Wu Yi Chunshen

During the Guangxu period of the late Qing Dynasty, Gu Jingxing, the young owner of Runhetang, a medicine shop next to Wuyi Lane, was influenced by his grandfather since he was a child. He was well versed in the connection between spring solar terms and health-preserving customs in Jinling: boiling radish soup at the beginning of spring to ward off the cold, boiling tangerine peel tea in the rain to moisten the lungs, brewing mint julep in the Waking of Insect to repel insects, making peach blossom wine at the Spring Equinox to nourish the skin, making green dumpling cakes at the Qingming Festival to strengthen the spleen, and drinking tea before the Grain Rain to improve eyesight. After his grandfather passed away, Runhetang faced the impact of foreign Western medicine. Gu Jingxing adhered to his ancestral precepts, but got into trouble because he refused to prepare "solar terms medicinal diet" for foreigners. At this time, he met Su Yutang, a famous Kunqu opera actor who was living in Jinling. Su Yutang's plays were full of arias from Jinling's spring customs - the ballad of "Bite the Spring" and the Qinhuai Rain Awakening of Insects, which perfectly complemented the Runhetang's solar terms and health-preserving practices. The two joined hands to set up a stage to sing and promote medicinal diet at the "Spring Ox Hunting" ceremony at the beginning of spring; during the custom of "returning to one's parents' home" in Yuyu, they asked the medicine shop clerk to deliver medicinal meals to their door; at the ancestor worship ceremony of Qingming Festival, they used Kun Opera to interpret solar terms allusions, allowing more people to regain the tradition. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.