The next place he went to was Yu Xiang’s new medical store instance, which was on the second floor as well. The store instance was basically an old Chinese house with a courtyard at the centre, quite similar to Zither Mistress Ke Mi’s home instance. While Yu Xiang could have asked for something grander, their family was satisfied with paying what they could afford.
Though the outside looked like a traditional Chinese home, the interior was that of a Chinese medicinal store from ancient times. The System had no trouble replicating such a request, saving Jin a lot of time which he used the prior knowledge of the System to immediately bring the store up.
There were tens of cabinets all over the store, some at double of Yu Xiang’s height but the movable ladders and assist ropes hanging from the top would allow her to reach those drawers with a bit of cultivation.
Her parents, however, felt quite at home with this kind of cabinet system using their chi to balance on a few of the tiny knobs that were protruding at interval levels of the cabinet. (It was meant to be done that way too according to the System.) Due to this level of finesse, which even Yu Xiang had never seen before, her parents were busy unpacking all the Chinese medicines that were kindly provided by Jin.
Yes, Jin had decided to take over the entire medical store instance for himself as well. He not only sponsored the store instance but also gave the Yu Xiang’s family full autonomy of running the store. The only requirement was that they worked for him by selling his wares instead.
But unlike the arcade instance which the profit earnt by the co-owners would eventually be used for various tournaments, Yu Xiang family’s earnings would be commission based on top of a decent base wage salary.
Should the sales pick up, their commission based revenues could eventually rival the overall sales they had made in the previous years and that was how Jin advertised it to them. The family was also kind of tired to keep worrying for the store and gave Yu Xiang to decide which she accepted the deal on behalf of the family.
Yu Xiang wondered why Jin was being so kind to her family and even suspected that he was trying to woo her. This wasn’t Jin assuming, the not so much older woman had unabashedly told him that she was not interested in Jin during their personal brainstorming session. The dungeon supplier was slightly stunned before her parents told her off and apologised to Jin about the sudden change of developments afterwards.
They obviously did not want to offend their potential benefactor, yet Yu Xiang was adamant in her stance. She was not ready to be wed off nor was she in any rush to look for a boyfriend as she wanted to expand on her career first even if that meant that she would have to work part time jobs to keep the store afloat. However, Jin shook her suspicions off and insisted that his interest in her was purely on a business level.
“I find it interesting. Why do you insist on staying in this store? With your capabilities, you should be well sought after by a bunch of prominent hospitals?” Jin asked Yu Xiang after her parents had negotiated the ownership details with Jin.
“It’s a personal issue. I find it a little discomforting to share it with you.” Yu Xiang was still direct with Jin and not mincing any of her words at all.
“Alright, erm… How about this? Do you mind telling me what it is you wish to achieve by staying in this small shop?” Jin asked Yu Xiang, and she looked pissed once again, clearly not buying the initial statement that Jin was not interested in her. (A certain fox was laughing at Jin being regarded as a playboy)
“I have no need to tell you any of this at all. You just have to wait and see.” Yu Xiang replied with a stern tone.
“…Sure. Then what if I ask as a concerned SPONSOR of your store?” Jin had decided to use that particular trick even though he didn’t like to guilt trip someone. He could obviously see that she was quite irritated by it.
“…I want my parents to recognise that Western and Chinese Medicine can coexist together. While Western heals the symptoms, the Chinese medicine helps provide nutrition for the body and has the ability to cure the root cause of most sickness. That was why I defied them and studied pharmacology while taking up a Chinese Medicine certificate.” Jin was surprised that Yu Xiang revealed more than he expected as he smiled awkwardly at her answer before putting a chi potion at the centre of the table.
“What do you think of this?” Jin asked as he opened the chi potion for her.
“By the label on it. It’s a chi potion. Not really a brand that I recognise. Judging by the bottle, it looks to be somewhat valuable. So most likely an (intermediate?) chi potion.” Yu Xiang stated as a matter of fact which made Jin at a loss of words before Yu Xiang smirked to herself and picked the bottle up, opened it and took a sniff, subsequently tasting it. She could feel her body reinvigorated in an instant, and she had never drunk such a potent chi potion before.
“Even the concentrated ones that I’ve tried in my Chinese Medicine Academy were not as fast acting nor as strong. What kind of materials are in it?” Yu Xiang asked curiously.
“I believe it’s the usual. You know, Hare’s Ear Root, Chinese Angelica, Peppermint, Hawthorn berry etc.” Jin was reading all these off the System’s prompt.
“That’s impossible. If it uses the usual formula, how could it be this good?” Yu Xiang asked, and Jin chuckled contemplating whether to answer with his ‘Trade Secret’™.
“Well, aren’t you curious? Go research it.” Jin answered before leading her downstairs. Just as promised, he had prepared a small medical laboratory for Yu Xiang to play with. And when she requested to play with it, the Chinese Medicine Girl had not realised what she was getting into.
“You must be kidding me. You have the latest pharmacological equipment in here, and it’s the full set?!” Yu Xiang saw the machines in the basement and had not expected to receive an entire theme park to play with. “I can’t possibly do this all by myself. I will need to consult a few friends or maybe professors in this.”
“Can you vouch for them being trustworthy? Are you sure they are hardworking enough? I have more materials, and I believe I can provide a decent salary for another five of your friends.” Jin clarified.
Yu Xiang laughed: “You kidding me? As long as they get shelter and are decently fed, they will spend all day doing this kind of back breaking research. Also, though I might not be the best in regards to this kind of research but my thesis had some relation with this. I believe can handle such stuff.” Yu Xiang answered proudly.
