Dual-wielding! 100x proficiency, I'll grind my way to godhood!

The door of Zhao's Pharmacy was wide open.

Chen Mo stood outside the threshold and glanced inside.

A counter, porcelain vases, a medicine cabinet, and a thin man using an abacus.

The shop wasn't big, but it was the only one in town that sold medicinal pills.

No, it should be said that all the shops selling elixirs in town are owned by the Zhao family.

The Zhao family monopolizes more than half of the town's supply of medicinal pills. There are several experts in the Qi Control Realm in the family, and their disciples are all over the martial arts school.

The people in the town only have this one option when buying medicine.

He stepped inside.

The man behind the counter was in his forties, with a mustache and a gold ring on his finger.

He was fiddling with the abacus, making a clattering sound, without even lifting his eyelids.

"What should I buy?"

"Ten bottles each of Yiqi San and Zhuanggu Wan."

The abacus beads collided.

*Snap!* It stopped.

The shopkeeper looked up.

His gaze swept from Chen Mo's face to his body.

He was an unfamiliar face, wearing a worn-out, coarse cloth short jacket, grayish-brown, with cuffs that were a bit long and rolled up twice.

No need to guess, he must be some peasant from some village.

His lips turned down, as if he had seen something dirty.

"From a martial arts school?"

"Um."

"Twenty taels of silver is enough for you to live on for two years."

He pushed the abacus aside, leaned back in his chair, and asked, "Can you afford these several hundred taels of silver?"

Several customers nearby turned to look. One of them, dressed in silk, scoffed and whispered to his companion:

Even peasants come to buy medicine.

Chen Mo wasn't angry.

He leaned against the counter, leaning forward to get closer to the shopkeeper's face.

"I can't afford it, so why are you displaying it? Are you displaying it for your own grave?"

The shopkeeper's face darkened, and he slammed his fist on the table and stood up.

"What did you say?!"

"I must say, your pharmacy is really impressive."

Chen Mo's gaze swept over the porcelain vase on the counter.

"I just don't know if the medicine is even half as effective as your words."

The shopkeeper's lips trembled.

"you--!"

"What do you mean, 'me'?"

Chen Mo's voice wasn't loud, but every word was like a nail driven into the counter.

"I'm the customer, you're the medicine seller. When a customer asks for a price, just give them a quote. What's with this nonsense about twenty taels being enough for two years? Does your Zhao family run a pharmacy to sell medicine or to tell fortunes?"

The shopkeeper's face turned a deep shade of liver.

The man in the silk dress next to her stopped smiling and lowered his head to drink his tea.

Chen Mo didn't give him a chance to catch his breath.

"Name your price, shopkeeper. If you don't know how to do business, you should close down now and let me take over."

The shopkeeper gritted his teeth and squeezed out a few words: "Twenty taels of Qi-boosting powder, forty taels of bone-strengthening pills. Ten bottles of each, six hundred taels."

No wonder people say that those who study literature are poor while those who study martial arts are rich; learning martial arts really does cost money.

We still need to find a way to get some money here. We can't keep using Blue Star's money; the purity is different, and it's easy to cause trouble.

Just as Chen Mo was about to speak, a young servant behind the counter bent down to wrap medicine and, using his sleeve as cover, slipped something into Chen Mo's palm.

They moved so fast they were like mice scurrying through a hole, and the shopkeeper, who was yelling and cursing, didn't notice them at all.

Chen Mo's heart skipped a beat. A shop assistant at a pharmacy was giving something to a stranger?

It's either a cry for help or a scam.

He didn't look at it on the spot; he simply gathered his fingers together and casually stuffed the item into his pocket.

He didn't show it on his face, but he was still responding to the shopkeeper verbally.

"OK."

He nodded. "I'll go out for a bit and come back to buy it later."

He turned and left.

The shopkeeper cursed behind him, not loudly, but Chen Mo heard it.

He didn't turn around, but the corner of his mouth curled up slightly.

Chen Mo stood outside the pharmacy.

He pulled something out of his pocket; it was a neatly folded piece of paper.

Unfolded, it revealed a line of crookedly written words: Don't buy here. Wait for me in the back alley. I need your help. Don't let the shopkeeper see this.

The handwriting is messy, and some strokes are so crooked that they are unrecognizable, but the meaning is clear.

Chen Mo stared at the note for two seconds.

It's highly likely he was asking for help; the injury on his hand and his evasive eyes didn't seem like he was faking it.

Is this a scam?

Why would a mere pharmacy clerk swindle a complete stranger from a martial arts school?

He folded the note, put it away, and walked towards the back street.

Before the time it takes to drink a cup of tea is up, a figure slips out from the back door of the pharmacy.

He glanced left and right, then strode over.

The boy, around seventeen or eighteen years old, was as thin as a bamboo pole.

There was a purplish-blue bruise on his face, and his wrist was wrapped with strips of cloth, which were seeping with dark red blood.

His eyes were bright, with a light that only someone who has reached the end of their rope would have.

I was both afraid and wanting to hold onto something.

"You...you're that young master from earlier?"

"Um."

The boy lowered his voice: "My name is Xiao Liu. Just now at the counter... I gave you the note."

"I know, what did you call me out for?"

Xiao Liu hesitated for a moment and didn't speak.

"Don't worry, the shopkeeper didn't see it."

Chen Mo said.

Xiao Liu glanced around, then lowered his voice even further, "Young master, could you... could you do me a favor?"

Chen Mo didn't speak, waiting for him to continue.

Xiao Liu swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

"I worked at the pharmacy for three years. I signed a five-year contract, but I didn't receive a single penny in wages. The manager said that apprentices didn't get paid, only food and lodging. But the food was all leftovers, and the lodging was in the woodshed."

He rolled up his sleeves.

His arms were covered in injuries.

Whip marks, burns, and marks left by fingernails.

New wounds piled on top of old ones, and in some places the skin and flesh were torn open, not yet fully healed.

"The manager gambled away a lot of money. I overheard him the other day saying he was going to sell me and a few other workers to the mines to pay off his debts. Once you go to the mines, you never come back."

His voice was trembling, not from cold, but from fear.

"Young master, you dared to talk back to the shopkeeper just now, so you must not be afraid of the Zhao family."

Could you... could you help me get out of here? I know something about the shopkeeper. He hides the good medicine in a secret compartment behind the counter and sells it to the rich. The medicine he sells to the common people is substandard, diluted with water.

He also falsified the ledgers; the records on them differed from the actual sales.

Xiao Liu looked up, her eyes red-rimmed.

"I'm telling you everything, all you have to do is help me get out of this godforsaken place."

Chen Mo looked at him, her mind racing.

This kid has worked at the pharmacy for three years. He knows the medicinal herbs, knows the inside story, and has something on the shopkeeper.

These things are worth far more than a hundred taels of silver.

One hundred taels to buy a person is not expensive.

But this money can't be wasted; he needs to learn that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

"How many?"

"What?"

"How much silver do I need to escape?"

Xiao Liu was stunned.

His voice lowered, as if squeezed from his throat: "The contract states that if I leave halfway through, I'll have to pay a hundred taels. I've saved for three years, and I've only saved eight taels..."

"One hundred taels?"

"Um."

Chen Mo took out one hundred taels of silver from his pocket.

The gleaming silver coins were neatly stacked in his palm.

The copper rings were cut into pieces, each weighing ten taels, and ten pieces were stacked together.

Xiao Liu's eyes were wide open, and his mouth opened and closed as if someone was choking him.

"This, this—"

"Don't rush."

Chen Mo didn't let go. "I can give you the money, but it's not free."