Chapter 168 - 165: Medicine House Mission Completed

Chapter 168: Chapter 165: Medicine House Mission Completed

Shi Dalu was stunned. He truly had no idea; the person who sold him the Medicinal Cuisine had definitely not mentioned it.

Damn it! He’d paid a premium for the Medicinal Cuisine, and they hadn’t even told him something so important.

Thank goodness Boss Qian’s father was alright. Otherwise, the man would have absolutely destroyed him. A wave of fear washed over him in hindsight.

"Boss Qian, I really didn’t know. If I had, I would have told you, I swear."

Qian Yixing, of course, knew the man was clueless. He was just taking his anger over his father’s condition out on him.

"I’ll let it slide this time. You can go."

"Boss Qian, this is all my fault. I’m so sorry."

Shi Dalu’s face was grim as he walked out of the hospital. The first thing he did was call the subordinate who’d bought the Medicinal Cuisine to question him about the matter.

"Hey, when you bought the Medicinal Cuisine, did they tell you that you can only eat one jar per day?"

"Boss, they didn’t mention anything like that. Do you need me to find someone and ask?"

"No, don’t bother. Just keep buying the Medicinal Cuisine from them."

"Understood, Boss."

Even though he’d been screwed over, the Medicinal Cuisine was still a fantastic product. And besides buying it from this person, it was nearly impossible to acquire it on the open market.

The flavor was just too good; some people who managed to get their hands on the Medicinal Cuisine were completely unwilling to sell it.

As for getting screwed over, it wouldn’t be too late to deal with that guy after he was found out by Lin Xian Village and fired.

Inside the Lin Xian Village Restaurant, Qi Shijie and Yu Wenjin had noticed something was amiss that afternoon, but they’d been holding out hope that they might get lucky.

Even after being transferred off the Medicinal Cuisine station, Qi Shijie had no intention of stopping. He knew full well that if he were discovered, he would be fired for sure.

’Earning as much as possible before getting fired is just a way of cutting my losses.’

Unfortunately, just as he and Yu Wenjin were about to secretly cook a batch of Medicinal Cuisine, they were caught red-handed by Huang Yi.

When Liu Ming heard what had happened, he said, "I knew the ingredient count for the Medicinal Cuisine was off! You two morons actually dared to steal them."

He was furious. Qi Shijie was clearly trying to screw him over. If a large amount of ingredients had gone missing, it would have been his responsibility.

"Those two are so shameless. The boss already lets everyone take two jars home each day, but they’re still insatiably greedy."

"They’re just blinded by greed. Did they really think everyone’s an idiot and that no one would come knocking?"

"Exactly. Someone approached me, too, but I haven’t sold a single one of the two jars of Medicinal Cuisine I take home each night."

"Those two idiots. They probably have no idea what our paychecks are going to look like this month."

"You know about our pay? How much are we getting this month?"

"..."

Soon, the conversation in the kitchen shifted from the two thieves to this month’s wages.

Huang Yi walked in from outside and said to the pair, "You’re fired. Here’s your base salary for the month. Take the money and leave."

He had originally wanted to turn them over to the police, but unfortunately, after checking their contracts, he found he couldn’t. They had paid for the ingredients they used.

Qi Shijie wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear he was fired. He only felt it was a shame he’d sold so little of the Medicinal Cuisine. It felt like a loss.

"People on the outside are paying ten thousand a jar for the Medicinal Cuisine. He could obviously sell it for more, but the boss sells it this cheap. There’s something wrong with his head!"

"You’re the one with something wrong with your head! How dare you slander the boss."

"Are you looking for a fight?"

Huang Yi quickly stepped forward to hold the man back. "Alright, that’s enough. You two, pack your things and get out of here."

Yu Wenjin pleaded, "Master Huang, can you give me one more chance?"

"When you were secretly selling the Medicinal Cuisine, you should have known you’d be fired for it."

One of the chefs said, "You have some nerve. It’s not like you’re short on cash, you guy. You really must have a screw loose."

"Exactly! With our bonuses, our pay this month will be over eighty thousand, and next month it’ll be even more."

"Yeah, those two are nuts. Our bonuses are just going to get bigger and bigger."

Because the bonuses were tied to profits, the better the Restaurant’s business, the more everyone earned.