Jin nodded his head as if he already knew surprising her and Yu Xiang wondered whether that Jin must have already investigated her past background and if that was how it led him to sponsor her family’s store. She mellowed her attitude and asked where he got that particular potion from.
And yes, Jin had looked her up via the System (after all the System had a backdoor to his university’s online database.) Her research was based on the fusion of medicine and therapy between Western and Eastern products. She even created a prototype of what could have been the ancient and forgotten spiritual core pills by using both Chinese herbs and western medicinal products.
The spiritual core pills were rumoured to improve the dantian circulation leading to increased chi production and better enhancement of the body. For some reason, these pills had gone out of production after the dantian had been made permanent and no one was able to find any traces of its formulae nor its existence ever since.
Even in the underworld where most scared stuff was kept, sold and exchanged, there were no traces of the spiritual core pills at all.
However, before she and her team members could reach phase three of the trial research, it seemed that she had suffered some setbacks, and there was no subsequent news about the spiritual core pills. (Phase three of modern research trials are usually meant to test if the products were fit for human consumption.)
In addition, there were gossips and rumours that underworld organisations wanted Yu Xiang’s research, and people concluded that it was one of the reasons why her research trial was moot.
“This chi potion? It came from the very same supplier that provided you with the Chinese herbs and some of the western medications. But he has been charging me a bit too much for comfort lately. I’d like to see if I can provide some competition for him…You know to lower the price” Jin answered bluntly while looking at a CCTV, indirectly hinting to the System.
He knew that the chi potions came from the Alchemist World after trading enough in the black market. These batches of chi potions were considered as one of the most inferior of all potions in their world.
However, they had noticed that someone was very interested in it, which led to prices slowly increasing. Jin hoped to eventually recruit one of these alchemists for his research lab team as well.
But right now, there were too many things to take care of. And the dungeon supplier wanted to see if humans from this world could accomplish the same. If so, it should also be rather interesting to see the inhabitants of Alchemist World compete on their products with Earth’s humans.
“I see, but I cannot guarantee you any results.” Yu Xiang tried to voice her concerns before it was too late and hoped that her sponsor was realistic enough to understand it.
“We won’t know without you trying. Some results are better than nothing. Who knows, perhaps you and your team can make the next breakthrough. I promise that there will be sufficient funds for you guys. But that’s for the future, for now just concentrate on opening your family’s store.” Jin knew not to pry too much into this.
He couldn’t guarantee the same for a certain fox who might become very interested after learning that Yu Xiang wasn’t just a normal person. Fortunately, Kraft was currently occupied, busy having fun in the Goblin World.
“Sometimes, I wonder why our Boss keeps encountering these many girls with some tragic past or hidden history. Can’t he find someone more normal?” Pei thought. As if Jin had a sixth sense telling him that he was being badmouthed, the dungeon supplier unconsciously rubbed the bracelet rather roughly.
“WHY! WHY ME?!” Pei shouted as she could feel her entire instance suffered a kind of earthquake, tempting her very much to come out of her bracelet to whack Jin for this.
Yu Xiang nodded her head while she was looking around the new lab that was bestowed upon her. Even though she knew that the dungeon supplier was just a landlord, she felt that there was something peculiarly odd with him.
Claiming to be poor yet at the same time seemingly having no problems forking out this many pharmacological equipment that had to cost millions of dollars? Had he been anticipating her or was he acting poor to gain sympathy points? If it was the latter, he was not just a shrewd businessman but someone that Yu Xiang had to be wary of.
Nevertheless, he was undoubtedly the saviour of Tiangong Shopping District, so she was somewhat uncertain whether to trust him or not.
“Oh, and don’t worry about security in this place, I assure you that it is as secure or even more so than those labs you’ve worked in,” Jin said as he walked out of the lab basement from the Medicine Store Instance.
“Que Er, have one of your magpies follow them whenever they are returning home. I trust her, but we don’t know about her friends yet.”
The Queen of Magpies appeared and bowed to acknowledge his request.
“I can do that but wouldn’t it be easier for you to provide housing for them? Are you sure that you don’t want Kraft to let one of his foxes follow them?” Jin could not help it and shook his head furiously while talking to her at the corner of the Medicine Store Instance when no one was looking. He could imagine the potential horrors those scientists could go through if the foxes were bored.
“…I think a magpie will be better for modern world surveillance. Besides, it’s for their safety instead of suspicion issues.” Jin insisted that he wanted her to take over this job.
“Very well, I shall have one of my magpies follow Yu Xiang and subsequent ones after she recruits her members.” Que Er nodded her head, and for some reason, Jin could feel that she was stronger than usual since the last time he saw her face to face.
“So…you noticed? Or have you been informed by it beforehand?” Que Er smirked as she pushed up the new glasses she had exchanged for System points. The Queen of Magpies explained that the Farming World Resistance had been using her magpies so frequently that she had received a lot of System points and in turn, she was making herself stronger in hopes that her magpies could be even more useful.
“User, Queen of Magpies has reached the capabilities allowing her to undergo a Side Evolution with some help. Without help, chances exceed 90% that she can also undergo it on her own within the next 6 months” The System said, but Jin for some reason, he refused the side evolution which he was not willing to say.
“No, Que Er. You are too valuable to us just to side evolve. Be patient and maybe all you need is a battle to have a Step Up Evolution trigger.” Jin encouraged her before he began to notice that Yu Xiang was on the verge of eavesdropping them and he quickly picked his phone up and pretended to talk into it.
“As you wish.” Que Er was a tad disappointed and at the same time, felt relieved to hear those words of praise from her master. “To be useful…hmm.” Que Er smiled gently as if she was reminiscing the past before the Queen slowly disappeared via a portal by the System.
