The Resplendent Farming Apothecary

“Lihu-ge, I am here to remove your suture!” Gu Ye pushed open the door to Hunter Zhang’s house carrying her large medicine chest in her small arm.

Aunty Zhang, who was preparing breakfast, poked her head out from the kitchen and smiled, “Hey there, little Ye-er. You are here so early! Have you had breakfast yet?”

Other than during the busy times of fall harvesting and sprint planting, the villagers usually only eat two meals a day. Breakfast was between 9 – 10 AM, dinner between 4 – 5 PM. But as Gu Xiao had two growing children at home and he was in no shortage of month, their household had an additional meal, making their breakfast earlier than the others.

“Yes, I had! Aunty Zhang, I am going to go check on Lihu-ge’s wound,” said Gu Ye as she smiled at Mrs. Zhang.

“Have a bowl of soup in a little bit! As the old adage goes, eat what your body needs the most. This is thick bone soups that I had simmered overnight!” Old adage said to eat the parts that your body needed the most, so all the long bones from the wild boar that Gu Ye killed went to Aunty Zhang. In the last two weeks, Zhang Lihu had so much bone soup the mere thought of it made him wanted to puke.

Gu Ye politely declined Mrs. Zhang’s generous offer and stepped into Zhang Lihu’s room. Inside the room, Zhang Lihu, who couldn’t sit still was hobbling toward the door with one foot.

“STOP! And go back into bed immediately! If you don’t follow orders and your tendon doesn’t grow back normally, you will become a cripple!” With a stern looked she chastised him, her small face looking quite authoritative.

Becoming a cripple was Zhang Lihu’s worst fear. He climbed back into bed obediently as soon as he heard that and placed his leg on the blanket. Eagerly, he looked behind her and didn’t see anyone. Baffled, he asked, “I thought you are here to remove my sutures. Where’s the Old Sacred Doctor?”

“Tsk. This is just child’s play, you don’t need my master for that.” Gu Ye opened up her medicine chest and gave the fool a sidelong glance, “Give me your foot!”

“You? You are removing the sutures for me? You are going to stab another hole on my foot!” Zhang Lihu stared at the pair of surgical scissors in her hand with a mortified look. She had only been the disciple of the Old Sacred Doctor for a few days, and now she was doing home visits already? Or did she just steal the Old Sacred Doctor’s medicine chest and just trying to get some practice in on her.

“What is that look?” Gu Ye was not happy that her medical skills were questioned. She gave the fool a threatening stare. This unappreciative person didn’t even know how lucky he was. If it wasn’t for me, that leg of yours would have been long gone! You think you would be sitting here whining right now?

Mrs. Zhang, walking into the room with a bowl of soup in her hand, saw the resentful look on her son and his uncooperative stance, smacked him on his shoulder and said, “Old Sacred Doctor said that Xiao Ye-zi was extremely talented when it comes to medicine. She had already been training for over two weeks and you don’t think she’s good enough to treat your foot? You might not trust Xiao Ye-zi, but you should at least trust Old Sacred Doctor! If he was okay with Xiao Ye-zi taking care of you, that means she is qualified to do that!”

Reluctantly, Zhang Lihu stretched his foot toward Gu Ye. Gu Ye removed the wooden plants and the gauze nimbly and carefully examined the healing of his wound.

“Mm, its healing well! The soup that Aunty Zhang had been simmering had helped a lot!” Noticing Zhang Lihu’s resentment toward the bone soup, Gu Ye added that ill-intentionally. Hrmph! So you didn’t believe in my medicine skills? We would let you have so much soup that you’d puke!

After snipping the suture with the surgical scissors, Gu Ye grabbed one end of the string with a pair of forceps. Then, with a quick yank, Zhang Lihu barely felt a numbing sensation where his wound was and the string was freed. She continued to snip and pull until all the sutures had been removed before she rinsed his would with rubbing alcohol and applied some anti-inflammatory powder over it and rewrapped it with clean gauze.

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T/N: The title of this part should be “(pickled) food porn”. =D