She Picked Up an Emperor on the Road of Refuge

Chapter 21

The villagers were originally still worried about their future livelihood, but now that they could sell Gastrodia elata for money, they could also support themselves for a while after leaving. With this buffer period, they didn't believe they couldn't find a way to make money.

After knowing they could sell it for money, many families didn't even want to eat the half-grown Gastrodia elata, and had them all processed.

Everyone was extremely grateful to Gu Jiu. When they were eating, there were quite a few families who sent things to express their gratitude.

There were two teenage girls, one bringing two eggs, and the other bringing a bunch of greens, representing their families to express gratitude. However, Gu Jiu noticed that their gaze kept wandering towards Xie Zhan, and they would occasionally blush. Gu Jiu knew that these two had ulterior motives.

After the people left slowly, Gu Jiu sighed: "Xie Zhan is really attractive!"

Mrs. Sun was proud of her son, "That's right, when our Fourth Son was studying in the county school before, there were often daughters from wealthy families waiting at the school gate..."

Xie Zhan coughed a couple of times in the distance, Mrs. Sun smiled, gave Gu Jiu a knowing look, and didn't continue.

She whispered into Gu Jiu's ear: "Fourth Son is shy."

Mrs. Gao smiled and gently scolded her: "Go do your work, don't gossip nonsense."

At this time, Zhang Yushi also begrudgingly had her daughter-in-law send two wild leeks to express gratitude.

Nao Wa's Mom probably also felt that she couldn't come empty-handed, so she lowered her head and handed over the two wild leeks, mumbling something unintelligible.

Mrs. Sun curled her lip and mocked: "You might as well take them back. We can't afford such good stuff, you should keep them for yourselves!"

Hmph, there were wild leeks everywhere in the woods, just pulling them up would yield a handful. Why did she bother to bring over just two?

Mrs. Sun didn't take them, and Mrs. Xu glared at her, accepted the wild leeks, and smiled: "Thank you, and thank you for making the trip. They look quite fresh, we'll chop them up and mix them with pickled vegetables later, it'll make a great dish."

Nao Wa's Mom breathed a sigh of relief, glanced at Mrs. Xu, and quickly turned and left.

Mrs. Sun disagreed: "Why were you so polite to her, Sister-in-law? We were already being nice by not throwing them out."

Mrs. Xu shook her head, stretched out her finger and tapped Mrs. Sun's forehead, "You! In her family, it's her mother-in-law who makes the decisions. Whether to give something or not, she can't decide herself. Nao Wa's Mom has it tough, why make things difficult for her?"

Standing beside them, Mrs. Gao spoke to her: "You're such a grown woman, but you still haven't developed any wisdom. You should learn from your Sister-in-law."

She motioned for Gu Jiu to come over and instructed both Gu Jiu and Mrs. Sun: "There are many kinds of people in this world. Those who shout and curse at the slightest provocation are actually the easiest to deal with. It's the quiet ones who keep everything bottled up inside that you need to be cautious of. You never know what they're really thinking, whether they hold a grudge against you, or if they'll try to harm you. So if you can avoid offending them, it's best not to."

Gu Jiu pondered and felt that Mrs. Gao made sense. Those who shout and curse often have an outlet to vent their emotions, immediately releasing any dissatisfaction. Introverted and reserved people tend to accumulate negative feelings inside, and over time, it can lead to psychological issues.

Mrs. Sun, however, didn't quite understand, but she didn't dare to argue with her mother-in-law and obediently agreed.

The people of Huaishu Village were busily processing Gastrodia elata with great enthusiasm. Some were washing it, some were steaming it over fire, some were slicing it, and some were sun-drying it. They were busy but enjoying the work.

After finishing his meal, Gu Jiu recalled the system's reminder about Jimsonweed. He had been too excited about the Gastrodia elata earlier and had forgotten about the other herbs.

Jimsonweed is one of the ingredients needed to make the anesthetic powder. In an era without anesthetics, the anesthetic powder was particularly important. Since he had encountered Jimsonweed, Gu Jiu was determined to dig up a few plants.

