The Tang Dynasty’s Female Forensic Doctor Chapter 60

On returning to the estate, Ran Yan found Miss Xing sitting knelt under the courtyard veranda cutting cloth, occasionally sighing with a discontented expression.

Seeing Ran Yan, Miss Xing quickly went forward to take her veil. Her heart ached upon observing Ran Yan's weary complexion, "Miss, you must be exhausted. After we return to the main residence in a few days, far fewer people will look to burden you with treating them."

"En. Miss Xing, help me heat up some water. I wish take a bath." Ran Yan said.

Miss Xing smiled, "Your bath has already been prepared. Use it to wipe away any ill energy."

Ran Yan's body had only recently recovered from the illness and was still weak, yet she had treated two patients and performed two autopsies today. She was indeed reaching the end of her rope[1].

After entering the bathing room alone and briefly soaking in the warm water, Ran Yan soon began to feel a little drowsy.

"Miss, this servant was ordered by Miss Xing to serve you in the bath." A clear voice rang from outside.

Ran Yan was unaccustomed to having someone at the side watching her bathe, but was also much too tired to make a fuss. Thinking she would have the maidservant wash this accursed long hair of hers, she said, "Enter."

The person who entered was Xiao Man, the one who had helped dress and groom Ran Yan that morning. She carried a small bath bucket with a wooden lid. Faint steam came out of a small crack in the rim, allowing a flowery fragrance to disperse through the air.

"What is that?" Ran Yan asked. 

Sensing that Ran Yan was not as scary as she appeared on the surface, Xiao Man smiled faintly, displaying the little dimples on her cheeks, "I saw that the honeysuckle in the courtyard was blooming well, so I picked a few for Miss's bath. Using honeysuckle to bathe in the summer is very good!"

Ran Yan gave a nod in agreement while thinking that Xiao Song really had guessed correctly. Fanchun probably had been drowned in a bathtub, but… whose bathtub did she drown in?

Seeing Ran Yan remain silent, Xiao Man bravely went forward and asked, "Miss, should this servant help wash your hair?"

"Very well." Ran Yan answered.

Ran Yan watched Xiao Man drag a tall stool from the corner over and place it beside the bathtub, then place the little bath bucket on top of it.

As she watched, a sudden revelation dawned on her and her pupils abruptly shrank - tall stool, wooden bucket...

This tall stool was more roughly made, but strongly resembled the overturned stool under Wan Lu's feet the day she was hanged. Any furniture above sitting height was uncommon in the Tang Dynasty since people still sat kneeling. These days, only Hu chairs[2] had legs, but even they were not that high.

Also, this bucket lid… 

"Xiao Man, come stand before me." Ran Yan said slowly.

Hearing that Ran Yan actually remembered her name, Xiao Man stopped pouring the petal bathwater into the tub and cheerfully answered. She merrily placed the half empty bucket on the tall stool before moving to stand right in front of Ran Yan as asked.

Ran Yan extended her hand to grab hold of the little wooden bucket and poured the remaining water into the bathtub. After that, she began to study the body and lid of the bucket. Using these two things, she would intermittently pretend-swung[3] them towards Xiao Man's head. Xiao Man trembled internally at this behaviour, fearful that an actual swing would seriously come at her head.

This bucket's design had a wide opening that tapered to a narrow bottom. Regardless of which end hit a person's head though, the bucket had enough heft that it would, at minimum, break the skin. The wound on Fanchun's head was shaped in an arc, probably caused by the lid.

The size and arc of this particular bucket were likely different from the murderer's weapon, but Ran Yan could now easily envision how the murderer might have struck Fanchun's face with a bucket lid in a moment of desperation only to find that she had not fainted or died…

Ran Yan suddenly stood up from the tub and reached for Xiao Man's neck.

Dumbstruck, Xiao Man helplessly took in Ran Yan's curvaceous body as the glistening water droplets hung from her suet white jade-like skin. Standing in the midst of water vapour rising in spirals, this sight practically bewitched the soul.

Just as she was being mesmerised though, the back of her neck was suddenly grabbed as Ran Yan forcibly pressed her to edge of the bath tub. Her little face almost touched the water surface before she hurriedly shouted, "Miss, spare me, spare me!"

Ran Yan again returned to herself only to discover that she was standing naked in the bathtub. She awkwardly coughed and silently sat back down into the water. To the still in shock Xiao Man, she explained, "I… was just thinking of some things."

