Chapter 57 It’s not Easy to Refine Medicine
In traditional Chinese medicine, there are unprocessed fleece flower and steamed fleece flower. Different processing methods give fleece flower diverse efficacies.
Making unprocessed fleece flower has to wash up fresh fleece flower and soak it in water till it is 80% wet. After taking it out, let it sit until its degree of wetness is even. Then, cut it into slices or cubes and dry them in the sun.
Lin Luoran needs to make steamed fleece flower this time. She puts clean fleece flower in the mixture of black bean milk, yellow wine and milk, and uses a crock to steam it until all the yellow wine and black bean milk is absorbed by the fleece flower. Then she takes it out and let it dry in the sun.
Hearing that the gift of Lin Luoran for her is a home-made pill, Wang Miao’e has come several times to look, but she is confused by all those complicated steps.
Though she can’t figure out what kind of pill Lin Luoran is making, Wang Miao’e feels grateful before she gets the gift since she has seen how troublesome the procedures are.
The raw stone Lin Luoran buys for herself in Ruili happens to arrive. Wang Miao’e goes to buy a full set of stone-cutting tools as the present in return for Lin Luoran.
The building Lin Luoran lives in has a basement. Wang Miao’e knows since she was a child that the basement was a treasure house of Jia’s which was later reconstructed it into a training room by Mr. Jia.
As the present owner of the house, Lin Luoran is embarrassed that she knows less about the house than Wang Miao’e does. She asks the workers to move the tools into the basement so that she can cut open stone or cultivate in there at an inconvenient time.
The steaming and drying of fleece flower have to be done for nine times. She has to put black beans in the casserole and steam the beans with fleece flower in a wood retort. Then, she shall take the fleece flower out, let it dry in the sun and repeat the procedure from the beginning.
Luckily, there is still a traditional stove in the back yard, or else Lin Luoran has to build one by herself.
For the seventh time, add the hyssop soaked in alcohol. After the ninth time, the fleece flower has become smooth powders without grinding.
After every kind of medicines is ready, Lin Luoran uses a stone mortar and grinds the medicines together into powder. She chooses to use stone mortar not to be pretentious, but that the prescription has noted clearly that no ironware shall be used during the process… Traditional Chinese medicine is so marvelous.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Lin are watching the fun, and Luodong is staring at Lin Luoran’s actions without blinking. After Lin Luoran uses honey to make the powder into bolus, Luodong stares at the brown little bolus and swallows the saliva in his mouth. His eyes are shining,
“Chocolate?”
These round fragrant brown boluses look really like marble chocolate. Lin Luoran can see with her clear eyes that Reiki in the boluses made from all kinds of medicines are merged perfectly. The medicinal efficacies are stable, emitting extraordinary spirit. If she can’t see this, Lin Luoran will also doubt that the things she spends so much effort on making are actually marble chocolate.
“Girl, what kind of medicine have you made? Are they edible?” Mrs. Lin picks up a bolus. Except for its fragrance, she can’t see anything else special.
Lin Luoran puts the boluses into customized porcelain bottles. The boluses are a bit larger than soybeans and they fill four bottles which each contains over 100 ones.
Lin Luoran finishes packing and says to her mom, “Of course they are efficient. I have made them based on the book of our family. Right, dad, where is the book?”
Though Lin Luoran’s family is poor, it has two heirlooms. One is the bracelet and the other is a tattered book on medicine. The second half of the book is lost, and the remaining half is bitten by worms. When Lin Luoran was a little girl, she used to learn calligraphy from Uncle Li. She didn’t have the money to buy copybooks, so she just imitated the writing on the medicine book. She had written one prescription for thousands of times so she now can still remember every word in it—It is the prescription she follows to make the honeyed boluses today.
The name of the boluses is tacky. It is called “Skin Beauty Bolus”. Just as its name implies, it is used by women to improve their looks. Lin Luoran is willing to use the precious fleece flower in her space to make this bolus because she believes in the prescription on the medicine book—After she knows that there is a mysterious space in the bead, she has more faith in the book, too. After all, it is also her family heirloom.
Although the medicine book is incomplete and tattered, Mr. Lin learns how to identify lots of medicines from it. When Lin Luoran was little, her dad would gather some herbal medicines according to the book and boil them for her to drink when she got sick. One dose of the medicine was effective enough to cure minor illnesses.
It now seems that the book is also a treasure. But it’s a pity that the second half of it is lost…
Hearing Lin Luoran’s question, Mr. Lin scratches his head and says, “I almost forget about the book. We come here in a hurry and forget to bring the book. We shall go fetch it the other day. It is the heirloom of our family.”
Knowing that they have to go on a trip to Li’s Village, Lin Luoran frowns. She doesn’t want to let her parents go by themselves, so she says with a smile, “You have to take the bus to go back, which is uncomfortable. I’ll just drive back to get the book.”
The “Skin Beauty Bolus” is filled with Reiki and it smells good. Water used in its processing is from the spring in the space, and most of the medicines are originally planted in the space either. Lin Luoran has a feeling that the medicine may have better efficacies than what is written in the book. Looking at her parents who have silver hair but become younger because of the vegetable and water in the space, Lin Luoran gives two bottles of the Skin Beauty Bolus to them.
Mrs. Lin is dubious of the bolus. She has a hard time believing that eating the bolus can make people younger. Mr. Lin is actually reluctant to eat this “girlish” bolus.
Lin Luoran is speechless about her stubborn parents. Though she has talked a lot about the space to them, she is not able to show them around in the space. Besides, she remains to be an amateur cultivator and she hasn’t made much achievements by now. Hence, her parents still think she is that cute ordinary little girl. They don’t understand that even as an amateur cultivator, Lin Luoran is quite capable.
Luckily, Lin Luoran has gained control on the Reiki inside of her body. She directs some Reiki and makes them into a thin rope. She then forces the rope out of her body and uses it to pick up a leaf over her mom’s head.
Seeing that the leaf is moving when there is no wind and it is circling around them, Mr. and Mrs. Lin finally realize that their daughter has already become half an immortal— She can conjure plenty of fresh vegetables out of thin air, and her appearance is changed. She can refine medicine and make leaves dance. What can these be other than immortal’s skills?
Lin Luoran is relaxed since her parents have accepted the Skin Beauty Bolus. She puts the other two bottle of boluses into the space and instantly goes out. Lin Luoran notices that Luodong is staring at her curiously and thinking about something.
Lin Luoran smiles at Luodong’s serious look. She assumes that in the eyes of such a little kid, making things disappear in a second must be interesting.
Luodong is a member of the family. Shall she find a time to enlighten him on cultivation?
Thinking that herself is still an amateur, Lin Luoran starts to hesitate about this idea.