One year ago, I worked at a Chinese traditional medicine store. Business was not bad. Every day we mixed   medicinal herbs  for patients, so the store was always full of a strong herbal smell. After I had worked there for a time, a boy of 13 or 14 started coming and sitting on the stairs outside the store for a while every day. It seemed strange to me. "Do you like the herbal smell?" I asked him one day. "I grew up with this kind of smell," he said. He told me that his mother took herbal medicine for years, so he could mix herbs for his mother when he was very young. He mixed the herbs with deep love, hoping his mother would get better as soon as possible. "Is your mother well now? I asked. He shook his head. "My mother passed away three years ago." Looking up into the sky, he went on: "When I first passed by here and smelled the herbs, I thought of my mother. It is comforting to remember those days when she was alive. So I come here every day to sit for a moment. When I sit around this smell, I feel as if my mother is still alive and is waiting for her medicine in her room. The writer felt   _   when seeing a boy sitting on the stairs at the beginning of the story.
strange angry excited bored