Published at 9th of February 2020 10:11:48 PM
Chapter 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 .
With the Chinese asparagus she had collected, she peeled off its outer skin, slit it opened down the middle and removed its core . Then she steamed them for two hours with willow firewood, added some wine, and steamed them some more . After she was done with that, she took them out for sun drying and ready for using…
Picture: Chinese Asparagus
Source: zhifure . com
T/N: Could have swore I have seen these in my neighborhood . =D
As proven by fact, just knowing the method did not mean one could prepare good medicinal herbs . Gu Ye was not happy with her first few batches of Chinese asparagus . She has overly keen senses, she could tell the efficacy of the medicines just from its smell .
She finally prepared a batched of acceptable Chinese asparagus after five tries . She pinched off a small piece and chewed it in her mouth carefully before she spit out the dregs and rinsed her mouth . Alright! This should be good enough to pass her master’s examination .
“Mei mei, it’s time for dinner!” Since Gu Ye used studying medicinal herbs as an excuse, Gu Xiao and Gu Ming tried to disturb her as little as possible . Dinner was a joint effort between the two of them, Gu Xiao kneaded the dough and formed the biscuits and Gu Ming helped with starting the fire . Even though the biscuits were of all different thicknesses, but they were made out of white flour, so their tastes were alright .
Their dinner table and stove table have yet to be made, so the family just put a piece of plank on top of the stove as their make-shift dinner table . Biscuit soup with braised hare meat, this was much better food than what they had back at the Gu’s .
Even Gu Ye, who still has a weak stomach, was able to eat a large bowl of biscuit soup and had a few pieces of hare meat . One must know that they type of bowls they used were the ceramic ones that were bigger than one’s face . Gu Ye inadvertently overate and had to take some syrups to aid with her digestion .
Zhang Lihu also had dinner at the Gu’s . As Gu Ye had reassured him repeatedly that there would be no residual effect to his injury, Zhang Lihu was relieved and had a great appetite . He had two big bowls of biscuit soup and one bowl of hare meat . Gu Ye was very impressed by his appetite .
After dinner, Gu Ye went back over to her master’s room to learn more about preparing medicinal herbs . She started by showing him the Chinese asparagus that she had prepared .
The sage apothecary took the medicinal herbs from her, flipped it back and forth and examined it carefully . The more he looked the more contended he was . This disciple of his had only been learning from him for two days and had already grasped the essence of preparing medicinal herbs . Her techniques were still elementary, but he trusted that she would achieve great things in due time .
“Not bad, you have grasped the steaming process quite well . Now let’s move onto boiling…” The sage apothecary felt that his disciple was like a land that had droughts for too long . She could absorb almost everything he taught her . On the occasions that she couldn’t grasp it right away, she would first commit them to memory then slowly understand them through physical exercises .
Other than teaching her medicinal herb preparation, the sage apothecary also tested her on Gu Ye on her medical knowledge . The sage apothecary found it odd that even those Gu Ye possessed the technique of Hua Tuo, her basics in medical knowledge was almost non-existing . This included the most basics observation, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry, pulse feeling and palpation2 . As odd as he felt, he had no choice but to cram basic Chinese medical knowledge with this disciple of his . Luckily she was a fast learner, otherwise he’d be bored to death in no time .
The sage apothecary was very curious who trained her in the secret techniques of Hua Tuo and how they were able to trained her to become such a amazing surgeon when she knew nothing about the basics?
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Notes:
1 . Grinding up the herbs with water into fine powder, add more water and stir, then take the finest dust floating on the surface of the water .