By the time Lin Shan had arranged the affairs of the academy and walked back to Xingjia Village, it was almost noon. After thinking about it, he decided to cook first, simply cooked a small pot of porridge, and then steamed the five minced buns bought from the county seat on the hot steam on the porridge pot, so as to make up a lunch.

At the dinner table, Lin Shan held half a bowl of porridge in one hand, pinched chopsticks and held a meat bun in the other, and said to Mo Ye, who was sitting opposite, with some worry on his eyebrows: "I usually see your aunt cooking, and I don't think it's so difficult, why is it completely different when it comes to doing it yourself?"

Mo Ye, who was sitting opposite, took a sip of porridge, and said slowly in a grunted voice: "Master, if you ask your aunt to learn how to paint with you, a river may become a line when it reaches her pen." So Ye Er thinks it's good that you can make such a meal according to the gourd painting. ”

Lin Shan couldn't help but laugh a little when he heard this, he knew that Mo Ye was using roundabout tactics to reduce Li Shi's ability and ironically retorted to him, so he had to take advantage of the situation to fight back, and feigned anger: "You can't be like your aunt." ”

Mo Ye took another bite of the bun, puffed out half of his cheeks and chewed while saying vaguely: "Master, your bun shouldn't be steamed in the pot." ”

Lin Shan's eyes showed a strange expression: "Do you know how to cook?" ”

"Can't I just draw a scoop from the gourd? After squatting in the kitchen for more than half a year, I was not just learning how to boil medicine. Mo Ye asked Lin Shan rhetorically, then looked at him and said, "Maybe my cooking skills are not good, but I must know more about cooking than you." In my spare time, I asked my aunt that if her cold cooked buns were steamed in an ordinary pot and not tightly sealed, not only would the taste be much worse than before, but also easy to rot. ”

Mo Ye used chopsticks to scrape the edge of a bun, scraped off a layer of paste, and raised the chopsticks to Lin Shan, she continued: "The skin is like this, and the buns are not delicious. ”

Lin Shan listened to Mo Ye's detailed explanation, smiled and nodded and praised: "Your method seems to be right, so I think we don't need to drink white porridge for dinner." ”

When Mo Ye heard this, she couldn't help but be puzzled, she looked at Lin Shan with a pair of eyes full of questions, and heard Lin Shan smile and say: "At night, I am still in charge of the kitchen, and you are the chief commander of the kitchen, use the cooking knowledge you heard from your aunt to give me orders!" ”

Mo Ye immediately understood, and it seemed that he quickly thought of an interesting thing because of Lin Shan's words. She didn't say anything, and continued to drink porridge while holding the bowl, but there was a sly smile in her eyes that were blocked by the bowl.

After eating, Mo Ye went back to the room to practice calligraphy, and Lin Shan put away the dishes and chopsticks in the kitchen. After drying his hands, he opened the door in the corner of the kitchen.

Originally, this was just a wall, since the medicine ghost Liao Shi came three years ago, Lin Shan listened to his instructions and had such an idea, adding this compartment next to the kitchen, but the focus was actually a small cellar dug in the compartment, which was used to place the medicinal materials that Mo Ye had to take every day.

The medicine ghost Liao Shi only told Lin Shan that the place where the medicinal herbs were placed must be dry and at room temperature, while Lin Shan, who was familiar with common sense in civil engineering and construction, dug the cellar directly, and the room temperature could be guaranteed.

In a small cellar that could only accommodate one person, there was a wooden cabinet next to an earthen wall. The wooden cabinet is exquisitely made, and the little light emitted by the candle after lighting it can also reflect some bright colors on the wooden cabinet. If you look closely, you will find that such a smooth finish is not caused by the smooth planing of the surface of the wooden cabinet, but on the surface of the wood, which is actually coated with a layer of tree paint, but the tree paint presents an almost transparent color, so it is easy to be ignored.

Lin Shan is familiar with the role of this layer of lacquer is not to beautify wood, it is actually a primer, mainly used to seal the wood ventilation holes, to prevent wood from drying out or absorbing moisture and decaying.

There are three levels of wooden cabinets, each with a row of medicine bags, and the total amount of a month is thirty packets. Because there is a very peculiar medicine in the prescription left by the medicine ghost Liao Shi, the county pharmacy will sometimes be out of stock, for the sake of safety, the medicinal materials are purchased by Lin Shan to Lejun, the nearest place in Sichuan, and bring back a month's amount at a time to make reserves.

For three years, Mo Ye has been taking medicine on time every day, and even Ma An, who has never touched this matter, is familiar with the use and decoction of this medicinal material. Although Lin Shan rarely does these things himself, he designed and excavated the cellar, and he painted the medicine cabinet, so he is of course very familiar with its pattern. But at this time, when he reached out to get the medicine bag, the brown paper bag was held in his hand, but his hand couldn't help but stagnate.

I always felt that something was wrong.

A strange thought came to Lin Shan's heart, so he naturally reached out and lifted the candlestick resting on the cabinet and leaned closer to the wooden cabinet, illuminating every corner of the wooden cabinet, and the objects in the cabinet made his face slightly startled.

