âProbably. I donât know what heâs doing, acting like a child at that age,â Xuemin said with a smile. âHe didnât mean what he said about me losing my wits. Thatâs why he came back with the documents I asked for so quickly. He doesnât have anything against you; he was just saying that to me, to vent some of that dissatisfaction with me! Yi, he involved for no reason. It wouldâve been the same for anyone.â
âI see, I see.â Lin Yi nodded, enlightened. âBut Uncle Guan seems to be doing rather well? He doesnât rely on the family anymore?â
âNot really, not after last time.â Xuemin shook his head and gave a wry smile. âBut, Xiaoxiangâs lucky. He found a sponsor even more powerful, and now heâs doing very well. He does come visit once in a while to prove how he doesnât need me to succeed.â
âHaha, I didnât think Uncle Guan had that side to him.â Lin Yi smiled. âHe probably knows you did what you did for his sake. Itâs just that he hasnât gotten over it yet.â
âHe knows. Youâre right, he just hasnât gotten over it,â Xuemin said. âAlright, letâs stop talking about him. Iâve gotten used to it after all these years. He looks apathetic around me, but he still cares.â
âWonder who my parents areâ¦. Haha,â Lin Yi said, a little emotional. Heâd only understood what it meant to have parents after growing up, but he never managed to get over thinking about how his parents had abandoned him. Fortunately for him, he had two mentors who loved him. It was enough of a replacement for parental love.
Xuemin paused. Heâd made some guesses at Lin Yiâs background and even thought that he was the descendant of the man whoâd given him some pointers. It was one of the reasons why he trusted Lin Yi unconditionally, but he just never asked the question aloud.
Lin Yi never talked about it, so he didn't think it was appropriate to just mention it out of nowhere. He was also worried that it might be meant to be secret, and Lin Yi not being able to answer his question would only make things awkward.
âYou⦠donât know who your parents are?â Xuemin looked at Lin Yi, surprised.
âHaha, I have two mentors. They treat me nice, like Iâm their son. Theyâre a little strict, but they do it for my sake.â Lin Yi wouldnât hide that information intentionally. There wasnât much to hide anyway.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
âItâs good you think that way. As long as itâs someone who treats you well, it doesnât matter if theyâre your real parents or not. You can always treat them as so, right?â Xuemin smiled. âShifu, shifu, that means a fatherlike teacher!â1
âYeah, thatâs right. I didnât really miss out on my childhood, so my mentalityâs pretty normal.â Lin Yi nodded seriously.
âDid your shifu teach you medicine?â Xuemin asked after some hesitation.
âYeah. One taught me martial arts, and the other taught me medicine. Thereâs a bad shifu too. He teaches me how to steal and gamble,â Lin Yi said with a wry smile.
âI see.â Xuemin felt his head aching a little from the complexity of Lin Yiâs relationships with his shifu. âIf your medical skills are this good, then your shifuââ
âHaha, thatâs not something I can tell you, Grandpa Guan. Both my old man shifu and my martial arts shifu have a bit of a special case going on with their identities. So, sorry, but I need to keep it a secret until I get their permission.â Lin Yi didnât want to hide too much from Xuemin, but these sensitive matters should only be discussed with their permission.
Matters like these were kept unclear even to people close to him, like Huaijun.
âItâs alright, I was just asking.â Xuemin was a little disappointed, but understood where Lin Yi was coming from. He wasnât wrong to keep that information hidden. âLetâs talk about the company then. For the initial stage, only the painkillers and injury medications can be released. Thereâs no formulas for the other types, so I canât make any decision there.â
âHaha, I do have other formulas for those types, but I wonder which ones will sell better?â Lin Yi wasnât well-versed in the business side.
âWell, as long as itâs effective, anything sells,â Xuemin said. âCommon cold medicine, for example, will sell well if you add a couple of side effects to it! But medicines like that have old, stable brands and companies already. Itâs a little pointless to go into that competition now.â
âCold medicine formulas are set already. Even if I improve them there wonât be too much of a difference. Our best bet is using acupuncture or cupping, but unless weâre in a clinic, itâs impractical. We canât just mark acupuncture needles and cups as common medicine people buy, right?â Lin Yi nodded with a smile.
âActually, Iâm not an expert myself in business. Itâs just my personal opinion,â Xuemin said. âYou should hire an expert to manage the company.â
âTrue, but itâs not easy to just find a manager.â Lin Yi understood what Xuemin was saying. âThereâs the matter of trust, and the matter of abilityâ¦. Whether or not the medicine company starts with a bang depends on the managerâs competence.â
âThatâs a question for Mr. Lai. Heâs been in the business industry for a long time; heâs experienced. Asking him to locate a manager shouldnât be difficult at all!â Xuemin said. âAt least itâs much easier than if we do it.â
âThatâs true.â Lin Yi nodded.
Fatty Lai came rushing back after around half an hour, a couple of bags of medicine in his hands as he burst into Xueminâs study. âMiracle Doctor Lin, I bought them! I bought them all!â
With that, Fatty Lai put the bags in front of Lin Yi on the coffee table.
Lin Yi looked at how many bags there were on the table. How come there were so many? Even if heâd asked for one gram per medicinal item, there shouldnât be this many!
Lin Yi opened the first bag to check the number of medicinal reagents inside. It was according to his list, five ounces of items. Lin Yi didnât understand. âThis is all we need. Whatâs with the other bags?â
âThe other bags have the same contents, but from different places!â Fatty Lai panted. âThereâs a lot of scammers nowadays, so I was worried that some stores would sell fake medicine. I thought that itâd be safer to visit other stores.â
Lin Yi didnât know what to say. These werenât cheap. Fatty Lai sure didnât mind spending money! He remembered how heâd gifted him an entire skyscraper to please himâ¦. This didnât seem like much compared to that.
1. Literal translation of the characters shi and fu means teacher and father, respectively.