Chapter 41: Allicin

With Lin Dazhuang taking the lead, more and more people stepped forward.

Holding knives, they hacked at the Hou family members.

In fact, Li Xiao didn’t need to force them at all. After letting go of their courage, they started doing this proactively.

Avenging grievances, taking revenge.

The Hou family had ruled Hou Village for more than fifty years, treating people of other surnames almost completely as servants.

Hatred and grievances had accumulated for a long time.

Previously, because they feared the power of the Hou family, others in the village dared not resist at all.

Now, finally, someone who could uphold justice for them had arrived.

So these people began to get excited.

More and more people began to verbally attack and condemn the Hou family members, recounting the evil deeds the Hou family had done.

Listening to the screams of the Hou family members and watching the surging public sentiment below, Li Xiao suddenly had an illusion.

He originally wanted to force these people to take sides, but how did it turn into a complaint meeting?

Li Xiao felt like he had become Bao Qinglian (Justice Bao), coming to uphold justice for these common people oppressed by the Hou family.

“Don’t kill the people of Hou Wen’s family yet.”

“Slice them all for a night first.”

Li Xiao said to Lin Dazhuang.

Old Man Hou’s family had done all kinds of evil. They were the masterminds behind surrendering to the Karluks and harming Li Xiao’s second uncle.

Of course, they couldn’t be allowed to die simply.

Too cheap.

It would take a whole night to cut them into a thousand pieces.

If they weren’t dead yet, drag them back to Hexi Fortress with horses.

Whenever they died, throw them directly on the road to feed vultures.

After arranging these things, Li Xiao came to a room.

“Dahu, how is Second Uncle?”

While speaking, his gaze turned to the man lying on the kang.

In his thirties, quite tall, with thick bones, he should have been a very strong man.

However, due to long-term hunger leading to malnutrition, plus the torture of injuries and illness, his whole person had shrunk a size.

This was Li Xiao’s second uncle, Li Erjiang.

After breaching Hou Village, Dahu found him in a damp dungeon.

Together with him, there were more than twenty people, most of whom were Hexi Fortress able-bodied men who followed Li Erjiang, and a few were people from other places like Hedong Fortress and Ta Village.

Among these people, most were in acceptable condition, just physically weak.

But for someone like Li Erjiang, who was originally injured, being locked in that dark and damp environment, coupled with malnutrition…

His injuries worsened directly.

He was already unconscious.

“My dad’s head is scary hot.”

“I called him for a long time before he woke up for a moment, then fainted again.”

Dahu said, his voice sorrowful, his eyes already red.

“Don’t cry!”

Li Xiao pressed Dahu’s head with his hand and wiped his face randomly.

A man shouldn’t cry.

“Since Second Uncle woke up, it means the situation isn’t the worst yet; this is a good thing.”

“There is still hope.”

Li Xiao said in a deep voice.

Light instantly appeared in Dahu’s eyes: “Really?”

If anyone else said this, Dahu would definitely doubt it. After all, Li Erjiang’s injuries were really too severe, almost like a dead person.

But the person saying this was Li Xiao.

It was his most respected big brother.

Since childhood, Dahu had grown up following behind Li Xiao.

And recently, whatever Li Xiao said eventually came true. Li Xiao’s actions were even more convincing.

So, Dahu couldn’t help but have a bit of confidence in his heart.

“Whether it works or not, try first!”

After Li Xiao finished speaking, he arranged for Dahu to bring a basin of warm water.

He squatted beside Li Erjiang to check his injuries.

The culprits were the three arrow wounds on his body.

One on the chest, one on the left arm, and one on the abdomen.

The arrows had been pulled out, but later they didn’t receive effective treatment, leading to inflammation and bacterial infection of the wounds.

Triggering symptoms of persistent high fever, leading to coma.

In this situation, his temperature must be lowered first to avoid damaging his brain.

Li Xiao let Dahu and Erhu wipe his body with warm water to cool him down.

He took Tie Tou and others to search from house to house for what he wanted.

Actually, it was easy to find: alcohol and garlic.

Hou Village didn’t lack these two things.

“Brother Da Long? Are we going to use garlic to treat Second Uncle Li’s wounds?”

In a kitchen, Tie Tou and Shou Hou, each holding a bundle of garlic, looked at Li Xiao with skepticism.

Li Xiao walked over holding a jar of wine, placed it on the stove, and said affirmatively: “Garlic can definitely treat wounds.”

“But Second Uncle’s injuries are too severe; whether it can cure him depends on the mood of the Lord of Heaven.”

Li Erjiang’s injuries were very severe, even worse than that teenager from Sanhe Fortress.

Signs of rot had appeared on the wounds. If it were other parts, amputation would be necessary, but it was on the chest.

“Can only treat a dead horse as a living horse doctor!” Li Xiao said helplessly in his heart.

Actually, he didn’t dare guarantee he could really save Second Uncle.

Although his injuries looked scary, fortunately, they didn’t damage internal organs and major arteries, and had long stopped bleeding.

The key problem was infection.

If it were in later generations, a few shots of penicillin would heal the wounds quickly.

But unfortunately, this was the Song-Jin period, more than seven hundred years before penicillin came out!

Facing this kind of infection, the injured only had one outcome: waiting for death.

