Chapter 145: Testing the New Medicine
Chapter 145: Testing the New Medicine
Li Zian spent a full three hours refining the Movement-Halting Ointment and the Body-Poisoning Ointment.
Two medicinal plasters appeared in the toolbox. Both were about the size of a bar of soap. The pink one was the Movement-Halting Ointment, and the green one was the Body-Poisoning Ointment.
In the room, Li Zian put on the Mechanism Ring specially made for him by Tang Qing. He pressed the mechanism button to make the Alloy Barb pop out. Then he carefully dipped it into the Movement-Halting Ointment.
For the dinner event that night, if Pan Renlong took any action against him, he would strike first. He would use the Mechanism Ring smeared with Movement-Halting Ointment to stab Pan Renlong once, then overpower him.
Maybe another test subject would show up too, Huang Bo.
With the Mechanism Ring coated in toxic ointment, he felt fully confident he could overpower Huang Bo if he appeared again.
Li Zian retracted the Alloy Barb on the Mechanism Ring and closed the toolbox.
Tang Qing’s toolbox wasn’t ready yet. He needed to store these poisonous plasters in a bulletproof toolbox once she finished, to keep them safe. After all, with kids at home, they were an unsafe factor.
But this couldn’t be rushed. Careful work takes time, so he didn’t hurry Tang Qing.
Beep beep.
His mobile phone received a WeChat message.
King Kong Lolita: I bought the rabbits you wanted. When will you come?
Li Zian replied: I’ll come right away.
Three minutes later, he arrived at Mu Chuntao’s house with a small medicine box on his back. The door was unlocked, and he opened it with a light push. After entering, he reached out to shut the door, passed through the foyer, and went into the living room.
Mu Chuntao was crouched on the floor, looking at two wire cages. Inside the cages were two rabbits. They were fat and big, probably weighing several pounds each.
Mu Chuntao heard the sound but didn’t turn her head to look at Li Zian. It seemed she knew he had arrived, but the rabbits were more interesting to her.
Li Zian walked over and crouched down beside her.
“Have you finished refining your medicinal plaster?” Mu Chuntao asked.
Li Zian said, “I have. Let me test it.”
Mu Chuntao suddenly reached out and grabbed Li Zian’s arm. She said pitifully, “Brother Zian, could you not kill them? They’re so cute.”
Li Zian said softly, “This time, I didn’t make a healing medicinal plaster. It’s a poisonous one. I can’t test it on people. So I have to use rabbits for the experiment.”
Mu Chuntao pouted, looking wronged.
Li Zian moved close to her ear and whispered, “If you can’t bear to watch, then don’t look. Go back to your room. I’ll come find you after I finish testing.”
Mu Chuntao nodded. But she turned to the two rabbits in the cage and said, “I don’t want you to die either. But if I hadn’t bought you, the restaurant cook would have slaughtered you. Please don’t blame me, okay?”
Li Zian hadn’t felt anything about these rabbits before. Hearing her words, he actually felt a bit guilty now, which left him bewildered.
“At least, you two will keep your whole bodies, right?” Mu Chuntao said to the two rabbits again.
Li Zian: “…”
Mu Chuntao added to Li Zian, “Brother Zian, when it’s time to act, could you be gentle with them?”
Li Zian had a bit of a headache. But still, he nodded.
Only then did Mu Chuntao let go of Li Zian’s hand and go upstairs.
Li Zian opened the cage. With his right thumb, he pressed the mechanism button on the Mechanism Ring. The Alloy Barb instantly popped out from the gap in the center of the ring face. Every millimeter of the barb had a small hole, each filled with a tiny bit of Movement-Halting Ointment. The body of the barb also had some pink Movement-Halting Ointment stuck to it.
The rabbit in the cage saw the door open and immediately tried to run out.
Li Zan didn’t try to block the rabbit. Instead, just as it darted out of the cage, he used the back of his right hand to slap its bottom. At that exact moment, the five-millimeter-long barb stabbed into the rabbit’s bottom.
The rabbit ran away.
Li Zian looked at the barb on the ring. There was no blood on the Alloy Barb. But the pink ointment smeared on the barb and in the small holes had disappeared.
It melted on contact with blood. That was a feature of the Movement-Halting Ointment.
Li Zian shifted his gaze to the rabbit. It had run about two meters away. As he watched, it suddenly fell to the ground and lay completely still.
The Movement-Halting Ointment had worked.
From poisoning to the effect kicking in, only two seconds had passed.
And this was because it was stabbed in the bottom. The bottom had thick muscles with slow blood flow. If it had been stabbed near the heart, the toxic effect would have kicked in faster.
Of course, this toxicity was just for rabbits. As fellow mammals, humans had much stronger resistance and tolerance. If this were done to a person, it would probably take several seconds to cause numbness.
Li Zian walked over to the fallen rabbit and placed his hand on its heart area. The rabbit’s heart was thumping wildly, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. It felt very confused.
Zhenqi shot out from his fingertip and entered the rabbit’s body.
The zhenqi went out, then came back. It brought information from inside the rabbit’s body.
Li Zian quickly found that though the rabbit was numbed and fallen, losing control of its body, its brain was unusually active.
This was the hallucination reaction.
But he couldn’t tell what hallucination a rabbit was having.
Maybe it was seeing one carrot. Or maybe it was seeing hundreds of carrots.
Li Zian pulled back his hand. He went to the other wire cage. Before opening it, he carefully cleaned the barb with a disinfectant wipe. Even though the Movement-Halting Ointment melted on blood contact, he wanted a more accurate test result. So he decided to clean it.
