After Tao Yaju, Zhu Feng and Wen Ya went shopping with their neighbors, Old Man Xu also went out with his bird cage, but he had already made an appointment with other old friends.
Xu Lan watched Old Man Xu leave and felt very relieved. My grandpa has been busy all his life, and now he has only one foot in the coffin, and he has learned to enjoy life. She is happy from the bottom of her heart.
In the yard, He Yunshen and Si Wenzhi were still practicing. Their servants stood by and chatted boredly about their respective young masters.
Unexpectedly, they hit it off as soon as they talked. The more they chatted, the more they became more and more interested. So they shamelessly asked Shi An for tea fruit and melon seeds, and started enjoying it.
Hongtao surrounded Qingyu, handing her something from time to time, holding on to the ladder and waiting.
Shi'an took care of the flowers and plants in the yard. Some needed to be pruned, some needed to loosen the soil, and some needed to be watered. It was not an easy task.
Seeing that everyone was busy, Xu Lan thought about it and came up with an idea. The summer heat in June is the time to compose music.
There are three types of koji: distiller's koji, divine koji and danqu. The usage and preparation methods of the three are different. Diuqu is used to make wine, divine koji is used to make medicine, and danqu is used to preserve freshness. Especially in summer, food is easy to perish, so smear it with danqu.
Even maggots and flies dare not get close to it, and the color and taste of food can remain unchanged for more than ten days. It is the most commonly used thing for people to keep food fresh in summer.
Anyway, it was still a long time in the evening, and Xu Lan didn’t want to go out on the street alone, so she planned to make several kinds of songs. The first was wheat song. She took a bag of wheat and carefully washed the wheat grains with well water for three times.
Then spread it in a dustpan to dry in the sun for later use.
Then there is the noodle song. Xu Lan takes five pounds of white noodles and five liters of soybeans, adds polygonum juice and boils them together, then adds five ounces of spicy polygonum powder and twelve ounces of almond paste, mixes and presses them into a cake shape, and finally uses
Wrap it with mulberry leaves and hang it in a ventilated place.
After she finished her work, the washed wheat had been dried in the sun. Xu Lan crushed the wheat with a stone mill, then used wheat washing water to stir the crushed wheat into a ball, still pressed it into cakes, and finally used mulberry leaves.
Wrap it up and hang it in a ventilated place.
"What are you doing?" Hongtao took the time to come over and take a look at Xiqi.
"Make music." Xu Lan smiled.
Hongtao was a little curious and pointed at the object wrapped in mulberry leaves, "Can this thing make wine?"
"It's not possible yet." Xu Lan explained: "It needs to be ventilated for seven to forty-nine days, the wheat koji has to wait for the inside to turn yellow, and the noodle koji has to wait for yellow hair to grow before it can be used."
Hong Tao unconsciously nodded her head clearly. Seeing that there were still a bunch of things, she curiously asked: "Then what are these used for?"
"It's still a song, it's just a divine song, used to make medicine." Xu Lan smiled, while setting up a pot in the yard, "Boil the artemisia annua, polygonum, and cocklebur into juice, then mix it with flour to make a cake, and compact it.
Wrap it in mulberry leaves, and when the inside turns yellow, you can dry it and store it for medicinal use. Many medicines will be much better when combined with this divine song."
Hongtao was slightly surprised: "You also understand pharmacology."
Xu Lan shook her head repeatedly, "I don't think I understand. It's just that I grow medicinal materials, so I know a little bit about it."
Seeing that there was another bag of indica rice, Hongtao asked, "Then what is this rice used for?"
"This is the raw material of Danqu. After washing the rice, soak it in water for seven days, rinse it again, then add ordinary rice and mix it to steam it into rice. Steam it until it is five times cooked, take it out, and pour it with cold water.
After cooling, steam the rice until it is fully cooked, then mix it with koji seeds, horse polygonum juice and alum water, and finally place it in a ventilated place and stir continuously for seven days and seven nights until the color of the koji rice changes from black to red."
Hong Tao opened her mouth in shock, "You still have to stir continuously for seven days and seven nights? No sleep?"
Xu Lan chuckled, "You can sleep, but you can't sleep deeply, especially in the beginning, you have to stir it every hour. Danqu is not easy to make, but if it is made, it is the best preservation product."