Xiao Man did not feel at all rea.s.sured by this explaination. What could she possibly be thinking of to be using the bucket lid to gesture at her head like that one moment, then trying to press her into the water the next?

However… Miss's body truly was a sight to behold[4]! Xiao Man's large and bright eyes glanced towards her vaguely visible body beneath the water and softly said, "Miss, I'll wash your hair."

Ran Yan nodded. This time she had figured out a few things and so did not continue to ponder, instead letting Xiao Man help her wash and groom her waist-length dark hair.

Somehow completing the trial of her bath, Ran Yan immediately returned to her room to grind some ink[5]. She drew out the shape of the bath bucket and the appearance of the tall stool, then wrote a letter. Handing her message to Yang Yong-duizheng who was guarding the estate, she requested that he dispatch someone to send it to Provincial Governor Liu at once.

Only once all of this was done, did Ran Yan truly relax. After her dinner, she went to accompany Wan Lu for a short while before returning to her bedroom to rest.

Perhaps because she had expended herself completely, that night, although her dreams were filled with many fragmented images, they did not join together to form a complete scene. It was the best sleep she'd had for the past 6-7 years.

For the next few days, the cloudy and rainy weather continued, making it very inconvenient to go out. All those seeking Ran Yan for treatment therefore sent letters to say that they dared not trouble her to visit them personally but would bring the patient to her door on an appointed date.

Ran Yan was thus relatively idle these days. After seeing all her patients for the day, she would visit Wu Xiuhe to learn from him. Ever since Ran Yan made him that meal, Wu Xiuhe had obviously become more meticulous and hardworking than before. He would even not-so-subtly drop hints for her to cook a meal to reward his hard work from time to time.

And just like that, five days had pa.s.sed by. It was finally time to extract penicillin from the Penicillium growing in the culture medium.

First, Ran Yan poured the liquid from 10 of the faux-petri dishes into a special, pre-prepared cask. She then poured rapeseed oil into the cask and stirred the mixture.

Since the Penicillium liquid contained undesired lipid-soluble substances, she was using the oil to dissolve and separate these out. After stirring evenly, she placed it aside and waited.

Eventually, thanks to their different densities, the substances in the cask began to separate into layers. The first layer contained the lipid-soluble substances that the oil dissolved. The second layer contained substances that were neither water nor lipid soluble. Then, finally, because it was the densest, the bottom-most layer contained penicillin.

The base of the cask was made to resemble a wine cask, one with a cork at the bottom. Pulling out the cork, Ran Yan used a porcelain basin that had been sterilised with alcohol and distilled water to catch the bottom-most liquid that slowly flowed out.

After filtering out some of the larger impurities, she poured the remains into an earthen jar which contained fragments of coal that had been sterilised via boiling. After agitating the jar's contents, the penicillin was absorbed by the coal.

Miss Xing, who was helping out beside her, could only look on blankly as Ran Yan moved these numerous bottles and jars around, unable to understand any of what was going on. What was different about water that had mould growing in it for seven days and was then processed with oil and coal?

In reality, the steps carried out today were not actually that difficult. The true challenge laid in the material preparations. Even just the alcohol and distilled water used for sterilisation had made Ran Yan work busily for extended periods every day. Especially the collection of distilled water; though also not a difficult process, it was low yield for how time-intensive it was. A long time was required to collect a single bottle of water, but most of that bottle would be poured out in an instant when sterilizing. Consuming what little she could produce so quickly was tantamount to pouring out Ran Yan's sweat and tears!

Something else Ran Yan had to make was sodium carbonate for the filtration process. Commonly referred to as was.h.i.+ng soda or ash soda, it is produced from salt, sulfuric acid, coal and limestone[6]. All would have been for naught if she only knew how to extract the penicillin since it would effectively spoil almost immediately if not processed further. Fortunately, Ran Yan had been nurtured by her chemist father for a number of years and had no trouble producing was.h.i.+ng soda.

Ran Yan stirred the coal and remaining water-soluble substances until they formed an even solution, then she further purified it in three stages.

For the first round, she added distilled water to add volume and strained it all though a filter. The water that poured out was not yet the penicillin solution and was therefore discarded.

For the second round, she adjusted the acidity by adding a weakly acidic water and vinegar solution and again discarded the water that filtered out.

For the third round, she added was.h.i.+ng soda water to unlock the pencillin from the coals. The solution that filtered out this time was the real penicillin solution.

