Dali handicraft business in the Qing Dynasty is very prosperous, there are many shops in the city, there are iron street, copper street, gold leaf street, sheep slaughtering lane, chicken selling lane, fish market, bamboo, wood and marble and all kinds of shops, etc., there are many children from poor families go there to work and learn crafts, and then slowly become a master, and life is guaranteed.

Someone in the Mo clan introduced that the largest medical hall in the city, "Xinglin Hall", was recruiting apprentices, and Mo Yan could try it. Lao Mo and his wife also think that studying medicine is very good, and they will be a Langzhong in the future, at least they will not have to worry about life.

This time, Lao Mo and his wife took Mo Remnant into the city to sell vegetables together, and by the way, they took their son to the hospital for an interview.

The southwest gate of Dali City is a wealthy area, including the Dali Mansion, the Military Preparation Department, the Dali Trial Institute and the Wenwu Temple, while ordinary houses, various handicraft craftsmen and small traders live near the northeast gate.

Lao Mo's family of three carried a bamboo basket into the city from the south gate, and the shops on both sides of the street were lined up one after another, and the flow of people was bustling and very lively.

The medical hall is located in Gulou West Street, with a vermilion gate and a "Xinglin Hall" plaque embedded under the eaves. It is said that the shopkeeper's name is Zhao Hongru, who is over fifty years old, born in a family of Xinglin, has excellent medical skills, and is known as "the first Confucian doctor in western Yunnan".

Above the main hall hangs the portrait of Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the couplet reads: The saint of medicine, the ancestor of Fangzhong. The walls on both sides are full of wooden cupboards and medicine buckets, there are many rare medicinal materials, and it is the largest medical hall in Dali City.

"Is this kid here to interview an apprentice?" The bookkeeper behind the counter glanced at Lao Mo and asked Su Niang.

"Yes. Su Niang replied carefully.

The man looked at Mo Yan carefully, then nodded and said, "Did you bring the deposit?"

"What?" asked Su Niang, puzzled.

"Whoever is an apprentice must pay a deposit of twenty taels of silver, which is the rule of trade. ”

Su Niang was dumbfounded when she heard this, even if she didn't eat or drink and sell vegetables for a year, she couldn't save twenty taels of silver.

The three of them left Xinglin Hall in frustration, and they couldn't learn medicine, so it seemed that they had to go to the copper blacksmith lane in the north of the city to learn some small crafts.

Diagonally opposite the "Xinglin Hall", there is a small inconspicuous shop on the corner of the street, with mottled blue brick walls, a few tufts of weeds growing on the roof, a wooden fish-shaped medicine guise hanging from the iron ring under the eaves, and a dirty small plaque hanging on the lintel, which reads "Bashan Medical House".

"Mother, the one opposite is also a medical center. Mo Yan pointed to the small shop.

"Alas, my mother doesn't have that much deposit. Su Niang sighed.

Lao Mo held a wooden stick, looked at the opposite side blindly, and whispered: "Mother, go and have a look, maybe the deposit over there is small." ”

"Okay. Su Niang looked at Mo and smiled bitterly, and walked over with Lao Mo in her arms.

When you enter the door, there is a shrine embedded in the wall facing you, which enshrines a thin old man with a kind face, holding a few medicinal herbs in his hands. There are couplets on both sides of the book: the dragon in front of the Jiuli Mountain asks for medicine, and the tiger asks for pills on the eight gems. Later, I learned that the old man was Sun Simiao, the king of medicine.

Most of the pharmacies in the city are in the front hall and back consultation room, and the doctor first goes to the inner room to diagnose the patient, and after prescribing the prescription, he takes it outside to settle accounts and take medicine.

"Are you here to see a doctor?" An old man in a long shirt turned out from behind the counter, his face was full of wrinkles, his eyes were wrinkled, his goatee was locked, and his yellow teeth were uneven when he spoke.

"Sir, do you recruit apprentices here?" asked Su Niang cautiously.

