Li Ang's dilemma did not last long. He coughed lightly and turned to ask Guan Lishu, "Aunt, do we have any cloth at home? Not silk—just ordinary hemp cloth or cotton fabric will do. And scissors."
"We have them all."
Guan Lishu nodded, turned, and walked into the inner room. Before long, she returned with a piece of hemp cloth and a pair of scissors.
Li Ang had Guan Lishu place the hemp cloth and scissors on the stone table in the courtyard. He then picked up the scissors and cut out a triangular piece of cloth.
Under the curious gaze of the family of three, Li Ang picked up one end of the cloth, wrapped it around the back of the child's neck, and let it hang down to his chest. The other end was pulled down beneath the child's arm. Using the vertical edge of the triangular cloth, he wrapped the recently relocated arm, finally tying the two ends of the cloth together.
Thus, the fracture triangular bandage was completed.
Li Ang stepped back half a pace to observe the effects, nodded in satisfaction, and said, "This bandage needs to be worn for one week. During this time, the child's arm should not be pulled again. He can bathe and sleep normally, but remember to put the bandage on when moving."
He rattled off a slew of medical advice to Pu Liuxuan and Guan Lishu, casually instructing them to drink only boiled water in the future, not unboiled water, among other things.
After finishing his recommendations, Guan Lishu, carrying the groggy child, went back to the house, leaving the master and disciple alone in the courtyard.
SLURP.
Li Ang, thirsty and dry-mouthed, drank a sip of the now-cold tea. There was no denying that Qujiang thin slices tasted excellent—mellow and rich. No wonder they were so expensive; just two small cans probably cost four or five hundred coins. It seemed he needed to find a way to repay Aunt Song's favor...
"Risheng."
Pu Liuxuan's voice interrupted Li Ang's thoughts.
"Master, please speak."
Li Ang set down the teacup and sat up straight.
Pu Liuxuan casually asked, "Where did you learn your bone-setting skills?"
Here it comes.
Li Ang felt a stir in his heart. The bone-setting skills of this era were quite limited; he could not simply claim it was a family tradition.
He cleared his throat and recited the prepared explanation. "I taught myself."
"Self-taught?"
"Yes," Li Ang calmly continued. "As a child, I enjoyed drinking chicken soup, consuming every bit of the chicken meat until only the bones remained. Once, when I was about to throw these bones away, I unexpectedly discovered that many chicken bones had notches and protrusions at either end that connected to each other, forming a whole.
"Those bones that were isolated connected through tendons, cartilage, and muscles. Once I recognized the pattern, I could reassemble a pile of scattered chicken bones into the outline of a chicken.
"Thus, I speculated whether I could use this method to also recreate the skeletal structure of other creatures. I bought dishes made from fish, frogs, turtles, and snakes from a restaurant. After dissecting and taking them apart, I discovered some fascinating things.
"For instance, the hyoid bone of frogs is made of cartilage and does not connect to other bones; the shell of turtles has two layers, inner and outer; the skull of non-venomous snakes is generally oval, while that of venomous snakes is generally triangular..."
He paused for a moment, then slowly said, "After numerous analyses of animal skeletons, I theorized that the experience with animal skeletons might be applicable to humans. Since every bone has its shape and pattern, when dealing with patients with bone injuries, one only needs to set the bones correctly back to their original positions to treat the pain.
"The method I used to treat Ju'er earlier was derived from my own contemplation of my elbow bones. Additionally, I discovered that by gently tapping the area below the kneecap of a crossed leg with a fist, one can make a person involuntarily kick their leg. Although I don't know the reason behind this, it must also be related to the skeleton."
Li Ang crossed his legs in the style of Er Lang and demonstrated the knee-jerk reaction to Pu Liuxuan. It's actually related to neural reflexes, but to impress him, I don't need to sweat the details.
Pu Liuxuan instinctively wanted to cross his legs like Er Lang too but immediately realized that he needed to maintain his dignity as a teacher. Disguising his embarrassment, he coughed lightly and nodded steadily. "Not bad, not bad..."
He nodded, fell silent for a moment, then his face tensed slightly, and he looked at Li Ang seriously and earnestly. "Risheng, have you ever thought about... going to the Academic Palace to study?"
The Academic Palace?!
Li Ang's eyelids twitched violently; the term held a special allure for any person from Yu Country.
Academic Palaces were everywhere—Luoyang's Lizheng Academy, Longxi's Songzhou Academy, the Bailu Academy on the south slope of Lushan—but only one could be referred to without any prefix.
Chang'an Academy.
The history of the Academic Palace could be traced back to Emperor Wen of Sui. When he moved south to destroy the Chen Dynasty, he ended nearly three hundred years of division in the Central Plains. Abroad, he suppressed barbarians; domestically, he established the Three Provinces and Six Ministries, implemented the imperial examination, weakened the noble families, and built a vast academy to the west of Chang'an City to attract talent from all over the land.
The Academic Palace not only taught Confucian classics and poetry but, more importantly, one of its principles was Seeking Truth.
To obtain knowledge through investigating things, things must be investigated before knowledge can be attained.
Guided by this principle, the Academic Palace focused on studying the principles of heaven and earth, aiming to benefit the populace. Its scholars studied astronomy, examined geography, collected biological specimens, compiled atlases and records, researched mathematics, and improved the processes of iron forging, textile production, dyeing, oil extraction, sugar making, bridge building, and paper making.
It was the existence of the Academic Palace that allowed the Former Sui to endure for a century. Even before its last Emperor was assassinated—an event that subsequently gave rise to eighteen rebel factions and widespread turmoil—the Former Sui still boasted a population of two hundred million.
After the fall of the Former Sui, Yu Country, inheriting most of the Former Sui's legacy, not only kept the Academic Palace but expanded it, making it a pivotal support of Yu Country's rule.
Consider the ever-unobstructed waterways of Yizhou City, the heavy cargo ships on its rivers, the sweets commoners enjoyed, the coal in every home, the bound books scholars read (a shift from the Scroll Books of the Former Sui and early Yu Country), the delicate and hard-to-forge coins, and the unique flying money. All these things—the food, goods, and clothing of the Yu Country people—were intricately linked to the Academic Palace.
That Academic Palace was a temple of knowledge and reason, a fountainhead of invention and creation.
"I have... thought about it," Li Ang said. "But, it seems very strict... I read in the newspapers that the Academic Palace only accepts a few hundred people each year.
"If students from Yu Country wish to be admitted, they need to compete against all their peers from the ten circuits' over six hundred State Mansions. In the annual provincial exams held in each State Mansion, only the top ten qualify to advance.
"Even after advancing, they must go to Chang'an to compete with the nobles from Chang'an City, who received the best education since childhood, vying for one of the few admission spots—roughly one in ten are chosen.
"Moreover, once a student is over eighteen years old, they automatically lose the qualification to enter the Academic Palace."
Yu Country's population had already exceeded sixty million households—four hundred million people—and the Academic Palace only admitted a few hundred suitable young men and women each year.
This level of competition... was more brutal in Li Ang's memory from the Otherworld than thousands of students vying for a spot over a single-log bridge in their college entrance examination.