Looking at the four bottles of pencillin solution she managed to create, the usually calm Ran Yan's eyes faintly turned red - it really hadn't been easy! Just making the distilled water these past few days had tired her to the point where her waist ached and her back hurt.

When she first saw the syphilis on Zi Xu's body, Ran Yan originally did not think too much of it because, as a modern person and modern doctor at heart, she subconsciously felt that the process of extracting penicillin was a relatively simple thing. It was only after she began that she realized that the Tang Dynasty did not have any was.h.i.+ng soda or distilled water. She also had to slowly grind out the fine coal, she also had to cook taro and rice herself for the culture medium, she also had to…

Ran Yan sighed internally. Why did such a troublesome illness have to appear in the Tang Dynasty!? If she had any say in things, she would have rather dissected two corpses a day instead of producing penicillin.

"Miss, is this the fairy water[7]?" Miss Xing asked softly. 

Recalling her claim that she'd received guidance from her dreams, Ran Yan could only nod after a brief pause.

Setting forth another petri dish containing Staphylococcus aureus, Ran Yan poured out two drops onto the culture. This strain was easier to find and when she had discovered some a few days ago, Ran Yan placed it in the culture medium to promote its growth. The bacteria had already grown a layer over the petri dish, but still quickly died and was cleared out of the s.p.a.ce where the penicillin was dropped.

Proving that the medicine worked, Ran Yan thoroughly breathed out a sigh in relief. If she had spent all that effort, only to have the end product be ineffective, she would really want to cry. Fortunately, the heavens did not treat her harshly.

Carefully putting these hard-earned bottles into storage, the large stone in Ran Yan's heart was finally put down. She decided to use her newly relaxed mood and cook a meal for her cheap s.h.i.+fu.

Wu Xiuhe had stretched out his neck blatantly and waited for a long time, but just as Ran Yan finished cooking the first dish, Ran Yunsheng arrived, causing the old man to huff and puff in anger. The immortal aura he had painstakingly maintained collapsed in an instant as he pulled out all the stops to make an unreasonable scene.

Helpless, Ran Yan could only cook his favourite Dongpo pork, a meat dish and a vegetarian dish to console his broken spirit.

Ran Yunsheng laughed a laugh as beautiful as flowers, "Ah Yan, this s.h.i.+fu of yours is really amusing."

Ran Yan's lips curved up slightly, but she changed the subject instead of continuing on, "You've finished your work?"

"You forgot?" Ran Yunsheng rebuked her, "Today is the Double Seven Festival! As a girl, how can you completely forget this!?"

"Oh." Ran Yan recalled Miss Xing busily rus.h.i.+ng about earlier that morning.

"Quickly, go and get ready. We are going to Pingjiang River tonight. Eldest Uncle has given me permission to bring you there!" Ran Yunsheng urged.

Translator's note: Sorry for the long wait again. Thank you to everyone who commented T^T I read and appreciate every one of them  

If you're having trouble keeping track of all the characters, has kindly made a relations.h.i.+p diagram which you can check out ! <>

Editor:  

[Ed. Note ] So, yeah, RY just psychologically tormented and physically a.s.saulted her employee (as well as exposing herself in a borderline s.e.xual hara.s.sment sort of way). Don't let her beauty/gender blind you to how unacceptable on every level this behavior is. [/Ed. Note ]

[Ed. Note ] We do not endorse any of these extraction steps! Even with the right kind of fungi growing, molds make a lot of different things to kill bacteria that are also harmful to humans. Filtering out everything but the penicillin (as our heroine supposedly just did) is incredibly difficult and getting it even a little wrong means injecting substances into someone's body that have absolutely zero chill. Leave this stuff to the professionals, kids. [/Ed. Note ] 

[1]吃不消: to be unable to tolerate or endure / to find sth difficult to manage

[2]胡床: round-back foldable chair. See picture. 

[3]比划: the exact word used here kind of means she's doing movements/gestures but in a practising/demonstrating way and not for real. (she's pretending to hit XM. it's a fake movement, she doesn't actually come close to XM) 

[4]有看头: having qualities that make sth worth seeing

[5]研磨: means milling/to grind/pestle etc.. it doesn't say what she's grinding, I'm just a.s.suming it's ink. 

[6]The process that uses these materials is the Leblanc process, which has no longer been used since the late 1880s.  

[7] 神仙水: water of the immortals/G.o.ds/fairies. Open to suggestions for a better name...