Chapter 24: Penicillin

Wu Dading leaned against Wang Tingxing’s back. He heard Li Qinxiang just say, "That bunch from the Xiang family and the Dang family has been making moves lately..."

So he opened his eyes wide and looked at those dugout huts, feeling that there was indeed some rustling movement, but he was too lazy to listen carefully.

In this mid-ninth lunar month weather, he was truly so cold he wanted to pull his ears off and put them in his crotch to warm them up. He buried his head against Li Qinxiang’s back, but in his mind, he muttered to himself...

"This brain of Brother You, when did it suddenly get so sharp? Damn it, after reading books for a few years, how did his mouth get so twisted? Has he really become a scholar? Damn it, why didn't I study hard with Shorty Song back then!"

Before the sky had brightened, Li You had already risen early. Taking advantage of the time before hunger set in, he went out to run two laps around the mining area, and while he was at it, he picked up a few large rocks to test his physical condition.

Although the weather was somewhat cold, the air was extremely fresh, far incomparable to the polluted atmosphere of later generations. The full air entered his lungs through his nasal cavity, causing his lungs to undergo drastic changes.

His nerve endings also lengthened, and at the same time, his muscle cells grew longer, with his muscle fibers growing two or three times their original size. The range of contraction became greater and greater, and surging power poured into his limbs and bones, making Li You instantly feel his strength exploding.

"Up!"

Li You could easily lift a piece of blue iron ore weighing over eighty jin.

"It seems my strength is truly terrifyingly large; I just don't know by how much! I've really been starving to death every day lately..."

Li You conceitedly felt that his strength, even if not comparable to Xiang Yu, was absolutely shocking. But now, with an empty belly and eating too little, he was very worried that if things continued this way, he wouldn't even be able to pull a bowstring!

This body had undergone bone-tempering and polishing in childhood; not only was the physique sturdy, but it also possessed solid martial arts skills. Added to this inexplicably increased giant strength, in this chaotic world, this was his greatest capital, so Li You dared not let it go to waste.

He rubbed his stomach and went to boil some hot water, then went to check on the wounded, including Xiang Ying. To his surprise, Qi Jingkun had actually broken his fever, and his consciousness was slowly clearing; looking at it this way, he would survive.

Once everything was finished, Yu Zhengchun had already sat down in front of the courtyard gate with a group of "students." Everyone held a piece of bamboo stick and had long since pressed the sandy ground in front of them flat and neat to facilitate writing. Seeing their attitude toward learning, Li You felt many emotions in his heart.

Especially Little Orange, whose hair was as messy as a bird's nest; at this moment, she was earnestly clenching her small fists, pounding the small patch of ground in front of her until it was flat.

Seeing her cute appearance, Li You’s heart softened. He pulled off a piece of vine, walked over, and smilingly took her into his arms, saying, "Little Orange, your hair is so messy, why don't you let me cut it for you!"

"Okay... hee hee..."

Li You tickled her, and she giggled and said, "Then... then cut it off, cut it all off, round like the sun..."

"Haha... that probably won't work. Your head is pointy; it would most likely look like a smooth, big radish!"

"Ah, it's pointy? Why isn't my head round?" Orange’s voice suddenly took on a crying tone.

Li You was also amused by her innocence and hurriedly comforted her: "Only pointy ones are smart; round ones are all stupid. Look at them, they're so stupid, their strokes aren't even as good as yours!"

"Really? Tee hee..." Little Orange immediately broke into a smile through her tears, and her face even showed some pride.

After helping her tie two bun-style hairstyles, Li You studied her for a moment. On her dark, small round face were long, slender eyebrows and a mouth like lotus petals; her high-bridged nose was like a mountain ridge, dividing her small face symmetrically and clearly, though because she was too thin and sallow, her large eye sockets were deeply sunken.

"Little Orange is so pretty!"

Li You couldn't help but kiss her on her small face. The straightforward words and bold intimacy made Ceng Ruan, Coal Ball, Song Baishun, Yu Zhengchun, and Big Ox all turn their faces away.

Only Song Man, Little Maid, and Pearl had slightly red faces and felt a bit uncomfortable, but each of them was extremely envious of Orange in their hearts; after all, they were just a bunch of children.

Only Blackie was carefree and happy; he was already thirteen years old, yet he was silly and carefree all day long.

As for the kitchen helper Little Maid, she was eight years old this year. The day she heard Tian Si had died, she cried all night—certainly not for Tian Si, but for her younger brother, Shuanlao, who had been smashed to death with a rock by Tian Si that spring.

Putting Little Orange down, Li You quickly put on a serious face. Just as "class" began, the miners and salt slaves crawled out of their dugout huts one after another, but they didn't go straight to work because the mountain bandits hadn't "clocked in" yet.

So they all stood up and watched this side. Before long, the mountain bandits also came out of the side chambers one after another. A small portion of them didn't rush to drive the miners and salt slaves to work, but just sat not far from Yu Zhengchun and the others.

