Chapter 239: Sheep Cave Valley

Sheep Cave Valley is actually a literal translation of a place name. The original name was Sheep Hole Valley Wilderness, literally translated as Sheep Cave Valley Wilderness.

Located east of Los Angeles, adjacent to the northern boundary of Joshua Tree National Park. The terrain combines basins and mountains, forming part of the Mojave Desert.

This area was once a hunting ground for Native Americans. Granite boulders scattered everywhere formed shaded spots, and snow sheep once lived here; this is the origin of the term "Sheep Cave."

However, by today, the distribution range of snow sheep has shrunk to more northern regions. This place has become a desert with sparse vegetation; although it counts as a natural landscape park, it is rarely visited by people.

In such a place, Henry built himself a container-house laboratory.

Although he considered establishing the laboratory in the national forest area north of Los Angeles to hide the laboratory's traces using the forest, considering the frequent forest fires in North America, he decided against it.

Nor should one think that the bare desert terrain makes it easy to hide an obvious man-made structure from satellite surveillance, even if it is only the size of a standard 40-foot container.

The reason for choosing Sheep Hole Valley Wilderness is that it has natural caves formed by granite. The characteristic of these caves is that they are shallow; some merely provide a shaded spot.

However, utilizing such terrain to modify a cave capable of holding a container house, shielding it from satellite detection above, is no big deal for a Kryptonian's civil engineering capabilities.

Henry is not even afraid of transportation convenience; he enters and exits directly by flying. Outsiders trying to find this place by following vehicle tracks are simply impossible.

The only possible reason for exposure would be if players who love wilderness exploration and do not follow common routes happen to stumble upon this place by sheer luck.

Such a low-probability event, if it truly happens, can only hope the person carries no heavy equipment or lock-picking tools and still chooses to force entry upon seeing the lock.

To meet basic survival needs, Henry dug a well here and excavated a septic tank.

He also created wind power and solar power generator sets, large storage batteries, paired with a backup diesel generator. The most basic water and electricity were now complete.

The reason for establishing this laboratory was to manufacture various medicines needed by the Black Clinic. From antibiotics to all sorts of strange and bizarre anti-cancer drugs, Henry could synthesize and produce them here through chemical methods.

Originally, these activities took place in Old Gary's apartment building, but some odors were difficult to handle. Rather than continuing to upgrade air purification devices and doing this in the city center, it was better to find another piece of land.

Holding this thought, Henry scouted a barren and desolate piece of land in Sheep Hole Valley Wilderness and built a simple shelter to serve as a laboratory.

Consequently, most of the work of manufacturing equipment previously done at the rental place was moved by Henry to here. Anyway, if he flew at full speed, the round trip between the two places took only the blink of an eye.

As for why the Black Clinic's medicines must be produced by himself, it is naturally because he does not want to rashly jump into the big pit of the pharmaceutical industry. Just think about how much "IQ tax" is inside, and how many drugs are controlled; to buy them, one must find connections and spend more money.

Anyway, Henry does not want to open his own pharmaceutical company and compete with those big manufacturers; he just wants to get some medicines to use in conjunction with his medical practices, so he might as well make them himself.

Relying on knowledge learned from the library, he went to university libraries to read some journals, documents, and papers. If that was not enough, he would go "visit" the laboratories and data rooms of those big pharmaceutical companies...

In short, as long as it is not an overly tricky synthetic raw material, such as Borneo Blood Orchid, with a Kryptonian's craftsmanship combined with a super brain, there is no failure.

This is because he still remembers his promise to Big Lao Ou, and he does not want to become a figure like Breaking Bad's Heisenberg, so the medicines Henry synthesizes are limited to those with mature formulas and concrete therapeutic effects.

As for those common types of painkillers, Henry does not even touch them. His Black Clinic is not a proper hospital; if it hurts, grit your teeth and endure it; if you can't endure it, so be it.

If gold needles are needed during treatment, use gold needles; after treatment, the pain must still be endured. Pain proves a person is still alive! This is Henry's belief.

Anyway, those who come to find him are not good people. If his special painkillers became an easily accessible channel for them, wouldn't they gather a crowd of addicts again? Rather than satisfying these scum, it is better to let them experience the taste of being alive.

At the current stage, Henry is merely imitating drugs existing on the market and has not developed any himself. Mainly because drug research cycles are long and require a series of experiments to prove their effects.

Addictiveness, human experimentation—these are things to be avoided if possible. This counts as the red line Henry drew for himself.

And coming to the laboratory to make some medicines is also within Henry's plan for his two-month break from clinic duties. Because previously, besides common drugs like antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medicines, other things were synthesized and manufactured temporarily only when needed.

With more than half a year of practice experience, Henry also knows which drugs can be produced in certain quantities and when they will come in handy. Regular drugs can also be stocked in larger amounts; anyway, chemically synthesized drugs, as long as they do not get damp, can be stored for quite a long time.

As for making or not making Traditional Chinese Medicine? Henry only has two words: "Hmph, hmph."

First, he is in the United States. Second, it is not that Traditional Chinese Medicine is bad, but that truly useful Traditional Chinese Medicine is quite scarce.

Can American Ginseng be compared with Wild Mountain Ginseng? Can rhinoceros horn be replaced by ox horn? Are safflower and saffron the same thing? Can farmed, artificially ripened ones be compared with those naturally born and raised?

Henry sometimes feels that making such propaganda, making most people think Traditional Chinese Medicine has substitutes, is perhaps because those precious medicinal materials are truly too scarce, so those who know throw out such smoke screens to preserve their own share.

This is no longer a problem that can be solved simply by price control; many things simply have a price but no market.

Moreover, for the same medicine, do different sources and different production areas have the same medicinal properties and quality? Do you really think that as long as medicinal materials can be grown, they can be treated equally?

Even fruits on the same tree vary between astringent and sweet, ripe and unripe. Do medicinal materials have no distinction between good and bad?

Anyway, Henry followed the Traditional Chinese Medicine books he could find, combined with the Traditional Chinese Medicine materials available in the US, and after using them a few times, he gave up. He cannot say the books are wrong, but the medicines available at hand are truly not good enough.

As for Native American herbal medicine... Henry only knows one thing: coca leaves. The rest of the knowledge was almost destroyed by Europeans during the Age of Discovery.

Even the Native Americans themselves could not pass down much, let alone record it in writing for Henry to learn from books.

So on this North American land, Henry gave up researching Traditional Chinese Medicine. He might as well rest assured and spin around in the field of chemistry, which also serves to solidify his research capabilities in chemical engineering and biotechnology.

(End of this chapter)