Fleeing from famine? Not a chance; the divine healer's wife made her fortune.

Chapter 207 Honey Processing Faces Numerous Challenges

Honey processing faces numerous challenges

Before the morning mist had dissipated, Su Yunlan was already standing in front of the vermilion threshold of Zhao's workshop, holding a blue and white porcelain jar.

The fragments of the Big Dipper-patterned beehive, still stained with honey from last night, were tucked into her sleeve. The bronze gear that had fallen from her jade wax knife was tied to her waist with a red rope, its surface gleaming faintly with the mottled patina of copper beneath her coarse cloth skirt.

"This is freshly made acacia honey." She lifted the wax-sealed earthenware jar, its lustrous amber color rippling in the morning light.

The fluorescent queen bee in the space suddenly trembled, and she pressed her temples as she tidied her hair. From the perspective of the bee swarm, the copper furnace behind Boss Zhao was covered with years of honey residue, and dark red mold was seeping out from the edge of the fermentation tank.

Mr. Zhao stirred the honey with a copper ladle, his short, stubby fingers tracing the pixiu pattern carved on the ladle handle: "Young lady, this honey is too clear; perhaps it's been diluted with water?" He deliberately slammed the copper ladle heavily on the bluestone table, causing the beeswax blocks hanging from the eaves to scatter dust. "Our old brand can't afford to have its reputation ruined."

Xiao Twenty-Six suddenly poked his head out from behind the door, the bamboo whistle hanging at his waist still dripping with dew from when he fed the hawks: "Your copper furnace fire is not even as good as the Samadhi True Fire. Why don't you try my improved version..."

"What does a mere child like you know!" Suddenly, Boss Zhao grabbed the "Honey Sutra" from the table and slammed it at the boy's feet. Half a contract paper bearing the red seal of "Qian Ji" fell out from the yellowed pages. "Last year, Manager Qian sent me jujube blossom honey, saying it could nourish the skin and improve complexion. In the end, I lost thirty taels of silver!"

Su Yunlan's fingertips traced the groove of the gear at his waist, and the missing lower half of the character "Zhao" perfectly matched the pattern on the copper key at Boss Zhao's waist.

She suddenly picked up the earthenware pot and walked towards the bronze furnace: "If we use the water-steaming method, paired with..."

"No way!" Mr. Zhao panicked and knocked over the honey jar. The viscous gold liquid splashed into the cracks of the blue bricks and emitted a strange blue light.

Su Yunlan's pupils contracted slightly—this was clearly the special beeswax that had been soaked in the medicinal spring in the space last night, and the shimmering light it displayed under the sunlight.

The sound of the abacus at Qianji Grocery Store interrupted her thoughts.

Boss Qian squinted, spitting as he inspected the shelves, his whiskers trembling as he spoke in a tone of deliberate price-cutting: "New honey?"

"At most that number." He held up three sallow fingers, their nails still stained with brown marks from last year's honey. "Unless..." He suddenly stared at the wooden hairpin in Su Yunlan's hair. "Did the young lady pawn this honeycomb-patterned silver hairpin here?"

As dusk painted the west window red, Su Yunlan sat alone by the stone mill in the backyard of the inn.

Xiao Yuhan went to the mountains to look for nanmu wood at dawn but has not returned. On the table, a pottery urn containing seven kinds of wood soaking in a medicinal spring is bubbling.

As she stroked the beeswax residue on the bronze gear, she suddenly noticed that the star map embedded in the groove matched the pattern of a distiller in the space.

The sound of Xiao Ershiliu feeding the hawks' bamboo whistles came and went, and the boy hummed newly composed lyrics as he flew over the wall: "...Nine times steamed and dried in the fire of glass, the work of nature is beyond human reliance..." Suddenly, the bee lamp on the eaves illuminated the hidden compartment of the jade wax knife handle, where a groove that fit perfectly with the bronze gear had appeared at some point.

(Continued from above)

As dusk deepened, Su Yunlan dipped her fingertips in the medicinal spring water and drew the ninth star trail on the stone mill.

The moment the bronze gear embedded itself into the jade wax knife handle, the fluorescent queen bee suddenly flapped her wings and buzzed in her mind, and tens of thousands of bee swarms lit up one after another in the night like sparks.

"Yunlan!" As Xiao Yuhan carried half a piece of nanmu wood into the courtyard, he bumped into the seven-colored medicinal spring in the pottery urn, which was steaming with a glassy mist.

He gently wiped the sweat from his wife's temples with his resin-stained fingertips, his hard jawline softening suddenly in the moonlight: "Thirty moldy jujube wood barrels are hidden in the back alley of Qian's Grocery Store; they must be leftover stock from Zhao's processing workshop last year."

