Zhanchen chuckled and patted Liu Jing's shoulder. "Relax. My sister tested it herself. She washed it over and over—and she even 'disinfected' it. It's clean."
"'Disinfected'?" Liu Jing looked baffled.
"That…" Zhanchen stalled, unable to explain on the spot.
Mo Chen piped up from the side, very serious. "It means killing the tiny bugs you can't see."
The moment he said "tiny bugs," Liu Jing looked even closer to throwing up.
Yi Junlan had barely touched his chopsticks all meal. He picked up a toothbrush, turned it over in his hand for a long time, then said to Gu Qing, "Bring me some water. I'm trying it."
Liu Jing frowned. "Brother Junlan, you're going to use it?" He knew full well how picky the prince was.
"Didn't you just say it works well?"
"It works, sure—but the material is… undignified."
Yi Junlan didn't care. He brushed the way Liu Jing had shown him. When he finished, he had to admit it: the thing was clever. His mouth felt noticeably fresher.
That woman really was different.
Liu Jing still looked sick as he asked, "Well?"
"Not bad."
Jiang Yinghan tried one too and clicked his tongue in amazement. "Liu Jing, stop thinking about what it's made from. If it works, it works."
Zhanchen warned them, "Whatever you do, don't go around saying the bristles are from boar hair. My sister's counting on this to make money."
"Understood."
"Obviously," Liu Jing snorted. "My sister has shares in it too."
Meanwhile, Mo Lixia and the other two girls had gone to a nearby estate to pick flowers. Besides winter plum, they also gathered a few other varieties—more scents meant more choices.
By the time they returned, the people sent to the plum grove outside the west gate were already back, hauling more than a dozen cloth sacks.
Mo Lixia was genuinely startled. That was a lot. Was the grove even guarded?
She wondered for half a breath—then decided she didn't care.
After they ate, Mu Tong and Yu Fu took their leave, afraid they would only add to Mo Lixia's workload. Mo Lixia didn't even try to keep them—she only asked them to help look for fragrant woods suitable for incense.
With the blossoms secured, she immediately had Xiqiu and Hongshang start making more scented balms.
Mo Lixia herself went to the pharmacy. The tools were all there—stone grinders, mortars, small stoves. Incense came in countless varieties: classified by scent and material—aloeswood, sandalwood, blended perfumes; or by form and use—incense sticks, coils, lying incense, cones, pellets, ingot-shaped pieces, low-smoke incense, and more.
Incense existed in abundance in this era, but one thing was uncommon here: powdered incense made from finely ground aromatic wood. That powder could be burned to drive off foul odors, or mixed with oil and applied to exposed skin to keep insects away.
Mo Lixia wasn't planning to make that yet. She would release it in spring and summer.
For now, she focused on medicinal incense—incense that benefited the body. She blended in herbs for different needs: insomnia and restless dreams, dampness blocking the spleen and stomach, chest tightness, poor appetite, complexion and beauty, constipation, cold weakness in the waist and knees… too many to count. Many ailments could be eased through the right incense.
Freshly made incense needed more than ten days to dry. Even though it couldn't be sold immediately, Mo Lixia was still in a good mood.
That afternoon, Mo Chen came by. He helped for a while in the back courtyard, but with so many patients outside, Doctor Hu called him away.
They stayed busy until evening, finally finishing everything.
Back at home, Mo Lixia kept thinking about the hard soap she'd poured earlier. If she didn't test it first, she wouldn't dare sell it—she had to make sure there was nothing harmful in it, just in case.
And she was already swamped with balms and incense.
According to the laundresses, the paste she'd made worked extremely well; they had even asked Xiqiu whether there was any more. If the shop also launched soap, Mo Lixia didn't dare imagine whether their doors would be crushed.
These "new" things would cause a frenzy at first, then the crowd would thin out once everyone had seen them. For now, though, it was a special time. She was afraid someone might steal her methods, so even though she and the two maids were exhausted, they still didn't hire extra help.
In two more days, her brother and sister-in-law would marry. Mo Lixia was so busy she had no time to help at all. But her mother didn't want her helping anyway—she only told her to stay home these days and not go out.
Mo Lixia understood. With so many nobles coming to visit and present gifts, her parents' meaning was clear: the situation was uncertain, and if they could avoid meeting princes and nobles, they should.