Seeking Truth with a Sword

"Doctor Li?"

The old butler of the Duke Yan Mansion looked at Li Ang with astonishment as he made a sudden visit.

"How is Duke Yan?"

Li Ang said, "I've found a way."

"Please follow me."

The butler became serious at once and led Li Ang to the main hall.

Along the way, one could still see medicine pots and smell the pervasive scent of medicinal herbs.

The descendants of Yan Mansion, including Yan Lin, stood in the main hall. They looked helplessly at Yan Yundang, who was sitting upright and imposingly on a large seat. His complexion remained sallow, his eyes closed, as he listened to a man in a Daoist robe speaking before him.

"...The General hails from Shuo Province and naturally should return to his roots. Northwest of Shuo lie two mountains: one named Pingding Xingshan, the other Liao Gaoshan. Between them is a trench called Da Di. These two mountains and the trench gather wind and harness Qi. As the saying goes, 'Qi disperses with the wind and is confined by water'..."

So, they were already discussing the feng shui for his grave site.

Li Ang mused internally, though he wasn't particularly surprised.

The average lifespan of people in the Yu Country was not high; reaching a venerable age was rare. Most elderly individuals would have their families prepare a coffin, burial clothes, and a grave site well in advance. This was to prevent a hasty and undignified burial when their time came.

Yan Lin and the others were so distraught because Yan Yundang, a Martial Arts Grandmaster, had fallen ill too suddenly, giving them no time to prepare mentally.

The butler stepped forward lightly and said softly, "Sir, Doctor Li has arrived."

"Hm?"

Yan Yundang opened his eyes and turned to look at Li Ang, smiling as he said, "Mr. Li. The method you mentioned last time was indeed effective. Those pigeons became sick eating only polished rice but recovered when fed brown rice.

It seems I truly have a problem with my stomach and intestines, preventing me from absorbing that peculiar substance you mentioned."

"Duke Yan,"

Li Ang clasped his hands and said, "This junior has come precisely for this reason—I've found a new method that might alleviate your illness."

"What?!"

Before Yan Yundang could respond, Yan Lin stepped forward excitedly. "Doctor Li, do you really have a method?"

Li Ang nodded. "It's just a method. The probability of a complete cure is about seventy percent."

Yan Yundang's jaundice hadn't receded, which meant it wasn't pernicious anemia caused by a lack of folic acid. It had to be due to a Vitamin B12 deficiency.

"Seventy percent..."

Yan Lin turned to look at Yan Yundang. During this time, the Yan Mansion had invited many renowned doctors and prescribed various medications, including treatments for the stomach and intestines, but Yan Yundang's pernicious anemia had not improved.

"Father, it's worth a try."

"Yes."

Yan Yundang took a deep breath. Although he had prepared to face death, if he could live even one more day and watch his children and grandchildren grow a little longer, he would fully accept it. "Someone, assist Doctor Li in preparing the prescription..."

"Duke, this medicine does not require a prescription."

Li Ang said, "What I need includes: fresh pig liver, the more the better;

Cooled boiled water, the more the better;

Several bottles of pure wine from the Academic Palace;

Four ceramic mortars, four thin light wood boards cut into circles, sixteen sturdy fine cords;

One drilling cone, eight chopsticks;

Four fine cloth bags;

One Sand Pot and one ceramic bowl;

A cart full of White Soil;

Additionally, thirty-six glass tubes—they should look essentially like this."

Li Ang asked the butler for paper and a brush. He then drew top, side, and front views of small glass test tubes, marking the dimensions on all three diagrams.

Li Ang asked, "With the craftsmanship level in Chang'an, can these glass tubes be made?"

"Yes."

Yan Lin glanced at the diagrams, then stood up and said to Li Ang, "The best Glass Workshops and Glazed Glass Workshops in Chang'an all have Telekinesis Masters who can use Telekinesis to shape molten glass into exquisite utensils."

"That's good."

Li Ang breathed a sigh of relief. "Once all these are prepared, we can start making the medicine. Oh, and General Yan, finally, we'll need four strong men and a lightproof room."

"Okay."

Yan Lin immediately instructed his men to prepare everything. Though these items seemed entirely unrelated, having witnessed hundreds of pigeons sicken and recover according to Li Ang's experimental methods, he now had complete trust in Li Ang.

"Doctor Li,"

While everyone from the Yan Mansion bustled about with nervous energy, Yan Yundang remained calmly seated, asking with some curiosity, "Isn't montmorillonite white clay used to stop diarrhea? Why do you need a whole cartload?"

Li Ang shook his head. "This time, it's not for diarrhea, but for filtration."

With Duke Yan's illness at stake, the entire Duke Yan Mansion operated at full capacity, quickly preparing everything Li Ang required.

"I need to prepare the medicine in a lightproof room. Please have someone cover the windows from the outside with grass mats or something similar.

If you wish to observe, you may enter the room, but only a single oil lamp can be lit."

Li Ang said casually, and the Yan Mansion servants carried all the equipment into the sealed room.

Yan Yundang, quite curious, followed him in. Unable to dissuade his father, Yan Lin had no choice but to raise the oil lamp and follow as well.

"The dosage of this medicine is quite large, so I'll demonstrate only once. Watch carefully and memorize the process, for from now on, preparing Duke Yan's medication will depend on you."

