13 A Visit to the Herb Hall

Next morning, Li Ming woke up early and spend another one hour on the treadmill.

She took a shower, washed her long hair with shampoo and applied conditioner.

She put on a baby pink dress with beautiful designs and blow dried her hair. After pulling her hair in a simple  hairstyle, she applied lip gloss and put on her sneakers (trust me, sneakers are much better option!).

After eating her breakfast, she put on her veil and left the mansion. She went downstairs and saw everyone was already there preparing for the day.

The servants were busy in cleaning the inn and the Huang sisters were making coffee.

Elder Fu told her that there were Five people staying in the inn at the moment. After discussing some matters with Elder Fu, she went into the kitchen.

The Huang sisters prepared breakfast under Li Ming's guidance and by the time they were finished, the inn was starting to fill with customers.

The maids served the five customers their breakfast and Huang sisters busied themselves in preparing coffee and snacks for the other customers.

Next Li Ming looked at the account book and after making sure everything was fine, she went to the main room.

The moment she entered in the main room, something bumped with her legs. When she looked down, she found a very dirty Snowy looking at her with teary eyes. Her heart melt by seeing him like that.

The guards hurriedly came to drag the dog out but Li Ming stopped them.

"Don't! He's mine."

She picked up the dirty snow ball and held him away from her dress. Then she looked at the dirty floor and with a flick of her hand everything (including Snowy) become neat and clean.

Everyone present saw this and in their hearts they all were surprised to see this young girl's cultivation level.

After telling Elder Fu to inform her if something important came up, she left for her room with Snowy.

After entering the mansion, she bathed snowy and then blow dried him. She combed his hair and then gave him two large chicken legs to eat.

All this time, Snowy remained silent. After finishing his food, he finally produced two very large and heavy books in front of her.

The books were mainly made of papers binded together with some sort of wire like thing.

She patted Snowy on head and opened the first book. The book had information about the geography of this world.

She looked at Snowy with raised eyebrows.

"Don't tell me, it's not useful for you!" Snowy said while cleaning the last remaining crumbs of chicken.

"But it's not what I have asked you to bring." Li Ming said, barely controlling her rage.

Snowy looked at her and huffed with disappointment. "You have not checked the second book yet!"

Li Ming stared at him for a little bit more but then opened the second book. Snowy was right. This one was for basic cultivators. After reading a few pages she found a paragraph :

In Cultivation, a person collect spiritual qi from the environment in his body. The lower dantian is the place where this qi is collected. If a person's lower dantian is damaged or blocked, then that person is unable to cultivate.

Li Ming reread the paragraph again and then closed her eyes to let her power flow inside her body. Exactly when it reached under her navel, it felt a blockage.

According to the book the position of dantian inside a human body was exactly the same.

'That means my dantian is blocked since my healing powers can't detect any damage.' After pondering for a while she again started reading the book.

There were methods written for healing a dantian or unblocking it. But the spiritual herbs required were very rare, that also made them costly.

But she was a mage! There were very few things that she couldn't do.

Well considering her present situation there were very few things that she could do!

She looked at Snowy and asked, "Where did you get these books from?"

Snowy scratched his ears with his paws for a moment but then answered, "I....these are from Fourth Prince's Palace."

"...."

Li Ming looked at him with wide eyes and then asked, "You stole them?"

"No! I asked His Highness, the great Fourth Prince, to give me these books as gifts as I had graced him with my presence. STUPID! If not stealing then how am I supposed to bring them?" Snowy's expression was like he had never known someone more stupid than Li Ming in his entire life time.

"You....! Whatever!"

She ignored him and wrote down the name of herbs on a paper. Then she left the inn and went towards The Herb Hall. It was the black market of the Imperial city of Han Empire, if there was a place where one could find these rare herbs then it should be here.

She entered the Herb Hall. The manager of the shop, Elder Fang, came to receive the customer but when he saw Li Ming standing in front of him, he was shocked.

He composed himself quickly and welcomed her with a warm smile.

"Miss Li, it's a pleasure of ours to see you here. How can I help you?" He asked very politely.

Li Ming slightly bowed her head in greeting and said in a sweet voice, "Elder Fang, actually I need your help. There are some herbs I only want to take a look at  but I don't know if it is allowed or not here. I don't want to cause you any inconvenience." Her tone was completely dripping with honey.

"Shameless!" Snowy shouted in her head but she remained calm.

How could Elder Fang say no to such a sweet request. He already knew that Miss Li was not from some normal background. Although she only wanted to take a look at the herbs but there was no harm in full filling her wish.

"Oh! There's no problem. You can look at whatever you want. You are always welcome in our Herb Hall." Being the manager of the shop for more than two decades he was wise enough to guess which customer was important.

"Thank you Elder Fang." Li Ming replied and gave the paper of herbs to Elder Fang.

After a few minutes, the servants brought all the herbs written on the paper and placed them on the table in front of Li Ming.

She dismissed the servants and took out her iPhone. Although she couldn't use it for internet and calling, but there were still many use of a phone.

When Elder Fang saw the weird thing in Li Ming's hand, he didn't said anything. Afterall there was nothing normal about her and the things she had.

Li Ming opened the camera and took pictures of every herb. After examining every single detail of the herbs, she added some notes to the pics.

Elder Fang couldn't remain silent anymore as his curiosity was piqued.

"Miss Li, What is that thing?" He asked while pointing at the iPhone.

"Oh! This? This is.....a device for capturing images of objects and people." She explained in a way which was quite simple to understand.

"Stand there, I will show you!" Next she took some pics of Elder Fang and showed him.

Elder Fang was speechless as it was something out of the world. But what was of this world about the Little Miss?

After playing around a little bit more, she was again struck by another idea.

"Umm.... Elder Fang, do you want to make a deal with me?" She asked in a cute voice.

"What's on your mind, Miss Li?" Elder Fang was also excited to hear about her deal. Though he didn't show anything on his face.

"I want you to teach me about all the herbs and their uses from tomorrow on and let me have pics of those in my phone. In return I will treat you and your staff free lunch until we are finished learning....What do you think?" Li Ming asked excitedly. According to her she was giving too much in return as making that lunch will cost her time and her precious food.

But the knowledge of these herbs would be beneficial for her. And learning medicine by this method was much better than hitting her head on a book which would only give her theoretical knowledge.

"It doesn't look like a bad idea." Elder Fang said while thinking about her proposal.

"Alright! Then from tomorrow onwards I will visit you two hours before noon and at lunch we all will go back to my inn to eat lunch. Is that okay with you?" Li Ming asked as she saw the servants who were moving the herbs back to their shelves.

She noticed the position of the boxes of herbs when the servants placed them back on shelves and also took their pictures. After setting everything about her classes with Elder Fang, she left the Herb Hall.