CHAPTER 523: CHAPTER FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE: CHERISHING ONE’S REPUTATION

Before he could finish, Wu Weenxiong said, "How could it be possible?" I also want to ask you why this herbal medicine is counterfeit."

Yu QingWeen paid no attention to Wu Weenxiong, but grabbed the three bags of herbs and threw them at his apprentice’s face, asking, "Ah Kai, tell me why this herbal medicine is moldy!"

Facing Yu QingWeen’s questioning, the group of apprentices immediately panicked, glancing at each other in confusion. No one dared to speak easily.

Seeing them all silent made Yu QingWeen even angrier. He grabbed Ah Kai’s collar and angrily demanded, "Especially you! Explain this to me clearly! Why did this medicine get moldy?"

Ah Kai, having been thrown into a panic after hearing Wu Weenxiong’s talk of counterfeit medicine, was now even more terrified under the pressure from his master. But in his flustered state, he quickly came up with an idea. He joked, "Master, this kind of medicine definitely isn’t from our store!"

"I... How would I dare to send counterfeit medicine to Master Wu? Besides, where are the moldy herbs from our store?"

Where are the moldy Chinese herbs? The warehouse is piled high with many things.

Yu QingWeen suspected Kai’s words. Facing this situation, he had no choice but to kill him or admit that the moldy goods were in his store.

The Wu Family had been practicing medicine for generations in Yuan’an County, and even the whole city, so they valued their reputation the most.

Every time a patient came to see Wu Weenxiong, he would do his best to relieve the patient’s suffering.

But the day before yesterday, suddenly a patient came to the door and accused him of murder, which terrified him greatly.

After careful inquiry, he learned that the medicine caught by the apprentices was actually moldy and rotten herbs. Instead of alleviating the sickness, it made it worse.

Although Wu Weenxiong’s clinic was not very large, it had been open for decades, and he had never encountered an issue with the herbs.

Moreover, the herbs and even some secret pills in the shop were all purchased from Jiqing Hall, so how could there be a problem?

At first, Wu even suspected the other party was deliberately blackmailing him, but when the other party produced the moldy medicine and he personally inspected the medicine cabinet, it was a mix of shame and anger.

The essence of the shame lay in his decades-old innocence being destroyed, and the anger naturally came from being deceived, having procured some inferior medicines.

To placate the other party and prevent the matter from spreading, he not only paid a large compensation but also sent the patient to a Western medicine clinic.

For a descendant of a traditional Chinese medicine family, as an old practitioner of many years, it was immensely humiliating and infuriating to send a patient to Western medicine.

At that time, he wanted to rush to the city immediately to find the master of Jiqing Hall, Yu QingWeen, but was stopped by his son.

To cover up his negligence and to avoid guilt, his son, who was responsible for the procurement, claimed it might be the apprentices in the store. They replaced high-quality herbs with moldy inferior ones.

Although Wu Weenxiong was furious, he could not deny the possibility. He found several apprentices in the store and questioned them one by one.

However, some clueless apprentices coincidentally denied it, claiming they had long noticed the discrepancies in the herbs but had misunderstood due to the mix-up.

After all, the greatest skill at Jiqing Hall, according to Yu QingWeen, was not saving lives but manufacturing Chinese Herbal Medicine.

Although these apprentices had not been working in the store for long, they were still honest, and Wu Weenxiong naturally accepted their words, pointing the blame at Jiqing Hall.

Wu Weenxiong sent his apprentices to find the patients who had taken these inferior medicines. He reclaimed the inferior drugs and issued apologies. Then he headed to the city to confront Yu QingWeen.

But before he could encounter Yu QingWeen, he ran into Zhang Dadan, who accused Yu QingWeen of bullying the city and roping people into this incident.

As a pharmaceutical expert, Yu QingWeen was very knowledgeable about various herbs, but he was accused of describing Wild Mountain Ginseng of only two or three years as twenty years old.

This nonsense made Wu Weenxiong more convinced that he was dealing with a greedy and profit-driven merchant, capable of anything.

Therefore, Wu Weenxiong first helped Zhang Dadan testify, exposing the fact that Yu QingWeen tried to deceive Brother Chen.

Then he systematically revealed the good and bad medicines sold by him, making it public knowledge.

Zhang Dadan loudly proclaimed to the onlookers, who, upon hearing that Yu QingWeen bullied and kidnapped people and sold counterfeit and inferior medicines, were stunned and incredulous.

They also heard that he even sold fake and inferior medicines, incited his wealth, and immediately the crowd started to burst out in anger in front of Yu QingWeen, cursing him.

When Ah Kai saw the excitement of the crowd, fearing the boss would accuse him of the crime, he falsely claimed the medicine had not left the store.

Although Yu QingWeen was suspicious, realizing that the apprentices in the store, including the prince, might have mistaken the matter, for the sake of the store’s reputation, he had to respond.

When Wu Weenxiong saw him not admitting, he threatened, "Boss, are you not admitting that this is yours, right?"

"Then don’t blame me, Wu Weenxiong, for my old affection. I will report the matter to the police and let them investigate the whole story."

The apprentices in the store, upon hearing Wu Weenxiong’s mention of the police, became even more frightened, not knowing what to do.

Ah Kai, seeing the sorrowful boss, quickly pulled up his sleeve and pulled him to the back of the apprentices.

A group of onlookers mistakenly thought they were trying to escape and rushed over angrily, yelling, "What are you running for? Aren’t you selling fake medicines?"

Ah Kai saw the crowd self-righteous, hastily telling the other apprentices to stop them.

Although the apprentices were weak, they were already on the same rope with Ah Kai. Seeing him take a natural course, they naturally helped him stall for time.

The melon-eating onlookers, although excited, didn’t dare to be too presumptuous. Seeing some were stopped, they chose a strategic retreat.

"Let’s not move! Stand here, and I bet they still can’t fly away even with wings," someone joked.

Everyone heard these words and quickly agreed, "Yes! The shop seems to have no back door. They can’t escape!"

Yu QingWeen, the owner of Jiqing Hall, knew if he could escape the Holy Temple, he wouldn’t attempt to slip away.

"Ah Kai, are you aware?" Yu QingWeen was almost certain that this storm of counterfeit goods was caused by Kai and the others.

However, faced with Wu Weenxiong’s questioning and the righteous indignation of many onlookers, if he didn’t rely on Ah Kai, who could he rely on?

Ah Kai secretly glanced at QingWeen and whispered, "Master, actually the culprit is Sixth Son!"

Sixth Son? Yu QingWeen couldn’t help looking at the youngest apprentice who was usually foolish; could he have such insight? Ah Kai was clearly shifting the blame.

Wait! Ah Kai, they intended to make Sixth Son a scapegoat. If they needed a scapegoat, as long as everything was on Sixth Son, wasn’t it all auspicious?

Ah Kai was the leader of the apprentices; as long as he pushed out Sixth Son, the others would surely recognize him.

Then, although Sixth Son wouldn’t admit it, he couldn’t argue. While such apprentices could still harm reputation, it was better to throw the dirty water directly at Jiqing Hall’s head.

A master and an apprentice, a few words, then reached an understanding. In the store, the six apprentices, constantly under harsh criticism from the master, harbored resentment.

When the Wu Family came to purchase herbs, they deliberately tried to discredit Jiqing Hall by pretending inferiority, aiming to earn the master’s renovation.