Seeing Second Uncle’s face devoid of color and falling into a high fever coma again, Li Xiao could be sure that without effective treatment, Second Uncle wouldn’t last a few days.

Although Li Xiao understood the principle and method of making penicillin, the conditions couldn’t be met.

Because culturing bacterial colonies was very troublesome. A little carelessness would cause the colonies to mutate, aggravating the wound infection instead.

Moreover, cultivating penicillin colonies would take at least ten days, which was too late.

Although making penicillin was unrealistic, Li Xiao thought of another substitute.

Allicin!

This is also an antibiotic, and the simplest one to make.

As everyone knows, garlic has certain bactericidal and anti-inflammatory effects, mainly due to the allicin in garlic.

It can kill some bacteria and fungi, reducing the degree of wound infection.

However, compared to the bactericidal and anti-inflammatory effects of penicillin, the function of allicin is far inferior.

Facing severe wound infections, allicin is powerless.

But the advantage is that allicin is easy to extract, the production time is short, and it can be produced in large quantities.

The raw materials are only garlic and high-purity alcohol.

Both things are easy to obtain.

However, a very important tool is needed: a distiller.

This thing existed since the Han Dynasty, basically made of copper.

But a place like Hou Village definitely didn’t have one, and forging one now would be too late.

Li Xiao could only do it himself and make a simple distiller.

“Shou Hou, peel all the garlic, wash it clean with clear water, don’t leave a speck of dirt.”

“Then mash it all up.”

“Tie Tou, go look in the surrounding courtyards to see if there are any hollow ox horns. Also, find a clean piece of sheepskin and a clean cloth.”

“Okay!”

Hearing Li Xiao’s words, the two nodded gently. Although they didn’t understand what Li Xiao was doing, they subconsciously obeyed.

“Garlic, distilled spirits, distiller~” Li Xiao pondered in his heart.

“Hope I can make it!”

It was Li Xiao’s first time using this primitive method to make allicin, and he didn’t have much confidence, so he could only try his luck.

After all, Second Uncle’s injuries were severe; if he didn’t try, he would really die soon.

Soon, Tie Tou found the ox horn, sheepskin, and cloth Li Xiao mentioned.

Then he squatted down to peel garlic with Shou Hou.

Li Xiao’s purpose for wanting this kind of ox horn was simple.

The ox horn was large and hollow inside.

Just right to use as a distillation tube.

Just put the thick end of the hollow ox horn at the mouth of the wine jar, then wrap it tightly with sheepskin, and a simple distiller was made.

Then Li Xiao directly placed this whole jar of wine on the stove and lit the fire to start distillation.

The wine in this era had too many impurities and too low alcohol content.

Purifying allicin required high-concentration strong alcohol; ordinary wine wouldn’t do at all.

Nearly an hour passed. Li Xiao distilled three large jars of wine and finally obtained a small half-jar of strong alcohol.

From this, it could be seen that the alcohol content of wine in this era was pitifully low.

A thousand cups without getting drunk wasn’t difficult.

During this process, Shou Hou and Tie Tou were tending the fire by the side, watching droplets of water dripping from the ox horn.

The two asked with astonishment: “Is this water?”

Li Xiao shook his head and said: “Strong liquor.”

“This is the strongest liquor in the world.”

“Strong liquor?” Tie Tou and Shou Hou widened their eyes.

After getting close and smelling it, they exclaimed: “It really is liquor!”

“The smell is so strong.”

They had stolen their fathers’ wine to drink before, but it was far less strong than the liquor before them.

Li Xiao didn’t explain much but looked at the wooden basin beside him.

At this time, it was full of garlic paste mashed by the two, filling the whole room with a strong garlic smell.

“What do we do next?” Shou Hou asked.

“Let it soak for an hour first,” Li Xiao said.

Soak this garlic paste in the alcohol jar.

Stir evenly and cover with a lid.

Wait for about an hour first; the allicin in the garlic will dissolve into the alcohol.

Then filter out the remaining garlic and impurities, leaving alcohol containing allicin. Then use the distillation method to distill the alcohol out.

What remains is the simplest allicin.

The allicin produced by this method has low purity and is accompanied by the pungent smell of garlic and residual alcohol smell.

The bactericidal and anti-inflammatory effect is average, far inferior to later generations’ penicillin.

But even a mosquito is meat. Without penicillin, allicin is already the best antibiotic.

Even if it can reduce the risk of amputation and death from infection for soldiers a little bit, then this allicin will have contributed greatly.

At worst, compensate for lack of effect with quantity.

After all, the cost of making allicin is very low, and it is easy to produce in large quantities.

The only drawback is that the produced allicin must be used as soon as possible.

Because at room temperature, it only has three hours of activity.

The longer the time, the worse the bactericidal effect.

“Let it soak first.”

“You watch it first; I’ll come back in an hour.”

Li Xiao said to Shou Hou and the other, then left the room. Just now, Luo Meng came to report on the Hou family matter.

Those people in Hou Village all had their hands stained with Hou family blood.

The Hou family was basically wiped out, leaving only women without sons like Huang Xiu’er, and the few masterminds like Hou Tiancai waiting to be cut into a thousand pieces.

(End of this chapter)