TAP, TAP, TAP, TAP.
The intense sound of footsteps broke the silence of the Imperial dical Bureau.
Emperor Yu, with an expressionless face, strode into the courtyard and raised his hand to stop the group of Doctors who were about to bow in panic.
Behind him followed Academic Palace Master Lian Xuanxiao, Minister of the Secretariat Xue Ji, Minister of the Secretariat Dongfang Lu, Minister Pei Su, and other high-ranking officials. Following Emperor Yu, they all stopped and looked towards the door.
Inside the room, Li Ang, dressed in a white lab coat, sat on a folding stool, manipulating the Spider Silk to extract one Blood-sucking Worm after another, as well as their eggs, from Yi San’s abdon.
The whole process was downright torturous. The average length of the Blood-sucking Worms was 20mm, buried at varying depths, and all still alive.
The eggs were even smaller, deposited inside organs like the liver, stomach, and lungs. Each extraction had to be done with utmost caution to avoid damaging the organs.
Even with Li Ang’s current cultivation level and his extensive experience using Mo Si, he was still sweating profusely. He needed extre concentration to carefully remove them with Mind Silk.
For Yi San, this process was even more painful.
He lay flat on the bed, his eyes covered with cloth, his hands and feet bound to prevent him from hurting himself.
Every mont, he faintly felt the fine silk threading through his body.
Stabbing pain. Itching.
Bleeding. Spasms.
On his swollen belly, nurous tiny and dense holes remained. Blood and sweat flowed down his skin, dripping into a wooden bucket at the foot of the bed. The bucket was filthy, filled with a mixture of blood and Blood-sucking Worms, emitting an indescribable odor.
"Hang in there a little longer," Li Ang forcefully blinked his aching eyes and said laboriously, not knowing whether he was speaking to himself or to Yi San.
Qiu Feng silently wiped the sweat from his forehead. When he turned and saw Emperor Yu and the ministers, he instinctively moved to bow.
"Forget it." Emperor Yu waved his hand and stood quietly waiting.
After a long while, Li Ang finally put down the Spider Silk and slowly stood up from the chair.
He used Telekinesis to clean the blood from Yi San’s belly, instructing two nearby Doctors to carry Yi San, now completely drained, to his room to rest.
Then he turned around and bowed to Emperor Yu, "Your Majesty."
"Can this disease be cured?" Emperor Yu asked in a low voice.
Li Ang pondered for a mont. "Is Your Majesty asking about symptomatic treatnt or a complete cure?"
"What’s the difference?"
"Symptomatic treatnt is like what I just did, using new dical thods and Mind Silk as tools, carefully extracting the Gu Worms and their eggs from the patient’s abdon," Li Ang said. "But from the investigation results, the adult worms are ubiquitous, and the eggs are everywhere. If even one worm or one egg remains undetected, the disease will recur. The probability of a complete cure is very low."
"And even for symptomatic treatnt, it requires at least a Body Concealing Realm Telekinesis Master, preferably Rain Listening Realm or above. After rigorous training, they can extract the worms from the patient’s body without harming them."
Li Ang spoke with a tone of bitter helplessness. How many qualified Telekinesis Masters does Yu Country have? Maybe a few thousand?
Even he could barely help one patient a day. The rest of his ti was needed to recover his energy and telekinetic power. Compared to the vast number of patients, it was rely a drop in the bucket.
"What about a complete cure then?" Emperor Yu also understood this point and asked thoughtfully.
Li Ang paused for a mont. "Develop new dicine," he said, "to completely cure the patients."
"A new drug?" Empress Xue’s brother, Minister of the Secretariat Xue Ji, furrowed his brows and asked, "Isn’t Allicin effective?"
Li Ang shook his head. "The patients currently treated in the Imperial dical Bureau have all taken Allicin before, and it’s been of little effect. It’s likely due to different pharmacological properties—Allicin can’t kill the Gu Worms."
"Suzhou must not be lost," Emperor Yu slowly said. "Suzhou is located at the hub of Cao Transport, transporting tens of millions of stones of Jianghuai rice annually. If Suzhou is lost, it will be impossible to transfer grain from the south to the north."
To feed Yu Country’s four hundred million people, a massive amount of food is needed every year. Jianghuai accounts for over seventy percent of the empire’s Cao grain. Every day, countless boats transport the food along the canal systems built by the Forr Sui and Yu Dynasty, from Jianghuai to the north.
If Suzhou loses control, it won’t just be Jiangnan Road that suffers; many states in the vast north could face the risk of famine.
At that ti... how many more people would die?
"Risheng," Mountain Master Lian Xuanxiao, who had been keeping his eyes lowered, raised his head and asked calmly, "If you were given all resources—manpower, materials, finances, authority—do you think you could find a new effective dicine to control the Water Poison Gu situation?"
"...Disciple thinks it’s probably very difficult." Li Ang slowly shook his head. "The reproduction rate of this Water Poison Bug is too fast, its life force too strong. From a pharmacological perspective, so useful drugs, even if used, could cause significant harm to the human body."
The best specific dicine for Blood-sucking Worms is Praziquantel. At the lowest effective concentration, it can provoke excitent, contraction, and spasms in the worm. At slightly higher concentrations, it can cause the worm’s body to rupture and be consud by the body’s immune cells, killing the worm within minutes.
But to produce it, materials such as benzylamine, Chloroacetyl chloride, and Potassium Benzoate are needed. Not to ntion all of them, just one type alone would be enough to stump Li Ang.
His words, like the winter wind, made the courtyard cool down once again.
How absurd...a vast empire, governing four hundred million people and possessing countless cultivators and soldiers, is actually helpless against worms as tiny as strands of hair.
"...Let’s proceed with the previous strategy for controlling the epidemic," Emperor Yu sighed deeply. "Neighboring states will provide dicinal herbs to treat patients and dispatch manpower to maintain Cao Transport. They must stay as far away from epidemic areas as possible or pass through quickly. The Ministry of Revenue should investigate, strictly prohibiting rchants from hoarding goods and jacking up grain prices. Violators will be severely punished. The Imperial dical Bureau should organize dical Officers to go to Suzhou to see if there’s anything they can do. As for you, Risheng..."
He paused for a mont and earnestly said, "You are Yu Country’s most authoritative person on Gu Worm epidemics. Considering the living temples erected in your honor by so many of Yu Country’s citizens, please do your best in Chang’an. Whatever you need, I will provide. We must find the right dicine."
"As a citizen of Yu Country and a Disciple of the Academic Palace, I naturally should do my utmost." Li Ang bowed and said earnestly, "But I think that instead of staying in Chang’an, going to Suzhou might allow to play a more effective role."
"Hm?" Emperor Yu was slightly surprised. "Are you sure? Water Poison Gu Worms have existed since ancient tis, and fad Doctors from past generations have been unable to cure it."
"Water Poison Gu Worms are indeed hard to cure. However, at least their spread can be constrained," Li Ang said. "Just as malaria is transmitted through mosquitoes, Water Poison Gu Worms might also invade the human body through so thod and then parasitize it. Since killing mosquitoes in advance can control malaria, then, maybe if we find the route of transmission of the Gu Worms, we can control the spread of Water Poison. Reading books in Chang’an will not uncover a solution. Therefore, I request Your Majesty’s permission to send to Suzhou to perform local investigations and find a thod to exterminate the Gu Worms."
Reviews
All reviews (0)