All the children who passed the assessment were escorted to a small courtyard within the Herb Gathering Hall. The courtyard contained more than ten large stone chambers designated as living quarters for the Herb Gathering Apprentices.

Ye Qin was taken to bathe, stripped of his ragged hemp clothes, and given a new coarse tunic befitting an apprentice. He was then assigned to one of the stone rooms in the South Courtyard. He collapsed immediately and slept through the entire afternoon, only waking when the scent of cooking food drifted in at dinner time.

It was then that Ye Qin noticed the four other apprentices sharing the stone room: two boys and two girls. They were eating white rice and laughing merrily, all dressed in coarse cloth like him, their backgrounds as obscure as his own after their cleansing.

On the table in the stone room sat a large rice bucket and several platters of greens, along with five sets of bowls and chopsticks. One set remained empty. Ye Qin knew instantly it was his. He scrambled up, rushing over to claim his place and grab his bowl, fearing that if he delayed, all the food would be gone. After all, having been there for twenty-odd days, nearly every child had learned the necessity of snatching their meals.

Ye Qin was the same; the mere aroma of the food was enough to yank him from his deep sleep.

A tall, sturdy boy with a broad, resolute face laughed heartily upon seeing Ye Qin’s haste. “Haha, look at this lad’s urgency! There’s no need to fight for it. There’s plenty of food here. No more eating stale steamed buns or thin gruel that tastes like water. Now we have brown rice and greens, and it’s all-you-can-eat!” He puffed out his chest. “What is our status? We are official disciples of the Herb Gathering Hall. Glory awaits us, so why fight over a little food?”

“Exactly. Be careful not to choke,” echoed a smaller, thinner boy whose eyes held a spark of sharp intelligence. The two girls merely smiled into their bowls, watching Ye Qin with such amusement that he felt the urge to burrow into the earth from shame.

Yet, despite his embarrassment, Ye Qin did not slow down his hands. He shoveled the rice into his mouth. He hadn't eaten all day and was desperately hungry; even without competition, he needed to fill his stomach immediately.

The two boys were quite talkative, trading remarks non-stop, and soon, through their chatter, Ye Qin learned their names.

The tall, strong boy was Yang Yicheng, twelve years old, the son of a local blacksmith in the county town. He had worked alongside his father since childhood, forging iron, which had given him a solid set of muscles.

The clever boy was Feng Xiao, eleven years old, hailing from a tenant farming family near the town. The two girls were Qian Ruoxiu, eleven, and Sun Ying, ten, also residents of the county town; their families were tailors and weavers.

Ye Qin was surprised to discover that all four of them came from commoner families living within the county town or within a ten-mile radius. Not a single one was from the countryside.

Only he had come from the impoverished wilderness hundreds of miles away, from a deep mountain gully. Subconsciously, Ye Qin felt a pang of acute inferiority. Compared to him, a child of the remote wilderness, these four, having lived in the town, were already quite well-off.

In fact, the recruitment drive for apprentices by the Bamboo Qi Herb Gathering Hall had only covered an area within a few dozen li of the county seat; they had never ventured into the truly remote villages. If Ye Qin hadn't accidentally overheard the news from an official runner at the post station's lean-to, he probably wouldn't have come to the county town at all.

“Hey, blockhead,” Yang Yicheng asked loudly and casually, “What’s your name? How old are you? Where are you from?”

“Ye Qin. Eleven years old. Nearby… nearby,” Ye Qin replied. Since they had all introduced themselves, he couldn't very well hide his own name. However, unwilling to reveal he was from such a distant mountain ravine for fear of discrimination, he deliberately spoke vaguely. Ten li counted as nearby, and so did several hundred li—it was all within the boundaries of Bamboo Qi County, so he wasn't technically lying.

Yang Yicheng didn't press for details about Ye Qin’s origins. He laughed heartily. “Ye Qin? Haha, that’s a strange name. What does the character ‘Qin’ mean? It’s not as good as my given name, Yicheng—one success, haha! My father is too talented; he gave me such a great name. Sure enough, I passed into the Herb Gathering Hall on the first try.”

Feng Xiao awkwardly touched his nose. His name, "Xiao" (small), carried no special significance whatsoever. It was simply because he was the third child at home—the eldest was Feng Da, the second Feng Zhong, so he, the third, naturally got the character Xiao.

Qian Ruoxiu and Sun Ying had acquired their names from the County Yamen’s academy.

Ye Qin mumbled an explanation. “I don’t know what Qin means either. But ten generations ago, one of my Ye ancestors was a Xiucai [scholar who passed provincial exams]. He left behind a book with names, which is still kept on our ancestral altar at home. My father picked this character, Qin, from that book for me.”

Yang Yicheng, Feng Xiao, Qian Ruoxiu, and Sun Ying instantly widened their eyes.

The Ye family having an ancestor with official scholarly status? Even if it was ten generations ago, it was remarkable—a symbol of status and standing, completely different from them, whose ancestors had been commoners for hundreds of generations. They immediately looked at Ye Qin with newfound respect, no longer daring to belittle him. Even their tone of voice became significantly more deferential; they stopped calling him 'kid' so casually.

Ye Qin suppressed a secret smile. His ancestor might have been a Xiucai, but that was ages ago; now, they were merely poor hunters in the old mountain gully.

Yang Yicheng and the others began discussing the ordeal of the trial medicine, talking about how terrifying the testing process had been. They soon realized that the five people sharing this stone room had all passed the examination under Pharmacist Wang, making them his disciples. Since they were all to train under Pharmacist Wang, they had been grouped together.

Yang Yicheng was delighted.

“Ha! That means we are fellow apprentices, initiated by the same master in the same batch! I’m the eldest, so I’ll be your Eldest Senior Brother. Ah Qin is second, Ah Xiao is third, Ah Xiu is fourth, and Ah Ying is fifth. Let’s stick to that order, and we’ll address each other as martial siblings from now on!”

Feng Xiao was slightly displeased with the ranking. “I’m clearly a few months older than Ah Qin. Why am I third?”

“If your ancestor had produced a Xiucai, then the second spot would be yours!” Yang Yicheng shot him a glare, and Feng Xiao instantly fell silent.

Qian Ruoxiu and Sun Ying raised no objections, as they were younger anyway.

In less than half a day, the five gradually grew familiar, the initial awkwardness dissolving. After nightfall, Yang Yicheng and the others were still excitedly chattering about the prestige of the Herb Gathering Hall and various trivial matters in Bamboo Qi County. Being locals, they possessed a wealth of information. Being young, they spoke without reservation. Now that they were apprentices, they felt their future was boundless, filling them with a bold confidence, eager to spread their wings and become people above others.

Ye Qin rarely spoke. In Bamboo Qi County, he was still a stranger, so he could only listen quietly. He held no grand ambitions at the moment; he simply wanted to secure a meal ticket within the Herb Gathering Hall.

More importantly, his thoughts often drifted to Da Niu—he wondered where Da Niu was now. When he got a spare moment later, he was determined to find him.

Thinking this, he gradually drifted off to sleep. .