Wuyuan village was not that far away from the county town, but it felt like a long distance while going on foot. 

Li Xuejian passed several villages before he reached the entrance of the county seat.

The town in front of him looked quite lively and prosperous. The farmers from the countryside gathered on both sides of the street to sell rice, coarse grains, flour, seeds, buns, noodles, and many other things including livestock. 

He went to see the prices of rice and noodles, the coarse grain was cheap at 4 wen a catty¹1 catty = 500g, while the white rice he preferred was 8 wen a catty. For 3 wen he could buy a steamed bun and 12 wen was enough for one bowl of noodles.

According to the conversion rate of this era, one teal of silver was worth 1000 wen coins. With this in mind, Li Xuejian had a certain understanding of the purchasing value of money in the Hong dynasty. 

It was not interesting to stroll around the market without buying anything.

He took the cart and walked towards the pharmacy that was located at the end of the main street. 

The doctor who was in charge was an old man in his sixties and when he saw Li Xuejian's appearance he was visibly startled but quickly averted his eyes and asked in a polite tone: “Does this young man have any problems with the wound on his face? I can offer a gua sha²is a traditional, ancient Chinese healing technique and its meaning loosely translates to ‘scraping, rubbing or pushing’, essentially, gua sha is just a tool-assisted type of massage or acupuncture treatment.” 

Li Xuejian shook his head: “I'm not here for a treatment but to sell a tiger's body for medical purposes.” He already got the medicine from the boy yesterday and the wound on his arm was healing up very nicely, as for his face it doesn’t matter the most.

The doctor quickly got up from the wooden chair and asked anxiously: “Where do you have it?” He didn't dare to not take Li Xuejian seriously.

Li Xuejian pointed at the door: “Outside."

“Quickly bring it to the backyard for me to examine it!” He said loudly, urging uneasily.

The old man was probably suffering from the excitement as his whole body was shaking.

Li Xuejian pretended not to be aware of it and went out to bring the cart to the backyard of the pharmacy.

After seeing the tiger the doctor couldn't help but stroke his long white beard with his fingers flicking impatiently. He was silently muttering something to himself. 

Finally, the old man snapped out of his daze and looked at Li Xuejian, thinking that people shouldn’t be judged on first impressions.

He clasped his hands and said sincerely: “I’m impressed by you, young man. Very impressed!” He knew that he won’t find any other hunters selling this.

Li Xuejian laughed modesty: “Thank you.” Now get to the point and show him the colour of the silvers.

The doctor also was impatient and he took out silvers from the bank chest: “This is a hundred taels of silver! But if you hunt a deer or black bear, come to me first.” He pointed out.

Li Xuejian knew that the doctor didn’t try to deceive him: “That’s a fair deal.” Although he doesn’t enquire into people’s motives, he learned the art of looking beneath masks.

The medicine made from the tiger’s parts was well beyond what an average person could afford. The silver in the bag was heavy and Li Xuejian felt quite strange holding it. For the nobles and royals who had a great fortune hundred of silvers aren’t much. But in the countryside, this amount is enough to feed him for a lifetime.

Next, Li Xuejian headed to the cloth shop. The shopkeeper greeted him with a decent smile on his face, not looking down on his seediness appearance, just assuming that he is here to buy some of the cheapest cloth. 

Li Xuejian paid no mind to him, directly saying: “Where the owner? I want to talk to him about something.”

The man was hesitating but after Li Xuejian’s eyes narrowed slightly, and the chilly eyes fell on him, he shrink his neck and yelled: “Boss, someone is looking for you!”

In a short while, the owner came out, asking: “Who is looking for me?”

The shopkeeper pointed his finger towards Li Xuejian then turned to greet the other customers.

The owner looked at him and frowned: “What do you want from me?” 

“Tiger’s fur, are you interested?” Li Xuejian gave him the short reply. 

When the man heard that, his attitude suddenly changed and he quickly invited him to his office. Li Xuejian went out, only to come back a moment later with the tiger fur covered with a cloth in his hand and placed it on the table.

The owner waved his hand as a gesture for him to go down, lifted the cloth, and looked carefully at the goods: “I will give you a selling price of 40 taels. I swear I’m not fleecing you, I don’t make much myself, I swear on my little children’s heads. The skin wasn’t tanned yet so it’s a sheer bargain!”

Li Xuejian rolled his eyes at him and sized the skin, turning around to leave. 

Sheer bargain? His ass is a sheer bargain. 

Seeing that Li Xuejian was about to go, the man stopped him: “Hey! What's the price of this fur? You tell me!” 

Li Xuejian looked knowingly at the owner and proposed: “If you add the good quality cotton cloth to the offer then I will agree to 40 silvers.” He made an expression of being generous.

Right now he was wearing clothing made of hemp. The material was durable but not comfortable, it was stiff and scratchy. Not to mention that it was so worn out already that it looked more like rags than clothes. 

Li Xuejian got 40 silvers and two lengths of blue or black cotton cloth, thread, and needles. He went out of the shop satisfied with the profit.

He hid everything under the bamboo and strolled around the market. Feeling hungry, Li Xuejian bought one steamed bun and sat on the other side of the road to eat it quietly.

The bun was warm and soft and he ate it in big mouthful bites. The taste was as good as he expected but he almost spat it out when he saw a man with a huge pregnant belly.

How is it possible? Everything here goes backward when it comes to technology!

Although he saw the men with the vermilion mole between their eyebrows, he thought it was some kind of make-up related to ancient tradition.

But now going again through the original owner's memory it seemed that he overlook one thing and in this world aside from women and men, there is another gender called a ger. 

Even though they are looking like a man, they have alternative anatomy and can give birth like a woman. Because of this gers are raised like women so their status was the same. But the trick lies that women in ancient times were inferior to man and their roles were in the home. 

Their job was to look after the men and raise the children, and they should not have their own ambitions. Their thoughts, suggestions, and opinions were also not important. The marriage was arranged by parents or the oldest living member of the family and after moving out they have to be loyal to the husband's family. 

Li Xuejian didn’t like the way this world is and the ancient line of reasoning but those things are not for him to change. He had his own principles and that was enough.