Listening to Li You lead them in reading, Wa Qingyun, Lu Yi, Ceng Changshun, and others even had their mouths moving, wanting to recite along, but they were too embarrassed.

Li You saw all of this in his eyes. After finishing the lesson, he and Yu Zhengchun prepared to go to Qian Chengzhi’s wooden shed, while the other children went off to do their respective chores.

Because of Li You, the teacher, the mountain bandits were much friendlier to this group of children. Basically, the phenomenon of beating and scolding at every turn was gone. Although they were still hungry and still doing hard, tiring work, their mental state was a little better than before.

At noon, Li You would either go to the blacksmith's place to observe iron smelting or go to the salt field to watch the stove-men boil well salt. In the evening, he would return to tell stories to the miners and mountain bandits, but recently he hadn't been telling *Tales of the Jianghu Heroes* (Water Margin).

He felt that *Water Margin* itself was a collection of social dregs. As for things like "acting on behalf of Heaven," "killing the rich to help the poor," or "gentleman of the beams," these were entirely the spiritual solace of most bandits. Only with the endorsement of these principles could they feel justified in killing and burning, and only then could they shout "I'll be a good man again in eighteen years!" when they were about to be beheaded.

Therefore, Li You told the story of Yue Fei directly, which was *The Complete Biography of King Yue*.

Such a fresh story naturally won the love of everyone in Nanshan. The crowd listened with great interest, especially Blackie and Yu Zhengchun, who were so stirred that they wished they could immediately carve the four characters "Loyal and Patriotic" on their backs, but these characters were too difficult, and Li You hadn't taught them yet.

Today, Li You didn't go to pick medicinal herbs but went straight to the kitchen door.

"Counting the days, it's already been seven days. I wonder how the penicillin mold I cultivated earlier is doing?"

Thinking this, Li You had already entered the kitchen. He greeted Xing and Wang, and couldn't wait to check his five clay pots.

The penicillin mold in the pots had already integrated into the culture medium, and the milky white rice water also had a hint of turning green.

"Not bad!"

Li You happily took out some clean cotton to serve as filter cotton and meticulously filtered the culture liquid from two of the clay pots.

After filtering, Li You asked Xing for some of the remaining rapeseed oil. He carefully added the rapeseed oil using a wheat straw; this was done to dissolve fat-soluble substances. Because penicillin is water-soluble, the water beneath the oil would contain the dissolved penicillin.

After finishing these two processes, Li You rested for a moment and instructed Wang to boil some hot water to wash and disinfect the two clay pots and some bamboo segments and tubes he had whittled.

He then used a small spoon to slowly remove the oil and fat on the top layer, and to the remaining water below, he added some wood ash from under the stove to act as activated carbon.

In ancient times, wood ash was used to stop bleeding and disinfect; postpartum women would sit on burned ash. In the remote, impoverished rural area where Li You lived in his later life, this custom was still preserved, commonly known as "sitting on ash."

The carbon would absorb the penicillin components, and the liquid in the pot would be dried up.

Li You put this "activated carbon" into a self-made bamboo "separation tube." He had whittled this bamboo tube with a large opening at the top and a small opening at the bottom, which made it convenient for him to collect.

He wasn't in a hurry. He cleaned the three bamboo tubes with distilled water collected from the pot lid when Xing boiled water. Only distilled water could be used for washing here, otherwise it would be useless and contaminated.

He then poured some vinegar inside to act as acidic water, and finally dissolved some alkali in water and injected it again for washing.

At this time, liquid had already begun to drip from the lower outlet of the bamboo tube. Lacking rice paper, Li You had no choice but to spread out some white cloth torn from his own undergarments. To prevent waste, Li You stuffed some filter cotton into the lower outlet of the bamboo tube to reduce the flow rate.

After about three drops, Li You would move the white cloth, so the cloth became covered with many green dotted stains, congealing like wax drops; this was the penicillin he had collected.

From just three bamboo tubes, he collected thirty-two drops. After drying them in the sun, they would be thirty-two "penicillin" pills.

Of course, it could be refined repeatedly to further increase the concentration of the penicillin, but Li You felt there was no great need. The bodies of the people at present had absolutely no drug resistance to antibiotics; as long as there was a little bit, the efficacy would be ridiculously strong.

However, with this kind of operation—having neither test tube scales for measurement nor experimental comparison for verification—Li You had absolutely no certainty about this homemade penicillin.

After setting the white cloth out to dry, Li You decided to extract some pus from Qi Jingkun’s wound. The pus would certainly contain staphylococci. He would cultivate these staphylococci using a culture medium and apply different penicillin molds onto the staphylococcus petri dish...

If, after a few days, the staphylococci only grew around the applied penicillin, it would mean the penicillin he made was effective.

Actually, one could also use urine for testing, but Li You still felt it wasn't reliable.

"I wonder if this can cure Wu Zhuge’s diabetes?"

Li You frowned and thought for a moment, then muttered to himself: "Save him, my ass. Even if I could save him, I wouldn't. This kind of scum deserves to be tortured to death."