Back In Time For Imperial Examination Chapter 5

Before dinner time, the famous doctor invited by Captain Xie rushed over from the capital.

This doctor Liu used to work in the Imperial Medical Bureau. After resigning, he opened a medicine shop in Beijing and took his sons to practice medicine. He was best at treating injuries. When he entered the door, he first looked at Ryan Cui's wound, felt his pulse, and quickly wrote two prescriptions, one for internal use and one for external application. He took the herbs from the box, mixed them, and gave them to Ethan Peng to boil.

After getting the medicine, Doctor Liu took out a fine white porcelain medicine bottle and handed it to Ryan Cui, stroking his beard and saying, "This is what Captain Xie asked me to bring to you. It's the medicine used by the Jinyiwei for their own wounds. Wipe off the powder on your wound and replace it with this bottle. Just change the medicine every morning and evening. When a scab forms, apply the external medicine I prescribed every morning and evening, and you won't get a scar."

Ryan Cui thanked him and asked Alex Cui to pay the consultation fee. Doctor Liu said that the captain Xie had already paid and refused to take their money. So the two of them booked him a room next door, ordered a table of good food and wine, and settled the driver who brought him there, so that they could spend the night there before returning to the capital.

After Doctor Liu left, Ryan Cui discussed with Alex Cui: "Captain Xie first saved me, then he helped us find a doctor, sent medicine, and even interceded for me with my father. We should also give him some gifts to thank him. Doctor Liu happened to know him, so let's buy some things and ask him to help take them over."

Alex Cui said in embarrassment: "Young Master has been at home for so many years, and has only saved about thirty taels of money. Although he has some incense burners, ornaments, jade pendants and other toys, they are all cheap items worth less than a few dozen taels. After returning home, he doesn't even know if he has enough money to repair the house, so how can he pay the favor that Jinyiwei Qianhu will appreciate?"

Mo Fang, although we don’t have money, we have technology. Let me look through the chemistry book.

Alex Cui changed the medicine for his wound and went next door to accompany Doctor Liu for a drink. He covered his head with a quilt and lay in bed, flipping through a book silently.

He remembered that Emperor Xianzong loved to take elixirs, and even hired a bunch of officials to serve them, and had all the monks and Taoist priests in the palace enter the court. So he wanted to copy a recipe for elixirs and give it to Captain Xie, asking him to make elixirs to present to the emperor. But when he really saw the chapter on alchemy, he was afraid to start because he saw all the lead, mercury, alum, etc., for fear that the emperor would get sick and it would harm him instead.

Looking further down, porcelain, enamel, dyes, daily cosmetics and the like are safe, but as a military man, Captain Xie is probably not interested in them.

If you want to give a man a gift, wine is the most suitable.

Suddenly, a light bulb went off in Ryan Cui's mind. He immediately turned to the chapter on winemaking technology and started reading the winemaking techniques and recipes after the Qing Dynasty. He picked and chose, and picked out the Luzhou-flavored Daqu wine that was most suitable for brewing in the north.

This kind of wine is brewed from sorghum, and the koji is a mixture of barley and wheat, both of which are easily available in the north. The cost is more than half of the glutinous rice liquor introduced to China during the Yuan Dynasty, but the wine brewed is clear and mellow, suitable for drinking or giving as gifts. There is also a picture of a distillation device restored by a modern microbiologist in the book, which must be more advanced than the one during the Chenghua period, so I just copied it down.

He made up his mind, and when the man with the inkstone came over with the medicine, he asked him if he could help him write a recipe for making wine.

Ethan Peng said in surprise: "Brother, you know the recipe for making wine? But we don't make wine at home?"

Ryan Cui replied: "I happened to see it in the notes of a Yuan Dynasty scholar. It should be useful. Go get some paper and pen. If not, wait for your father to come back and write it down."

Ethan Peng patted his chest and said, "Don't worry, brother. I have been following your lessons for so many years. Although I can't write an article, writing a few words is not a problem."

He immediately moved a chair to the head of the bed, spread out the manuscript paper with rows of red vertical grids printed on it, sharpened his pen, and knelt in front of the chair to write down his thoughts.

