“Look at you, that’s not even that much money. Is it necessary to be so worried about it? Fine, grandpa will keep that for you for now. You ask grandpa when you want to spend it, okay?” Gu Xiao knocked lightly on his grandson’s forehead and took the silver that added up to less than two taels from him.
Gu Ye took this opportunity to say to him, “Grandpa, I want to learn how to become an apothecary from Grandpa Zheng, will that be okay with you?”
The sage apothecary’s real name was Zheng Duocai1. But after he had become very well-know, everybody started referring to him as “Master Apothecary Zheng”, which morphed into “sage apothecary”. Now very few individuals were aware of his real name.
“Yeah! Of course! But the grandpa next door is very selective about accepting disciples. It will have to depends on whether he is willing to take you.” Gu Xiao didn’t think his little granddaughter would be lucky enough to be picked by the sage apothecary; but, on the other hand, he didn’t want to point that out directly and her fragile feelings. So he tried to be as subtle as he could.
The sage apothecary had been well known in the world of apothecary for dozens of year; countless people had wanted to become his disciples. Yet, he had only taken in one disciple so far. Now even that one disciple had become a renowned master apothecary.
“When I was up in the mountain, I have already become his disciple! Grandpa Zheng said he will start teaching me how to identify herbs starting tomorrow!” said Gu Ye.
When Gu Xiao heard that, he felt very emotional: accepted her as his disciple?! Disciple of the sage apothecary? His granddaughter would become the disciple of the world-renowned sage apothecary? He must be dreaming! Perhaps… that was what his granddaughter had wanted. That must be it! She must have performed the ritual of becoming a disciple when the sage apothecary was injured. Whether he’d honored that would be a whole different story!
If only Gu Ye knew what was going through Gu Xiao’s mind right now, she would definitely roll her eyes as far back as she would: It was that old man who practically begged her to become his disciple. She definitely would not have bothered with it had she not needed cover stories for her healing and apothecary skills. Sage apothecary or what not, he may not even be as knowledgeable as her when it comes to formulating medicines!
Gu Xiao got up before there was even light in the sky the next day. He needed to go on a shopping spree in town. He worried that one horse wouldn’t be enough so he also went to borrow the donkey from the village head. There were so much he needed to buy that Gu Ming was dragged along to help out.
The kids was so excited when he was riding on his grandfather’s towering horse. His head was lifted high up when they were passing through the village; he looked like a general returning from victory. All his buddies were envious of him.
One must know that this red horse of Gu Xiao’s was a combat horse, and has a bit of a temperament. It didn’t usually let others close to him without its owner being around. Even Hunter Zhang was almost knocked over by the horse once. So the kids could usually look at it from afar. It was such an honor to be able to ride on a horse like this!
The excited Gu Ming was hugged by his grandfather as the horse marched forward on the crooked mountain paths. Gu Ye, on the other hand, was summoned by her master of convenience to test her ability to identify herbs.
He did not expect that the girl was able to identify so many different types of herbs at her young age, many of them he wasn’t even sure about their results. The more he heard, the more the sage apothecary thought he had lucked out by running into her! He only came here to return his favor for the Hall of Hidden Souls; he didn’t expect Gu Ye to really turned into such a pleasant surprise like the Hall Master had mentioned.
The way that the sage apothecary was looking at her gave Gu Ye goose bumps. Was that old man alright? Or did he have other special interest in her? Aiya, she really hoped that he wasn’t some sort of a creep!
“My good disciple,” Gu Ye found the tenderness in sage apothecary’s voice was almost unbearable. “How did you pick up this ability to identify all these herbs? I don’t think that you are going to be able to find any apothecary that’s better than me in this world!” Even at the very end he did not forget to praise about himself.
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Note:
1. His name means “hella talented”.