Resplendent Apothecary ch 90 - The Once-A-Year Herb Market (2)

“You silly goose. Do you plan on having all the medicines that you’ve made in the storage for lunch? These are medicine made from the sage apothecary branch, you think we will still have to worry about money? Darn! How did I end up with a stupid disciple like you!” The sage apothecary walked out of the medicine room with his hands behind him, seemingly in good spirit. It wasn’t very often that he had the upper hand when it came to his disciple. That was such a satisfying feeling!

“I am not stupid. Have you ever seen an idiot with photographic memory? You are just envious of my beauty and talent. Sigh…. Geniuses are always doomed to be lonely!” Gu Ye shamelessly tooted her own horn and her words made herself laugh.

She got up and walked into the storage room. Inside there were plenty of wooden shelves filled with bags and bags of herbal medicines made by her. Gu Ye separated them into different categories: some were made by her master when he was demonstrating for her, anything from the sage apothecary must be top notch, they would for sure fetch a good price; some were made by her with minor errors here and there, but their efficacies were still better than normal medicinal herbs, she should at least be able to break even on those; and then there were the successful ones that she prepared, both their presentation and efficacy could rival those from her master; hmmm, she ought to be able to make a small fortune with these.

Looking at these medicinal herbs, Gu Yu could already see piles and piles of silvers in front of her. Her big eyes sparkled like stars in the sky.

The little money-grubber couldn’t sit still any more. She ran over to her grandfather’s room immediate and, seeing that he was rubbing medicinal oil on his own leg, quickly took it over from him and obsequiously massage his leg and applied heat treatment to it. Her manner extremely solicitous.

Gu Xiao chuckled as he watched his granddaughter busied herself in front of him and thought t himself: girls were so much more attentive. Seeing that she had finished the entire treatment process but stayed behind, took a seat at the stove, and looked like she had something on her mind. He asked curiously, “Ye-er, if there’s anything you want to say, you can go ahead and say it. No need to hold back in front of me.”

“Grandpa, our storage room is filled to the brim with all the medicinal herbs….” Gu Ye hinted very subtly.

Nevertheless, Gu Xiao did not get her meaning. He pondered for a while and said, “Oh, have we ran out of room for your medicines? No problem, grandpa will make you a few more shelves. We can put them on the outside, you can stack as much as you want on them….”

“No! What I was trying to say is, let’s sell them all so we can buy more fresh herbs for me to practice,” said Gu Ye, much more straightforward this time.

But Gu Xiao misunderstood her meaning again, “Oh… so you are running out of herbs! Grandpa had been forgetful. It’s deep winter now and you won’t be able to collect more herbs from the mountains, no wonder you are running out of raw herbs. No worries, grandpa will go to town tomorrow and bring you back more of them… we have no shortage of money!”

“No, grandpa!” Gu Ye quickly stopped her grandpa from pulling out money from the cabinet, “They are herbs. They are only valuable in the hands of those who need them. We keep stashing them in the storage room they will get moistened when it rains or snows and all my hard work will go to waste.”

Gu Xiao looked down at his granddaughter’s little hands there had became coarse from practicing herb-making and nodded solemnly, “Alright, you are right. We can’t let all your work go to waste. Okay, I will go into town tomorrow and ask for a quote from Jimin Hall.”

“Grandpa, can you take me with you? I would like to check out the herbal market in town as well.” Gu Ye brought up her request. She wanted to see which kind of medicinal herbs were the best selling ones and could fetch the most dollars. It was such a pity that all her potions in her dimension could work wonder but she couldn’t pull them out in exchange for money and now she had to re-learn all these primitive medicine-making methods. Aye… such great talents she possesses but nowhere to apply them!

Continuing reading on Patreon!

Currently offering:

Grass-Eater tier ($2): 4 advance parts
Semi-Aquatic tier ($5): 8 advance parts

PREV

TABLE OF CONTENT

NEXT

Resplendent Apothecary ch 89 - The Once-A-Year Herb Market (1)

“Did you do that?” asked the sage apothecary, while completely immersed in studying the Compendium of Materia Medica, the priced treasure that any apothecary could only dream of. He wasn’t intentionally trying to take advantage of his disciple. It was his disciple who told him that he’d need to understand the entire Compendium of Materia Medica inside and out before he’d be able to teach her more herbal knowledge and apothecary techniques. Granted, he’d freely admit that his disciple was much better than him in many areas, but she also lacks a lot of basic knowledge.

While he was studying this treasure of a book, the old sage apothecary felt that his level of apothecary technique has improved significantly and he had gained an indescribable amount from reading it!

