Chapter 2278 - 1474: The Great Dao Is Simple (Part 2)

Chapter 2278: Chapter 1474: The Great Dao Is Simple (Part 2)

Yang Ping read the test results twice, then walked to the bedside and spoke in a very calm voice. "Xiaoyu, the blood test results are out, white blood cells are a bit high, indicating that your body is reacting to something. We still need to wait for a few more indicators before we can determine exactly what it is. But no matter what, we have a way to handle it. You can rest assured."

Lin Xiaoyu opened her eyes and nodded.

Yang Ping turned and walked out of the ward, Lu Xiaolu followed. They stopped in the corridor, Yang Ping folded the test results and placed them in the pocket of his White Gown. "PCT is normal, essentially ruling out severe bacterial infection. PCT in viral infection is also not usually high, but white blood cells in viral infections typically do not rise to thirteen thousand unless accompanied by bacterial infection. Another possibility is an immune response. The immune activation effect of K Therapy manifests in a high fever and systemic inflammatory response in a small number of patients."

Xu Zhiliang hadn’t spoken, Lu Xiaolu opened his mouth and asked, "So what do we do now?"

"Two plans concurrently. First, symptomatic treatment, using antipyretics to control temperature, making the Patient more comfortable, and reducing the body’s consumption from high fever. Second, close observation, measuring temperature, Blood Pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate every hour, recording any new symptoms. Third, waiting for blood culture results to rule out bacteraemia. Fourth, if the fever does not subside or any new neurological symptoms appear, be prepared to perform an emergency head CT."

"And the Tumor treatment? The eighth infusion was originally scheduled for three days later."

"Postponed. Once the fever subsides, and inflammation indicators decrease, re-evaluate." Yang Ping paused, his tone unchanged, "Treatment is not about completing a fixed schedule, but about making the Patient better."

Lu Xiaolu quickly wrote in the notebook, closed it, and looked up at Yang Ping: "Professor, I’ll go arrange it."

Yang Ping did not return to the Institute. He sat in the doctor’s office with a Journal flipped open halfway in front of him, but he wasn’t looking at it. His gaze fell outside the window, on the ginkgo trees, on the sparrows hopping between the branches, on the blurred outline of the skyline in the distance, but he wasn’t really looking at anything.

He was thinking about a matter, a matter he had thought about before but never seriously addressed. Treating Tumors, using adenovirus carrying K Factor to infect Tumor Cells and then cause apoptosis of Tumor Cells, the idea is correct, and the data has proven effective for a considerable number of patients. But after a large number of Tumor Cells die, they become foreign bodies that the body needs to process, so the Immune system is activated to clear these identifiable foreign bodies. Would the Immune system attack normal tissues once it’s activated? Would it cause unnecessary collateral damage while killing the Tumor? It definitely would! This is also one of the core contents of K Therapy iteration, and so far this side effect has been very mild.

He picked up his phone and sent Weber a message: "Lin Xiaoyu has a fever, thirty-eight point seven. PCT is normal, CRP is elevated, possibly an immune response. I need to re-evaluate the collateral impact of K Therapy’s immune activation on the human body."

After a few minutes, Weber replied, not with text, but with a voice message. Yang Ping clicked to listen, Weber’s voice came from the smartphone speaker, mixed with the background noise of a Laboratory, the low hum of a centrifuge, and the occasional spring recoil of a pipette: "If immune activation is the core of the problem, can we continue to improve, limiting the immune response to the local site rather than causing systemic inflammation? Tissue-specific expression of receptor X may solve this problem. If we can restrict receptor X’s activation within Tumor Tissue, or limit it to the area of damage, the Immune system would only attack targets and not mistakenly hit allies. Directional activation, not systemic activation."

Yang Ping listened to the voice message and did not reply. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and went over Weber’s words in his mind three times. Tissue-specific expression of receptor X, directional activation, local rather than systemic.

One and a half hours later, Lin Xiaoyu’s temperature dropped to thirty-seven point five. The antipyretic took effect. Lu Xiaolu handed the new temperature record to Yang Ping, his tone a bit more relaxed than before. "The blood culture results have not come out yet, but CRP has not risen further, remaining around forty-five. Vital Signs are stable with no neurological symptoms."

