Chapter 109: Half Scroll, Medical Canon
“Thank you, Ge Lao. I understand.”
For others, learning to manufacture drugs from Chinese medicinal materials might truly be a difficult problem.
Whether they can be found from all over the land or not, and whether they match the required years, are all uncertain.
But for Su Ning, it was not difficult. With the existence of Peach Blossom Spring, and the characteristic of bountiful harvest when saving people in the space, as long as she found seeds of various Chinese medicinal materials, she could plant them, let them grow to the needed years, and then harvest.
“Ahem, that Ge Lao…”
“Don’t hem and haw, just say it straight. Where’s that bold spirit from before?”
He quickly and inconspicuously put away the small bottle he had been fiddling with in his hand into his pocket. After clearing his throat, Ge Laotou said seriously, “You just said I was to your taste, how come you’re suddenly being coy!”
Could it be that she wanted to go back on it?
That… although exchanging his incomplete booklet for such a secret medicine seemed, indeed, a bit unfair.
With hands in his pockets, Ge Laotou thought while his mind and eyes were full of struggle.
“Then I’ll say it straight? Could you give me a bit of each of the Chinese medicinal material seeds you’ve collected?”
“That’s it?”
What else would it be?
Meeting her bright and shining gaze, Ge Laotou let out a long breath and waved his hand generously, “Wait!”
Sigh, they’re just some Chinese medicinal material seeds, nothing rare about them.
Ge Laotou climbed mountains to gather medicinal herbs long-term, so his body was much stronger than his peers. He moved a ladder and climbed to the top in a few quick steps.
He opened the drawer storing seeds, inside which there were various traditional Chinese medicine seeds, some wrapped in paper, others in small cloth bags.
“Take them all!”
“So many? Aren’t you keeping any for yourself?”
“I’ve planted my private plot almost full, I can save seeds again later.”
“Thank you, Ge Lao!”
Hearing him say that, Su Ning was no longer polite. Her eyes lit up as she took the seeds, happily raising the corners of her mouth to reveal sweet little dimples.
Next, one intentionally taught while the other listened seriously.
By the time Ge Laotou reluctantly finished telling her about the habits of all the Chinese medicinal material seeds, how to plant them, how to identify the years, and so on, night had already deepened.
Sighing at how fast she absorbed knowledge, and her rare ability to draw inferences from one instance, Ge Laotou couldn’t help but feel a bit of pity and regret in his heart.
“Alright, it’s late. Ning Wa, go lie down in my room for a bit.”
“How can I? You still have to see patients and treat tomorrow, you need rest. I can rest anywhere.”
Afraid he was really set on it, Su Ning didn’t say more, grabbed her bag, slung it on her back, and ran off without looking back.
“Why is this child running? Can an old man eat people?”
Ge Laotou shook his head with a smile. As an old man, if a girl didn’t want to go to his room, could he force her?
Taking his acupuncture kit, Ge Laotou walked out of the pharmacy. He still needed to check on the injured people.
The other family members in the courtyard had dispersed at some point, leaving only Chef Peng and that old big aunt who had lost her son but still had a little granddaughter.
In the room, Luo Shuangshuang was curled up next to Yan Xi, sleeping soundly beside the simple stretchers of the Luo family father and son.
She must have been quite frightened today and run a lot, exhausting herself.
Without waking them, Su Ning quietly withdrew and bumped right into Doctor Ge. She made a gesture to him and pointed to the kitchen before leaving first.
The small stove in the kitchen still had some small embers. She poked them with tongs and added one or two dry firewood pieces.
After starting the fire, she sat on the stool, hugged her arms around herself, lowered her head, and collected the cowhide cloth bag from the bag in her arms into the space, then entered with her virtual body consciousness.
After successively saving people this time, not to mention the bountiful harvests everywhere in the space, she first went to the spring water.
As expected, the spring water had indeed undergone a big change, completely turning from transparent to milky white.
Sniffing carefully, there was a faint indescribable fragrance, not like flowers or fruits, nor like herbs.
What other specific changes there were would need experiments later when she had time.
She got up and returned to the front courtyard, as usual first collecting the mature grains and such into the underground storage room, then scattering new seeds one by one.