After wiping the barb, Li Zian opened the toolbox. He took out the Body-Poisoning Ointment sealed in a soap box. Then he dipped the barb into the green paste.
The barb on the ring was now coated in green Body-Poisoning Ointment. Each of the five small holes was also filled with it.
Li Zian opened the second wire cage. The rabbit inside had been waiting for this chance. As soon as the cage opened, it pushed off with all four legs and dashed out.
Li Zian used the back of his right hand to slap the rabbit on its back.
The second rabbit ran to the side of the first one. It nudged the first rabbit with its mouth, as if trying to get its buddy to get up and play.
But the first rabbit didn’t respond at all.
The second rabbit stopped caring about its friend. It ran around the living room, looking very lively.
Li Zian watched its response. He glanced at the time on his mobile phone every so often.
After a full quarter of an hour, the rabbit finally calmed down. It squatted on the ground.
Li Zian grabbed a small apple from the fruit tray on the tea table. He slowly walked over to the rabbit and placed the apple in front of it.
But the rabbit just stared at the apple without moving.
Li Zian put his hand on the rabbit’s rib cage. Zhenqi flowed out from his finger, moved around inside the rabbit’s body, and then returned to him. It brought information about the rabbit’s internal state.
This rabbit’s heartbeat was very slow. Its nerves were messed up, and its organs were starting to fail. It could die any moment.
Li Zian pulled his hand back. Just after he did that, the rabbit closed its eyes and its head drooped down.
From poisoning to death, the second rabbit took about seventeen or eighteen minutes. Of course, this was just for rabbits. If used on a person, the poisoning time would definitely be longer.
Li Zian got rid of the dead rabbit. He put the rabbit that had used the Movement-Halting Ointment back into the wire cage.
The Movement-Halting Ointment wasn’t deadly poison. It was for numbness and hallucinations. He needed to see if this rabbit would die.
After closing the cage, Li Zian went upstairs.
The door to Mu Chuntao’s bedroom was slightly open. It could be pushed open easily. But after that awkward last time, Li Zian knocked on the door instead.
“I’m not here,” said Mu Chuntao’s voice from inside the room.
Li Zian smiled. He pushed the door open and went in.
Mu Chuntao was lying on her side on her bed. She wore a short red dress and black mesh stockings on her long legs. It was an indescribably alluring look.
Beside her was a plate of sunflower seeds. When Li Zian entered, she was cracking them open and eating them with a crunch.
“What about the rabbits?” Mu Chuntao asked.
Li Zian said, “One has died. One is still sedated. I put the one that was sedated back in the cage. I think it will survive.”
“What should I do with the one that lives?”
Li Zian said with a smile, “I’ll take it with me when I leave. I’ll put it in the greenbelt by the road. It’ll be like setting it free.”
Mu Chuntao gave Li Zian a thumbs up. “Kill one rabbit, save another. Master, you’re really something.”
Li Zian: “…”
Mu Chuntao patted the empty spot beside her and said with a smile, “Why are you still standing? Come on, let’s eat sunflower seeds.”
Li Zian smiled, put down his toolbox, and walked over.
The two ate sunflower seeds together.
When Mu Chuntao ate alone, the sound of eating sunflower seeds was a “crunch, crunch” sound.
When Li Zian joined her and they ate sunflower seeds together, the sound changed, turning into a “crackle, crackle” sound.
“One, two, three, four…”
“You’re tricking me, hmm…”
“Five, six, seven, eight…”
“You’re cheating, I won’t do this, hmph.”
Ring-ring, ring-ring…
Li Zian suddenly froze.
Mu Chuntao froze too.
Ring-ring, ring-ring…
The mobile phone kept ringing, making them feel pressured.
“Shh.” Li Zian made a sound.
Mu Chuntao nodded knowingly.
Li Zian tried to get up, but Mu Chuntao held him down, so he had to reach into his pants pocket and pull out his mobile phone. When he saw it, he immediately tensed up.
It was Yu Meilin calling.
Should he answer or not?
Ring-ring, ring-ring…
Somehow, Li Zian swiped the answer button. “Hello?”
“Zian, a friend invited me to eat out tonight, so I won’t be home for dinner.”
“Hmm.” Li Zian nervously glanced at Mu Chuntao, worried she might make a sound.
But Mu Chuntao deliberately opened her mouth wide, acting like she might make noise at any moment. He suddenly felt this was the hardest phone call he had ever received.
Fortunately, Mu Chuntao was just teasing him and didn’t make any noise.
“Why did it take so long to answer?” Yu Meilin’s voice asked.
“Oh, I was testing new medicine. My hands had medicine on them, so I had to wash them before I could pick up the phone,” Li Zian said, secretly proud of his quick thinking.
“Today, you…”
“What about me?”
“You seem a bit strange. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, what could be wrong? Do you need anything else? If not, I’ll hang up now—I still have to test the new medicine,” Li Zian said.
“Alright, go ahead with your work.” Yu Meilin hung up.
Mu Chuntao giggled. “Scared you, didn’t I?”
Li Zian put down his mobile phone and said with a laugh, “When people get scared, their legs go weak. Are my legs weak? When people get scared, they tremble. Am I trembling?”
“Your legs aren’t weak, but you were trembling.”
“Was I trembling?”
“Almost.”
“Stop it, I want to eat more sunflower seeds.”
“They’re all right here; you can eat as much as you want.”
“One, two…”
“You’re really going to keep eating?”
“Three, four…”
“Stop counting, hmph!”