Chapter 14 Quick Project (IV)
As soon as Huo Chong and Xu Youlin returned to the house, Xiushan had already come out after hearing the noise. Seeing the uneasiness in Huo Chong's junior brother Xiushan's expression, Xu Youlin, who was exhausted from the journey, had already rushed into the wing room.
Huo Chong was not in a hurry. If the person dies, the ball will go up, and if the person is not dead, the ball will sway around. Seeing the joy on the face of his junior fellow apprentice Xiushan, Huo Chong felt that the matter was probably done. Sure enough, Xiushan said with a mixture of excitement and disgust: "Big Brother, the maggots have eaten all the pus!"
Patting Xiushan on the shoulder, Huo Chong praised him and said "Well done!" Then he went straight into the wing room. There were two door panels in the wing room, and two members of the Cao Gang were tied up on them with their eyes blindfolded. In order to make them more comfortable, they were all padded with thick straw mats.
Xu Youlin was carefully checking the exposed parts of the two helpers. Whether it was the gang member with a large cut on his chest or the gang member with a leg wound from a wild boar, both of their wounds showed pink tender flesh. The tender flesh had a thin layer of scab, and although the color was still quite scary, the wound surface was dry and showed signs of healing.
Huo Chong was completely relieved after seeing it. The method of using maggots to remove rotten meat was first developed by the British after observation during the First Station. Before going to Li Tongshan's workshop this time, Huo Chong saw a different wound. Perhaps because the two gang members were still quite young, the fight between the white blood cells and the bacteria was very fierce, so the wound was particularly festering. A large amount of pus and thick water oozed out of the wound, accompanied by the red and swollen wound, it looked as if the whole person was about to rot on the bed.
The wound on the leg of the person who was injured had been devoured of pus by maggots, and the redness and swelling around the wound had mostly disappeared. Except for the circle of skin close to the wound which was dry purple-red, the skin outside the wound had returned to a more normal color.
The man with a long wound on his chest still had a small portion of rotten flesh on the wound that had not been eaten up. A bunch of white maggots were wriggling and eating on it, which was enough to make people with trypophobia have an attack immediately.
Xu Youlin looked for a while, turned his head away, and pulled Huo Chong to the yard, "Brother Huo, are our people saved?"
Huo Chong certainly hoped that nothing would happen. If no one in the Cao Gang died, his pressure would be greatly reduced. But he couldn't guarantee it at this moment. In this era without antibiotics, who knows what else would happen. Huo Chong said to Xu Youlin, "It should be. We'll know in a few days."
Xu Youlin covered his bloodshot eyes and muttered in a low voice: "Thank God!"
After mumbling a few more words, Xu Youlin let go of his hand and asked hesitantly, "Brother Huo, is the magic water so effective?"
Huo Chong didn't want to push himself into a dead end, so he replied casually: "Your brothers are very strong. If they were as weak as chickens, nothing I could do would work."
Xu Youlin let out a long breath, but moved his heavy feet directly to the steps under the eaves and sat down. Seeing this guy finally showing his weak side, Huo Chong felt mixed emotions.
In 1717, superstition was more effective than anything else. Huo Chong tried to persuade Master Zhu, a master winemaker, to improve the winemaking process, but was scolded by Master Zhu. When facing Li Tongshan, Huo Chong changed his tactics. He played tricks and forced Li Tongshan to accept Huo Chong's intervention.
Xu Youlin has been around a lot, so he thought that playing tricks would be useless. Unexpectedly, he encountered a problem that he couldn't solve. Knowing that he couldn't solve the problem, Xu Youlin still chose to believe in mysterious power.
Huo Chong first took out the maggots that he had prepared long ago, chanted incantations, and sprinkled magic water. Finally, he used the ultra-small light on his watch to shine on the maggots for a long time. Xu Youlin, who originally wanted to fight Huo Chong who used the maggot pus removal method, hesitated.
Of course, this is not enough. Huo Chong said firmly that Xu Youlin had to agree. Since the spell has been cast, if it is not completed, the maggots that have absorbed the Yin Qi will turn into poison and attack the people in the yard. At this time, it is necessary to use poison to fight poison to drive the maggots to gnaw on the wounds contaminated with Yin Qi and eat up all the evil things. Only in this way can everyone be saved.
Seeing that the treatment was effective, Huo Chong hoped that Xu Youlin would believe that this was just an uncommon healing spell and had nothing to do with supernatural powers. In order to test Xu Youlin, Huo Chong called out, "Brother Xu."
Xu Youlin didn't say a word. Huo Chong called him again, but Xu Youlin still didn't move. Huo Chong hurried over and found Xu Youlin sleeping on the steps.
Huo Chong gave a bitter smile and asked his junior brother to come over and carry Xu Youlin to the house to sleep. For nearly ten days, Xu Youlin had been running around with Huo Chong. Huo Chong himself felt exhausted, not to mention Xu Youlin who was far less strong than Huo Chong.