Hongtao looked at it for a while, then turned to Shi'an to watch Shi'an pruning flowers and branches.
...
In the afternoon, Xu Ying arrived at Taoyaju with the scorching sun above his head. Seeing Shi'an there, he was quite happy, "I was worried that you might have already gone out, but luckily."
Shi'an then remembered what Qingyu said to him in the morning. No wonder he was told not to go out in the morning. It turned out to be here.
The two chatted about the current situation. Without saying a few words, Jiang Chenglan came to Taoyaju with Congtou.
Jiang Chenglan held a basket of eggs and handed them to Hong Tao, "We have a lot of chickens at home and we can't finish the eggs, so I thought I'd give you some. They're not valuable, so don't dislike them."
Hong Tao happily carried the eggs to the kitchen and put them away, then took Jiang Chenglan to the backyard to watch the carpentry work of Onion and Jiang Mu.
At that time, Qingyu was about to finish the work and put away all the things around it.
Although Jiang Chenglan had heard about Onion before and had seen the production process, she was still shocked when she saw the finished product. As for Onion, it was just a pile of wood before, but now looking at it, the wood seems to have been infused with soul. Call him this
The producers can't tell the truth from the fake.
Jiang Chenglan touched Qingyu's head excitedly, "Shange will definitely attract the attention of the whole city tonight."
Qingyu smiled slightly.
Back in the inner courtyard, everyone had finished their work and the sun had turned west, so Qingyu suggested going to the street.
After all, they are all young people, and the group of people are all interested. In the end, Xu Ying climbed up Shi'an and carried the onion, and the three boys walked in front.
Hongtao held Qingyu's arm, and Jiang Chenglan held Xu Lan, chatting and laughing and following behind. Jiang Chenglan and Xu Lan even had the word "lan" in their names, and they were similar in age, so they talked about the importance of marrying Jinlan.
posture.
Of course, He Yunshen and Si Wenzhi are still cultivating, but they have their own servants guarding them, and they have passed the level of pill formation. Shi'an can safely let them stay, as long as they wake up before asking King Guan.
Just two people.
...
In Yinzhou City, after the sun turns west, there are more people on the street. It is no exaggeration to say that people are shoulder to shoulder.
Qingyu was slightly shorter, and Hongtao held Qingyu's arm tightly for fear of being squeezed out. As for herself, she happily pulled Qingyu back and forth among the crowd, feeling that it was extremely uncomfortable to be crowded.
pleasure.
There were many vendors selling snacks on the street. Hongtao took Qingyu with her and bought them while walking. Finally, she couldn't hold them in her arms, so she handed them to Shian to hold.
Xu Ying helped Shi An share some of the burden and passed by a shop selling safety locks. Xu Ying thought about it and walked in.
As soon as he entered, Shi'an and Congtou couldn't bear to leave him, so they followed him inside.
Xu Lan and Jiang Chenglan, in just a few moments, seemed to have become close friends who have been dating for many years.
Xu Lan already knew the relationship between Jiang Chenglan and Congtou. Seeing Congtou enter Ping An Lock's shop, she smiled and poked Jiang Chenglan's arm, "Your brother Congtou, follow me in."
When Jiang Chenglan saw that it was Ping An Lock's shop, she didn't know what she thought of. Her face turned red and she looked away. When she saw a stall selling rouge, she took Xu Lan to see the rouge.
When Shi'an Xu Ying and Cong Tou entered the lock shop, they each looked at it curiously.
There were not many people in the shop. Shi An looked at it casually, but Xu Ying looked at it seriously. There were gold, silver and copper locks, all of them were exquisite and beautiful.
He looked carefully, and finally his eyes fell on a small silver lock, and asked the shopkeeper, "How do you sell this?"
The store owner spoke politely and warmly: "Your Majesty, you have good taste. This silver lock was made by the famous Master Ran.
The workmanship is exquisite, and it usually sells for three taels of silver. Since today is the Guan Wang Hui, if you sincerely buy it, I will only give you two taels of silver." As he said this, he took out the silver lock, turned it over, and engraved a small inscription on the back.
The word Ran.
It is impossible to lose one tael of silver at a time with a low price. Xu Ying did not pay attention to this, but two taels of silver was still appropriate.
He took the silver lock and looked at it carefully, and asked Shi'an: "What do you think?"