"Apprentice?" the old man was stunned, looked at the other party, and then said slowly, "I don't have a manpower in my shop. ”

"Do you think this kid is okay?"

"Well, the body is quite strong, you can try. The old man's gaze fell on Mo Yan.

"Do you want to take a deposit?" asked Su Niang hesitantly.

"What kind of deposit do you want," the old man raised his beard and said angrily, "The so-called famous doctors on the opposite side only ask for silver, and the old man only looks at his character, but he doesn't charge a deposit." ”

Lao Mo and his wife were overjoyed when they heard this, and thanked them repeatedly.

"Old man Shabashan, this hospital is mine, what is the name of this child?"

"Don't be disabled. ”

"Tell him to come tomorrow. Shabashan readily agreed.

That night, Su Niang fried a few dishes, Lao Mo also drank a few sips of soju, Mo Yan studied medicine in the city, and the whole family was very happy. Su Niang instructed Mo Wai in every possible way, listen to the shopkeeper everywhere she goes out, study hard, and become a Langzhong in the future, and her life will never be worried.

Early the next morning, Mo Yan carried the burden into the city, and the old Mo and his wife sent him to the entrance of the village.

Apprenticeship in a pharmacy is different from learning other crafts, and there is a distinction between learning "Confucian medicine" and "business". If you want to study Confucian medicine, you must first read the "Four Books", "Five Classics" and other Confucian classics for a few years, lay a good cultural foundation, and then read medical books under the guidance of Mr. After that, he served with his husband to learn how to diagnose diseases, use prescriptions and prescribe medicines. If entering the pharmacy is just a business to learn, it is much simpler, but you must also master a certain amount of medical knowledge, "the master leads the door, and the art is in the individual", but by his own understanding.

From this day on, Mo Yan officially began his apprenticeship.

There are only two of them in the Bashan Medical Center, and in addition to serving the daily life of Xiabashan, serving tea and pouring night pots, washing vegetables, cooking rice, washing dishes and other odd chores, the rest of the time is spent learning the business of the pharmacy.

The pharmacy business is broadly divided into picking, drying and cutting.

All purchased Chinese herbal medicines need to be further processed. Pick out impurities, dust and fine debris, do not need to be exposed to the sun, to air dry and shade dry. In addition, most pharmacies make their own medicines according to the "recipe". Specifically, the whole medicine is crushed with a medicine knife and a pedal iron grinder, and then beaten into water pills or balls into honey pills, and finally the honey pills are sealed with wax skin, which is called hanging wax skin.

Mo Yan was careful and quick to work, and he got started quickly, and Xia Bashan was very satisfied.

When Su Niang went to the city to sell vegetables, she would often send some fresh vegetables over, and by the way, she took a look at Mo Remnant, and saw that her son and Xia Bashan got along well, so she was relieved.

Every time at dinner, Xia Bashan took a sip of wine, and he started to scratch as usual, saying that it was still to blame that Xinglintang for stealing the business. When he was half drunk, he began to tell about the scenery of the rivers and lakes when he was young and some strange things about folk medicine and forest, and Mo Yan also listened to it with relish.

Xia Bashan was a traveling doctor in his early years, and later because the doctor died, he was chased and killed by the enemy, so he had to avoid western Yunnan and opened a medical center in the ancient city of Dali. Due to the average medical skills, there are few people who come to seek medical treatment, and the income is very small, so they can only barely survive, so there is not only a lack of ginseng, deer antler, tiger bone and other precious medicinal materials in the shop, but even the general cheap herbs are not much in stock.

In the morning, Mo Yan saw more than ten apprentices gathered in front of the Xinglin Hall at the opposite door, the oldest one was in his early twenties, and the younger one was similar to himself, all carrying medicine baskets, and it seemed that they were going up the mountain to collect medicine.

"Sir, there aren't many herbs in the store, and I want to go and pick some back. Mo Yan pointed to the opposite side and said to Xia Bashan.