Although Huo Chong also wanted to sleep, having a bottle was far from enough. The wine in the bottle must not be wrong. He told his fellow apprentices to release the Cao Gang member with a leg injury, and to wait until the pus in the wound of the one with a chest injury was eaten up, and then collect the maggots and burn them.
The fellow apprentices all lined up to promise that nothing would go wrong, and that the maggots used to treat the leg injury had been burned by them. Huo Chong then rushed to Zhu Lianjin's winemaking workshop.
Huo Chong felt his legs getting weaker and weaker as he walked. It seemed that he had overestimated his physical strength. Huo Chong slowed down and continued to walk. When he arrived at Zhu Lianjin's house, Zhu Lianjin heard that Huo Chong was here, and rushed out like a rabbit. He grabbed Huo Chong with a look of shock and anger and shouted: "Brother Huo, what on earth did you pour into my wine trough!"
"What's wrong?" Huo Chong asked puzzledly.
"My wine is sour! My wine is sour! You have wasted thousands of kilograms of wine in this pool!" Zhu Lianjin howled, and by the end of his howling, he was already crying.
Huo Chong pushed the guy aside and strode into the winemaking workshop. There was indeed a faint sour smell in the workshop. Huo Chong opened the wine vat and the smell of alcohol came out, but the smell seemed to be wrapped in something and was far less pungent than that of white wine.
What was wrapped up was not only the smell of alcohol, Huo Chong could also detect a slight sour taste from it, but it was far less strong than he had imagined.
If we consider calm speech as a pH value of 7, and Zhu Lianjin's crying as a pH value of 1, then this sour taste is at most a slight emotional fluctuation.
"The sour taste is nothing to worry about." Huo Chong replied to his brother-in-law Zhu who had chased him in.
When Zhu Lianjin heard this, he howled again: "Brother Huo, once the wine is steamed, the sour taste will become stronger! By then, this wine will be so sour that you won't be able to drink it at all!"
"Go call my junior brother. I will deal with the wine." Huo Chongming said.
After saying that, Huo Chong rolled up his sleeves and began to order the preparation of steaming wine.
Zhu Lianjin's face was filled with anxiety, and the two workers in his workshop were dumbfounded and didn't know what to do. Seeing Huo Chong had already started, Zhu Lianjin yelled at one of the workers, "What are you doing standing there? Go get help!"
The process of steaming wine was quite complicated. When Huo Chong's junior Liu Shiwang arrived, it had just begun. Huo Chong did not expect Xu Youlin to stagger in. Looking at Xu Youlin's listless appearance, he could be knocked down with just one finger.
Huo Chong whispered to his fellow apprentice Liu Shiwang, "Go to Li Tongshan and ask him for a few pounds of quicklime. Just say it's me who needs it! Hurry!"
Junior fellow apprentice Liu Shiwang took the order and left, while Huo Chong continued to work with his brother-in-law Zhu.
Sure enough, when the regular distillation process began to produce wine, the smell of wine in the air began to become strong. As the alcohol content in the wine pulp increased, the smell in the wine tank, which was not too sour, became stronger. In the end, the sourness in the wine smell had reached a pungent smell. The two mixed together and could not be separated.
Zhu Lianjin started howling again, "Huo Chong! You are killing me! You are going to kill me!"
Huo Chong felt refreshed when he smelled the sour smell. At this moment, his junior fellow apprentice Liu Shiwang, who had been out for a few hours, opened the door and rushed in with a wooden barrel. When he saw Huo Chong, he shouted, "Big Brother..."
"Where is the stuff?" Huo Chong shouted.
"Big Brother..."
"Didn't you get the lime?" Huo Chong was a little surprised. Even if Li Tongshan wanted to destroy the bridge after crossing it, he shouldn't have done it so quickly. Besides, there was no reason for him to have any conflict with Li Tongshan.
Junior fellow student Liu Shiwang was yelled at by Huo Chong so much that he dared not say much and could only hand over a wooden barrel. Huo Chong dipped a little bit of it with his finger and licked it on his tongue. It was indeed quicklime.
After getting the things, Huo Chong didn't waste any words and tasted the steamed wine first. As expected, the sour taste in the wine was not fooling anyone. Anyone who took a sip would know that something was wrong.
Pointing at the wine distillation device that had been set up but not used, Huo Chongming said, "Pour 20 kilograms of wine in first."
Zhu Lianjin didn't listen at all and just kept cursing. Huo Chong was just about to do it himself when he heard a loud voice from outside, "Huo Chong! Are you in there, you bastard?"
Huo Chong looked out and saw the window paper was bright. It was afternoon when he came, but now it was morning. The night passed by unknowingly.
The door was already open, and Huo Chong strode out. He saw a lot of people standing at the door. The young man who was leading the group and cursing at the workshop seemed familiar to Huo Chong. But Huo Chong had seen the man in the middle surrounded by people before, and that person was Mr. Zhu, a wine expert.
Huo Chong's junior fellow apprentice Liu Shiwang then timidly came to Huo Chong and said aggrievedly: "Big Brother, I just wanted to tell you that there are many people outside."