According to the estimate, there should be ten days of medicine in the cabinet, but now there are only three packets of medicine left, and there are still a few medicinal materials scattered in the empty cabinet compartment, which is the second surprise that Lin Shan finds out.

Lin Shan used his fingers to push the medicinal herb a little closer to his eyes and looked at it, based on the color of the medicinal herb, it was not a deposit, but very fresh, Lin Shan's eyebrows couldn't help frowning slightly.

He bought the herbs from a time-honored pharmacy in Lejun, and the herbs sold in this pharmacy were all wrapped in thick and moisture-proof kraft paper, which was very tight. And the pharmacy is not an ordinary person, and the packaging method actually represents a characteristic of his pharmacy, if someone does not open the paper package twice, there will never be the possibility of leaking medicinal materials.

Li Shi usually does things very carefully, and it is impossible to rush to open the medicine bag in the cabinet. If you have to keep the medicine bag in and out repeatedly for several years, there will always be a little omission, but these scattered medicinal herbs are obviously not accumulated in terms of color and luster.

If the medicine bag is changed once a month, it is impossible to grow moths in a sealed and normal temperature place like zài. In the end, although Lin Shan did not believe that the kitchen that Ma An had driven out the rats would grow a freak rat that loved herbs, he still held a candle and checked all parts of the wooden cabinet. After confirming that there were no holes dug by rats, he took two more packets of medicine from the cabinet and walked out of the cellar with the three packets of medicinal herbs in his arms.

Coming to the hall, Lin Shan put the three medicine bags on the large square table where everyone usually eats together, then disassembled one of them and poured the medicinal herbs on the table, slowly brushing it with his fingers to spread it evenly on the table.

Lin Shan was already familiar with how many kinds of medicinal materials were in this medicine bag, and he silently counted the medicinal materials that were evenly spread out on the table, and his eyebrows instantly furrowed.

There was really a lack of medicine in the medicine bag, because the missing ingredient happened to be the kind of red-colored particles that Liao Shi had repeatedly told him in the booklet, so Lin Shan would find out so quickly. At the same time, he also figured out one thing in an instant, why he felt that the medicine bag was so loose when he was holding it in the cellar just now.

After carefully examining the medicinal herbs spread out on the table, the red particles that had lost the smell were not completely devoid of zài, and there were still a few grains left. This shows that when he was grabbing medicine in Lejun, the doctor in front of the pharmacy did not miss anything, so there is only one possibility for this matter, and the lack of this medicine is man-made.

But Lin Shan quickly ruled out the possibility of the thief's doing. Even if it is really a thief who enters the house, the gold and silver money in the house are not bad, and the house should be neatly furnished as usual, in this remote village, there will be thieves who come to the door to do this kind of precise errand? If it was in Kyoto, there might be such a possibility, but even if there were Kyoto masters who quietly came to Xingjia Village, why did they know and only destroy this flavor recipe?

Lin Shan pondered silently as he opened the other two packets of medicine, and the results obtained after the examination were all the same. As a result, Lin Shan shook his head slightly, regarding the formula of this medicinal material, he had also studied it in his spare time, and the lack of this flavor medicine in this group of medicinal materials was actually the main cause of the misery of this medicinal material. Realizing this problem, Lin Shan sighed, then turned around and walked through the flower hall towards Mo Ye's room.

The flower hall was only a few steps away from Mo Ye's room, but when Lin Shan came to Mo Ye's door, he stopped and hesitated.

After standing still for a long time, he finally sighed softly again. Looking at the sky, he did not knock on the door, but turned around and returned to the flower hall, gathered the medicinal herbs on the table, wrapped them in kraft paper, and threw them into the flower garden in the courtyard, and then took a green cloth robe from the bedroom and changed it, and prepared to go out.

When he walked into the courtyard and was about to open the courtyard gate, he remembered something again, turned around and shouted to the wide open gate of the main house: "Ye'er, Master has gone out for a trip, and he may come back later, so you will stay at home in the afternoon and don't go out." ”

Hearing Mo Ye's casual reply, Lin Shan went out. The family's horse was ridden away by Ma An, so he had to gallop to the county seat to rent a horse and rush to Lejun.

Mo Ye was sitting in her room quietly practicing calligraphy, and after the ten words were finished, she stood up and stretched, only to find that the light outside the window was much darker. Mo Ye felt strange in her heart, feeling that it was impossible to pass so quickly from noon to night, she went out to the courtyard only to find that the sky was gloomy, the clouds were chaotic, and it seemed that it was going to rain.

Mo Ye was a little worried about whether Master didn't bring an umbrella, but she thought that Master had gone to the county seat, and there was no shortage of shops selling rain gear in the county, so there was no need to worry too much. So she went back to her study, took out a copy of the stack of landscape travelogues borrowed from the academy, and read quietly.

Halfway through a travelogue, Lin Shan hadn't come back yet, but there was a crackling sound of raindrops falling to the ground outside the house, and Mo Ye's heart that had been put down before couldn't help but rise again. She closed the book and walked outside the study, standing in the corridor under the eaves, looking at the dry ground in the courtyard and the mud splashed by the raindrops the size of beans in a few moments, she rubbed her hands, and secretly wondered why the master hadn't come back yet