Chapter 28: Mindful of Good Intentions, But Not Rewarded with Good

She tentatively spoke, “I think there’s too much stuff in the kitchen. We can’t finish all those mountain goods and dried vegetables. Maybe we can take them to town and exchange them for some lard to make oil. The oil I used for frying today was scraped from the chicken’s belly.”

Jiang Nian’s limited cooking skills only extended to stewing. Frying was basically charcoal, let alone refining oil.

Now, she finally had someone with cooking skills. As long as the food was delicious, everything else could be negotiated.

“Just don’t touch anything in my room. You can do whatever you want with the rest. Just tell me if you need anything.” Jiang Nian was very straightforward.

She couldn’t sleep a wink all night.

Jiang Nian got up at the appointed time.

She opened the door and saw Zhou Xiaoju already drying herbs in the yard, with smoke coming from the kitchen chimney.

“Doctor Jiang, I saw that some of the herbs you collected yesterday weren’t dry, so I took them out to continue drying. I don’t know if I did it right.” She looked uneasy, with a hint of flattery in her expression.

Jiang Nian nodded, very satisfied with her. She was perceptive.

“By the way, I washed the clothes you changed out of yesterday. I cooked sweet potato and sorghum porridge for breakfast, and I’ve already rolled out the dough for the pancakes. You go wash up first. I’ll just put them in the pan to fry. Freshly fried pancakes are more delicious, so I didn’t make them ahead of time.”

No wonder those rich and powerful people liked to have a bunch of servants to wait on them. This life of having everything handed to you, tsk tsk!

When she finished washing up, Zhou Xiaoju had already brought the food to the table.

Except for the first few days when she was overwhelmed with patients, there weren’t so many after that.

Her medicine was effective, and most people got better after taking it. Only those who needed to be treated would come back a few more times.

After breakfast, a middle-aged woman came to see her. She was seeing her for a woman’s private matter.

This wasn’t uncommon, but most people were too embarrassed to see her, afraid that she would think they were unclean. So, they would just endure a little discomfort or use folk remedies to boil some water and wash it.

But this woman’s condition was serious. She had washed it, but it kept recurring, so she came to see her.

Jiang Nian prescribed her medicine to take and medicine to wash, a total of six cents.

Then the woman was unhappy, “Doctor Jiang, I have an itch down there. The washing medicine is enough. I don’t need the medicine to take, right?”

She had heard that it was cheap here. The herbs were all collected from the mountains, and the medicine was practically free. She could even exchange it for grain and dried vegetables.

But this mouth cost six cents, which was equivalent to her working for several days.

After all, it wasn’t like before. And these ordinary people’s lives were also very difficult. She patiently explained to her, “You can just take the washing medicine, but it will be like before, it might recur after a while. It’s a problem with your constitution. Because your constitution is too weak, it keeps recurring and won’t get better. If I’m not mistaken, you should also be prone to colds. The main effect of the medicine you take is to regulate your constitution. As long as your constitution is not good, your body won’t be as resistant to illness.”

This was also the reason for the slightly higher price, because the medicine to regulate the body contained several good herbs.

If you went to the hospital to get these prescriptions, it would cost at least ten yuan.

She wasn’t motivated by money, and she didn’t care about a few cents. She saw how difficult life was for these ordinary people, so she only charged a symbolic fee to those who came to see her.

In her previous life, countless high-ranking officials, nobles, scholars, and gentry spent their fortunes trying to get her to treat them once, and they still had to see if she was willing.