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Qingmengshi (Green Calcareous Schist)
Its color is greenish-blue, entering the Liver meridian. Its taste is salty and cold, possessing moistening and purgative properties (moistening and guiding downward). It is calcined with Yanxiao (Saltpeter), resolving the sticky nature of phlegm accumulation. (Qingmengshi is a stone that excels at resolving old phlegm and fixed accumulations; its nature is heavy, sinking, and descending. For phlegm floating on water, applying powder causes the phlegm to descend with the water. Calcining it with Huoxiao (Fire Saltpeter) utilizes its dispersing and draining nature, making the efficacy of Mengshi more potent. It enters the Liver exclusively, treating convulsions, epilepsy, and sticky phlegm-saliva that does not resolve, based on the principles that "salty softens hardness" and "heavy suppresses pathogenic factors.")

Huairushi (Flower Porphyry Stone)
The sour taste enters the Liver, eliminating blood stasis and transforming fluid retention. The warm nature treats external conditions, astringing wounds and generating flesh. (Huairushi has the property of astringing blood while simultaneously transforming blood into fluid, similar to military tactics of gathering enemies before attacking. For traumatic bleeding, scraping the powder and applying it promotes healing, following this same principle.)

Shiyan (Edible Salt)
It travels through the Blood level, possessing salty and cold properties. It clears heat and unblocks stagnation. Entering the Kidney, it has moistening and purgative effects. Ingestion can induce vomiting, and it resolves gu poison. It dispels wind, strengthens teeth, brightens the eyes, and fortifies yin. (Edible salt is primarily for dietary use; in medicine, it is often used for processing or as a guiding agent. For sudden closure of phlegm and food in the chest, it can be used to induce vomiting, but only temporarily. Regarding its insect-killing and wound-healing effects, these are utilized externally. Since salty flavors travel through the blood, excessive consumption damages blood and lungs, aids water retention, and harms the body.)

Qingyan (Blue/Green Rock Salt)
Its nature is similar to salt but未经 refined by boiling. It promotes urination and strengthens yin. Its taste is slightly sweet, capable of softening hardness. It clears eye disorders of the Yangming meridian, its efficacy returns to the blood level, and its treatment reaches the Kidney. (Qingyan is excavated from the earth and undergoes no refining process. Its nature and taste are identical to edible salt but with a slight sweetness. It tonifies the Kidney without aiding water pathogens. Its therapeutic efficacy surpasses that of edible salt.)

Mangxiao (Mirabilite)
Salty flavor softens hardness; bitter and pungent flavors combine to provide rapid purgation. Cold nature moistens dryness; it sweeps away intermingled heat-phlegm completely. Yuanmingfen (Refined Mirabilite), though light and clear, directs its action of purging dryness and excess to the intestines and stomach. (Mangxiao grows in saline-alkali lands and is obtained through boiling/refining. The substance settling at the bottom is Puxiao (Niter); the substance rising to the top is Mangxiao. Further refining Mangxiao yields Yuanmingfen from the upper layer; hanging it in a ventilated place until it turns to powder yields Fenghuaxiao (Weathered Niter). Although their therapeutic actions differ in lightness/heaviness and clarity/turbidity, their salty, cold, moistening, and purgative nature should not be administered indiscriminately unless there is excess-heat and hard accumulation in the intestines and stomach. The term "nitrating" skin refers to treating cattle/sheep hides, which differs from the mineral niter.)