Selling the Medicinal Cuisine on the side was profitable, sure. But if you thought the boss didn’t know what was going on and treated him like an idiot, you’d only end up discovering you were the real idiot.

When the staff of Lin Xian Village saw in the group chat that two chefs from the Restaurant had been fired for secretly selling Medicinal Cuisine, some of them jumped in alarm.

After all, some of them had also secretly sold the Medicinal Cuisine they’d taken home.

Hu Xia posted an announcement in the group: "Effective immediately, due to the large quantities of Medicinal Cuisine being produced, each employee of Lin Xian Village may only take one jar home."

"This one jar of Medicinal Cuisine is considered a Lin Xian Village employee benefit. Everyone is free to do with it as they wish, and Lin Xian Village will not interfere."

"Manager Hu, by ’do with it as we wish,’ do you mean we can sell it to other people?"

"Correct. Whether you eat it yourselves or sell it to others, the company will not interfere.

However, I’ll remind you all that eating the Medicinal Cuisine once a day is genuinely good for your health."

"Manager Hu, will the village be hiring after the New Year?"

"We’ll see how things are after the New Year. We might be hiring, so just keep an eye on the group announcements."

"Once this month’s paychecks go out, tons of people are going to be fighting for a chance to work at Lin Xian Village. Getting a job here is going to be a real competition."

The villagers who had joined Lin Xian Village from the beginning were very grateful for their decision. They’d heard that the two people who had refused the offer back then had been fighting with their families about it for a long time.

News that the Lin Xian Village Restaurant had fired two chefs spread quickly. Chefs in Mountain Ridge Town and Wuyuan County were all asking around: was Lin Xian Village hiring more chefs?

Unfortunately, Huang Yi wasn’t hiring any apprentices at all; he was recruiting exclusively from his network of professional chefs.

He planned to wait until after this month’s wages were paid out, then recruit a few chefs specializing in soups through his professional network.

He’d heard a new restaurant was being built at the foot of the mountain, one even larger than the current one. They would definitely need to hire more chefs then.

The two masters, Huang Qiuyun and Liang Zhongyi, had wanted to come, but unfortunately, they had some unresolved matters back in the Imperial Capital and couldn’t make it for the time being.

Some famous chefs had contacted him, wanting to come and try their luck, but he had turned them all down.

Shi Dalu soon learned that Qi Shijie had been fired from Lin Xian Village, which meant his supply of Medicinal Cuisine was cut off.

"What a useless piece of trash, getting fired so quickly."

"Boss, what do we do now? We can’t buy the Medicinal Cuisine anymore. None of the people I contacted are willing to sell—not even the jars they’re allowed to take home."

"First, let’s teach that punk Qi Shijie a lesson. We’ll take our time with the Medicinal Cuisine."

"I’ll have someone report him to the tax bureau tomorrow. A guy like that making that kind of money would never pay his taxes voluntarily."

The people who had been buying up Medicinal Cuisine on the side were in a foul mood when they heard what had happened in Lin Xian Village.

It was already hard enough to get ahold of the Medicinal Cuisine. Now, thanks to those two idiots getting fired, the available supply would be even smaller.

What’s more, to their frustration, people from Jiangcheng City were now coming over to buy the Medicinal Cuisine as well, which meant even more competition.

The price for tonight’s batch of Medicinal Cuisine had already jumped from ten thousand to fifteen thousand a jar, but it was still impossible to buy any.

The employees of Lin Xian Village were no fools. They had just received the notice that evening, on top of seeing people get fired. There was no way they were selling their Medicinal Cuisine to anyone tonight.

Even though Hu Xia had said they were free to do as they pleased with it, everyone decided to wait and see.

If they actually got fired over this, they’d be a laughingstock for sure.

Inside the Restaurant, Lin Feng was treating Zhou Jun and Sun Lili to dinner. Sun Lili’s treatment was going very well.

Sun Lili asked, "Boss Lin, could you open a branch of this restaurant in the Imperial Capital?"

"I can’t."

"It would be wonderful if you could. The food here is just too good, and even the pastries are delicious."

Zhou Jun said, "If you want to eat it in the future, you can just come to Lin Xian Village."

Hu Xia chimed in, "Once you’ve recovered, you could come work in Lin Xian Village. Then you could eat here every day."

