The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#436 - Take another two thousand pills

Lu Jing's spirit finally perked up at the last sentence, "You said these two ginseng have how many years of age?"

Wu Han picked up the slightly larger one and said, "This one is almost one hundred and twenty years old. The other one is slightly worse, but it should also be over a hundred years old. Plus, it's wild. If you take it outside to a pharmacy, well, it should sell for three hundred taels, around two hundred taels."

"If you know the right people, you can directly give it to those princes and wealthy merchants. The price should be even higher. After all, hundred-year-old ginseng is still very easy to sell in the capital. Or you can sell it to the alchemists in the valley. The price will be lower than the pharmacy, because they can also grow it themselves, but it takes a lot of secret power."

"So most medicinal materials they still buy directly from the pharmacy. Only ginseng and other more expensive items will they grow themselves."

Lu Jing's heart couldn't help but heat up when he heard the price. Two hundred taels or more for one ginseng is definitely a sky-high price.

Because he also concocts medicine himself, he also knows the price of ginseng on the market. Ordinary ginseng is usually only a few years old, and can grow up to a dozen years at most. It's about thirty to forty taels of silver per catty. If it's artificially grown, it's even cheaper.

However, ginseng also has a characteristic, which is that there is no upper limit.

The price often varies greatly depending on the age and appearance. The most expensive three-thousand-year-old ginseng even sold for a sky-high price of ten thousand gold, and was bought by Shen Chong, the number one wealthy merchant in the Southeast, and then presented to the Empress Dowager who was preparing for her eightieth birthday.

And the Shen family has since risen to prominence. Not only is Shen's business untouchable, but his two sons who are studying at the Imperial College, and a nephew, also later entered the officialdom. Among them, his youngest son even once served as the Minister of Rites.

Of course, that's all in the future.

However, a small ginseng can change the fate of so many people, which is amazing enough.

It's a pity that due to the limitation of land fertility, it is impossible for Lu Jing to use Lush Abundance to infinitely promote the growth of ginseng. Otherwise, if he focused on one ginseng to death, with his current skill proficiency, he could create a thousand-year-old ginseng in ten days. Give him three months, and ten thousand years is not a dream.

By then, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of taels of debt owed to Chi, Chi would probably have to give him hundreds of thousands of taels back.

Fortunately, once ginseng reaches a hundred years old, the price will not be too low.

Three hundred and two hundred taels per plant, um, if you take the middle number, it's two hundred and fifty. Let's not talk about this magical number for the time being, multiplying by five hundred is one hundred and twenty-five thousand taels.

Of course, the above is purely Lu Jing's own fantasy. He is actually very clear in his heart that with his Darwinian planting method, how could all five hundred seeds he threw out grow into ginseng.

In addition to the germination rate of the seeds themselves, as well as the loss during the growth process, Lu Jing estimates that it would be a blessing if one hundred ginseng plants could survive in his medicine field.

Um, in this case, he can earn about twenty-five thousand taels from this field. This number is actually not bad. Don't forget that he also has a field of fleece-flower root, the price should be cheaper than ginseng, but it is estimated that it can also make up tens of thousands.

However, now that it has been tested that ginseng makes more money, Lu Jing plans to specialize in growing ginseng next. Moreover, he plans to double the size of the medicine field, so that the production capacity can be doubled. In addition, don't forget that his Lush Abundance proficiency is not what it used to be.

Lu Jing estimates that it will only take him twenty days to drain the fertility of a piece of land, which means that he can earn about one hundred thousand taels of silver in a cycle of twenty days.

This speed of making money is simply terrifying. If all goes well, he can pay off all his debts in two months. Of course, considering that so many hundred-year-old ginseng are pouring into the capital at once, it may also have a certain impact on the market price.

Although this thing is good, in fact, only a small group of people at the top of the pyramid can enjoy it, and among this small group of people, there are not too many people who can chew hundred-year-old ginseng as if it were gum every day when they have nothing to do.

Um... perhaps you can consider selling some to the south. Take Wujiang City where Lu Jing used to be, there are many wealthy merchants there, and that place originally belonged to Lu Jing's territory. As the local tyrant there, it is very easy for him to sell it to Baicao Sect, or entrust someone else to help him sell it on consignment.

As for selling it to the alchemists in the valley, Lu Jing thought about it and gave up the idea, feeling that it was too painful, because according to Wu Han, their offer was the lowest, and here in the capital, he could also ask Gu Caiwei to help him find a way.

However, in just a short while, Lu Jing had already thought about the ginseng sales problem. He felt that his whole person was full of energy. He raised his head and said to Wu Han, "Give me another two thousand ginseng seeds!"

Wu Han's face suddenly changed when he heard this.

He had boasted before, telling Lu Jing not to worry about the seeds, and let the latter take them casually, because in Wu Han's opinion, how much secret power could Lu Jing, a newcomer who had just completed the Hundred-Day Foundation Establishment, use to cast spells?

For young disciples like them in the academy, there are now too many places where secret power is needed. Moreover, to take a step back, even if Lu Jing went crazy and used all his secret power to practice Lush Abundance, how far could he practice this spell?

Wu Han himself had cultivated Lush Abundance for more than ten years, and he still had a lot of say in this regard. In his opinion, Lu Jing's plan to find a place to grow medicine was completely a whim. At most, he would find a piece of land the size of a palm, plant eight or nine ginseng plants, and earn some pocket money, which would be considered amazing.

As a result, he didn't expect Lu Jing to be polite at all. He took away five hundred seeds the first time, which made Wu Han feel distressed.

"You only planted these two?" Wu Han widened his eyes.

"Of course not. I opened up two pieces of land in the back mountain and sowed all the seeds. I just pulled out two to ask you to help me estimate the price first. The rest are still in the ground and I haven't had time to harvest them yet."

"What, you sowed all the seeds at once?" Wu Han felt unbelievable, "So many seeds... can you manage them?"

"This... actually, I haven't managed them much," Lu Jing scratched his head.