Chen Xiuyuan laid the grass roots he had gathered on the table. Elder Shi picked up the outermost one and tossed it back into his basket.
"This one's wrong."
"Auntie Sang said this was green whisker too."
"There are two things called green whisker in Blood Stone. Your formula calls for the one that grows in rock crevices on shaded slopes. The one you brought has a red root collar, and it won't turn white when dried."
Chen Xiuyuan lowered his head to look and, sure enough, found a dark red ring beneath the muddy skin. He had clearly heard the alternative names last night, yet when choosing materials that morning, he had still started with the name he thought he knew, assuming matching leaves meant a match, without examining the entire root collar.
Auntie Sang came in from the courtyard. Hearing them talking, she set another bundle beside the table. "I told him to bring both kinds. You boy, why did you put this bundle out first when you came in?"
"I thought they were the same."
She laid the two bundles side by side and had him examine the root shapes left by their growing conditions. Chen Xiuyuan noted the differences, then selected the medicinal parts according to the formula and set the rest aside separately, so he would not lose track of them after cutting.
Elder Shi did not light the fire right away. He had Chen Xiuyuan go through the notes from beginning to end while he sat beside him, only interjecting when something could not be explained clearly.
The first few pages were easy enough to understand. From appearance and moisture to whether the materials had spoiled, the inspection covered things he had seen at the market. But when he reached ingredient compatibility, he could not explain why several familiar medicinal ingredients could be used together, or why one had to be removed. As for who should use it and which kinds of old injuries required further inquiry, he had to stop on almost every page.
"Even if I follow the formula, I have to remember all of it?"
"If an extra handful of ingredients falls into the pot, will the formula shout at you to scoop it out?"
Chen Xiuyuan flattened the folded corner of that page and read it again. When teaching him the Bloodstone Saber Technique, Elder Shi had not taught him a single chop and then sent him off to protect people. The sheet before him was thin, but what it involved went far beyond a few grass roots.
He separately recorded what he truly knew, what he had only heard of, and what he did not understand at all. Before noon, he left the pot untouched and first went with Auntie Sang to identify the remaining materials. The trip was short, taking them only around Blood Stone, and his shoulder did not have to bear any weight. One trip also let him match the gathering sites to the finished materials.
When they returned to the house, Elder Shi had already laid out the vessels they would use. The coarse earthenware pot had been used to cook grain before and had some dark marks on its bottom. The old man had him wash it and examine it carefully, remembering which marks were old ones on the pot, so he would not blame every problem on the new ingredients.
The medicinal food in the practice formula was meant for recuperation after ordinary training, with grain as its base and several mild ingredients as supplements. Elder Shi tucked the other two formulas, which were not yet suitable for him to attempt, behind the notes and told him to learn this set of procedures thoroughly first.
Starting with inspecting the ingredients, Chen Xiuyuan followed the notes and explained the reasons for the combinations to the old man, starting over wherever his explanation failed to hold together. By afternoon, he could finally explain everything from the beginning through how to inspect the finished product and when it must no longer be eaten. Only then did he begin making his first batch.
A new line appeared on the Panel at that moment.
[Medicinal Food Preparation Technique: awaiting initiation, 0%.]
The line sat beneath the cultivation methods and saber technique he had learned, so clear that he could not resist looking at it again. The fire had not yet been lit under the pot, nor had anything been made, but he had genuinely begun this complete course of learning.
Elder Shi tapped the table. "What are you staring at? You just said this piece of root bark needed to be processed first. Why have you put it with the later ingredients?"
Chen Xiuyuan dismissed the Panel and moved the misplaced portion aside. If he only watched the progress, the mistake right before him would not correct itself.
Only when he first tried it himself did he discover how far knowing what to say was from knowing what to do. The moistened ingredients stuck to the vessel walls, and portions he had estimated while dry looked half a size larger after absorbing water. Once the pot heated up, he was busy tending the fire, and it became easy to mix up the two bowls beside him whose contents required different processing orders.
He changed the bowls' positions, placing the later additions farther away, and first practiced taking each portion in the proper order. Elder Shi did not arrange everything for him, only stopping him where he might ruin the entire pot.
"Lower the fire first. Those bamboo strips you're using as markers are right against the fire opening."
Chen Xiuyuan removed the bamboo strips and repositioned them. When he looked back, he found the pot bubbling more vigorously than before. He reduced the fire according to the notes and waited for the steam to ease before adding the next portion. At last, his frantic fumbling passed.
By evening, the fragrance of grain from the pot finally overpowered the raw, astringent smell of the herbs.
He scooped a little into a shallow dish. Seeing that its color was close to the sample Zhu Qinghe had left, the heart that had hung suspended all afternoon eased a little. Elder Shi, however, moved his dish to the window and only told him to look at the bottom of the pot first.
"Can you say it's ready now?"
Chen Xiuyuan lowered his head. The edge of his spoon scraped along the pot wall, drawing up a patch of darker fine residue.
"It still needs to be checked."
Elder Shi took a second dish, scooped a little from another part of the pot, and placed it beside his portion.
Chen Xiuyuan first examined the difference, then remembered to consult the notes. They described the proper color and appearance, how fine the residue should be, and what to check while hot and after cooling. He had read it before, but when the fragrance emerged, he had forgotten the latter half of the page entirely.
He put down the spoon and waited for the two samples to cool slowly.
