Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 549 - 492: Myocardium

Chapter 549: Chapter 492: Myocardium
"Cough, cough—"
Li Leqing lay on the sickbed, coughing with difficulty.
Her face was flushed red and her breathing was rapid. She clutched a Liliang Talisman meant for cold compresses, which was already soaked with cold sweat from her palm.
Li Ang stood silently at the door, watching her. Then, in a low voice, he asked Li Hui, "When did it start?"
"Just an hour ago,"
Li Hui replied. "She first said her chest felt a bit stuffy and asked the maid to open the window for air. Then, just a short while ago, she started to cough, which was soon accompanied by shivers and difficulty breathing. The coughing has been persistent."
Li Ang asked, "Is she coughing up blood?"
"Not yet,"
Li Hui replied in a low voice. "Dr. Qiu has already taken her blood sample for testing..."
Before he could finish, Qiu Feng rushed over and handed a test to Li Ang, his voice grim, "We’ve tested sputum and blood. It’s the plague."
...
The corridor of the Governor Mansion fell silent instantaneously.
Li Hui’s palm, pressed against the wall, clenched slightly, his fingertips digging into the wooden surface.
Disregarding the splinters piercing his palm and drawing blood, he asked anxiously, "She should be okay, right? I’ve seen patients who were given streptomycin get significantly better. They improve very quickly."
"She’ll be okay,"
Li Ang paused for a moment before saying. "The cure rate of streptomycin for the plague is over ninety percent.
"In many of the remaining cases, it’s because the disease progressed too rapidly and the drug was administered too late.
"She’s only just fallen ill, so there’s a great hope for recovery.
"Get all the maids who took care of Le Ling earlier, and have everyone undergo a blood test. Those who need to be isolated for observation must be quarantined.
"Dr. Qiu, go get the streptomycin injections.
"I’m going in to see her."
He took a mask from his pocket, stepped into the room, closed the door behind him, and pulled up a chair beside Li Leqing’s bed.
"Cough, cough."
Li Leqing tried to say something, but she started coughing again.
She covered her mouth with her left hand and turned her head slightly to look at Li Ang, her voice hoarse with distress. "Am I very useless? I only took off my mask for a short while the day before yesterday, and I got infected.
"I’ve troubled everyone."
"Not at all. If it weren’t for you, we might already have been forced to flee to another State Mansion, and the specific treatment wouldn’t have emerged so soon."
Li Ang shook his head, speaking softly. "Besides, the plague is unpredictable; it’s no one’s fault."
He reached out to hold Li Leqing’s hand. His brow furrowed slightly the moment he touched the young girl’s palm.
So hot.
He pulled out talisman paper from his bosom and wrote several Cooling Wind Charms on the spot, sticking them at the head of the bed so that the cooler air would gently waft over Li Leqing.
He also replaced the soggy talisman in her hand with a fresh Liliang Talisman.
Li Leqing lay flat on the bed, her gaze tenderly fixed on Li Ang’s actions, and she asked softly, "How are things with the Wang Family?"
Li Ang paused his actions briefly, then touched her forehead as if nothing were amiss, and answered, "Some were executed, some were captured.
"The main culprits have been put to death.
"I had people publish the confessions of the Wang clan in the newspapers to proclaim their crimes to the world.
"I reckon once the lockdown is over, the remaining members of the Wang Family will have no face to show the people of Taiyuan Prefecture.
"They will probably all leave Taiyuan Prefecture and settle down elsewhere.
"There will be no more Taiyuan Wang Family in the world."
"Um..."
Li Leqing slowly nodded. She knew things were definitely not as simple as Li Ang had said. Last night, the Governor Mansion was brightly lit, with many cultivators from the Supervision Department wearing black gauze cone hats arriving.
It was clearly to prevent the desperate Taiyuan Wang Family from taking extreme measures.
The reality of "persuading" the Wang Family to confess must have been much more severe than what Li Ang described.
After thinking for a moment, she said softly, "Because of my illness, can you promise not to be too harsh on those Wang Family members who were unaware?
"Now that this incident has escalated to such an extent, the other noble families will see you as the knife used by Father and the Mountain Master for internal matters.
"The common people trust you and will follow your lead. Whomever you declare a bad person, they will believe is a bad person.
"Many people are afraid of this, including those in the Academic Palace and the imperial court.
"You should occasionally consider the opinions of others..."
Perhaps due to the fever, Li Leqing spoke much more than usual.
"Don’t think about such complicated things. Getting better is more important than anything else."
Li Ang said with a smile, "Come, give me your jewelry. You’re going to get an injection and an intravenous saline drip later."
Li Leqing wore many protective magic artifacts. Unless she willingly removed them, external objects like syringe needles could not harm her.
She obediently unfastened her necklace, bracelets, and jade pendant, handing them all to Li Ang.
Li Ang placed these items in a wooden box on the table and then held Li Leqing’s hand again.
An enormous amount of ultra-fine Mo Si gently infiltrated the skin of her palm, reaching into her blood vessels to check her condition even more meticulously.
To avoid alerting Li Leqing, Li Ang continued to chat. "When you’re well and we return to Chang’an, the backlog of lessons and homework will probably pile up to the skies."
"Uh, surely it won’t be that bad? Isn’t this a case of force majeure?"
"The Academic Palace doesn’t recognize ’force majeure,’ you know. Even during the chaos of the Late Sui era, when the Academic Palace was forced to flee Chang’an City, they still sent homework to all the students, requiring them to complete it. At most, they granted extensions.
"This led to the saying, ’As long as you don’t die from studying, study yourself to death.’"
Li Ang laughed. "Fortunately, I study Mind Study, which allows for multi-tasking. I can even control more than a dozen pens at the same time, so I should finish very qui—"
His words stopped abruptly. His pupils dilated instantly as he slowly added the last word, "—ckly."
In the microscopic world invisible to the naked eye, the Mo Si had silently spread throughout Li Leqing’s body.
She had indeed been infected with the plague; the plague bacteria had traveled along the lymphatic vessels to the local lymph nodes, causing lymphadenitis.
However, besides the lymphadenitis, another area was also afflicted.
The heart.
The myocardial echocardiogram was uneven, the left ventricle was enlarged, diastolic filling was abnormal, and cardiac troponin levels were elevated.
Myocarditis...
Li Ang’s left hand clenched slightly. The etiology of myocarditis can be divided into two types. One includes infectious factors such as bacteria, fungi, protozoa, parasites, and viruses. The other includes non-infectious factors like autoantigens, physical damage, and drugs.
The most common type of myocarditis is viral myocarditis, which is a self-limiting disease. In other words, after developing to a certain extent, the body can self-regulate, control the progression of the disease, and gradually recover. The treatment method is also usually supportive therapy. This primarily relies on the body’s own immune function to eliminate the virus causing the disease and reduce inflammation. Medications play an auxiliary role.
The problem was that Li Leqing herself had an innate heart condition. She had only survived this long because her parents, when she was a child, spared no expense, searching the world over for rare medicines for her.
Could her condition really be kept under control...?