In the courtyard behind Qingniu Medical Hall, colorful sunshades had been erected. Huwa, wearing a craftsman's hat woven from bamboo strips and garlic peel, held a loudspeaker that played the "Handmade Epidemic Prevention Song" and shouted, "All craftsmen of the city, assemble! Today we will use our ingenuity to mold dysentery bacteria into clay, and the winner gets garlic-scented glutinous rice cakes from Xiaotao Eatery!"
The event was lively right from the start. Dawa, the apprentice from Tibet, set up a Tibetan-style pottery wheel. With a flick of a yak's tail, the wheel spun out clay mixed with the fragrance of Tibetan medicine, inscribed with Tibetan characters meaning "No spitting everywhere." Kim, the apprentice from Silla, set up an arithmetic paper-cutting table; every time an abacus bead was clicked, a bamboo tube beside it popped out a paper-cutting template of epidemic prevention formulas from *The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art*. The most incredible part was Xiaotao Eatery's "Garlic Steamed Bun Clay Workshop," where children used garlic paste and flour to mold buns, stamping them afterward with cartoon seals reading "Eat me to prevent disease."
The garlic buns were transformed into "handmade materials." Huwa dried the buns, ground them into powder, and made "epidemic prevention colored clay," which transitioned in color from garlic-white to garlic-green. A little girl used the colored clay to mold a scene of Huwa riding a green ox to fight dysentery bact…
Chapter 541