Shabashan nodded in agreement.

Mo Yan picked up the medicine basket on his back, brought some dry food, and quietly followed behind the medicine collection team in Xinglintang with a small medicine hoe.

Since his apprenticeship in the pharmacy, although Mo Yan has some knowledge of Chinese herbal medicine, it is the first time that he has gone up the mountain to collect medicine. Pingyue never leaves the hospital, and he can go out to breathe, and his mood is exceptionally good.

Cangshan has a radius of 100 miles, and there are many kinds of Chinese herbal medicines, such as angelica, bupleurum, grass black, salvia, skullcap, aranan star, banxia, rhodiola, saffron, etc., and some hunters can occasionally hunt musk deer, clouded leopard or black bear. The musk, leopard bones, and bear bile sold to the city are very expensive, and only a big shop like Xinglintang can accept them, and Xia Bashan can't even think of it.

Entering the highland bushes, the herbs began to gradually increase, and the apprentices of the Xinglin Hall scattered in all directions to look for them, and Mo Yan mixed in, and no one noticed.

Until the afternoon, Mo Yan had only picked some herbs such as Duhuo, Bupleurum and Burdock, less than twenty or thirty, while the apprentices of Xinglintang mostly filled most of the medicine baskets.

Mo Yan sat beside a clear stream, and drank dry food to fill his stomach. Those apprentices of Xinglintang often go up the mountain to collect medicine, so naturally they are not as good as them, but they are from Orion, and when they were young, they were used to listening to hunting stories told by the adults in the village.

He climbed up the stream while listening to the grass on the shore, and soon made a discovery.

In the cool and damp bushes not far away, there was a slight rustling sound, and there were clear five-toed footprints on the muddy ground by the water, and the third toe in the middle was particularly long. Pangolins are slow to move and generally only come out at night to feed on termites, and it is rare to leave the nest during the day, most of them come out to defecate, this thing loves to be clean, and will never dirty its nest.

He tiptoed past, the black-brown pangolin seemed to sense the danger, and was about to burrow into the dirt hole, Mo Yan quickly grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it over, and the pangolin immediately shrank into a ball when attacked, and used its hard scale armor to defend against the enemy.

Mo Yan jumped over and picked it up, weighed it, and it weighed five or six pounds, and it was an adult male pangolin. After putting it in the medicine basket, Mo Yan happily descended the mountain, and the pangolin in the bump was always in a group, motionless.

When Xia Bashan saw that he had caught a pangolin, he praised it again and again: "The people in Bashan Medical Clinic are stronger than Xinglintang, and the old man didn't look away." "Immediately slaughtered and stewed a pot full of meat, and the scales were hung up to dry for medicine.

In the evening, Xia Bashan drank and his face was flushed, picked up the red and fluttering pieces of meat, and casually hummed a small tune: "Pangolin, the king does not stay, the woman eats the milk and flows for a long time, oops." ”

Taking advantage of his happiness, Mo Yan proposed to go up the mountain to collect more medicines to make up for the lack of medicinal materials in the store, Xia Bashan thought that this was a good idea, so he agreed.

Mo Yan returned to his room and continued to practice qi according to the abdominal reverse qi method in the book. For a while, he felt that his lung capacity had increased greatly, and he didn't feel tired climbing the mountain today, but he was still slurred when he shut up, and it seemed that the heat was not yet ready.

In the following six months, as long as the weather is good, Mo Yan will go to collect medicine, starting on the north slope, and then walking farther and farther over the mountain to the west slope. The western slope of Cangshan has the most Chinese herbs, but the mountain is high and the road is dangerous, the cliff is steep and there are many poisonous insects and beasts, and people are inaccessible. Mo Yan sometimes goes to two or three days, but every time he comes back, he returns with a full load, even some precious Cangshan fritillary, gastrodia, snow lotus, cordyceps, saffron, etc. The medicine kitchen in Shabashan is gradually full, and the business of the Bashan Medical Center has also begun to improve.

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