Rare Ingredients

Still staring at the two papers full of recipes in shock, Yuan Ping stuttered out, "T-this… This is impossible… H-how… How could-sigh… How are we supposed to get these ingredients?"

Tilting her head to the side in curiosity, Bai Shuixian asked, "Are they hard to find?"

Sighing first, Yuan Ping turned back to Bai Shuixian and said, "Oracle Bai, many of the ingredients listed on here are sold for thousands of gold taels. A few of the items you listed are something that even I have never heard of or something that can only be found every few hundred or thousand years. We are unable to make it."

"Hm? But the base ingredients are quite common," Bai Shuixian remarked, putting a finger under her chin in confusion.

Hearing that, Yuan Ping almost spat out blood. Goodness! The base ingredient Bai Shuixian listed for a fever was not just a normal or common ingredient!

If it was a hundred year old ginseng, maybe he would be fine with it. But! It was candelabra seeds!

Candelabra seeds came from candelabra trees. These trees were rare and could barely be found around the world. In fact, despite knowing about it, Yuan Ping has never seen one before.

"Hm… Maybe the oahu stenogyne is hard to find," Bai Shuixian thought about it after a little while. "But aside from that, the rest should be easy to gather. Especially the ghost orchid."

At the sight of Bai Shuixian listing those names as though it was as easy as she said, Yuan Ping asked, "Oracle Bai, may I ask… Do you have any of those in stock?"

"Hm? Of course. I would never list a recipe full of ingredients I do not have," Bai Shuixian quickly answered.

"Then… Can… I see those ingredients?" Yuan Ping asked, his entire body full of nervousness.

"Of course," Bai Shuixian immediately agreed and took out not only the candelabra tree, oahu stenogyne, and ghost orchid, but also a dragon's blood tree, corpse flower, quiver tree, kadupul flower, western underground orchid, rothschild's slipper orchid, attenborough's pitcher plant, suicide palm, encephalartos woodii, and middlemist red.

Seeing all these rare plants in tiny size and not the full size he expected, Yuan Ping asked, "Oracle Bai, how did you cultivate them to be able to maintain its small size and yet be able to grow huge amounts of the necessary ingredients?"

"I asked someone for help," Bai Shuixian answered.

Indeed, Bai Shuixian asked someone for help. When she first came across these plants in the books, she was interested to see them in real life, so she ventured out with Zhong Chen. Whenever she came by one, she would ask him how to cultivate them so that she could grow it in her dimension.

However, despite wanting to help Bai Shuixian, there was a limit to how much he could actually help with. Instead, she had to ask Chi Dujuan in order to grow one that would actually bloom. In the end, they managed to plant many of them in her dimension, but because of Chi Dujuan the plants became poisonous.

Bai Shuixian could still remember the scene of disappointment when she realized that her beloved middlemist red was poisonous upon touching it. In fact, she even shed huge tears and said that she never wanted to see Chi Dujuan again. It took him an entire month of catering up to her before she was willing to talk to him again.

In that month that Chi Dujuan was catering to her, he gifted her mini-sized versions of the full sized plant. Despite the fact that they were not a full sized plant, they produced more blooms and looked much cuter to her. Since he continued this routine of giving her small plants, she now had an entire storage of exotic plants in her cosmos bag and in her room in her dimension.

When Bai Shuixian saw that Yuan Ping seemed to be distracted in thought from the plants, she took them back. The moment that she did so, he reacted in surprise again. He felt that he had not seen enough.

Just before Yuan Ping could become disappointed, Bai Shuixian brought out every single ingredient she listed in the recipes and said, "You can use these for the recipes. If you guys run out one day, you can buy it from me."

Surprised and shocked, Yuan Ping stuttered, "H-how m-m-much are you selling them for?"

"Hm… How much do they generally sell for?" Bai Shuixian asked, not knowing what the current selling price for them was.

"Well, generally, these ingredients would be auctioned off. However, the starting price has always been set at a hundred thousand goal taels," Yuan Ping told her.

