Treating Wounds

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

The sound of gongs signaling the retreat rang out from the rear. The Chu Army's rear ranks became the vanguard, slowly surging toward the city gates like a receding tide.

The Qin Army pursued their victory for some distance but gained little advantage. Instead, a chaotic volley of arrows and bolts from the city walls wounded quite a few of them. After withdrawing several hundred paces, the Qin Army began setting up camp on the hillside.

Inside the Qin Army's central command tent, its commander Ji Ru sat high above. His features were refined, and three wisps of long beard hung from his chin, making him look more like a scholar than a general.

Two rows of officers stood below, each bearing an imposing air. A burly man with a full beard, broad shoulders, and a powerful build stepped forward from the ranks. "General, why did we not press our victory today and charge into the city? Give me three thousand elite soldiers, and I can fight our way in through the gates."

"Big Bear, the general tells you to read more books, but all you know is eating. Did you eat so much pig head meat that it went to your brain? You want to throw your own life away and drag three thousand soldiers to their graves with you. What grudge do those three thousand soldiers have against you? Did they sleep with your wife, or dig up your ancestral graves?" A somewhat shorter officer with a moustache curled into the shape of the character eight sneered viciously.

The man called "Big Bear" flew into a towering rage, his eyes bulging as he roared, "Shorty, make yourself clear! How am I throwing my life away? How am I sending three thousand soldiers to their deaths? If you can't explain it today, you and I will settle who's stronger outside the tent!"

"Waging war requires a brain. Charging and killing blindly is what ordinary soldiers do." The moustached officer spoke unhurriedly. "Huju City has roughly twenty-five thousand Chu soldiers in total. Of those, nearly fifteen thousand are elite Huwei Army troops, while the rest are recruits sent as support from the various academies."

"Yet today, they sent out only a little over seven thousand men, most of them recruits. By rough estimate, there are only seven or eight thousand defenders left on the walls. Where do you think the remaining ten thousand elites went?" the moustached officer asked mockingly.

"Big Bear" defended himself somewhat guiltily. "Maybe they're resting in the city."

"Fine! So you think that in battle, the Chu generals would rather lose the fight than send their elite troops out, leaving them in the rear to sleep?"

"Cough, cough!" Ji Ru, the Qin commander seated at the head of the tent, coughed twice. Once everyone had fallen silent, he declared, "Over the next two days, the rest of our forces will arrive one after another. During these two days, we will do our utmost to build siege equipment. Then we will take this city in one burst of effort." Afterward, he assigned everyone their specific duties.

By the time Wang Hong returned to his quarters, it was already the third watch of the night. His quarters were a large barracks room housing fifty men, making it extremely crowded.

Yet it felt much emptier tonight. More than ten people were missing, and they would likely never return. Men who had been boasting and chatting nonsense that morning had vanished in the blink of an eye. Wang Hong felt deeply unsettled.

Those who had returned were sprawled crookedly about. Some were tending to their wounds, while others were already snoring soundly. Wang Hong sat down in a corner, casually sprinkled some White Jade Powder over the wounds on his body, swallowed a Dragon Tiger Elixir, and began circulating his cultivation to refine its medicinal power.

Wang Hong had not neglected his cultivation over the past few months. Every day, he refined two pills. When he had left the academy, he had only just entered the Xiantian Realm. Now, only the Yuji and Shaoshang acupoints remained before his Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian could be fully opened.

Before Wang Hong had finished refining the medicinal power, he felt someone lightly pat his hand a few times. He withdrew his cultivation and opened his eyes to find Lu Jingou standing before him with an anxious expression. Lu Jingou's clothes were covered in bloodstains and riddled with holes of all sizes.

The moment he saw Wang Hong stop cultivating, he hurried over, seized Wang Hong's sleeve, and asked urgently, "Wang Hong! Save him! Save him! Do you have any White Jade Powder or other Healing Medicine?"

Seeing that Lu Jingou did not look as though he himself were dying from injury, Wang Hong teased, "Lu Jingou! Don't you always boast about being a hero? So you're this afraid of death after all!"