Yang Ping stood up, walked to the ward door, and glanced inside through the window. Lin Xiaoyu was already asleep, her breathing steady, her complexion still a bit red but much better than before. Her mother sat by the bedside, holding her hand, gazing out the window, lost in thought.

Yang Ping watched for a moment, then turned and left.

He returned to the Laboratory, the sky had begun to darken, the corridor lights were on, casting a somewhat yellow glow on the beige walls. He walked into the office, sat down at the desk, took out the old experiment notebook from the drawer, flipped to the latest page, wrote down today’s date, and then wrote a few lines:

"Lin Xiaoyu feverish, 38.7℃. Cause pending investigation. Possibly triggered by immune activation. Weber proposed receptor X directional activation strategy. This is a new direction. Systemic activation has risks, local activation is a better solution. If we can restrict the immune activation effect of K Therapy to the Tumor’s local area, side effects would be greatly reduced, and efficacy might be better."

He finished writing these lines, read them again, then closed the notebook and put it back in the drawer.

The next morning, when Yang Ping walked into Lin Xiaoyu’s ward, she was already sitting on the bed having breakfast. One bowl of millet porridge, one boiled egg, half a corn on the cob, all eaten cleanly. Her complexion had returned to normal, her eyes were bright, and upon seeing him enter, she proactively greeted him.

"Professor Yang, I’m feeling better."

"Do you still feel dizzy?"

"Not anymore, after the fever broke, I felt completely relaxed."

Yang Ping checked her bedside medical records, her temperature was stable the previous night, no fevers had recurred. This morning’s blood count showed white blood cells had decreased to eight thousand five, neutrophils decreased to seventy-five percent, CRP decreased to twenty-two, all indicators were moving in a positive direction. He put down the medical records, sat beside her bed, and informed her of the upcoming plans: "The eighth infusion will proceed as scheduled, but we will slightly adjust the plan. The dosage remains the same, but before infusion, we will add an anti-inflammatory drug to prevent systemic reactions from immune activation. This drug is not to suppress immunity, but to regulate it, making the Immune system’s attack more precise, more controllable."

"Will it affect the effect?" Lin Xiaoyu asked.

"In theory, it shouldn’t. But we won’t know the actual effect until we do it."

"Then let’s do it," Lin Xiaoyu said.

Yang Ping watched her as she picked up a piece of corn, took a bite, chewed twice, and swallowed, the action very natural and smooth, like the process a healthy person would go through eating breakfast.

"How many more treatments do you need?" she asked.

"Depends, could be three more, or five more. As long as it’s effective, we’ll continue until the Tumor disappears completely."

"And what after the Tumor completely disappears?"

"Afterward, we still need to observe for a while, do regular follow-ups to confirm it doesn’t grow back."

Lin Xiaoyu nodded, picked up the spoon, and took a sip of porridge. Her movement was stable. Yang Ping suddenly realized her hand wasn’t trembling anymore. He remembered clearly, when he first met her, she couldn’t hold a cup steadily, needing both hands to hold it, her fingers trembling slightly.

The building was quiet, there was no one in the corridor, most people were busy in their respective labs. He passed by Weber’s Laboratory, the door was open, Weber wasn’t there. Passed by Manstein’s Laboratory, the door was closed, through the glass window he could see him seated in front of the computer, with rows of mass spectrometry data on the screen. He did not enter to disturb, instead went upstairs to his office.

After sitting down, he did not rush to handle emails or open the experiment notebook, just sat on the chair. He suddenly recalled a message, picked up his mobile phone, opened the chat record with Sisi, scrolled to the message she sent, and read it again: "The arrangement order of Hox genes on the chromosome is consistent with their expression position order along the embryonic body axis... The linear sequence of genes directly corresponds to the three-dimensional spatial structure of the embryo."

He put down his phone, leaned back against the chair.

One dimension is three dimensions, development is repair, construction is maintenance, activation is suppression. These seemingly opposing things are unified in a deeper sense. It’s not some mysterious force, just the optimal solution evolved over billions of years of trial and error. He had spent so many years separating them into four different studies, only to now realize they are actually one.