I was reborn after my cousin stole my life.

Chapter 236: Processing Medicinal Herbs

"It's hilarious! They wouldn't let Yuan Xiu use herbs to save him, but when Teacher Zhou finally came, she didn't even use the two herbs that Yuan Xiu had prepared."

On the way down the mountain, Liu Yazhi and several female classmates, including Zheng Yuemei and Liu Fang, talked about what had happened that afternoon.

Ding Xuewen had already left. Wang Jianjun and another male classmate took him down the mountain, and a car waiting at the foot of the mountain took them back to school ahead of time.

Because Ding Xuewen was bitten by a snake, today's field trip ended earlier than originally planned.

After Yuan Xiu and the others went down the mountain, they waited for a while before the car arrived.

Yuan Xiu got off the bus at the same place where she boarded in the morning.

I got home an hour earlier than usual after school.

Aunt Zhao pushed the children around the yard to play with Teacher Shen's little Xuanxuan. The three children were placed on the playmat that had been moved into the yard, each holding a small toy in their little hands. They would give each other their toys, grinning from ear to ear, seemingly enjoying themselves immensely.

Aunt Zhao and Shen's mother sat on the side, chatting and watching the child.

Before Yuan Xiu even reached the courtyard gate, the two little ones saw her and pointed outside, calling for their mother.

"Mom hasn't gotten out of school yet, she'll be back soon," Aunt Zhao said with a smile, trying to reassure them.

"Mom...Mom." Zhizhi pointed outside, "It's right there, look!"

Ignoring everything else, Qiaoqiao quickly crawled towards the door. If Aunt Zhao hadn't stopped him in time, he would have climbed off the mat.

As Aunt Zhao picked him up, Yuan Xiu happened to walk to the courtyard gate. Aunt Zhao had already seen him by then. "They really came back. These two siblings have sharper eyesight than I do."

Yuan Xiu greeted Shen's mother with a smile, but then refused to let the two children come to stay with her, saying, "I won't hold them now, Mommy's getting dirty."

After climbing up and down the mountain all day, my trousers and shoes were covered in mud. I guess the only clean thing on my body was my hands, because I had washed them in the stream at the foot of the mountain.

Mother Shen laughed and said, "You look more like you're going to work in the fields than to school."

He carried a basket on his back, with a small hoe inside.

"Pretty much, anyway, I spent the whole day working with mud."

Aunt Zhao knew she had gone to collect herbs today, and seeing that there wasn't a single blade of grass in her basket, she found it strange. "Didn't you go to collect herbs? Where are they?"

"They were taken back to school by car. We have a processing class later, where we'll process the medicinal herbs we picked today."

Yuan Xiu went inside, quickly washed up, changed her clothes and shoes, and came out. She sat on the cushion, playing with the children and chatting with Shen's mother.

"...Xiaoting wrote back, saying that school is great and the food in the cafeteria is to her liking. Her dad was worried that she wouldn't be able to get used to the food in the south, but who knew she would adapt so well! She's just too thin!"

Shen's mother said, "When school first started, I asked my daughter-in-law to go to the school to see her and look after her. During holidays, I would call her home for dinner. But as soon as my daughter-in-law saw her, she wrote me a letter saying that the child was so thin you could see her bones, and she even subtly told me to be nice to her child. What do you think she meant by that?"

Shen's mother rolled her eyes when she talked about it.

Yuan Xiu held her daughter's little hand and shook it, laughing, "She doesn't know Wang Ting is a dancer."

"I don't know. I haven't told her before. But Xiaoting is too thin. She's not in the performing arts troupe anymore. She should eat more."

That might not work; Wang Ting is very strict about her weight.

After chatting for a while, Shen's mother left with Xiao Xuanxuan.

When they left, the three little ones were not very happy. Little Xuanxuan twisted her little body in her grandmother's arms and pointed at Qiaoqiao and Zhizhi, calling them her younger brother and sister.