Hearing this, Sun Lili thought about it carefully and realized that it was actually a real possibility.

"I’ll ask my family. If they’re okay with it, I’ll come work here."

Zhou Jun commented, "If you eat food like this all the time, I’m afraid it will be hard to find a satisfying meal anywhere else."

"It’s true. The food here is so good that if you eat it regularly, you’ll spoil your palate."

It was for this very reason that some of the Lin Xian Village staff wouldn’t eat at the Restaurant, even though they knew how delicious the food was.

Sun Lili suddenly asked, "Do you think food this delicious could treat anorexia?"

Hu Xia thought for a moment and said, "It’s possible, I suppose. We’d have to test it to know for sure."

Zhou Jun glanced at Sun Lili. The moment she mentioned anorexia, he knew what this was about.

"You’re not thinking of having your aunt send Yuyu here for treatment, are you?"

"It might really be worth a try."

With that, she took a bite of food. No matter how many times she ate it, the flavor was always a pleasant surprise.

Zhao Shiyun said, "For anorexia, the Medicinal Cuisine might be worth a try."

Lin Feng asked, "You have a relative with anorexia?"

"My aunt’s daughter. She was bullied at school for being overweight, and her dieting led to anorexia."

"You can bring her here to give it a try. We honestly don’t know if it can treat anorexia or not."

The Restaurant’s food was certainly delicious, but anorexia was generally a psychological disorder. The Land God Temple, on the other hand, might also be worth a try.

Sun Lili decided to call her aunt that night when she got back and tell her about the situation.

Lin Feng heard his phone ring. Seeing the name on the screen, he wondered why Yang Yongjun was calling him at this hour.

"You all go ahead and eat. I’m going to step out and take a call."

After stepping outside, Lin Feng answered the call. "Hello, Director Yang. Is there a reason you’re calling me so late?"

"Mr. Lin, is there any way to speed up production of the Clearing Heat and Stopping Cough Pills?"

"There’s no way. We’re already at maximum capacity. Didn’t you just pick up over six hundred thousand pills?"

"They’ve all been distributed already. Between yesterday and today, countless hospitals have submitted requests for more."

’Hearing that all the pills have been distributed means the Medicine House quest should be finished soon.’

"I can’t increase production right now, but there might be a chance in the future."

Yang Yongjun didn’t press the issue. He chatted with Lin Feng for a few more moments before hanging up.

Based on the feedback from today, the Clearing Heat and Stopping Cough Pills were extremely effective; it was just a shame the supply was so limited.

’Oh well,’ he thought. ’I’ll report the situation to my superiors tomorrow and let them worry about it.’

He’d heard that some people had wanted to meddle in Lin Xian Village’s affairs, but the idea had been shut down as soon as it was proposed.

All he could say was that those people weren’t thinking straight, wanting to get involved without even properly investigating the situation in Lin Xian Village.

He shook his head. He couldn’t get involved in those matters either. The only thing he could do was provide Lin Feng with some assistance on the medical front.

Lin Feng did a quick search on his phone and saw that the Clearing Heat and Stopping Cough Pills had indeed become a trending topic online.

It was mainly because the medicine was in such high demand. Many people went to hospitals asking for it, but doctors simply wouldn’t prescribe it.

Doctors would only use the medicine for certain special cases, which had led to a bit of a public outcry.

But that had nothing to do with him. In any case, he had already handed over all the pills he’d produced.

He glanced at the Medicine House quest and saw that the counter was at 985 people, having just increased by one.

Although the medicine was powerful, it still took time to completely cure the patients.

For some illnesses in particular, one or two doses might not be enough for a full recovery, which was why the quest wasn’t complete yet.

’This quest will definitely be completed tonight. I wonder when the one for the Land God Temple will be finished?’

He was curious about the quest reward, the Marriage Tree. He wondered if it would be as miraculous as the Land God Temple.

So far, only 16 psychiatric patients had been cured at the Land God Temple, mainly because it was still in the experimental phase and treatment hadn’t been opened to the public yet.

He had asked Professor Quan about it, and apparently, some special patients with rather unique backgrounds would be transferred over for treatment later.

Just as he reached the door of the private room, before he could even go inside, he noticed the Medicine House quest was complete.

He didn’t rush inside, deciding instead to see what effects the reward—the recipe for Qi Replenishing Soup—would have.