Su Yunlan scooped the medicinal spring water soaked with nanmu wood into the groove of the bronze gear. Suddenly, the wooden hairpin emitted honeycomb-shaped hexagonal light patterns: "Look at this—" She turned the gear, and a dusty distiller in the space suddenly projected a phantom image that perfectly overlapped with the star trails on the stone mill: "Using nanmu wood as the condenser tube, and the medicinal spring water as the medium..."

The midnight wind rustled the copper bells on the eaves of the inn, and Xiao Twenty-Six squatted on the wall, using a bamboo whistle to direct the flock of eagles to move parts.

As the seventh star sank into the rising mist of the medicinal spring, three distillation devices, exuding the fragrance of camphor wood, stood in the center of the millstone.

Suddenly, the fluorescent queen bee took flight from Su Yunlan's hair, her stinger piercing a delicate six-pointed star into the bronze gear.

"It's done!" Xiao Yuhan suddenly grabbed his wife's trembling wrist and pressed down the last tenon for her.

As the medicinal spring water, carrying locust honey, gushed through the glass pipes, it refracted a brilliant blue light identical to that of the fragments of the Big Dipper beehive.

**Dawn before dawn**

Just as Boss Qian miscalculated for the third time, Xiao Yuhan was placing the gilded porcelain jar on the rosewood table in "Songhezhai".

In this time-honored shop that exclusively catered to the elites of Beijing, the shopkeeper's silver-rimmed glasses chain trembled slightly as he opened the jar: "This honey... can actually condense seven layers of amber light?"

&34; The first-pressed honey, obtained before the morning dew condenses, is steamed with thirty-six kinds of medicinal spring water. &34; Xiao Yuhan gently stirs the honey with a nanmu wood spoon, seemingly casually revealing an old scar on his wrist—a mark of glory for shielding the Emperor from an arrow on the northern battlefield. &34; Hearing that the Princess's cough is most aggravated by incense mixed with sulfur. &34;

The shopkeeper suddenly caught a glimpse of the faint Big Dipper pattern on the bottom of the porcelain jar, and his goatee trembled violently: "Could this be the one that saved the young master of the Imperial Censor Chen's family the other day...?"

**Twilight Melts into Gold**

As Su Yunlan stared blankly at the pile of orders filling the backyard, Xiao Twenty-Six was squatting on an elm tree, munching on candied hawthorns: "Don't you know, Fourth Sister-in-law?"

This morning, Fourth Brother took the honey pot to the storytelling hall in the south of the city, and the scholars there immediately wrote more than thirty poems entitled "Ode to Honey"! &34;

She turned to look for the account book, but unexpectedly bumped into an embrace that smelled of pine resin.

Xiao Yuhan placed the ink-scented manuscript into her palm, his deep voice, mingled with the sweet fragrance of honey, brushing against her ear: "It seems like the nectar of the Jade Pool has been spilled, yet it is said that the Xiao family's honey shines brightly... My Yunlan was originally a celestial maiden descended to the mortal world."

"What nonsense are you talking about?" Su Yunlan reached for the account book, her ears turning red, but her husband took the opportunity to trap her in the light and shadow cast by the distiller.

Water droplets condensed on the nanmu condenser pipe dripped onto her neck, prompting her to hurriedly wipe them away, only to touch Xiao Yuhan's fingertips with thin calluses.

"Careful, it's hot." He suddenly grasped her hand and placed it on the still-hot bronze gear, his gaze falling on the trembling wooden hairpin in his wife's hair. "Tomorrow I'll find some linden wood and make you a new condenser valve."

**Undercurrents are brewing**

When the eighth batch of honey jars was loaded onto the carriage, Boss Qian's rat whiskers almost broke off in the abacus beads.

He stared menacingly at the newly hung gilded plaque of "Xiao's Honey Workshop" across the street, his back teeth grinding together: "Go tell Boss Zhao that those moldy beeswaxes in his warehouse...it's time to put them to use."

At this moment, Su Yunlan was arranging the improved beehives into the Big Dipper formation when the fluorescent queen bee suddenly emitted a warning buzzing sound in her mind.

Xiao Yuhan paused in his work of wiping the jade wax knife, his gaze sweeping over the gray-clad man hurrying away at the street corner: "Yunlan, it's time to engrave the anti-counterfeiting mark on the new honey pot."

As moonlight bathed the bronze gears of the distiller, the two of them simultaneously touched the newly engraved Big Dipper pattern.

Beneath their intertwined fingertips, beeswax slowly seeped into the crevices of the star map—a mark specially made with the spatial medicinal spring, which glows blue upon contact with poison.

(End of this chapter)