Gu Ye, on the other hand, had been focusing on preparing calamus. In order to prepare calamus, one must first scrape off it’s outer thick cover with a copper knife before steaming it with its leaves, sun dried, picking out its branches, and grinding them up. Hearing her master’s inquiry, she said without looking up, “Do what? To what is Master referring to?”

  

Picture: Calamus

Source: sophiahi.com

“Fine! Keep faking it!” The sage apothecary’s attention was caught by the usually green calamus in her hands. He was very curious how she was able to get her hands on fresh calamus in this season.

He had come to realize that his disciple has a lot of secrets, but he had no intention of asking, or to tell any one else. Part of the reasons was out of respect for his disciple, but also that he had been warned by the Hall Master of the Hall of Hidden Soul to watch what he says, or he’d make sure that he could never talk again!

The Yama1 had a cold face and a cold heart to go with that. He wouldn’t make any exceptions just because he was the famous sage apothecary, so the sage apothecary wasn’t going to chance it with his own life either.

Gu Ye placed the scraped calamus into the pot for steaming and added some firewood to the stove before she turned to the sage apothecary and giggled, a little pride sparkled in her eyes, “Hehe, that’s the punishment from heaven for badmouthing others. It has nothing to do with me. They shouldn’t have badmouthed Master. They deserved it!”

“Oh you!” The sage apothecary was even more sure that she has something to do with it. He was very moved by her defending him, but he still need to warn her with utmost seriousness, “Even though poisons come to us easily, but it is against the will of heaven. You must be careful when to use them!”

He knew that his precious disciple had a bad childhood and didn’t want her to become an extreme and vicious poisonous doctor, so he tried his best to talk her out of it.

Gu Ye giggled and said, “Don’t worry, Master! The drugs merely brought out the poison that was already in their bodies. It may seem awful but they are actually good for them. You know as poisons accumulate in one’s body, it’s a matter of time when one will get sick.”

“It really has no negative impact on the body?” The sage apothecary was still feeling dubious about it.

Gu Ye rolled her little eyes, “Of course it’s true. Truer than gold, okay! Master, we are running low of herbs at home. I am going to go into the mountain and take a look tomorrow.”

“You be careful.” The sage apothecary couldn’t help but to remind her, “This Mount Cangmang is located on the northern part, you will have to have your grandfather buy you the herbs that only grow in the southern region from town.”

A little embarrassed, Gu Ye rubbed her nose. Perhaps she was being too careless. Ever since she brought home a basket of fresh panax notoginseng, her master has been looking at her like she was a monster. Aiya, she had forgotten that one could not get panax notoginseng from the northern region! Luckily, her master was pretty cool. As much as he was full of suspicions, he never asked about them. Eh, it was quite handy to have a master like him around.

Photo: Panax notoginseng

Source: zhuanlan.zhihu.com

“I just don’t know if my grandpa has enough money to support my activities.” Buying raw ingredients could be very costly.

“Ouch! Master, why did you smack me?” Gu Yu, rubbing her head, looked at her master as though she had been wronged.

Continuing reading on Patreon!

Currently offering:

Grass-Eater tier ($2): 4 advance parts
Semi-Aquatic tier ($5): 8 advance parts

PREV

TABLE OF CONTENT

NEXT

Resplendent Apothecary ch 88 - Rumors Stop At Apothecaries (3)

Third Uncle Gu was Third Grandpa’s oldest son, the third in the clan, and was the only one in the clan who studied in the town. Unfortunately, his was the most talented. After dozens of years of studying, he never passed the examination to become an official. Discouraged, he returned to the village to become a teacher. Even though he was a teacher, he merely had just a handful of students. Every household in the village was barely able to feed themselves, nobody had the extra money for pay for their kids to go to school.

Gu Ye shook her head right away and said, “I have only been studying for a few days and can only recognize a few words. I don’t come close to Third Uncle Gu. I must go back home; otherwise Master will scold me for being lazy and meandering outside again.”

Gu Ye must pass through Dr. Wu’s house on her way home from Hunter Zhang’s. She could see Mrs. Wu from a distance talking about something passionately.

Resplendent Apothecary ch 87 - Rumors Stop At Apothecaries (2)

“Okay, just hang in there for a few more days and you will be able to move this foot around some in 7 days.” Seeing that his eyes lit up suddenly, she added, “But you still can’t get off the stove or walk around. If you tear the reattached tendon again, then not even magic will be able to help you!”

As soon as Zhang Lihu heard that, he immediately nodded and promised that he’d be good. Aunty Zhang smiled and said to Gu Ye, “Xiao Ye-zi, that was impressive how you could make him listen to you. His dad and I had been nagging him nonstop but he just wouldn’t listen. C’mon, have a bowl of bone soup!”

