bayedsolid Chapter 41 Apprenticeship
Chapter 41 Apprenticeship
Yunyi was stunned for a moment: "Uncle Wang, you want to... teach me medicine?"
“Yes,” Wang Tianshun nodded. “Back then, I also…” Never mind the “back then,” “My medical skills are only so-so, but I should be able to teach you without any problem. Then you’ll have a skill to make a living, and then…”
He meant well, but in the near future, when he saw Yunyi's true medical skills, he realized how arrogant his words had been, and his face turned red with embarrassment.
"Okay." Yunyi nodded.
Although she didn't know much about this era, medical skills, no matter how they change, always follow the same principles. She could tell from the old man's acupuncture techniques that he was definitely at the level of an imperial physician.
This would give me a legitimate identity.
Wang Tianshun nodded with satisfaction, then gave her a book that introduced various herbs and told her to read it first.
Yunyi glanced at it; she could recite everything on it by heart, but she still accepted it.
By mid-May, all the crops in the fields had been harvested. After the crops were threshed, dried, and taxes were paid, what remained was everyone's own food supply.
"Sigh, tax revenue has increased by another 10%." The village chief sighed. "If this continues, everyone will starve to death."
“Yes, we’re a little better off here, at least we still have water. I heard the rivers in Longdong Prefecture are almost dry. If it doesn’t rain within a month, I’m afraid we won’t be able to plant corn.” Xia Tianci sighed as well.
“The last time something like this happened was more than 20 years ago. General Gu hadn’t come yet. It was drought and war that forced many people to flee this place. Sigh.” Xia He sighed again. “Back then, our village was a big village with over a thousand people. Grandpa Jiu was still alive then.”
Grandpa Jiu was the grandfather of Xia Baolai, the village chief. At that time, according to seniority, everyone in the village called him Grandpa Jiu.
"I remember, I was only eleven years old then," the village chief nodded. "That time, we were gone for three years. Some died, some stayed in other places. I remember about two hundred people came back in total. There was a flood more than ten years ago, and another major flood last year, and then..."
As a result, some died and others left, and now there are only a dozen or so households left in the village.
"Alright, stop thinking about it so much." At this moment, Xia Dani walked over. "Life is just a matter of taking it one day at a time."
“Third Aunt is right.” The village chief smiled. “At least we can still have enough to eat. Everyone should hurry up and finish their own food production these next few days, and also get Tianyin’s house ready as soon as possible.”
Everyone nodded hastily.
"I've done the calculations, and May 22nd is an auspicious day. That's when we raise the roof beam," said Old Xu.
"That's good. Everyone has finished harvesting and planting." The village chief nodded.
"I'll go up the mountain these next few days to look for suitable wood to make the roof beams." Xia Guozhong walked over. He lived alone. Although he had a piece of land, he had given it to his neighbor to cultivate. He only needed to give his neighbor half of the harvest. So, he had plenty of time.
"Uncle Guozhong, why don't you go ask Yunyi? She... goes up the mountain every day." The village chief thought for a moment and offered a suggestion.
Xia Guozhong was taken aback, but then nodded: "Okay, I'll go ask about it right away."
"Let's go together later. Doctor Wang has taken her on as an apprentice, and there will be an apprenticeship ceremony later. We'd like to go and witness it." The village chief waved his hand. "The work here will be almost finished soon."
Yunyi was in the room keeping Xia Songshi company while she did needlework.
Actually, she was very reluctant to do these things. Although her embroidery skills were excellent, she was a modern person. Although she had been forced to work as an embroiderer in ancient times for hundreds of years, she still disliked holding embroidery needles deep down.
However, Xia Songshi said that one must be sincere to become an apprentice.
The sincerity here means making a set of clothes or shoes and socks for the master by hand.
Even if ready-made clothes are more expensive, they are not as sincere as those made by hand.
So she hasn't gone up the mountain these past two days; she's been staying home making clothes.
The apprenticeship banquet was held in the evening, just as the villagers finished their work and came over.
However, everyone was quite considerate and didn't want to all come, so each family sent a representative.
Yunyi kowtowed to Wang Tianshun and then presented him with a set of clothes she had made herself. In front of the whole village, she officially became Wang Tianshun's apprentice.
This also provided a source for her later medical skills.
Dinner was served on three tables with eight dishes and a soup, a very generous portion, including four meat dishes and four vegetable dishes, as well as chicken, duck, fish, and meat. Everyone ate to their heart's content, and in the end, everyone took a bowl of leftovers home to treat their families.
After the meal, Wang Tianshun called his granddaughter and Yunyi together.
“Qiao’er has been influenced by me since she was little, and now she can be considered a beginner. Yunyi, you…”
“Master, I have a foundation.”
"Ok?"
"Bullshit." Wang Qiao'er rolled her eyes.
"Why don't you test me?" Yun Yi raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Alright.” Wang Tianshun nodded. “Then I’ll test you.” He pointed to the dozen or so baskets on the shelf in the room. “Tell me the names of all the medicinal herbs.”
“This is easy.” Yunyi smiled and pointed to each flower one by one, “This is honeysuckle, this is rehmannia root, this is atractylodes macrocephala, this is poria cocos, this is…”
None of the fourteen drugs were wrong.
“We dry them every day, of course you know that.”
"Then ask me something I don't know." Yunyi looked at Wang Qiao'er. She remembered that in her first ancient mission, her identity was that of the eldest daughter of a marquis who had been separated from her family. She was sold into a brothel by human traffickers. When she tried to escape, she fell into a river and was rescued by an old man from the Divine Doctor Valley. At that time, the original owner of the body died, and she went there.
The old man saw that she had good talent, so he took her on as his apprentice and taught her medicine.
The old man was really ruthless. In the beginning, she would memorize books in the morning, identify medicines in the afternoon, and memorize prescriptions in the evening. If she mispronounced a word, he would tap her palm. For the first year, her hands were swollen every day.
Later, relying on her identity as Little Fairy Doctor, she went back to punish the scumbags and reach the pinnacle of her life.
But that mission also laid a solid foundation for her, and when she encountered these things again, they were basically ingrained in her bones.
Even though times have changed and the contents of those medical books may be inaccurate, the underlying principles remain the same and are all interconnected.
“I can recite the Tangtou Ge when I was three years old. You can recite it too.”
"That's so long, it'll take a long time to memorize. Why don't you ask me a question?"
"Ephedra Decoction".
"The Ephedra Decoction uses cinnamon twig, apricot kernel, and licorice root. It is used to treat fever, chills, headache, and neck pain. It is also used for typhoid fever, which causes profuse sweating."
"Angelica Blood-Nourishing Decoction".
"Angelica has remarkable effects in nourishing blood. Angelica with less blood and Astragalus with more blood is the most potent. There is also Astragalus and Atractylodes macrocephala, which are also known as Jade Screen for stopping sweating."
"Da Qinglong Soup".
……