Ryan Cui dragged his legs to the head of the bed, looked at the tip of the pen holding the inkstone, drank the medicine while reading, and occasionally added a few words of comments.

His handwriting was beautiful and the format was neat. The main text was written in large characters, and the notes were written in small characters, divided into two lines within one grid, and small circles were used to mark the punctuation marks, just like the ancient version of the Four Books and Five Classics. This winemaking method was not long, and together with the process notes, it would fill up a piece of paper.

After he put down his pen, Ryan Cui suddenly felt that the paper was enlarging in front of him, and then compressed into a standard PDF file. The chemistry book that was originally floating in front of him was squeezed out by it. The mobile hard disk also floated in front of him, revealing the storage interface, and the PDF file was shrunk to the size of an icon and stored in the hard disk.

Oh my god...this hard drive has become a spirit!

Ryan Cui looked at the hard drive in shock, but Ethan Peng thought he was looking at the wine recipe he had copied. After the ink on it dried, he held it in front of him with both hands and said, "Brother, check if there is anything wrong."

"...No." Ryan Cui opened the document in his mind and compared it with the paper in his hand. It was exactly the same word for word. Even the position of the broken fibers on the paper was exactly the same.

This is simply a cheating tool!

Mom doesn’t have to worry about me failing the exams anymore!

No need to worry about the handwriting not matching the original owner's!

After all, he had learned calligraphy from a professional teacher for a few years. Although he could not compare with the ancient scholars, if he copied the original handwriting, he could always imitate it to about 70%. It happened that he was beaten and injured now, so if there were any differences, he could say that it was because he had no strength, so the handwriting changed; in the future, he could find a few more copies of calligraphy by different calligraphers to copy, and then the font would change naturally, and no one would be able to see the problem.

He was so surprised that he wanted to K!ss the hard drive twice, but he didn't dare to show it in front of Ethan Peng. He had to lower his head and pretend to check the prescription. He said with a tight mouth: "Go find me a charcoal stick or an eyebrow pencil or something. I also want to draw a picture of the wine steamer."

Ethan Peng said worriedly: "Then your injury..."

Ryan Cui waved his hand and said, "Go quickly. I just applied some medicine on my wound. I don't feel any pain at all."

After Ethan Peng left, he buried his face in the quilt, biting his fingers and laughing for a long time. If he hadn't been injured, he would have rolled around on the bed.

I never thought that the chemistry book is such a useful tool in life, and this hard drive is also a huge golden finger!

His roommates were all-knowing time travel experts, and they would use whatever they said was useful. He had already used the golden finger given by the second and third brothers, and he had to listen to the eldest brother and practice calligraphy and painting well, because he would definitely use it one day in the future!

He tossed and turned in his bed for a long time until Ethan Peng pushed the door open. He then tensed up, took the charcoal pencil with a stiff face, and drew a distillation diagram on the pale yellow bamboo paper, instructing Ethan Peng to mark the name and purpose next to it.

Alex Cui came back in the evening and looked at his wine brewing recipe and the picture of the wine distilling device. He was as surprised as his son and asked, "Where did you copy such a detailed recipe? Although I have never made wine, I know from the nine-distillation and nine-drying process that the wine will be a mellow and rich wine. This recipe is worth at least a thousand taels of silver."

That's because the craftsmanship of this wine is from the late Qing Dynasty, and it is two or three hundred years advanced.

Ryan Cui said modestly: "I read it in a book of Yuan Dynasty miscellaneous notes. It said that the brewing method in the Western Regions was different from that in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, I thought the recipe was good and wanted to brew it myself, so I wrote it down. Later, I don't know where the book was lost. Uncle Yuan, if you think this recipe is good enough as a thank you gift, please write a letter for me and attach the recipe to Xie Qianhu."

"Okay. Captain Xie not only saved you from the sword of the founder of the White Lotus Sect, but also asked you a question when he saw you were injured, and was willing to write a letter to help us resolve the master's anger. He is a good person, and it is not too much to give him this prescription."

Alex Cui sighed for a while, then put down his face and said, "I have seen some of these letters when I was with the master. I will ask the young master to revise them after I finish writing them."