“Oh!!! Bone soup again? Can I have something else? Did dad get a pheasant yesterday? Can’t we have chicken soup instead?” Zhang Lihu moaned loudly. He wasn’t entirely being ungrateful, Aunty Zhang’s recipes for bone soup really wasn’t all that.

Resplendent Apothecary ch 86 - Rumors Stop At Apothecaries (1)

“Lihu-ge, I am here to remove your suture!” Gu Ye pushed open the door to Hunter Zhang’s house carrying her large medicine chest in her small arm.

Aunty Zhang, who was preparing breakfast, poked her head out from the kitchen and smiled, “Hey there, little Ye-er. You are here so early! Have you had breakfast yet?”

Other than during the busy times of fall harvesting and sprint planting, the villagers usually only eat two meals a day. Breakfast was between 9 – 10 AM, dinner between 4 – 5 PM. But as Gu Xiao had two growing children at home and he was in no shortage of month, their household had an additional meal, making their breakfast earlier than the others.

Resplendent Apothecary ch 85 - The Old General and His Little Foot Soldier (3)

Gu Ye had an embarrassed look on her: she was that one who could use the best ingredients and somehow ended up with disgusting tasting pickled vegetables. Aye, in her previous life, she was a complete fool when it came to cooking. It didn’t look like she was any better in this life either. The rice that she prepared remained at the “cooked” and “edible” level. Even her grandfather’s cooking was a little better than hers. Aye… when would she her wish of having delectable food come true?

When she was busy with pickling vegetables, her grandfather and brother were busy as well. Everyday they would go into the mountains and checked all the traps that they had set previously – naturally, the traps were empty most of the time. Gu Ming was very surprised: why was it that when his sister went to check them in the past, she was always able to bring back game meat?

Resplendent Apothecary ch 84 - The Old General and His Little Foot Soldier (2)

Even though Gu Ye was still very skinny right now, she wasn’t freakishly scary like she used to be. In the past, she was just skin over bones and looked like someone who was end-stage anorexic. Anyone who ran into her at night would be frightened.

Now, on her small and pointy face was a pair of eyes that were full of spirit, her eyelashes were long and thick, like two brushes that flickers. Her normally dried and yellow skin had lightened up a lot and also has a healthy red glow to them. Whenever she smiled, her dimples were slightly visible, making her all the cuter.

Resplendent Apothecary ch 83 - The Old General and His Little Foot Soldier (1)

The few days that follow were all sunny and the temperature had climbed back up a little. But the villagers of Qingshan knew that light snowying days signified an upcoming long winter and everyone busied themselves in getting ready for the winter.

Ninth Aunty and Third Grandma stayed busied for a few nights on end, helping Gu Xiao and his grandchildren completed 3 sets of blankets and a set of cotton-padded clothes for Gu Ye. All because Gu Ye had almost no clothes for winters, and the one she was wearing was so old that even a light touch would make a piece fall off. Neither her grandfather nor her brother had the hearts to make her get off the stove; they worried that her body wasn’t strong enough for the cold. As for Gu Xiao and Gu Ming’s share, those could wait.

Resplendent Apothecary ch 82 - The Master's Imagination (3)

Returning to her room, she immediately entered her dimension to clean and disinfect her tools before putting them into her sterile medical tool box. She didn’t rush to go back out but headed toward her ten or so acres of herb field, picked a few common herbs, and started preparing them according to the method taught by her master.

Preparing herbs was no small feat, it entails methods such as steaming, boiling, stir-frying, baking, roasting, sauteing, fei’ing1, etc. Many a times, the herbs needed to be processed in order to increase its efficacy, decrease its toxicity and/or side effects.

Resplendent Apothecary ch 81 - The Master's Imagination (2)

“I gave him anti-infective medications and some anti-biotics. That along with the herbal soup prescription from you shouldn’t be sufficient.” Gu Ye looked down and studied the prescription scribbled by sage apothecary. Chinese herbal medication is her Achilles’ tendon*. If she wanted to be successful in this world, she must put some effort in understanding the vast area of Chinese herbal medications. Mm, she already curtsied and called sage apothecary her Master, she couldn’t possibly let that opportunity go to waste. She must squeeze him for knowledge.

(*T/N: pun intended).

“Anti-infective medications? Anti-biotics? Are these all medications?” The sage apothecary had never even heard of any of them, never mind seeing them. He was too mesmerized in the Hua Tuo’s technique earlier and missed his opportunity. Well, there would be opportunities in the future, he hoped.