Chapter 57 - It’s not Easy to Refine Medicine (1/2)

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, w.a.n.g 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, w.a.n.g 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. w.a.n.g 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 bas.e.m.e.nt. w.a.n.g Miao’e knows since she was a child that the bas.e.m.e.nt 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 embarra.s.sed that she knows less about the house than w.a.n.g Miao’e does. She asks the workers to move the tools into the bas.e.m.e.nt 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 ca.s.serole 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 s.h.i.+ning,

“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.