He invited Xie Zhan and Fifth Xie to join him in searching for Jimsonweed.

Following the system's guidance, they first found a few plants of Dendrobium. Growing on a pile of rotting wood, they had purple and white flowers.

Their stems were round and short, instantly recognizable as the premium variety - Iron Dendrobium.

Gu Jiu was very regretful. Dendrobium is known as the king of the ten sacred herbs and its price would not be low. Unfortunately, there were only a few plants.

In total, there were only about a dozen plants. They didn't call the other villagers, and simply dug them out. To make space for cultivating the Dendrobium, Gu Jiu didn't tell Xie Zhan and Fifth Xie what these plants were. Instead, he dug up some other worthless herbs and mixed them with the Dendrobium. Then, while the two men weren't paying attention, he moved the Dendrobium into his spatial cultivation space. That way, even if some herbs were missing, the two wouldn't notice.

Walking a bit further, they saw the Chinese goldthread, stickyweed, and Codonia herbs indicated by the system, and dug those up as well.

Taking this opportunity, he also had the system scan the area for star anise, eucalyptus, and camphor, which are used to make Cooling Oil.

Eucalyptus trees were everywhere, camphor was a bit further away, but there was no star anise in these woods. Gu Jiu persuaded Xie Zhan and Fifth Xie to accompany him to gather all the materials.

On their way back, they noticed that the villagers didn't seem to be in a hurry to continue their journey. Upon inquiry, they learned that the villagers had sliced and sun-dried a lot of Gastrodia elata, and if they were to travel now, there would be no place to store the dried slices.

Since there was no urgent need to rush, and these were all valuable items that no one wanted to lose, everyone unanimously decided to wait at their current location until the Gastrodia elata slices were fully dried before packing them up and continuing their journey. The villagers used branches to build simple racks in sunny areas, laid down large leaves, and spread the Gastrodia elata slices on top to dry in the sun.

Gu Jiu took the opportunity to process the medicinal herbs he needed.

The people from the distant Dahu Village didn't know what was happening here, and after waiting for a while without seeing the people of Huaishu Village set off, they were also able to remain patient and simply waited at their location.

With free time, the village women went into the woods to dig up wild vegetables.

Gu Jiu stayed behind to work on his herbs, preparing to make Cooling Oil.

Extracting menthol and camphor crystals from the leaves or stems was easy.

Peppermint oil and eucalyptus oil required distillation, and without the necessary tools here, they also needed to be soaked for 24 hours beforehand.

Gu Jiu had Mrs. Zhang find two basins and soak the leaves for these two oils, to be distilled in two days.

Unfortunately, there was no star anise, so he could only make a semi-finished product. But that was fine, it would just be slightly less effective in relieving itching and inflammation, but still capable.

After sorting out all of this, he sat down beside Mrs. Gao, watching her sew a shoe upper while chatting idly with her.

Nearby, Sixth Xie sat on the ground reading a book, occasionally mumbling out loud, fully immersed in his studies.

Xie Zhan, on the other hand, had gathered four young children to teach them characters. After assigning recitation tasks to the eldest Xie Daji, who knew more characters, he then taught the three younger ones to write characters in the dirt with sticks.

When Sixth Xie came across something he didn't understand, he looked up and asked Xie Zhan: "Fourth Brother, what does 'tian xing jian' mean in the phrase 'tian xing jian, jun zi yi zi qiang bu xi' from The Book of Changes?"

Xie Zhan frowned slightly, "You've already reached The Book of Changes? You've finished the Four Books so quickly?" Sixth Xie nodded with a hint of pride, "I've finished them all."

Xie Zhan's frown deepened, "Each of the Four Books is profound and extensive, and each one could take a lifetime to study. Reading through them once doesn't mean you've mastered them. Reading books isn't about how many you've read, it's not just skimming the words without truly understanding them. You need to read and reflect, understand them thoroughly, and put them into practice, applying what you've learned. Otherwise, no matter how many books you read, you're merely browsing through the text."