“Actually, I don’t know much about this. I didn’t study this field, so I don’t have much daily contact with it. If it weren’t for a patient I…” Qi Yue said, quickly stopping herself from saying something she shouldn’t, “I once encountered a patient who used it, which is why I started paying attention to it.”
As she spoke, she spread a piece of paper on the table and began recording everything she needed.
“Since Lady Qi has done this before, that’s good,” Liu Pucheng said with some relief.
Qi Yue smiled bitterly.
“Before…” she paused her writing, “I did this before to prove it was unusable.”
How ridiculous it was…
Liu Pucheng and the others were stunned.
“Anyway, I thought it was unusable, it was simply… but people still used it… and it became increasingly popular…” Qi Yue said with a frown, “To refute it, I personally experimented, and then…”
Increasingly popular? Why did Lady Qi’s words sound as if everyone knew about and used this kind of medicine? But why had they never heard of it? Perhaps it was used elsewhere?
How strange, but they couldn’t think about this now.
“Then what happened?” Liu Pucheng asked with some nervousness.
“Then I succeeded,” Qi Yue said, smiling, though the smile looked rather ugly.
“You succeeded, meaning that kind of medicine was unusable?” Zhang Tong couldn’t help but ask first.
The people who had just ignited hope became confused again.
“Although I don’t quite believe in or approve of this medicine, I know it’s being used, which means it has successful and effective cases,” Qi Yue took a deep breath and said, “Anyway, let’s try it.”
Everyone nodded. As long as successful cases existed, that was good. As long as it wasn’t just theoretical, that was good.
“I don’t know anything else. I only made two kinds at the time: violet herb and senecio,” Qi Yue said.
This was her second time mentioning violet herb.
“We have senecio, but we’ve never used violet herb,” Liu Pucheng said.
Violet herb was harvested in autumn, and it would be even harder to find in this deep winter.
“Then let’s use senecio,” Qi Yue said, writing it down on the paper. “I need to boil senecio liquid and extract an effective concentrate. So I need test tube dilution of the medicinal liquid, which means I need to culture bacteria…”
She stopped writing and frowned.
“Meat broth culture medium… what to do?” she murmured to herself for a moment, then picked up the brush again.
After writing a few strokes, she stopped again.
“High-pressure sterilization? Distilled water…” she muttered to herself again, “No microscope…”
Liu Pucheng and the others couldn’t understand what she was saying. Knowing they couldn’t help, they could only watch her anxiously and helplessly, seeing this woman constantly scratching her head with her hands, eventually making her neatly combed hair completely disheveled.
Accompanied by Qi Yue’s writing and drawing, disciples began searching the mansion for various strange and peculiar items in the middle of the night.
“Slow down, slow down.” Disciples carrying two pots and a steamer from the kitchen called out in unison as they stepped out the door.
“This is prime pork belly and beef…” another disciple received large chunks of meat from the cook.
“The basins and brushes you wanted…”
“This is white cloth…”
“…will a wooden bucket of this size work?”
“Are these plates enough?”
The noise and lit torches and lanterns illuminated half of the Marquis Dingxi’s mansion. Those who were sleeping and those who couldn’t sleep all curiously watched these people bustling about.
At this moment, Qi Yue was somewhat glad she had stayed at the Marquis Dingxi’s mansion. When Chang Yuncheng had pulled her through the door, she had originally wanted to leave. But with all the back-and-forth talking, it would inevitably require more discussion, and time was life—she had no life to waste. Now it seemed it wasn’t bad after all. Otherwise, finding all these things would probably take a lot more time.
However…
After this time, she would definitely prepare these things herself—things that belonged to her.
“What is the Young Madam doing?”
“Are they starting a separate fire in that courtyard?”
“What for? I heard she’s making some kind of medicine…”
“Aren’t medicines all boiled? What’s the meat for?”
“As a catalyst, perhaps?”
Here, with all tools ready, it was already the latter half of the night, but everyone in the courtyard had no desire to sleep.
“Because time is urgent, let’s all take turns resting. We need to purify usable injection liquid within three days, so the patient will depend entirely on you, Teacher,” she said, while taking the ginseng A’Ru handed her. “This is the fine ginseng the Old Marchioness left me. Use it for the patient when necessary.”
Liu Pucheng reached out to take it, while Zhang Tong and the others behind him couldn’t help but widen their eyes.
This kind of ginseng was worth a fortune, wasn’t it? Heavens, the lives of ten hunters couldn’t equal this single ginseng root.
“Now we’re not just doing this for this one patient. For us, for the new treatment method to be accepted by more people, for having medicine available when we encounter this kind of illness again—the significance of this cannot be compared to even ten or a hundred ginseng roots,” Qi Yue smiled.
Liu Pucheng nodded.
“Good, I’ll take care of the patient,” he said. “Lady Qi, this time it all depends on you.”
Qi Yue nodded, put on her mask and gloves one by one, and called four or five disciples including Hu San to assist her into the room that had been specially cleared to serve as a laboratory.