Ah Man is all about action. The next day, she strapped on a pack with over a dozen rice balls, took Ah Qing as her bodyguard, and left the village in search of the Submerged Merchant.
Harano wasn't slacking either. Even though he still had enough money for now, saving a bit was always a good idea, so he grabbed two Lang Faction members and headed out to forage for medicinal herbs, trying to cut costs as much as possible.
Yayoi was super eager to help too, but she was too young and not very robust, so she couldn't do much outdoor work. Most of the time, she stuck to prepping meals and helping Harano take care of Meng Ziqi.
Wild resources in this era had almost never been touched, and people in Japan's Middle Ages didn't really have much of a habit of picking herbs. After a few days of teamwork, the crew ended up with quite a haul. Due to the season, most of what they found were roots, stems, branches, and bark—stuff like asparagus root, ground screw, yellow doghead, green ox gall, bitter fir twigs, cypress bark, and white pine needles. Still, they got a lot, and the quality looked pretty solid.
That's when Ah Man and Ah Qing finally came back. Everything went super smoothly—they just had to wait a few days for the shipment. Ah Man bragged like crazy about what she'd done, saying she haggled the price hard for Harano, got the shipping costs as low as possible, and even flashed her grandpa's famous name to make sure those Submerged Merchants wouldn't dare pull any tricks. Otherwise, it wouldn't just be price gouging—they'd have to face revenge from her crew in Koka, and her grandpa could shove a hand right up their asses. No way those scammers dared mess with her.
Bottom line: Thanks to her, things went this smoothly and saved this much money. Harano really owed her a big one.
And then she just lay…
Uh, Harano originally thought she'd just flop down and use the excuse of "old wounds acting up from the long journey" to dodge any labor. After all, she looked the classic type—loves to eat, hates to work.
But to his surprise, with business at hand, she didn't slack off at all—in fact, she worked even harder than he expected, didn't rest for a single day, scarfed down three bowls of rice, wiped her mouth, and naturally joined in prepping the foraged herbs and getting all the fussy details ready for opening the Black Clinic. She wasn't slacking one bit.
Just feed her and she'll work—she may be lazy at heart, but at worst she's just a bit slippery, looking for excuses to stay in the warm house or courtyard and sending her unlucky little sis Ah Qing out to freeze her butt off in the fields.
I guess that's just how this era works—true loafers probably can't survive at all.
Clicking his tongue in amazement, Harano just dragged her along to help—setting up water and lighting fires as per the Barefoot Doctor's Manual, smoking and drying herbs with sulfur, and in a few days they pulled together a real batch of top-shelf, wild, handmade medicinals. If this stuff was sold online in later times, it'd be at least 200% markup. As for how effective the medicine was…
Well, he had no clue and couldn't really tell. They'd have to find out by using it. If masses of Japan's Middle Ages peasants ended up getting poisoned, maybe that was just fate.
After all, any medical care is better than none, and this was already way better than nothing.
Once the foraged herbs were all prepped, the Submerged Merchants showed up with the wholesale stuff. Their attitude was great—they even delivered it straight to Hibi Village. Looks like the legend of Ah Man's grandpa and his "one-handed kill" was genuinely intimidating.
Harano took a look through it, compared it to his books, figured the quality wasn't amazing but was usable, and after another round of Ah Man nitpicking and haggling, paid up without fuss.
Now that he had both skills and supplies, he was ready to go—the Black Clinic could officially open for business.
He politely invited Jiulang and Bald-headed Jūbei over, explained how "the world is suffering, but he's born merciful and noble, ready to save all beings and treat their illnesses," and sincerely invited them to join this great plan. He asked them to help spread the word in Hibi and the neighboring villages, which caused a mini-sensation—followed by total radio silence.
People eat grain and rice; nobody doesn't get sick sooner or later. Only those who've suffered sickness know how rough it really is, and it's definitely not something you can tough out by sheer willpower.
For example, the not-so-famous wine taster Sebald Doug, who toughened it out and drank himself into a relapse, almost went blind. But he didn't surrender—he fought his illness with superhuman will, determined to keep drinking. He refused to let the disease win, so he kept drinking heavily, never gave in—and ended up in the ER three times, had two surgeries, nearly died, and that's how he finally learned his lesson.
You can't outdrink illness, and strong willpower won't beat it either. You gotta trust science!
These Japanese peasants of the Middle Ages are human too. They rarely see a real doctor in their villages, so no doubt plenty of folks have long suffered with sickness. Why weren't they lining up to see a doctor?
Harano started to suspect that the villagers saw this as some kind of "next-gen scam." Even though he promised rock-bottom fees and offered credit, the villagers barely knew him—so why trust him? What if after curing them, he handed over a bill that'd bankrupt them…
And that was exactly what happened. The villagers had their own street smarts, and this was exactly what they thought.
If Harano broke his word and lined his own pockets, emptied out a family's grain, snatched their chickens, and dragged off their daughters for, ahem, unsavory purposes—well, as underdogs, they'd have no recourse. Especially with the promise that "future labor can pay the debt" if medicine money runs short—the deal just looked too good to be true. The more they looked at it, the more it screamed "trap."