Early August.
Xijing, Zhongnan Mountain.
Listening to the cicadas in the mountains, Yan Lingyun sat in the cool shade beneath the eaves, holding a mortar and carefully grinding medicinal ingredients with a pestle.
Twenty or thirty kinds of flowers and herbs were drying in the courtyard sun, most of them medicinal plants gathered deep in the Qinling Mountains. At a glance, the bamboo trays holding them were nearly out of room, some in the shade, some in the sunlight, and others on the herb racks.
Lian Youming was away, and naturally the Junk King would not let the girl do all the work alone. Her two brothers were sitting nearby. One worked a grinding trough with both feet, rolling back and forth, while the other sifted medicinal powder and even hummed a song, without the slightest reluctance.
As heirs to a family of Chinese physicians, they naturally knew how rare such an opportunity was. Although their concern for Yan Lingyun had been the main reason they had traveled all the way from south to north, they had not forgotten their father's instructions: learn whatever skills they could, pick up whatever techniques they could.
They had been terribly envious when they saw Yan Lingyun enter the mountains alone earlier. Now that they had a chance to get close to this reclusive master, they were naturally eager to help. There were many methods of preparing Chinese medicines, including pills, powders, pastes, elixirs, and decoctions. What they were preparing now was the old medicine Yan Lingyun had obtained, the Earth Spirit Heaven-Mending Powder.
Put plainly, "powder" meant ground medicine.
But the preparation of this old medicine was somewhat different, neither quite a powder nor quite a paste. The medicinal ingredients were first decocted, with various supplementary ingredients continually added along the way, before