Unparalleled medical and martial arts skills, saving the CEO's fiancée at the start.

When Fang Guodong brought his first batch of students, the astragalus flowers in Baizhi Valley were just beginning their second bloom.

The ten students, mostly in their early twenties, were carrying backpacks, wearing sneakers, and some were even wearing sun hats.

When they got off the bus, they all had similar expressions on their faces, a mixture of curiosity and indifference.

They probably think that after studying Chinese medicine for three years at school, what kind of medicinal herbs haven't they seen?

It's just grass from the field; what's so fresh about it?

Fang Guodong went to find Ye Chen as soon as he got off the car.

He was wearing a faded gray-blue shirt today, carrying an old canvas bag, his back slightly hunched, but he walked very fast.

He met Ye Chen and said, "I've brought the person. You can make the arrangements."

Ye Chen looked at the students and said, "Let them put their luggage away first, and they can go to work in the fields this afternoon."

Fang Guodong nodded, turned around and shouted to the students, "Follow me, don't dawdle."

It was 2 PM, and the sun was blazing.

Ye Chen led the students to the angelica field on the south slope.

Seventh Uncle was already waiting on the edge of the field, holding two freshly pulled seedlings in his hand, one angelica and the other angelica dahurica.

These two seedlings look very similar, with pinnately divided leaves and similar colors.

Seventh Uncle held up the seedling and asked, "Can anyone recognize which one is angelica?"

The ten students looked at each other, but no one said a word.

After a while, a boy wearing glasses raised his hand and said, "The one on the left has a rounder leaf."

Seventh Uncle handed the seedling to him and said, "Take another look."

The boy leaned closer to examine it, then hesitated.

Seventh Uncle turned the seedling on the right over, exposing the roots.

Angelica sinensis has thick roots with an oily yellowish-white sheen; Peucedanum praeruptorum has thin, hard roots with a lighter color.

He said, "Leaves can lie, but roots don't. Angelica has a strong smell, while Peucedanum has a weak one. You're standing so far away, you can't even smell it. What's the use of just looking at the leaves?"

The students exchanged glances, their expressions softening somewhat.

Seventh Uncle put the seedlings on the ridge of the field and said, "Get down, barefoot, take off your shoes."

Several girls looked embarrassed, but Fang Guodong stood at the edge of the field, watching them without saying a word.

They bent down, took off their shoes and socks, and stepped barefoot into the soft mud.

Seventh Uncle walked ahead, his pace slow, saying as he went, "The soil for growing angelica should not be too dry or too wet. It should be loose, ideally sinking half an inch when you step on it."

He squatted down, pulled up an angelica root, and gently shook it in the soil, causing the soil on the roots to fall off in a rustling sound.

"Look, this is good angelica root. It has a thin skin, thick flesh, and is oily. When you break it open, it smells sweet. What you see at school are slices, which are already processed. But you don't know what it looks like before processing. If you don't know this, you won't know the proper processing temperature."

Fang Guodong stood at the edge of the field, took out the mimeographed textbook from his canvas bag, opened a page, and wrote something on it.

Ye Chen walked over and glanced at it, seeing that he had added a sentence in the blank space of that page: "According to Seventh Uncle, the sweetness of the root comes from the soil; the bitterness of the root comes from the fire. If the fire is not heated enough, even the sweetness will turn into bitterness."

Looking at the line of text, Ye Chen found the old professor to be more interesting than he had imagined.

The next day, Fang Guodong divided the students into several groups. Some went to the fields with Seventh Uncle, some went to the greenhouse with Ayiguli, and some went to the warehouse to learn how to identify medicinal herbs from Ye Chen.

Among the students Ye Chen was teaching, there was a girl named Lin Xiao. She was short and didn't talk much, but she loved asking questions.

She squatted in front of the medicine shelf in the warehouse, comparing Scutellaria barbata and Lobelia chinensis for a long time, and asked Ye Chen, "The books say that these two medicines have similar effects, so why do the prescriptions from Medicine King Valley sometimes only use one of them?"

Ye Chen picked up the two herbs and looked at them, saying, "Scutellaria barbata is more focused on clearing heat and detoxifying, while Lobelia chinensis is more focused on promoting diuresis and reducing swelling. Although they are similar, the slight difference makes a big difference in a seriously ill patient. The rule of Medicine King Valley is to use only one herb if possible, and if it is slightly inferior, it is better not to treat the patient at all."

Lin Xiao wrote these words down in her notebook, then asked, "How do we determine that slight difference?"

Ye Chen said, "Watch more, and you'll naturally understand."

On the fifth day, Fang Guodong asked each student to write a summary.

Lin Xiao wrote a comparison between half-branch lotus and half-lobed lotus, filling two whole pages.

After reading it, Fang Guodong wrote two words: "Useful".

Ye Chen asked him, "Is this good or bad?"

Fang Guodong said, "At her age, it's good enough that she can still use it."

He handed the summary to Ye Chen, who saw that it was covered with numerous annotations in red pen, more than the students had written.

Fang Guodong said, "I have been teaching for more than 30 years, and what I fear most is students thinking that they know everything. The purpose of bringing them here is to let them know that they do not know anything."

On the seventh day, the students began to find work to do.

Some went to the fields with Seventh Uncle, some helped Ayiguli divide the seedlings, and some helped Shen Jingqiu. Shen Jingqiu also came from Nancheng a couple of days ago, bringing the medicine book of Anhetang, and taught the students how to read prescriptions and how to dispense medicine.

A boy stood in front of the medicine cabinet for a long time, then suddenly said, "I've studied at school for three years, and this is the first time I've learned that you have to count the pills when you get medicine."

Shen Jingqiu said, "Of course we have to count them. Too much aconite will cause poisoning, and too much asarum will cause shortness of breath. Not even one grain less is acceptable."

The boy nodded, and later when he got the medicine, he counted the medicine more carefully than anyone else.

On the day Fang Guodong left, he pulled Ye Chen aside and took out a stack of papers from his canvas bag.

Those were each student's reflections after ten days.

Ye Chen flipped through them; some were long, some were short, but each one had a red comment from Fang Guodong at the end.

The thickest one was written by Lin Xiao, and Fang Guodong wrote four words at the end: "You can enter the path of Tao."

Ye Chen handed the paper back to him and said, "Professor Fang, will you be coming again next month?"

Fang Guodong said, "Come on, as long as you don't find it troublesome."

Ye Chen said, "I don't mind. My master said that the knowledge of Medicine King Valley can't be spread far if we rely on ourselves to spread it. It's a good thing that someone is helping to spread it."

Fang Guodong pushed up his glasses and said with a smile, "Then your master thinks the same way I do."

The day after Fang Guodong left, Ye Chen sat in the courtyard wiping his sword.

Aygul returned from the greenhouse with a pot of newly divided moonflowers in her hand.

She said, "That Lin Xiao asked me for a seedling when she left."

Ye Chen asked, "You gave it to me?"

Aygul said, "I gave it to her so she could take it back to school and plant it."

Ye Chen sheathed his sword and looked at the sycamore tree in the courtyard.

The leaves were a glossy green, rustling softly in the wind. He suddenly remembered what Fang Guodong had said on his first day: "Know its form, smell its scent, and you can use its spirit."

He felt that this saying applied not only to medicinal herbs, but also to people.

Only when you know what they look like and smell their scent can you know how to get along with them.

Seventh Uncle is, Ayiguli is, Fang Guodong is, and so are those students.

He stood up, put the sword back on the shelf, and turned to walk into the house.

He has to go to work tomorrow; there's a ton of work waiting for him at the security department.

But he felt that this kind of life was quite good.