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Moreover, many academies in Milan reached out to her, hoping she would lead lectures and demonstrations like she had at the Florence Academy, bringing further enlightenment to them.
While browsing bookstores, Hedy came across a replica of On the Four Elements, the text's writing clear and familiar.
—It really is quite popular.
She suddenly had an idea and, while the workshop was expanding and fulfilling orders, she began to think about transcribing all the content she remembered from before.
The memos she had written in modern English and German years ago had accumulated into several small notebooks, which she had brought with her and was now in the process of organizing and transcribing.
It was undeniable that, after living in an Italian-speaking environment for so long, her English was rapidly deteriorating, while her French had become much more fluent.
Some of the new American terms now seemed both absurd and real when she recalled them.
She flipped through the pages, reading her notes and organizing an outline, trying to uncover various clues.
A somewhat unfamiliar word jumped out at her:
litmus.
"Litmus test" means a touchstone or a trial, but this word was circled, clearly suggesting it had another meaning.
This note was written four years ago on Christmas Eve, and she could hardly remember what had happened back then.
But litmus also referred to a plant—lichens.
Hedy sat the whole afternoon, and finally, she recalled something that happened nearly seventy years ago.
In chemistry class, she had once heard about a fascinating experiment.
A purple powder, when dissolved in water, turned into a beautiful light purple.
But if an acidic solution was added, the liquid in the test tube would turn red.
Add an alkaline solution, and it would turn blue again.
This was the most interesting part—this liquid exhibited three distinct properties, and it seemed related to that plant.
Hedy wasn’t sure what the plant looked like, so she had to go tothe library to search through ancient texts.
Fortunately, besides the usual, dull, and tedious theological works, there were many books on nature and animals, well-preserved in the library.
She forced herself to read the not-so-friendly Greek and Italian, cross-referencing key terms translated from the dictionary with corresponding illustrations or sentences.
It took her about a week before she finally found the relevant description.
"Scaly, plate-like… red fruit… decayed wood…"
In this old book, which was so dusty it made her sneeze multiple times, she found the explanation.
There was a lichen-like plant that grew on rocks and decayed wood throughout the year, bearing bright red fruit, with deep green or blackish leaves.
When this plant was crushed, it released a light purple liquid, which also seemed to have hemostatic properties.
A note was added beside it: "Touching may cause poisoning."
Hedy, by the light of the oil lamp, sketched the plant based on this description from the book, and then, with a newly bought knight's novel in hand, she returned home.
Dechio raised the invitation letter he had received earlier when he saw her return.
