What transpired here, Qi Yue remained utterly oblivious to; at this very moment, she could barely contain her joyous exclamations.

"Look, look!" Overwhelmed with emotion and slightly beside herself, she pointed to the row of test tubes resting on the shelves, the white crystal catching the daylight with a blinding gleam.

The Clan Head and several villagers edged closer, murmuring in awe.

"Such precious things must be worth a fortune..." the woman muttered, eyeing Qi Yue, thinking that if compensation was due, she would certainly have to name an exorbitant price.

"No, I want you to look at this*," Qi Yue stated, picking up a thin rod to point at a specific test tube. "See, right here..."

Within the crystal, distinct bands of color separated the upper and lower sections, and in the middle, there was an unmistakable, clear white ring.

"This," Qi Yue announced, "is the precipitation reaction from a diseased pig. And this one," she pointed to another, "the one without the white ring, is the reaction from a healthy pig."

The Clan Head and the others stared at her.

"What does that mean?" they inquired.

"Only pigs afflicted with Anthrax will exhibit this reaction," Qi Yue explained.

Old Doctor An and his disciples crowded around for a closer look.

"It's truly miraculous; they really do react differently... How is this even... happening?" everyone whispered in amazement.

The strange terms—experiment, reaction, cell—danced through each person's mind.

Miraculous... nature...

The villagers simply stared at her, dumbfounded.

"This, this, what sort of evidence is this?" the woman challenged, pointing at the tubes with a hint of derision. "Who knows how you fiddled with these? We certainly don't understand any of it."

Qi Yue, who had been basking in the success of her precipitation test, felt a slight tremor of excitement run through her body. Hearing the woman, she turned her head.

"What? Evidence?" She looked at the woman and smiled faintly. "The evidence isn't for you to see; it's for me to see. Whether you understand it or not is irrelevant. As long as I understand, that’s what matters."

The woman paused, nonplussed. What did she mean?

"I am proving this to myself. Knowing that I am correct is enough," Qi Yue chuckled, then turned back to address the villagers. "In that case, I declare that the pigs in your village are infected with Anthrax and must be quarantined and culled."

Culled...

The woman looked at her blankly. What did 'culled' imply?

When Huang Ziqiao arrived, he was met with chaos.

Twenty or thirty villagers were shouting furiously, surrounding Qi Yue and her entourage.

The few disciples each fiercely guarded their medicine chests.

"What is this! Are you staging a rebellion?" Huang Ziqiao roared, spurring his horse forward, laying about with sharp cracks of his whip. The constables behind him were not about to be outdone.

After a flurry of cries and shouts, the villagers backed away.

"Why are you here?" Qi Yue asked happily, spotting him.

Huang Ziqiao dismounted, snorted, and remained silent.

"Why aren't you wearing protective gear?" Qi Yue pulled him over, frowning. "What are you, a child, running around loose for..."

Huang Ziqiao impatiently shook off her hand.

"Hey, did you find it?" he asked, his face grim.

Qi Yue paused, then instantly understood.

"Of course." She pursed her lips into a small smile and gestured toward the side. "The pigs in this village."

"What needs to be done?" Huang Ziqiao inquired.

Qi Yue nodded, sweeping her hand around the surroundings.

"First, all sick pigs must be isolated and burned, then deeply buried. However, since there isn't time to individually test every single one, the quickest and safest course of action is to incinerate and deeply bury all the pigs..." she explained.

The moment her words fell, wails erupted again from the cluster of villagers.

"Heavens, we have no way left to live..." The woman collapsed onto the ground, weeping hysterically, beating her chest, "You might as well burn us too! This cuts off the livelihood of an entire family..."

"Silence!" Huang Ziqiao barked.

Glancing at his attire and the constables behind him, the woman's cries momentarily subsided.

"Young Master, this is simply impossible," the Clan Head said solemnly. "Dozens of pigs, just like that—to destroy them all... This, this just can't be justified."

"Uncle, I told you, these are diseased pigs. Stop treating them like profitable livestock; they are a ticking bomb right now. At this stage, are you willing to risk the lives of everyone in the village, even the entire city, for these pigs?" Qi Yue argued.

"Don't speak such alarmist words! How is the fate of the entire city our responsibility?" the Clan Head retorted, his face pale.

"Because I said so," Qi Yue met his gaze firmly.

"So, whatever you say goes?" the Clan Head pressed anxiously.

He had never encountered such a woman! Who was this woman!

"In this matter, yes, whatever I say goes," Qi Yue asserted. "I apologize; I do not have the patience to explain everything to you slowly. If you don't trust my judgment, I can't help that. I can only do what I must."

