NOVEL NEXT Chapter 226: Kimchi
The Turkic youths in the audience cheered loudly for Galuo's victory. In contrast, Dou Chi and the others looked displeased, leaving Ashide Tumen caught awkwardly between the two groups.
Afterward, teachers, including Xue Che, selected several more pairs to demonstrate their skills. Li Wei was also called up and, leveraging his height and arm-length advantage, defeated his opponent.
At the end of the class, Xue Che announced a new regulation: the large venue in the corner of the Martial Arts Arena would soon be opened to lower-grade students. The venue contained several platforms, each equipped with high-level Protective Talismans capable of defending against harm from weapons, Telekinesis, Flying Swords, and more. Academic Palace Disciples and foreign students could apply to use the venue. This would allow them to hone their Martial Arts without fear of injury and prepare for the upcoming competitions.
During this academic exchange, activities would be held for various courses, including Talismanic Sword Thought Body, Natural Science, Military Studies, and Hundred Beasts. These activities would be staggered. Once they officially began, each participant would earn scores based on their performance. The scoring system, reportedly, was jointly developed by Chao Wen Yuan and Doctors of Mathematics from other countries. It was designed to ensure both comprehensiveness and fairness. This system would prevent scenarios where someone who participated in ten events and consistently ranked in the top ten could be beaten by another who participated in twenty events and consistently ranked in the top hundred.
After the physical education class, Li Wei and others, still eager for more, headed to the large venue to continue their sparring. Li Ang, with no more classes, first went to the laboratory building to pick something up and then returned to the Golden City Mansion with Chai Chai.
***
"Young Master, did you know? This academic exchange isn't only between academies; even the culinary world has gotten involved." Chai Chai took out stacks of dishes from the food container, saying excitedly, "Those foreign delegations, perhaps worried they wouldn't acclimate to the food and water in Yu Country, all brought their own chefs. As a result, none of them suffered from any issues of acclimatization or dietary indigestion. So those foreign chefs simply started exchanging their culinary arts with our Academic Palace cafeteria chefs. They actually use rose petals in their cooking, and they brought a type of red onion spice—if you cut it and hold it a short distance from your eyes, it makes you cry involuntarily."
Li Ang pondered for a moment. Onions? Then, he took out two small glass jars from his bag.
During the Han dynasty, Zhang Qian was dispatched to the Western Regions, opening up the Silk Road and bringing back crops like pomegranates, grapes, cucumbers, and garlic. Later, many other plants, such as eggplants, pigeon peas, and mangoes, entered the Central Plains via the land-based Silk Road and maritime trade routes. Onions are a good item; one day, I'll stop by the cafeteria to see if I can get some for a dish of stir-fried onions and eggs.
Chai Chai noticed the floating cucumber and white radish slices in the jars. "Huh?" she asked curiously. "Is this... pickled vegetables?"
"Yes," Li Ang nodded. "Pickled vegetables," he explained, "are vegetables lacto-fermented in a low-concentration saline solution. Lactic acid fermentation inhibits spoilage microorganisms, allowing the vegetables to be stored for extended periods. This makes them especially popular and historically significant in the Central Plains."
Li Ang's mother used to make them often, and Chai Chai really enjoyed them. Now, every winter, their family prepared some.
Li Ang opened one of the jars. "But these aren't ordinary pickled vegetables," he said, using chopsticks to take out two cucumber strips. "Give them a try."
Chai Chai bit down, chewed for a while, and a puzzled expression appeared on her face. "It feels... especially crunchy? How long did you pickle it, Young Master?"
"Less than a quarter of an hour." Li Ang smiled slightly. "I used a vacuum pump."
"Huh?" That circulating water vacuum pump was on the first floor of the laboratory building; she saw it every day. But how could pickles be related to a vacuum pump?
Li Ang explained, "Common pickles are made by fermenting vegetables in low-concentration brine. During this process, lactic acid bacteria grow, lowering the pH value. This, in turn, restricts the reproduction of harmful bacteria, eventually leading to their death. The lactic acid bacteria then dominate, continuously metabolizing lactic acid, thus achieving a preservative effect.
"However, in the early stages of fermentation, bacteria from the Enterobacteriaceae family and fungi are still present. Their nitrate reductase converts nitrates into nitrites. Even though the nitrites are degraded in the later stages of fermentation, there is still a peak in nitrite content during this process. Improper pickling or premature consumption could be harmful to humans. It might cause poisoning or increase the risk of cancer."
"Cancer?" Chai Chai tilted her head curiously.
"A disease that currently cannot be cured," Li Ang said casually. "As for these pickles, I just threw cucumber and white radish strips into an open container and poured in the pickling brine. Then I placed the container in a glass vacuum chamber and used the circulating water vacuum pump to evacuate it. This way, the air inside the vegetable strips is forced out through small pores on their surface, allowing the brine to permeate directly and replace the original air and water. It only takes a few minutes to achieve the permeation effect of several days, even up to a week. This provides a flavor similar to traditional pickling, but the texture is much crunchier. And you don't have to worry about nitrites."
Li Ang tapped the glass jar with his chopsticks. "I'll do some more research on how to get the vegetables to achieve that soft, well-marinated texture. If I succeed, we'll eat these this winter."
"Oh." Chai Chai nodded somewhat understandingly, her cheeks inexplicably flushed. Winter was approaching. Was Young Master worried she might get sick from eating spoiled pickled vegetables, so he specially developed this technique for her?
Leaving Chai Chai to her quiet gratitude, Li Ang used Telekinesis to take out the dishes from the food container and arrange the bowls and chopsticks.
After they finished dinner and cleaned the dishes with Telekinesis, Chai Chai was writing homework in the study room, while Li Ang was in the living room, studying a large piece of pork.
Qiu Feng's words echoed in his mind: direct Mind Threads into the Body, use Telekinesis to examine the internal conditions, achieving effects similar to an endoscope, or even tomographic scanning...
Advancing medicine had always been Li Ang's ideal. If this path proved viable, it could greatly propel the medical development of Yu Country. He knew that in the Otherworld, X-rays were discovered in 1895 by the German physicist William Röntgen, and the world's first X-ray image—of his wife—was also taken in December of the same year. CT technology appeared in 1967. In 1982, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was officially introduced for clinical use. The electronic endoscope emerged in 1983. If development proceeded conventionally, who knew when Yu Country would possess similar technologies to visualize diseased organs beneath the skin without harming it. Telekinesis Imaging technology could be a massive accelerator for medicine; it absolutely had to be realized.