Li Ang said to the servants in the room. Then, using the light from the oil lamp in Yan Lin's hand,

he first washed his hands with pure wine, then used more pure wine to clean the fresh pig liver, removing any bloodstains.

He then picked up scissors, cut the liver into small pieces, placed them in a mortar, and ground them quickly and carefully, occasionally adding a little water and grinding them further into fine particles.

The purpose of this step was to break down the pig liver, rich in Vitamin B12. What followed was centrifugation.

In a standard laboratory, the liver fragment solution would be poured into centrifuge tubes and placed in a centrifuge. Spinning at 3,500 revolutions per minute for ten minutes would separate the solid fragments from the liquid in the pig liver solution. This would yield a supernatant with a higher Vitamin B12 content. Without a modern centrifuge, however, I'll have to make one...

Li Ang took a drilling cone and made four small, button-like holes in the center of a thin, round wooden board, evenly spaced diagonally. He then threaded two fine cords through the holes, looping them back and securing each end to a chopstick on either side.

Yan Lin asked in confusion, "What's this..."

"A children's toy that functions like a centrifuge—a spinning whirligig."

Li Ang smiled as he picked up the two chopsticks. With a gentle flick of the cords, he began pulling and releasing them, causing the wooden disc in the middle to spin on its own.

Good, it spins steadily.

Satisfied with the whirligig toy, Li Ang poured the pig liver solution into glass tubes of identical size and sealed them with cork stoppers. He filled a total of eight tubes. Then, he secured each glass tube to both sides of the round wooden disc by threading cords through holes in the disc and tightly binding the tubes.

This achieved an effect similar to the counterweights used for balance in a laboratory centrifuge.

Next...

He picked up the whirligig toy. Holding the chopsticks, he pulled and released the cords, causing the wooden disc to spin continuously, faster and faster.

This was the most primitive and crude, yet surprisingly effective, hand-powered centrifuge from Li Ang's memories of another world.

This centrifuge was invented by Saad Bhamla, a biomedical engineer at Georgia Tech.

Conventional centrifuges spin a rotor to generate centrifugal force, separating fluids into layers within sample tubes. All such centrifuges require electricity and are bulky and difficult to transport.

This hand-powered centrifuge, however, based on the principle of a children's toy, used only cords and plastic to achieve speeds of several thousand, even up to ten thousand, revolutions per minute. It was the fastest human-powered rotating object and required no electricity at all.

The hand-powered centrifuge was originally invented to address blood testing challenges in Africa, aiming to separate plasma as quickly as possible to detect the presence of malaria parasites in blood samples.

Now, however, it could be used to centrifuge the Vitamin B12 from the pig liver solution.

With steady, unhurried pulls, Li Ang operated the spinning device. He also instructed the other four servants to replicate his actions: mincing the pig liver and performing the centrifugation.

After ten minutes, Li Ang stopped the spinning device and removed the eight glass test tubes from both sides of the wooden disc.

He poured all the supernatant—the upper clear liquid—into the Sand Pot and added a small amount of White Soil, stirring continuously.

White Soil has a large specific surface area and pore volume, along with unique adsorption and ion-exchange properties that allow it to adsorb Vitamin B12.

Once the White Soil had absorbed most of the liquid, Li Ang placed it into a clean, fine cloth bag to drain excess moisture.

He then poured the White Soil, now laden with adsorbed Vitamin B12, into a ceramic bowl. He added water and stirred vigorously for twenty minutes. Finally, he filtered the mixture and poured out the resulting liquid.

This yielded a solution with a high concentration of Vitamin B12. Because Vitamin B12 decomposes easily in light, the entire process had to be conducted in a dark room.

"It's done."

Li Ang looked at the less than a bottle of clear liquid extracted from dozens of pig livers, took a long breath, and said to Yan Yundang, "This is the special substance extracted from the pig livers.

This substance can alleviate anemia and promote development. You can start by mixing it into bran and feeding it to livestock and poultry long-term. This should promote their rapid growth, allowing you to observe its effects."

"No need for that."

Yan Yundang replied decisively. He had watched the entire procedure and seen everything clearly. Li Ang hadn't added anything suspicious to the solution—only pig liver, water, and White Soil, all provided by the Yan Mansion itself. There was no possibility of poisoning, nor was there any need for it; Yan Yundang was acutely aware of the severity of his own pernicious anemia.

"Give it to me."

Yan Yundang took the bottle. "To be taken orally?"

"Yes, orally."

Li Ang nodded. "This medication must be taken for life: once daily for the first seven days, and then once every half-month thereafter. None of the preparation steps can be altered. If it's effective, you should feel a significant improvement within two or three days, including an increased appetite and a reduction in tongue pain."

Oral Vitamin B12 can also greatly alleviate the symptoms of pernicious anemia. It's just not as effective as intramuscular injections, so a higher dosage is necessary to prevent a relapse.

"For life, you say..."

Yan Yundang cracked a smile. "Who knows how many years this old man has left."

With that, he lifted the bottle and, with a rather heroic air, drank it all in one go, then wiped his mouth.

"Father,"

Yan Lin asked instinctively, "How does it taste?"

"What else could it taste like? Blood, of course."

Yan Yundang shot his son a sideways glance and muttered, "It's actually better than I imagined.

By the way,"

he turned back to Li Ang, "Doctor Li, I heard that Xi Yangyu decreed that you would be unable to cultivate for life?"