What must be done?

"Xiao Qiao, ride back quickly and tell your father to bring men to seal off this village. All pigs, and even other poultry, must be destroyed," Qi Yue instructed Huang Ziqiao.

This declaration caused another uproar, and the woman resumed her lamentations.

"Why should I tell my father? What I say counts," Huang Ziqiao dismissed the crowd, swinging the whip in his hand. "Now, all of you go home immediately to pack your belongings, and temporarily move to..."

He paused, looking at Qi Yue.

"Temporarily move to the Qianjin Hall for screening of potential cases," Qi Yue finished.

"Sir, we have lived in this village for generations! You say we should leave, and we just go? Impossible!" The Clan Head, furious, gritted his teeth and shouted, "We are not leaving!"

Echoing his words, the other villagers shouted in unison.

"We are not leaving!"

"Fine!" Huang Ziqiao’s eyes widened, raising his whip as if to strike, but Qi Yue quickly restrained him.

The villagers outnumbered them. A physical confrontation would surely put them at a disadvantage, and moreover, it was best to avoid external injuries here.

Seeing that Qi Yue and her group had fallen silent, the villagers felt a surge of confidence.

They were right to object! They wanted to burn their pigs, which was no different from outright robbery by bandits.

They had a point, no matter how one looked at it! As for the disease...

"You say our pigs are making people sick, yet none of us are ill?"

"Exactly! You just mess around with those little bottles and jars, and suddenly it’s our pigs' fault?"

As they argued, one of them suddenly looked down at the ground.

"...Uncle, don't you feel like the ground is shaking?"

"What?" The person next to him looked down and also sensed it. "Could it be an earthquake?"

At this pronouncement, the noisy crowd fell silent.

An earthquake?

"It really is moving!" someone shouted loudly.

Before the words died away, the sound of approaching hoofbeats pounded toward them.

Everyone sighed in relief.

"It's just horses. All this shouting scares people," the Clan Head turned and scolded. He stopped mid-sentence, his gaze freezing on the scene behind him.

The others, confused, followed his line of sight. They saw that, without them noticing, columns of riders were approaching from the rear, fanning out to surround the area. The men on horseback were clad in gleaming armor, their spears forming a dense forest.

Why had so many... garrison soldiers arrived?

Everyone froze. The prior clamor vanished, replaced only by the crisp, synchronized drumming of hooves drawing closer, step by step.

Watching the man leading the contingent, Huang Ziqiao snorted, listlessly cracking his whip on the ground.

As the soldiers drew near, responding to signals from a few figures who appeared to be leaders, the cavalry scattered in a fan shape. As they dispersed, they left behind a distinct white line drawn on the ground with lime.

It turned out every man had a bag of lime strapped to his saddle.

"You refuse to leave, is that it?" Chang Yuncheng finally looked over, addressing them from his elevated position on horseback. "You can't bear to part with your pigs, can you?"

Faced with soldiers bearing drawn swords and spears, the villagers dared not even breathe deeply.

"Officer, we truly... we need some sort of justification," the Clan Head stammered, stepping forward.

Before he could finish, Chang Yuncheng nodded once.

He pointed to the white line on the ground.

"No problem, you may stay," he stated. "But anyone who crosses this line will be treated the same as those diseased animals—killed without question."

The villagers gasped in collective horror.

"Officer," the Clan Head called out, his voice trembling, "What grievous crime have we committed?"

Chang Yuncheng offered no words, but the man beside him stepped forward, unfurling a scroll and showing it to the Clan Head.

The villagers, being illiterate, could only make out several large, vivid official seals stamped upon the document.

The Clan Head squinted, reading slowly, his face turning ashen.

"Go quickly, go quickly," he waved his hand, instructing them.

"What does it say?" a villager couldn't help but ask.

"This is a joint proclamation regarding the plague, issued by the Governor and the Circuit Inspector. There truly is a pestilence in our Yongqing Prefecture..." the Clan Head whispered.

Watching the villagers obediently return to gather their belongings and withdraw from the village perimeter, Qi Yue let out a breath of relief.

"The authority of the government is truly impressive," she observed.

All her reasoning, polite or sharp, had been useless...

"Without your confirmation, the government wouldn't even have the opportunity to exert its authority," Chang Yuncheng replied.

Qi Yue glanced at him and reached out to pat his arm.

"Thank you for the flattery; I find it quite agreeable," she smiled.

Chang Yuncheng was left slightly speechless and amused. Before he could say more, Qi Yue had already walked away.

