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Raw materials for medicinal use are prized if they are wild and have not been grafted.
The taste is sour. The nature is neutral. The flowers bloom in winter, while the fruits ripen in summer. It obtains the complete Qi of Wood, hence its taste is the most sour. (Li Shizhen) The *Shennong Bencao Jing* states: "When the taste is excessively sour..."

Wumei (Smoked Plum Fruit)
The taste is sour and astringent. The nature is warm and neutral. It enters the blood aspect of the Jueyin Liver channel, as well as the Spleen and Lung channels. It mainly treats descending Qi (guiding Qi downward), eliminates vexation, heat, fullness, and oppression, stops limb pain, treats hemiplegia and numbness (Pianku Buren), removes necrotic muscle and foul flesh, corrodes dark moles, and treats malignant ulcers with overgrowth. (This is because it possesses the ability to transform through astringency.) It removes Bi syndrome and benefits the sinews and vessels. (It can absorb Kidney fluids to nourish the sinews.) It eliminates cold and hot dysentery, stops chronic/recurrent dysentery, regulates the Middle Jiao and resolves phlegm, treats malaria and miasma, stops vomiting, regurgitation, and cholera-like symptoms, treats excessive salivation and dry mouth, and cures chronic cough. (It can astringe Lung Yang.)
Decocting Wumei alone as tea substitutes can treat headaches caused by flaming-up Fire. For long-standing bloody stool, take one plum meat preserved in salt water, mash it thoroughly, combine it with cured tea, add vinegar, and ingest; relief is achieved after a single dose. Alternatively, equal parts of Wumei, Huanglian (Coptidis Rhizoma), and Zaohu Tu (Furnace Soil) are ground into powder and taken with tea; this is also effective. This is likely because blood converges when encountering sourness, stops bleeding when encountering cold, and becomes astringent when encountering bitterness.
To corrode malignant ulcers and overgrowth, burn Wumei meat until carbonized but retaining its properties (Cun Xing), grind into powder, and apply to the ulcer; it falls off completely within one night. Combined with Huanglian (Coptidis Rhizoma), Baishao (Paeoniae Radix Alba), Huashi (Talcum), Gancao (Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma), Lianrou (Nelumbinis Semen), Bidou (Dolichoris Semen), Gegen (Puerariae Lobatae Radix), Shengma (Cimicifugae Rhizoma), Hongqu (Red Yeast Rice), and Juhong (Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium Rubrum) to make pills, it treats dysentery with miraculous efficacy. For hematochezia and alcohol-induced dysentery, or persistent dysentery that does not cease, use three liang of Wumei, burn until carbonized, grind into powder, mix with rice paste boiled in vinegar to form pills the size of wutong seeds. Take twenty pills on an empty stomach with rice water, three times daily. For hematuria, burn Wumei until carbonized, grind into powder, and form pills the size of wutong seeds using rice paste mixed with vinegar.

Regarding "constipation where Qi is constrained and tends to descend": Qi transformation arises from Yang; transforming Yang involves transforming the Yin within Yang together. Because it has astringent properties, it can transform; thus, descending Qi serves to secure against collapse, and it is originally not merely an astringent agent. If it were solely an astringent agent, why would administering it to the lower part (rectum) for patients with constipation result in bowel movement?

[Discussion] The common people generally regard Wumei merely as an acid-astringent herb. Observing that the *Bencao Jing* first mentions treating descending Qi, followed by limb pain, hemiplegia with numbness, necrotic muscle, and other conditions... [Text contains gaps/missing characters regarding Jin-Ye relationship]. Leading to its movement, it is not merely called astringent, but aims to gather essence and nurture Qi's completeness. Yin originally possesses Yang; overflow allows one to contemplate its origin in the transformation of body fluids, rooted in the Liver. Its treatments all revolve around astringency. Does the previous meaning cover this? The answer is: This is a flavor-drug interaction. Currently, dysentery disease stems from heat injury; for chronic dysentery at the end stage, using astringents as the chief drug... yet it does not root in Blood. Furthermore... [Text logic jumps, possibly missing lines]. Qi cannot return to its original state of descending and astringing. Only then is it appropriate. Herbs like Wumei can combine with the Yin within Yang, lifting Yin stagnation and Yin deficiency... If Yin does not transform, one should greatly tonify Yuan Yang to transform Yin and benefit... making Yin clear, thereby guiding the Yin within Yang to allow Yang to transform. Damp-heat combining leads to pus and blood formation with vexation and pain; one should use astringent, damp-drying, middle-jiao stabilizing, and stomach-nourishing agents combined, so that the Middle Jiao... is not easily effective. Generally, astringing the Yang within Yin means Yin... serves as the pivot regulating Heaven and Earth Qi. From Yin perfection... First mentioning descending Qi is precisely its function of regulating Blood. Broadly speaking, the Liver can respond in four directions... [Text cuts off regarding Bencao Jing and Bie Lu indications].

Baimei (Salted Plum / Frost Plum)
Also known as Yanmei and Shuangmei. The taste is sour and salty; the nature is neutral. It treats Hou Bi (sore throat/globus hystericus). Other therapeutic effects are similar to Wumei, but Wumei is superior and more widely utilized.
For Tan Jue Jiang Pu (phlegm-jue causing sudden collapse and stiffness) and locked jaw, take Baimei meat and rub it against the gum roots with a finger; once saliva flows, the jaw opens. To treat Hou Bi and Ru E (tonsillitis), use Bingmei Wan. Preparation: Take twenty green plums and twelve liang of salt, pickle for five days, extract the plum juice, add three liang of Mingfan (Alumen), two liang each of Jiegeng (Platycodonis Radix), Baizhi (Angelicae Dahuricae Radix), and Fangfeng (Saposhnikoviae Radix), and thirty strips of Yazao (Gleditsiae Sinensis Spina). Grind all into fine powder. Mix with juice and plum meat, store in a jar. Use one pill each time, holding it in the mouth to swallow saliva. For wind-stroke phlegm-jue with locked jaw, rubbing this is especially good. To treat Meihe Geqi (globus sensation/phlegm-ball), take half-green, half-yellow plums. Use one liang of salt per plum, pickle for one day and night, sun-dry, then soak and dry again until the water is exhausted. Sandwich two plums between three green coins, tie tightly with hemp thread, place in a porcelain jar, seal, and bury underground for one hundred days before retrieving. Hold one pill in the mouth each time; swallowing the juice into the throat causes immediate resolution. One year aged treats one person; two years aged treats two people; its wonder is unparalleled. For summer-heat cholera, take one Baimei, crush it including the kernel, add one loofah leaf or lablab bean leaf, crush again, mix with fresh drawn water, and administer orally for immediate relief.

[Discussion] Wumei and Baimei indeed differ in taste and nature. Wumei, due to being smoked to reach fire Qi, possesses the characteristic of astringing while transforming. Baimei soaked in salt juice... [Text ends abruptly].
In cases of initial wind-cold or recent onset of malaria/dysentery, do not use hastily. (Note by Shi Cai)
[Processing] Method for preparing Wumei: Take green plums in baskets, smoke them black over the stove flue. If steamed after moistening with leachate from rice ash, the flesh will be plump, glossy, and resistant to insect damage. Method for preparing Baimei... [Text ends]