Chapter 94 – No Discussion (3)

“Have you looked at my processed herbs yet? If you haven’t yet, that what gave you the rights to comment on them? In addition to the time spent, the skill of apothecary was also about talent. As far as I know, the number one participant at last year’s herbal convention was a young man who had just reached adulthood, right? Applying your theory that the longer you spent learning, the better you get, then what is the point of having a apothecary convention every five years and holding competitions? Everybody could just stay and home and grind for years on end.” Gu Ye was truly annoyed now, and her articulating and argumentative nature was starting to show.

Gu Xiao, standing behind his granddaughter, couldn’t help but looked at his granddaughter in whole new light. It looked like herbal processing from the sage apothecary did more than just discovering her talent in both herbal processing and medicine, but also changed her timid personality. Mmm, that was a good thing. The granddaughter of Gu Xiao should not be a doormat that everyone could walk all over.

“Young Miss couldn’t be more correct! Bai Zhi, hurry up and apologize to this young lady!” said Bai Ji, the young man in azure, his tender face now covered in ice and anger could be seen in his handsome eyes.

Whenever his brother addressed him by his full name, Bai Zhi knew that his brother was genuinely angry, but still, feeling unjust, he said, “Ge, we haven’t seen her work yet. How do you know I wasn’t right? What quality of medicinal herbs do you think a 7~8-year-old village girl can bring?”

“You are right!” Gu Ye agreed with him all of a sudden. Even Bai Zhi was caught off guard by that, but what came next make him changed colors again, “You shouldn’t just believe anything that you’ve heard, instead, you should see them with your own eyes. How would you know my medicinal herbs aren’t good medicinal herbs before you have looked at them? Young man, I have an advice for you. You really shouldn’t jump to conclusions so rashly!”

That speech, coming from a young girl who looked to be about 7~8 years old, made everybody grinned. On the other hand, she was in the rights and nobody could find anything wrong with what she had said.

Bai Zhi rolled his eyes in frustration. Alright, so he couldn’t rebut her verbally, he’d make his point with his actions. He picked up a piece of ash (cortex fraxini) that had been processed and snickered, “Look, this cutting skill was obviously that of a novice.”

“You are right, this was my practice piece when I first started out. The cutting wasn’t the best, but look the level of soaking and sun dried, did that affect the efficacy any?” Gu Ye pulled out another piece of ash from the other basket. The cutting skill on the second piece showed marked improvement. “This ash, from collecting, cleaning, soaking, to cutting were all done by me independent. These two pieces were done in two consecutive days. Now take a look at this piece.”

Bai Zhi was born in a medicinal herbal merchant family. Other families start their children from reading and writing; their family start their children from recognizing medicinal hears. Meaning, they’d learn how to tell herbs apart before they even started learning how to read and write. Naturally, he could tell the different between the two pieces of ash. The one that the little girl was showing him had already achieved the level of high quality.

Nevertheless, he refused to believe that the little brat could have some marked improvements in barely two days! Even the master apothecary Gu Shaoming, who were generally recognized as the genius in the field of medicial herb, couldn’t have improved in such a speedy manner.

Before he could say anything, Housemaster Zhao said in a praising tone, “Yes, the method of treatment for ash might be simple, but the simpler the process, the more skill it takes. If you have truly accomplished this in two days, then Miss, you most certainly have a bright future in front of you!”

“Thank you, Mister. You are too kind!” said Gu Ye humbly for a change with a shy smile on her face, the dimples by her lips almost visible.