"Let's go, let's go. The authorities are taking over here. We should head back," she called out.

The disciples responded, happily hoisting their medicine chests, bowing, and following her.

Qi Yue had already given the garrison soldiers detailed instructions on the necessary procedures for burning and deep burial, and what precautions to take. After a few steps, she stopped, looking back at Chang Yuncheng, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Hey," she called out.

Chang Yuncheng turned his head to look at her.

"Don't get too close," Qi Yue warned. "You are still injured."

This was the same thing she had been saying to him since the moment they met.

Chang Yuncheng smiled at her.

"Yes, I know," he replied.

Only then did Qi Yue turn fully and walk away with her group, who soon disappeared into the distance.

All subsequent tasks—incinerating and burying human and animal remains, prohibiting the consumption of all meat and dairy products, city-wide disinfection and screening, and resource allocation—were taken over by the government. Hu San was satisfied, having received the funds he required. The quarantine hospital at Qianjin Hall outside the city gathered physicians from Yongqing Prefecture and beyond; everything was adequately supplied, save for medicine.

Although the source of the infection had been found and measures taken for destruction, isolation, and prevention, the infected individuals already lurking in the shadows erupted at a visible rate. For instance, in Shihezi Village, nearly one in three pig-raising households fell ill.

At this point, no one mourned the pigs anymore. Now, they felt they would be better off as pigs, for Qi Yue later informed them that the government would provide some subsidy for the slaughtered and buried swine—though less than what the meat would have fetched, it would prevent total ruin. But if they fell ill, no one would offer them money.

Cutaneous Anthrax was manageable; the local doctors recognized it and had methods for non-acute cases. But for the acute forms—edematous, intestinal, pulmonary Anthrax, and the septicemic variations—everyone was reliant solely on Qi Yue's Penicillin.

"Don't you have that medicine for diarrhea?" Qi Yue asked, sounding genuinely anxious.

Now, even Penicillin could not be extracted from urine...

"I've run out of that too!" the senior doctor exclaimed, stomping his foot in frustration. "Why can't your medicine be produced?"

"Stop worrying about my medicine! Tell me what you need for your prescriptions, and go prepare them quickly," Qi Yue urged.

"What I need is hard to find! Do you think you can just mix up what I need whenever you please?" The old doctor retorted, bristling, "Besides, how can I mix prescriptions for this many people?"

Qi Yue rolled her eyes. Right, she had forgotten about the principle of confidentiality.

"Then come with me to my laboratory. It's less crowded there; you can mix whatever you need however you like," she offered.

Qi Yue led the doctor to the lab area. Though the disciples here weren't directly treating patients, their workload was heavier, and the mental strain was immense.

No medicine meant death; death resulted from a lack of medicine; the lack of medicine stemmed from their inability to produce it. Such thoughts weighed heavily on everyone.

"It's not that everyone isn't trying hard; it’s the environmental constraints," Qi Yue repeatedly explained, though she doubted how effective her words were.

"Master, look here, can this mold also be used for medicine?" a disciple rushed over to call out.

Qi Yue immediately went over. The senior doctor hesitated for a moment, looked around and seeing that no one was paying him any attention, much less stopping him, he stepped forward to follow.

What exactly did 'extracting medicine' mean?

The room was piled high with mountains of rotting fruit and vegetables, even clothes and anything else that might harbor mold. The pungent odor was suffocating.

But one person seemed impervious to it. After just one glance at the doorway, the senior doctor rushed inside.

"There is so much, so much, so much here..." he shouted incoherently.

Qi Yue and the disciple were startled.

"These are for making medicine, they aren't..." Qi Yue tried to explain, but before she finished, the old doctor had rushed up to her.

"With this much here, you still say you have no medicine!" he yelled, grabbing two molded oranges and scraping off the white fuzz of mold growing on them.

Qi Yue froze, a sudden realization dawning on her.

"Your medicine... isn't it made from this?" she questioned.

"My medicine is made from these materials," the elder confirmed, revealing a secret formula he once guarded like a treasure with surprising ease.

Qi Yue slapped her forehead. She remembered—it seemed ancient people had discovered the antibacterial principle of Penicillin long ago. Initially, tailors would use moldy tofu or similar substances to treat wounds sustained while working.

The ancients were truly divine beings...

This could certainly be considered an understanding and application of Penicillin's effects.

"All right then, if our principles for making medicine are the same, let's work hard together... Hey, hey, but don't waste my Penicillin..."

Just opening the page to check, she was startled—thank you, thank you for the reward, thank you, thank you see_an for the scarlet notice, such generosity is almost too much to bear. RS