The two little ones, who were so anxious that all they could do was call for their parents, kept crying out.

Unfortunately, no matter how unwilling they were, they still had to part ways temporarily.

……

"Students, raw herbs are inanimate, but processing is dynamic. Raw herbs, if ingested, may be ineffective or even harmful. The herbs you have collected cannot be considered medicine unless they are processed."

Inside the processing room, there was a row of earthen stoves, iron pots, copper pots, bamboo sieves, pestles, and grinding stones.

Next to each workbench was a bamboo basket containing the herbs they had collected the day before, and the workbench was also covered with medicinal herbs grown in the school's experimental fields.

The boys and girls, wearing faded white lab coats issued by the school, gathered around the stove, following the professor's instructions to first clean and prepare the herbs.

Yuan Xiu and Liu Yazhi were assigned to a group. The two carefully poured the medicinal herbs from the basket onto a bamboo sieve, picking out impurities, attached soil, and insect-damaged parts from the roots and stems of the herbs, leaving no stone unturned, not even the smallest bits of withered grass.

Once the cleaning process is complete, it's time to cut it.

"Hold the knife firmly, use your wrist to generate power, and slice evenly. The difference in thickness should not exceed half a centimeter. Otherwise, when boiling the medicine, the thick slices will not release their medicinal effects, and the thin slices will easily fall apart." Professor Zhang walked back and forth in the training room, pointing out the students' movements.

When he reached Yuan Xiu and Liu Yazhi's group, he stood there for a while before nodding in satisfaction and praising, "Not bad, you have a good method and your hands are accurate."

The most difficult part is the fire control: frying until golden brown, charred, or charred. The timing of the fire depends entirely on eyesight and touch.

Professor Zhang assigned Yuan Xiu and the others the task of preparing "stir-fried angelica root" and "wine-processed licorice root".

Yuan Xiu was in charge of stir-frying angelica root with bran. She first preheated the iron pot over a low flame. When the pot was slightly warm, she poured the fine bran into the pot according to the proportions, gently stirred it with a bamboo spatula, and kept her eyes fixed on the color of the bran.

Professor Zhang once said that the key to stir-frying wheat bran is to "use a slow heat and stir frequently." When the wheat bran turns slightly yellow and emits a fragrance, add the angelica root. Otherwise, the wheat bran will burn and become bitter, affecting the medicinal properties of the angelica root.

As the heat slowly rose, the bran tumbled in the pot, and a faint aroma of wheat gradually filled the air. Fine beads of sweat appeared on Yuan Xiu's forehead, and stray hairs clung to her cheeks, but she dared not be distracted. Her wrists moved constantly, turning the bamboo spatula to ensure that each piece of angelica was evenly coated with bran.

The medicinal herbs in the pot slowly changed color over the fire, and the classroom was filled with the aroma of charred herbs, vinegar, and wine.

Some people were so flustered that they almost burned the food because the fire was too hot.

Some people are calm and experienced, and they have a perfect grasp of the timing and intensity.

For example, Xia Yang.

Professor Zhang walked back and forth in the kitchen, occasionally reaching out to touch the pot to check its temperature and picking up a piece to taste.

"Remember, if the processing is not done properly, the medicinal properties will not be released; if the processing is overdone, the medicinal effect will dissipate."

"You will be treating patients in the future. Every knife, shovel, and fire you wield is a matter of life and death."

A student whispered, "Teacher, doesn't the book say the weight in grams and the time?"

Professor Zhang smiled, scooped a slice of stir-fried angelica root from Yuan Xiu's pot, and handed it to her.

"The rules on paper are rigid, but the climate, soil, and year are all different in the mountains. The skill of traditional Chinese medicine is half in books and half in practice. You can't learn traditional Chinese medicine well by just reading books."

After saying that, he turned to Yuan Xiu and said, "This angelica root is stir-fried well, not bad!"