The Last Healing Potion

As the Young Priest cheered, sighs of relief rose one after another around Wu Zhou.

The young man kneeling on both knees and holding up the injured man's intestines immediately lowered his head. He raised his cupped hands a little higher and murmured softly:

"God of War above!"

"God of War above!" On the other side, the Red-haired Archer holding down the injured man's arm echoed him. Then he craned his head forward and praised sincerely:

"Little Grete, you're amazing!"

Wu Zhou, however, felt no joy at all. All his attention was focused on his fingers. The hepatic hilum was extremely fragile; too little pressure would not stop the bleeding, but a little too much and the hilum could tear away, leading straight to massive hemorrhaging. Judging that degree of force relied entirely on a surgeon's experience and instincts.

And even if the bleeding was temporarily stopped, that was only the first step of a long journey. There was still a mountain of work ahead!

Footsteps thundered up from behind. The warrior Wu Zhou had sent to boil water came past carrying a bucket, offered a quick "God of War above," then asked hesitantly and uneasily:

"Little Grete, will this... make him better?"

Would this make him better?

Not a chance!

Wu Zhou frowned tightly. At normal temperatures, blood flow to the liver could not be blocked for more than thirty minutes, or the liver would inevitably undergo necrosis.

In other words, he had to solve the problem within thirty minutes!

But he had nothing!

No blood transfusion, no gauze for packing and hemostasis, no gelatin sponge, no hemostatic powder, no needles or thread for suturing!

He did not even have a single pair of Vascular Forceps!

A tremendous wave of anxiety and fear suddenly surged up—Wu Zhou's own, and that of this body's original owner.

Wu Zhou raised his head and stared fixedly at the Young Priest opposite him. Before he realized it, his eyes had turned bloodshot.

"You!" he practically screamed.

"Cast a healing spell on my hands! On this liver! Now!"

The Young Priest trembled from the shout. His already flushed face had gone pale, and even the freckles on it seemed a shade more translucent, making him look particularly pitiful. When he answered Wu Zhou, his voice shook, as if he were about to cry:

"I-I really can't anymore... I've used up all my healing spells..."

"Then what else do you have?"

"Only one bottle of Minor Healing Potion..."

...What the hell?!

What the hell was a Minor Healing Potion?!

That was not what he needed!!!

Wu Zhou had ten thousand complaints ready to burst out. If the person saying this had been his hospital director or the head nurse of the operating room, he would have verbally blasted them straight into the wall.

Come on, man, I'm suturing a liver here! Could you be even a little more reliable?

Did this Healing Potion meet GMP standards? Did it have a Drug Approval Number? Was it past its expiration date?

He wanted Surgical Instruments, needles and thread, Lidocaine for anesthesia—at the very least, at the very least, give him a bottle of Povidone-Iodine to disinfect things!

The situation had been urgent, and they were out in the wilderness with no supplies. He had not even washed his hands before shoving them into the injured man's abdomen!

Why was he getting a Minor Healing Potion instead?!

But a flood of unfamiliar memories immediately surged forth. Several images flashed rapidly before his eyes: a tiny glass bottle held in his hand, pale golden liquid sloshing inside it, wounds wriggling as they healed rapidly and vanished...

Wu Zhou took a deep breath. His right hand gripped the injured man's hepatic hilum while he held out his left palm and said in a low voice:

"Give it to me!"

Perhaps his tone was too firm, or perhaps everyone else had completely run out of options. The Young Priest cautiously let go of the injured man's right arm, checked the wound, and saw that it was no longer bleeding heavily. He immediately began rustling through his pockets. A moment later, he handed over a small bottle of Healing Potion.

The bottle was only an inch and a half tall, about as thick as a thumb, and its glass body was crystal clear. Muttering, "Shouldn't this stuff come in a brown glass bottle?" Wu Zhou bit off the cork, inverted the bottle, and poured it directly over the surface of the ruptured liver.

Then, the miraculous healing process appeared once more.

The ruptured liver began to writhe gently. Granulation tissue grew, the fissures vanished, the omentum crept across...

After only one or two breaths, the liver lying in Wu Zhou's field of vision was whole and completely uninjured.

Wu Zhou cautiously loosened his fingers a little. The blood vessels beneath his fingertips pulsed softly, and the liver's surface visibly changed from pale to rosy red.

Excellent!

The vascular connection had held, and blood perfusion was normal!

This liver had survived!

"Wow..."

A small cry of wonder rang out. In the midst of everything, Wu Zhou lifted his eyes and saw the Young Priest opposite him stretching out his neck, his eyes and mouth forming three round O's as he stared dumbfoundedly at the liver in Wu Zhou's hands.

"You can save people like that?"

"You can't..."

Wu Zhou drawled lazily. Facing the Young Priest's half-disappointed, half-accusing gaze, he explained unhurriedly:

"Pouring Healing Potion over a wound only takes a blink. Figuring out where the bleeding is coming from, knowing how to cut open the abdomen and expose the injury..."

With every sentence Wu Zhou spoke, the Young Priest's head drooped a little lower, and the freckles on his face seemed to dim a little more. At last, dragged along by Wu Zhou's deliberately prolonged tone, he dejectedly finished:

"I get it. That takes ten years to learn."

...Of course it took ten years. Five—or seven—years of schooling, residency training, plus all kinds of internships and certification exams. Wu Zhou said nothing more. He turned his attention back to the injured man. His life had been saved; next came dealing with the intestines and the other external injuries!

He turned to look at the Healing Potion in his hand. He had nearly emptied the tiny bottle, leaving only a few drops at the bottom—less than a quarter of its original contents. The pale gold in the liquid flickered and stretched, as though breathing.

Its effect was genuinely remarkable.

But relying on those few drops to heal all the remaining injuries could probably be summed up in two words:

Dream on.

Time to deal with the intestines properly!

Wu Zhou gently withdrew his right hand from beneath the injured man's liver. He stepped back two paces, looked around, and began issuing orders in rapid succession:

"Do you have soap?—What, only soapberry? Fine, give it to me. I'm going to wash my hands!"

"Do you have boiled water?... Only this one bag? Not enough! Hurry up and boil more!—Right, put the needles and thread in there to boil too!"

"Do you have strong liquor?... You actually do? Great! Give it to me!"

The Red-haired Archer and the blond warrior who had just been busy boiling and carrying water were shouted into running at full speed. The Young Priest's eyes darted around as he looked from side to side, asking curiously:

"Why do you need to wash your hands again?"

"—That was emergency hemostasis, man! One second slower and he would've died!"

When a life was on the line, there was no room to fuss over such things—even so, if this had been a hospital, he would at least have grabbed a handful of Povidone-Iodine. Now that the most urgent massive bleeding had been stopped and it was time to deal with the intestines, Wu Zhou's professional instincts as a surgeon would not allow him to proceed without washing his hands thoroughly.

Using the water the Red-haired Archer had carried over in a wooden bucket, he washed his hands with soapberry, doing his best not to look at the grime along the bucket's rim as he did. Calling it "grime" was already generous; the entire bucket, from its sides to its lip, was black. Who knew how long it had gone without being washed—perhaps it had never been washed since it was first bound together?

As for how much dirtier this water was than tap water, and how many microorganisms it contained, Wu Zhou did not dare think about it.