While they waited, Auntie Sang brought in the medicinal herbs to be sorted the next day. Seeing that the pot had finished cooking, she asked whether she could take a little to the old herb gatherer next door. The old man had had a poor appetite these past few days. Hearing that they were learning to make medicinal food, he had asked her to inquire on her way over.
Chen Xiuyuan's hand had already touched an empty jar. He glanced at the dishes beneath the window and drew it back.
"Today's batch can't be given away yet. This is my first attempt. I need to check it properly first."
Auntie Sang did not feel embarrassed. She put the empty jar back into her basket and turned to ask Elder Shi whether the bundle of ingredients she had brought could be dried in the courtyard. Listening to them talk, Chen Xiuyuan only then realized how close he had just come to handing something untested to another person.
A fragrant pot of medicinal food could easily make someone feel the job was already done.
Once steam stopped rising from the dishes, the sediment at the bottom became noticeably greater. Chen Xiuyuan tilted a dish slightly and saw the clearer layer flow to the edge first, while rough little clumps had formed beneath it, far removed from Zhu Qinghe's evenly fine-textured cold sample.
He handed the two portions side by side to Elder Shi. The old man did not taste them, only pried apart the clumps with a bamboo strip and asked which ingredient was in them.
Chen Xiuyuan thought back through the order of his work that day and pointed out the first two portions he had added to the pot. Then he suspected he had lowered the fire too late afterward. The more he thought, the more every step seemed potentially wrong. He simply took the pot off the stove, so the remaining heat would not keep changing its appearance.
"Is this whole pot a failure?"
"First work out which parts are unfit for use. If all you record is 'failure,' you'll do it exactly the same way next time."
He found several small dishes and kept separate samples from different parts of the pot, clearly recording the sampling order on paper. The final layer at the bottom was the coarsest, while that near the edges was somewhat thinner. If he mixed them together to examine them, he would never distinguish the differences.
The progress on the Panel had already reached eighteen percent toward initiation, but remained there, without falling when he poured some of the spoiled batch into the waste bucket.
Chen Xiuyuan stared at that line, and the agitation in his heart slowly settled. The medicinal parts he had learned to identify today and the differences he had discovered between samples were still in his mind. If he covered up this pot's problems, he would instead have no idea where he was lacking.
Seeing him reach for fresh ingredients again, Elder Shi first blocked the basket's opening.
"Going to use it all up tonight?"
"I want to try again."
"Your shoulder is still swollen, and your hands have been busy all day. You nearly knocked over a bowl just now. Write down the mistakes clearly first, then try small portions tomorrow."
Chen Xiuyuan lowered his head to look at his right shoulder. He had strained it a little when lifting the pot, and now it did feel heavier than it had before noon. The medicinal food had failed, and in his eagerness to prove he could make it, he had actually forgotten his agreement to rest his injury.
He put the fresh ingredients back, rewrapped the remaining materials, and marked the portions that had already been moistened and had to be used as soon as possible. Elder Shi told him to record the quantities wasted today as well. When he truly took on work in the future, he could not count only the finished product packed into jars.
When he reached the end of his tally, he found that those losses were enough to cancel out a decent meal, and his chest immediately felt a little tight.
"Saber practice still uses fewer materials," he could not help saying.
Elder Shi looked toward the short saber with the rolled edge on the table.
Chen Xiuyuan followed his gaze and laughed first, saying no more of that easy talk. The grain he ate today, the saber he had borrowed, the armor hide worn away during saber practice-someone had spent effort on all of them for him. It was just that, before, he had not necessarily counted every item himself.
That night, after Elder Shi went to rest, he copied the notes onto his usual recording paper, circling several terms he still did not understand to ask about later. Partway through, the line he had previously written while transcribing his mother's voice message emerged at the edge of the paper. He paused, then slipped the new sheet underneath rather than covering it.
His mother used to complain that he did not eat on time when he was away. If he really could return, at least he could tell her he could take care of himself now.
He glanced at the pot of medicinal food on the windowsill that had yet to pass inspection, put that thought aside, and first completed the final item on checking the finished product.
When Elder Shi rose the next morning, three portions of ingredients from the same batch were already laid out on the table, all smaller than yesterday's. Chen Xiuyuan stood beside them without lighting the fire and first explained what he wanted to investigate.
"Yesterday, one portion needed processing first. Because I was waiting for the pot to heat up, I added it too close to the later ingredients. If I do them separately, perhaps there won't be so much coarse residue after cooling."
Elder Shi had him make that statement clearer. "How many things do you intend to change?"
"First, only the intervals between adding the ingredients. Everything else stays the same as yesterday."
"What about the pot?"
"I'll use this one again and first see whether the order can explain it."
The old man nodded, placed the bamboo strips beside his hand, and pointed at the two dishes of different sediment on the windowsill. "When they were hot, you saw them as the same. When you're done today, wait until they've cooled completely before saying anything again."
Chen Xiuyuan moved yesterday's samples to the other side beneath the window, leaving room for new dishes, and only then lit the fire in the stove. When the water's surface began to stir faintly, he did not rush to pour in the ingredients. First, he took out the initial portion according to the order he had copied down.
Faint sounds soon rose from the pot, sounding much the same as yesterday.
He looked at the two dishes of thoroughly cooled remnants beside him, gripped a bamboo strip, and kept watch over the fire as he waited.