Chapter 872: Expensive Medicine
The Underworld Official who now appeared before Yang Haoran was named Zeng Bingwen. Like Yang Haoran, he hailed from Jingling Continent, and both served as Emissaries of Death in their respective cities.
However, Zeng Bingwen's High Tower City was significantly larger than Yang Haoran's Lecheng, and its resources were incomparably superior to those of Lecheng.
Of course, everything has its pros and cons. Precisely because of its scale, High Tower City was many times more chaotic than Lecheng.
Yang Haoran had never been to Zeng Bingwen's High Tower City, nor had he known Zeng Bingwen before. The reason he came to know this Underworld Official had to do with his purpose for this trip.
Yang Haoran had always wanted to own a shop in the Underworld. This way, he could not only conduct business but also hide his true activities, providing cover for his rapid increase in power.
Once he had his own shop, it would be much harder to investigate the source of his Soul Pills. Even if business wasn't great, it would still be difficult to pinpoint, and if business thrived, it would become even more challenging to uncover the truth.
At that point, he would no longer need to constantly worry about his ill-gotten power, like a thief always on guard.
Although he wanted to open a shop in the Underworld, the matter had never been realized. The biggest problem was that opening a shop there was not easy; it required a huge amount of capital, and furthermore, it depended on connections and luck.
Unfortunately, he had no opportunity to build a relationship with Luo Yao. Luo Yao was like a divine dragon, appearing and disappearing unpredictably; he wasn't someone Yang Haoran could just meet whenever he wished. It was hard enough to even get a glimpse of Luo Yao, let alone try to curry favor with him.
After the Jingling Great Emperor's demise, Luo Yao, as a Guardian, naturally became even busier. He certainly wouldn't seek out Yang Haoran for no reason, nor would he aimlessly wander into Lecheng.
After all, Luo Yao commanded thousands of Emissaries of Death, and Yang Haoran was not his confidant. Would he really take time out of his busy schedule to chat with Yang Haoran?
Moreover, Lecheng was just a small city with no significant resources, so he also wouldn't bother to visit Lecheng for leisure.
Therefore, Yang Haoran felt that waiting for Luo Yao to appear, building a good relationship with him, and then using Luo Yao's connections to successfully open a shop in the Underworld was somewhat unrealistic, at least in the short term.
Given more time, he thought he might be able to figure out a way to achieve his goal, but he had no idea how long that would take—a year, ten years, or even longer.
He couldn't afford to wait that long, as it wouldn't bring him much benefit. That's why he decided to change his plan: instead of relying on Luo Yao's connections, he would find a way to open a shop in the Underworld himself. If he exhausted all his options and still failed, it wouldn't be too late to consider approaching Luo Yao then.
To open a shop, he needed sufficient Soul Pills or Underworld Currency. For Yang Haoran, who possessed a Soul-Refining Cauldron, acquiring Soul Pills or Underworld Currency was simple. However, the Soul Pills refined by the Soul-Refining Cauldron were best kept secret. He could use a portion of them as startup capital, but he dared not use too much, lest he arouse suspicion. Thus, he had to find other ways to acquire Soul Pills or Underworld Currency.
After much deliberation, he decided to sell off a portion of his collection from over the years. These collectibles held some value, but they were not of much use to him or those around him. So, he decided to sell them all to raise some funds and address his urgent needs.
But to his extreme frustration, he visited many relevant shops, and they all offered incredibly low prices for his collectibles, far below his bottom line.
The reason for the absurdly low offers was similar across all merchants: it wasn't that his collectibles were poor, but rather that they were useless to both Underworld Officials in the mortal realm and Ghost Officials in the Underworld. After acquiring them, the merchants would have to find buyers in the mortal realm, which was not only troublesome but also uncertain whether they would sell at all. They had to bear the risk, so the prices offered were generally very low.
Although Yang Haoran was severely short on funds, he couldn't possibly sell his collection at such a ridiculously low price. So, in the end, he abandoned the idea of selling them.