He wrote it in a very plain way, without much literary talent, but the content was detailed, the feelings were sincere, and there was nothing wrong with it. Ryan Cui had not learned much classical Chinese at the time, so he could not make it more interesting, so he simply sealed it up along with the prescription and gave it to the imperial physician Liu to take back to the capital.

After receiving the letter, Captain Xie immediately sent someone to write him a letter in reply. The words in the letter were also plain, without any incomprehensible allusions, and simply thanked him, saying that the wine recipe was good, and he would send him a few bottles to try after it was brewed, and asked him to wait for the wedding to come.

After the messenger from the Xie family left, Tongzhou Magistrate Fu Hao also sent a legal advisor named Liu to visit him in the inn with several clerks. Legal advisor Liu praised him a lot, and then asked him in detail about how he cooperated with the Jinyiwei to capture the White Lotus Sect demon. He also praised him for his wisdom, loyalty, and dedication to the country, and he was worthy of inheriting his father's family tradition of loyalty and filial piety.

Of course, this was not meant for him, but for Doctor Cui in the capital. Ryan Cui just listened to it casually, and in turn praised Fu Zhizhou for loving the people like his own children, and the atmosphere under his rule was pure and honest. Therefore, although the actions of those evil people were as conspicuous as fireworks in the night sky, there was nothing in the sky to cling to and burn. Those thieves could only make noise for a while, and as long as the government took action, they would be easily captured.

Master Liu's eyes lit up and he smiled, "Yes, you are really smart and handsome, and you see things clearly. The White Lotus Sect has been lingering in Shandong for many years. Xu Yingzhen and other evil people think they have a deep foundation, so they want to come to Tongzhou to spread evil words, confuse our people and expand the evil sect. But they don't know that the governor has devoted himself to educating the herdsmen for many years. The people are attached to the court like children are attached to their parents. How could they associate with evil people! They are like water without a source and trees without roots here, so naturally 'they will die suddenly'."

The White Lotus sect has appeared in Tongzhou, and the prefect must submit a memorial to apologize. After the Jinyiwei left yesterday, the prefect did not sleep for half the night, and as a staff member, he was naturally very anxious. Today, he came to the inn to visit the patient just to deal with the job. Unexpectedly, this young master's unintentional words gave him a clear starting point for his self-defense memorial. When he goes back to think about it, maybe he can not only resolve the crisis of this case of evil words, but also show the merits of the prefect in educating the people.

He changed his previous perfunctory attitude and asked in a friendly and enthusiastic manner who Ryan Cui's teacher was, which sutra he studied, and when he planned to take the exam.

These words hit Ryan Cui's sore spot. He didn't know how his predecessor's learning progress was, so he could only cough desperately. Ethan Peng hurriedly poured him a cup of tea and answered for him: "Originally, he studied with the uncle of the Xu family. Four years ago, the uncle was elected as the magistrate of Qishui County. His wife also invited Mr. Lu Zhongsheng, a Jiangxi scholar, to teach the two young masters. In the meantime, because Mr. Lu had to prepare for the exam, the eldest young master studied on his own for two years. Now he has read the Four Books, but he has not been formally taught the Five Classics."

Master Liu was surprised and asked, "You haven't treated the classics yet?"

Not to mention the son of a doctor in the Ministry of Revenue, even the children of ordinary scholars should have mastered the Four Books by the age of seven or eight. This young man has such a smart and intelligent appearance, but he has just read through the Four Books and has not yet formally started reading the classics?

After his surprise, he realized that he had made a mistake, so he quietly lowered his head and glanced at Ryan Cui. Seeing that he avoided her gaze, he mistakenly thought that he was ashamed of his slow learning progress, so he comforted her gently: "The key to the imperial examination is to read the sage's classics and Zhu Xi's annotations, and to write from the perspective of the sage. If you spend more time consolidating your foundation like Mr. Cui, you will be able to accumulate knowledge and then release it. On the contrary, your writing will be more stable and solid than those who just want to be quick and learn to do questions before they have thoroughly understood the classics."

Even so, Mr. Lucas still felt that he had spoken out of turn, exposing the truth that Shangguan's son was ignorant and incompetent. He felt very embarrassed and felt it was meaningless to stay any longer. He left the poem written by Fu Zhizhou and a set of newly made four treasures of the study, and left in a hurry.