"Ah, it's not me—it's Zhang Tiemao!" As he spoke, he dragged Wang Hong away, explaining Zhang Tiemao's condition along the way. Zhang Tiemao had been too severely wounded and was now unconscious. A military physician had come to examine him, casually applied some medicine, and declared that he could not be saved. Even if fortune favored him and he survived, one of his legs would be crippled.

After a great battle, there were countless wounded everywhere, crying out in agony as they waited for treatment. There were only twenty or thirty military physicians in the entire army, and the supply of wound medicine was gravely insufficient. Forget valuable medicine like White Jade Powder—even cheap medicines were in short supply. Some wounded soldiers could only grab a handful of plant ash or slaked lime and scatter it over their wounds to stop the bleeding.

Before they even reached the wounded soldiers' camp, they heard all kinds of anguished howls. Those screaming until their hearts were torn and lungs split were surely newly wounded; as for the old casualties, either they no longer had the strength to howl, or they had mostly recovered.

The tent was filled with wounded men lying every which way. Some had lost hands or feet, some had holes torn through their chests and bellies, and some had wounds that had already festered, giving off waves of foul stench that drew swarms of flies buzzing around them.

Zhang Tiemao lay in a corner, his face now devoid of all color and his eyes tightly shut. His body was wrapped in bandages, many of which had already been dyed red with blood. The bandages around his leg in particular had been soaked through. Li Xiaoya, tears brimming in her eyes, was pressing down hard on the leg in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Hua Wenjue was cleaning Zhang Tiemao's wounds and wrapping fresh bandages around him.

After examining him, Wang Hong knew that Zhang Tiemao had fainted from excessive blood loss, and that the sinews and bones in his leg had also been broken. He hurriedly took several bottles of White Jade Powder from his robes and had the others sprinkle it over all of Zhang Tiemao's wounds.

He then took out an exquisite little porcelain bottle, poured out two soybean-sized pills, and revealed them to be White Jade Life-Extending Pills, refined from fifty-year White Jade Ganoderma. Though it was Wang Hong's first time using the White Jade Life-Extending Pill, he believed it should have no problem treating injuries like Zhang Tiemao's.

He pried Zhang Tiemao's mouth open and fed him one pill. The broken sinews and bones in his leg had already been set back together earlier. Wang Hong dissolved the other pill in wine and applied it to the large wound on his leg. Very soon, the wounds that had been bleeding without stop no longer seeped blood.

Seeing this, Hua Wenjue asked, "Wang Hong, why is your medicine so effective?" He had just used a bottle of White Jade Powder on Zhang Tiemao as well, though the amount had been somewhat small. That bottle had even been specially made; Hua Wenjue had added some ten-odd-year White Jade Ganoderma to it.

Wang Hong gave a mysterious smile. "This is my exclusive secret formula!" He said no more. Naturally, he would not tell them that his White Jade Powder used twenty- to thirty-year White Jade Ganoderma as its main ingredient. He then took out several more bottles of White Jade Powder and distributed them among the others in case of emergency. They accepted them happily, having just witnessed the effects of Wang Hong's medicine.

Wang Hong also took out several slices of homemade medicinal cuisine jerky and handed them to Li Xiaoya, telling her to tear them apart, cook them until soft, and feed them to Zhang Tiemao. Wang Hong had added hundred-year Solomon's Seal to the jerky, so it should be good for replenishing Zhang Tiemao's vital blood and restoring his strength.

Lu Jingou caught a rich aroma and leaned closer, nose outstretched. "Wang Hong, you're the only one who knows how to enjoy life. This is another one of your homemade delicacies, isn't it?" Seeing that he was practically drooling, Wang Hong tossed him a piece irritably, then gave one each to Hua Wenjue and Li Xiaoya.

Lu Jingou held the jerky before his nose and took a deep sniff, then took a small bite and slowly savored it. After a few bites, he felt warmth rising in his abdomen and hurriedly swallowed the rest in large mouthfuls. He solemnly thanked Wang Hong, then sat down cross-legged and began cultivating.

The other two were first stunned by Lu Jingou's strange behavior, but before long they also discovered what was going on. They finished their portions in two or three bites, thanked Wang Hong as well, and sat down to meditate. Anything that could increase one's cultivation was something one could only encounter by chance, never seek by searching. Though one slice could only add ten or so days of cultivation, Wang Hong had shared them with them, and they had to accept that favor.