Keeping these collectibles would allow him to do favors in the future or trade them for other items with those who needed them, which were far better ways to handle them.
Selling them for a price far below his reserve, a deal that would make him lose his pants, was something he would never do.
With his collectibles off the selling block, he still needed to find a way to acquire funds. In the end, he set his sights on the Pharmacist, Feng Xiao.
Yang Haoran didn't know much about Pharmacists, so he didn't know what level of Pharmacist Feng Xiao was. However, the medicines Feng Xiao refined, whether Dānyào, Pharmacist's Medicine, or Poison, were all remarkably effective—a fact he had experienced firsthand.
Therefore, in his opinion, selling Feng Xiao's refined medicines in the Underworld would certainly fetch a good price.
After all, good things like medicines were useful to both Underworld Officials in the mortal realm and Ghost Officials in the Underworld. Especially for Underworld Officials in the mortal realm, who possessed physical bodies, restorative medicines were life-saving treasures!
Once he had made up his mind, Yang Haoran returned to the mortal realm to find Feng Xiao and brought back a good number of medicines from her. Since he didn't know what prices Feng Xiao's refined medicines would fetch in the Underworld, he brought extra, just in case.
Feng Xiao was not stingy with Yang Haoran; if he wanted it, she gave it, even asking if he had enough. Far from refusing, she didn't even show a hint of distress, which made Yang Haoran feel somewhat embarrassed instead.
Upon arriving in the Underworld again, Yang Haoran quickly managed to sell a portion of the medicines he carried. As he had anticipated, medicines refined by Pharmacists indeed sold very well in the Underworld; as long as you were selling, there were shops willing to buy.
What he hadn't expected, however, was that the medicines refined by Feng Xiao sold for far more than he had imagined. If the shopkeeper hadn't given him every single Soul Pill, he would have thought the man was joking!
The Pharmacist's Medicine he typically used for healing came in small porcelain bottles, each containing about ten drops. Yet, for just such a small bottle of medicine, the shopkeeper offered him a purchasing price of five Soul Pills.
As for the Dānyào, which had even better restorative effects than the Pharmacist's Medicine, the shopkeeper offered eight Soul Pills per Dānyào.
Yang Haoran was utterly astonished by the prices offered by the shopkeeper. He had never dreamed that Feng Xiao's refined medicines could sell for such high prices in the Underworld.
Fortunately, he had long grown accustomed to keeping his emotions in check, so he didn't betray his inner feelings. Even though he was greatly surprised, and even a little disbelieving, even wondering if the shopkeeper had made a mistake, he showed no emotion on his face. Instead, he maintained a look of "it's only natural," until the transaction was complete.
After leaving the shop, he finally had time to thoroughly ponder the matter. The Dānyào and Pharmacist's Medicine refined by Feng Xiao selling for such high prices in the Underworld certainly wasn't because the shopkeeper thought Yang Haoran was handsome or kind-faced and thus wanted to give him extra Soul Pills. He would sooner believe he had stepped in dog feces than such an absurd thing happening to him, especially since he wasn't handsome, and the shopkeeper was an old man.
In his view, he must have underestimated the value of Feng Xiao's refined medicines from the very beginning. Although he knew that Pharmacists were rare in this world and their refined medicines were treasures, and thus he had always treasured Feng Xiao's medicines, often being reluctant to use even a little more himself, he never imagined he had still underestimated their true worth.
Besides underestimating the value of Feng Xiao's refined medicines, he believed there was another reason these medicines were so expensive: the current chaos in the world. With constant wars and battles, the value of medicines would naturally skyrocket!
Not to mention the various medicines refined by Pharmacists, even medicines used by ordinary people would double in price.
Having medicines refined by a Pharmacist meant having more capital for survival, and greater chances of victory in battle. In such chaotic times, it was truly no surprise that medicines refined by Pharmacists would become expensive.
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