Chapter 171: Chapter 170: Yangtze River White Sturgeon
Regardless of whether itâs Chinese or Western medicine, trying to learn well solely through self-study isnât feasible. One must have a teacher to guide them.
Someone like Lin Wanwan, with her limited skills as a barefoot doctor, can only handle emergencies. If she manages to heal someone, itâs purely luck, like a blind cat stumbling onto a dead mouse, using the right medicine by chance, as she did when saving Xiao Chong.
Learning Chinese medicine is extremely difficult. She thought she had just begun, but in truth, she hadnât even scratched the surface.
If Lin Wanwan truly wishes to pursue the path of a healer, she should quickly pack up and follow the old immortal Sun Simiao, at least studying with him for another ten years before she can graduate.
The brief stay in Qiantang is absolutely insufficient; she would need another golden opportunity of enlightenment to have any hope.
But Lin Wanwanâs study of medicine was like a duck being pushed onto a perch, her intentions were not pure. Without the true heart of a great physician, how could she be worthy of being the Medicine Saintâs disciple?
Even if the Medicine Saint Sun Simiao, considering her medical book contributions, truly accepts her as a disciple, she herself would not be able to make the decision to give up her current carefree life to devote herself to medicine.
To be honest, sheâs quite attached to her homeland and doesnât have grand ambitions. She hasnât left the Jiangnan area since childhood, even attending a local university. To follow and study medicine in a place like Changâan, facing that assembly of elites, sheâs not psychologically prepared.
In the rural seaside of Mao County, with the sky high and the Emperor far away, is it not comfortable to have a house facing the sea where "spring will bloom"? Teaching kids to read, helping family with small fortunes, isnât that fulfilling? Occasionally visiting relatives in Qiantang County and strolling around West Lake, isnât that enjoyable?
Why travel all the way to Changâan? She doesnât possess the deep-seated desire to heal and save people. Her initial self-study of barefoot doctor knowledge was merely to treat little Qingyu.
With her somewhat incautious personality and inability to handle grievances, going to a place like Changâan, where officials are at every step, she would surely offend people. When the time comes, facing those who navigate the Great Tang, she wouldnât even know how she died.
And if by any chance Li Shimin takes an interest in her, or randomly arranges a marriage for her, wouldnât she have to roll back to the modern day immediately? It would be even harder to return to the Great Tang.
So, she decided to let it go and continue being a small landowner, a small salted fish.
Of course, while the old immortal Sun Simiao is around, studying should still continue. After all, heâs a legendary figure in Chinese medicine, and following such a teacher is an opportunity not to be wasted.
While Sun Simiao was present, Lin Wanwan even went back to the modern day to make use of Lu Shouyueâs network, buying many Chinese medicine formulas, such as the famous Angong Niuhuang Wan. She respectfully offered the secret recipe to the old immortal and brazenly asked him to make a few pills.
My goodness, this is a life-saving emergency medicine that only emerged in the fifty-eighth year of Qianlong, reputed to "save emergencies instantly, and rescue those on the brink in a moment," capable of snatching people from the hands of King Yama; it must be kept as a reserve.
In the modern market, itâs nearly impossible to buy an authentic one, requiring special channels.
Comprising over a hundred kinds of medicinal materials, with complex preparation processes, many materials are extremely rare and valuable today. For example, rhinoceros horn is a medicine, yet there are only over twenty thousand rhinos left in the modern world, and a horn costs seven to eight million â plus, theyâre protected animals, where would you get one? Similarly with bezoar, musk, these arenât ordinary items either.
Most of the Angong Niuhuang Wan you can buy today is a diluted version, and certainly less effective than the original.
But in the Great Tang, itâs still feasible! Animal protection laws are nonexistent! As long as you have money, you can eat bear paws and shark fins with no restrictions! And in the Great Tang, Lin Wanwan is absolutely financially free, given the inexhaustible supply of pepper worth its weight in gold!
Sun Simiao, renowned as the Medicine Saint, had tasted countless herbs. When he saw the Angong Niuhuang Wan secret recipe Lin Wanwan presented, after examining it for a while, he couldnât stop praising it.
Additionally, with Lin Wanwan tirelessly gathering medicinal materials from various drugstores in Qiantang City, the old master had no reason not to try making it and seeing its efficacy.
Lin Wanwan helped on the side and learned quite a bit, and she also stashed away a bottle of Angong Niuhuang Wan.
Sun Simiao sighed, "The recipe is indeed a good one for saving lives, but the poor canât afford it. We need to cut down on a few ingredients to lower costs."
Lin Wanwan grinned and said, "Whatever the old master decides is fine, Iâve already given the recipe."
The old master gave Lin Wanwan a long, steady look and said, "Wanwan, how many of your masterâs secret recipes are you still hiding? Canât you show them all to me?"
With a secret recipe in hand, Sun Simiao couldnât resist assembling it because it would greatly benefit the people, a pursuit he dedicated his entire life to. Seeing Lin Wanwan bring out a new recipe each day, he couldnât help but suspect she had many more stashed away.
Lin Wanwan quickly put on an innocent smile, "Iâve shown you everything I have, old master. These are all that I remembered. My master indeed taught many, but most of them were lost, and with my inadequate skills, I canât recall a lot."
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Sun Simiao was at a loss for words, he tapped Lin Wanwan and said, "You, you rogue little child! Following someone as extraordinary as Mr. Green Mountain yet not learning properly. Do you have any idea what a rare opportunity this is?"
What could Lin Wanwan say, except respond with a guilty chuckle.
That day, Lin Wanwan managed to find some time and took her maid to the dock to pick fresh ingredients. The past half-month learning medicine from the old immortal, whenever there was a chance, she wanted to repay him with good food.
The old master loved fish slices, so Lin Wanwan came to pick a freshly caught one. Of course, it wasnât a big deal if she couldnât find a satisfactory one because she actually planned to buy it in the modern day; visiting the dock was just a front.
She initially wanted to make tuna slices for the old master, as she wasnât impressed with river fish, fearing too many parasites. Deep-sea fish were safer.
But there she found something that made her eyes light up â Yangtze River White Sturgeon, a species already declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature!
Though Lin Wanwan didnât claim to have strong environmental consciousness, every time she heard of an extinction, sheâd lament.
This resilient species couldnât be farmed, they pursued freedom and needed vast spaces. Once captured, theyâd starve themselves to death. By the time people realized they needed protection, it was already too late, leaving only regret.
Yet now, before Lin Wanwan was a whole net of Yangtze River White Sturgeons, big and small, fresh and lively, clearly just caught from the Qiantang River!
Bring them back to the modern day!
This was Lin Wanwanâs first thought. She hadnât deliberately sought to do this, but since sheâd encountered them, it was destiny, and she couldnât just ignore it.
Buying the fish was a trivial expense for Lin Wanwan, but getting these big guys back into the river from the hotel unnoticed was a difficult task.
With surveillance cameras everywhere in the streets, it was almost impossible to do it flawlessly. Plus, those fish couldnât be out of the water for long. Theyâd already been starving and agitated since being caught, and time wasnât on their side.