Thinking that autumn had already arrived and winter was not far off, this time she chose to plant quite a lot of cotton, and besides the five grains, also planted many autumn and winter vegetables.
After finishing everything, carrying that cowhide cloth bag, Su Ning came to her treasure cave.
For lighting convenience in the cave, she had stubbornly taken out many night-luminescent pearls and placed them in various naturally formed small holes in the rock walls.
She came to the area with rosewood boxes storing various books, rare copies, and paintings.
Without hurrying to search, she first glanced again at the emblem on the cloth bag and compared it to an inconspicuous spot on one of the rosewood boxes.
Tracing stroke by stroke with her finger until they fully matched, she finally confirmed that the drawing on the cowhide cloth bag was the Su Family crest.
Untying the seal, she carefully took out the things inside and skimmed through them.
This half-volume booklet recorded the growing environments and geography of various herbs, and vividly illustrated the appearance of each Chinese medicinal material at different years.
The rest didn’t seem particularly special?
“Let’s look for it first, maybe the other half is here?”
With the complete booklet, she thought she could get started with drug manufacturing faster.
With this in mind, Su Ning began rummaging through boxes and cabinets to search.
……
Too many boxes, too many things, searching was inevitably time-consuming and laborious.
Until she opened a box made of agarwood and saw the two words “Medical Canon” written on it, her heart immediately rejoiced.
Even without opening it, she had a strong intuition that this was exactly what she was looking for!
As it turned out, upon flipping it open, she understood why the half-volume booklet had been carefully passed down.
Named Medical Canon, this half in the Su Family recorded all rare secret recipes, many of which she had never even heard of.
Just the astonishing effects summarized under each secret recipe were enough to make one dizzy and brain blank.
But thinking that the ingredients used were all rare Chinese medicinal materials from a hundred to a thousand years, it seemed only natural to have such powerful effects?
“Great, the ancestors are all helping me cover the lie.”
Saying it was an ancestral secret recipe medicinal water was just pulling a tiger skin as a pretext, who knew the Su Family had indeed passed it down for several hundred years, perfect for covering up the spring water.
Who would have thought… they really did have it!
Proper ancestral, magical secret recipes, and more than one!
Closing this half booklet, stacking the two halves together and putting them into the wooden box, Su Ning’s heart was filled with mixed emotions for a moment.
Just waiting to collect all the Chinese medicinal material seeds and plant them, her wish to manufacture and roll pills would truly be realized!
Hugging the wooden box in her arms, she wandered out of the cave back to the small courtyard. She still needed to take a moment to recover.
……
Centering on the spring water, she enclosed the nearby land and turned it into a large medicine garden.
The first ones transplanted in: ginseng, lingzhi mushroom, and dendrobium officinale.
Except for those two big ones with no particular external changes, the other smaller ones had all grown fatter and rounder due to this ‘bountiful harvest,’ even sprouting many even smaller ones.
Without touching them, she just enclosed this plot separately.
The Chinese medicinal material seeds obtained from Old Master Ge numbered over a hundred kinds, most common or commonly used.
No need to consider environment and geography in the space, so she didn’t worry much, planting each kind in the same area.
Neatly divided into sections, it wouldn’t be long before they no longer looked like the bare and strange state now.
Carrying a water bucket, after watering each seed with a small ladle of spring water, Su Ning contentedly exited the space.
Raising her head and stretching lazily, the firewood just stuffed into the stove when entering the space had burned out again.
Glancing at her watch, she suddenly realized that unknowingly, three or four hours had passed.
If it weren’t raining, it would probably be about to dawn by now.
She wondered if Yan Bei and Fu Jiaming at Yuan County Hospital had waited for the two men’s family members, and if they could make it today?
……
Yuan County Hospital, hospital room.
The thought-of Yan Bei and Fu Jiaming had also not rested all night.
First accompanying Xiang Lei and Yu Hongxing through surgeries one after another, then transferring from ICU to ordinary ward.
Waiting for them to fully wake up, then busy preparing meals for them.
It was just as Fu Jiaming finally got some food from the hospital canteen by begging the master chef that Xiang Lei’s father and mother finally arrived.
Upon seeing their son lying alive on the sickbed, the couple who had been on tenterhooks all the way could no longer hold back and wept with joy.