"Alright," Bai Shuixian nodded in understanding. "I'll sell one kilogram of each for ten thousand goal taels."

"Wait… What?!" Yuan Ping exclaimed, about to have a heart attack from the low price.

"Is it too high?" Bai Shuixian asked, unsure if she was doing business the right way.

"N-no! That's not the thing! Miss Bai, you're selling it for too low! I feel like I'm robbing you!" Yuan Ping shouted out in response. "Miss, I'll buy it from you for fifty thousand goal taels for a kilogram, alright? A kilogram is a lot anyhow. We usually sell in grams."

"Oh… Your Highness, is this fine?" Bai Shuixian asked, still unsure.

Chuckling at her, Lin Dalong said, "Yes. This is fine. Just don't sell all of them. Save some for yourself."

"Ah, you don't have to worry about that. My brother will handle it if I run out," Bai Shuixian assured as she patted her white sleeves in case some of the leaves got on her.

"Alright, we'll be leaving now," Lin Dalong announced as he secretly stared at Bai Shuixian with a growing interest.

Lin Dalong did not know why, but he felt that she was not only cute and innocent. He instead could perceive that she was very smart and knowledgeable despite not giving herself much credit. There was a sense of isolation being emitted from her, but he could still feel that she was actually a very social person.

'Perhaps something happened in her childhood that made her fear humans,' Lin Dalong thought.

"Well then, Your Highness, thank you for visiting. Oracle Bai, if you ever need help in the future, please come see me. I'll provide whatever I can," Yuan Ping respectfully sent them off at the entrance of the hall.

When Lin Dalong and Bai Shuixian left and their backs could no longer be seen, a physician passed by and asked Yuan Ping, "Head Yuan, what do you think of that oracle?"

As the physician did not witness the scene in the study, he did not know anything. Despite being curious about the expertise of Bai Shuixian, he had too low of a position to be able to talk to her, so he could only wait. It was not only him, but also the entire group of imperial physicians.

"She is more talented than us," Yuan Ping answered.

"Really? But she seems so young," the physician commented, although he did not have any suspicions about the words coming from Yuan Ping.

"Her youth hides her experience. However, look at the aura from her. Do you see anything different from the normal sixteen year old girls?" Yuan Ping said.

Thinking about when Bai Shuixian passed them in the hall earlier, the physician answered, "She is very calm. Too calm for me to be comfortable with though."

"That is because she has seen the world," Yuan Ping stated before leaving the entrance and heading back to his study, leaving the physician by himself.

Back at Lin Dalong and Bai Shuixian, there was another important conversation going on. He was currently asking her how she wanted to handle the medicinal stores. However, the moment he asked, Bai Shuixian instead diverted it to the topic about the missing people case.

"Hm… I'll try to come up with something. Father has given me seven days," Lin Dalong stated. "It'll be fine to lax around for a few days."

"It's much better to finish things early than later," Bai Shuixian told him in a lecturing tone.

Although Lin Dalong was unused to the lecturing tone, he still agreed with her, "Alright. I'll get it done soon."

"That means you'll be gone from the estate a lot, right?" Bai Shuixian asked, slowing down her walking speed.

"Are you nervous that I'm going to disappear?" Lin Dalong unintentionally teased, his eyes curving in happiness.

Unexpectedly, Bai Shuixian admitted honestly, "Yes. I don't know anyone else in the capital aside from you."

Once again, Lin Dalong became struck in surprise. His heart started pounding and for some reason, he felt a blush flushing up til his next. Having not felt this experience before, he clenched his fists and also slowed his steps to match up with Bai Shuixian.

"Don't worry. When I go out, I'll take you with me," Lin Dalong promised. "After all, I do remember telling you that I'll show you around the capital."

Hearing his words, Bai Shuixian stopped walking. She looked up at him, staring at his facial features in detail. As soon as Lin Dalong felt her piercing gaze, he also stopped walking and glanced back at her.

"What's the matter?" Lin Dalong asked when Bai Shuixian was not walking.

Coming back from her daze, Bai Shuixian said with a deep gratitude, "Thank you - really…"