and labor-intensive to prepare it according to the old method, but it will not be able to produce much. Stable supply? Difficult."
His words woke me up. What I want to do is not an ordinary health product, but a leading product that can open up the market with unique curative effects.
If the raw materials are compromising, then everything else will be empty talk.
The atmosphere on the table was a little dull for a while. Seeing this, Father Lin tried to smooth things over: "Drink first, drink first! Don't rush into this matter, think about it slowly."