Treatment and Bone Setting

Lin Yi crouched on the rocky shore and swept his gaze over the dead branches and vines scattered around him.

He rose and hurried into a nearby patch of scrub forest, selecting several trunks of even thickness and good flexibility. He then tore down several sturdy long vines and, in just a few motions, bound them into a crude yet solid stretcher.

"Put him on it. Keep him as flat as possible. Be gentle—don't jostle him," Lin Yi said in a low voice.

Several tribesmen carefully lifted Falcon's body, cushioning him with the outer robe as they slowly laid him flat on the stretcher.

During the move, Falcon let out an almost inaudible muffled groan. His brows twisted tightly for an instant before he sank back into a deep coma.

Lin Yi lowered his head and looked at that face, pale to the point of nearly turning bluish gray. His chest felt as though a stone were pressing down on it.

He had only been in Bluestone Tribe for less than half a month, yet every face had already carved itself into his memory.

Honest and taciturn, Falcon did not speak much, but he never shirked work. Whenever meat was divided, he always quietly passed the slightly fattier portions to the younger tribesmen.

And now, this very man lay on a crude wooden frame, without a single intact bone in his body.

Lin Yi's heart felt so choked that he could hardly breathe.

Four tribesmen steadily lifted the stretcher, taking every step as level and slow as they could.

Biao walked beside it without saying a word. Yet the veins bulged on the hands clenched around his knife hilt, his knuckles white, and a heavy, suffocating pressure radiated from his entire body.

On that rugged face that usually split wide with laughter, there were now only one taut line after another.

The corpse of that thirty-foot giant python was also carried away, its blue-black scales glinting with a cold, hard sheen beneath the sun.

But no one looked at it. Everyone's eyes were fixed on the slowly moving stretcher ahead.

At some point, Mang came to Lin Yi's side. After walking in silence for a while, he reached out and lightly patted Lin Yi's shoulder.

That palm was heavy and solid, yet it landed on his shoulder with unexpected gentleness.

"To survive in the Great Wilderness," Mang said in a voice hoarse as if sandpaper had scraped it raw, "death is something that happens in the blink of an eye. You haven't seen anything worse since you came here... you'll get used to it."

Lin Yi said nothing, merely nodding slightly. But his fist remained clenched, never loosening.

The group moved quickly and soon returned to the tribe.

The tribesmen guarding the entrance saw the figure lying flat on the stretcher from afar, and their expressions changed at once.

Someone turned and ran into the tribe, shouting at the top of his lungs as he went, "Something happened! Hurry, get over here! Falcon's hurt!"

Before long, the tribe was in turmoil.

Women poked their heads out from the various stone houses. Children were dragged back indoors by the adults and forbidden to watch, while several old hunters hurried toward the stretcher.

Through the gaps in the parting crowd, the village chief's aged yet urgent figure practically charged out. Lin Yi had never seen the village chief run so fast.

"Quick, quick, quick! Carry him inside! Lay him flat!" the village chief commanded between heavy breaths. His withered hands checked Falcon's pulse at his neck and wrist, then lifted his eyelids to inspect his pupils. His face darkened like wet gray cloth.

He turned and rushed into his own house, emerging with a large bundle of herbs and several rolls of clean hemp cloth. He began crushing the herbs, applying medicine, and bandaging wounds.

The entire room watched with bated breath. Lin Yi stood in a corner, watching the village chief's callused hands bustle over Falcon's body—cleaning the wounds, applying crushed hemostatic herbs, tightly wrapping the injuries with hemp cloth, then prying Falcon's mouth open and pouring in a small bowl of dark brown medicinal broth.

After quite some time, the village chief finally straightened up.

He let out a long breath, wiped the medicinal stains from his hands on his robe hem, then raised his head and slowly swept his gaze across the tense faces in the room.

At last, his eyes settled on Lin Yi. His voice was dry and weary. "His life is temporarily saved."

Everyone in the room let out a collective breath of relief. But the village chief had not finished speaking.

"However..." The old man's voice dropped even lower. "Nearly every bone in his body is shattered. His sternum, ribs, arm bones, leg bones... not one is intact. Every joint is dislocated, and fragments of bone are scattered among the flesh and blood."

He closed his eyes, and the wrinkles on his face deepened another layer. "Even if his external wounds heal and his flesh grows back, if his bones cannot be set back in place, he will be bedridden for the rest of his life. He will not even be able to turn over."

The room fell silent for a moment.

Then Falcon's mother let out a sob she had suppressed to the very limit. She covered her mouth tightly, her shoulders shaking violently.

Biao's fist slammed into the stone wall with a thud.

Standing among the crowd, Lin Yi felt a bolt of lightning crack through his mind.

He recalled some medical knowledge he had happened to read before crossing over. For injuries involving fractures and dislocations, surgically resetting and fixing the bones could largely prevent permanent paralysis.

He did not understand any profound surgical techniques, but he had qi and blood, as well as incomparably precise control over it.

Perhaps he could do something.

"Village Chief," Lin Yi's voice rang clearly through the silent stone house, "if... I set every one of Falcon's bones back in place, could he avoid being crippled for life?"

The village chief abruptly raised his head. A flash of light lit those cloudy old eyes, but then he frowned and thought for a moment.

Rubbing his fingers together, he slowly said, "In theory, as long as the bones are returned to their proper positions, the broken surfaces align, and no sharp bone splinters are lodged in the flesh, the bones can grow back together on their own. There is a high chance it will work."

The old man paused, his gaze falling on Lin Yi. His tone carried grave caution. "But to do that, the requirements are exceptionally harsh.

"You must know the position of every bone like the back of your hand. You must precisely move every fragment back to its original place, without the slightest deviation. Even an old healer who has cultivated for many years might not be able to do it."

Lin Yi stepped forward. "I'll do it."

Everyone's eyes snapped toward him.

"You all know my control over qi and blood. I can condense it into threads as fine as silk, send them bit by bit into Falcon's body, determine the position of every bone fragment, and then push them back into place."

Lin Yi's voice was steady, but every word landed with weight. "But I cannot guarantee success."

Biao abruptly raised his head. His bloodshot eyes seemed ready to spit fire, yet beneath that fire was an urgency too dense to dissolve.

He strode up to Lin Yi and seized his shoulders. "Lin Yi! If you can save Falcon, I, Biao, will serve you like an ox and horse for the rest of my life!"

The village chief also nodded heavily, his voice carrying the finality of a last decision. "Treat a dead horse as if it were alive. If you do not try, Falcon will be paralyzed for life.

"If you try, there is at least a thread of hope." He looked at Lin Yi.

"Go ahead and do it. Falcon himself would never want to lie in bed for the rest of his life."

Lin Yi said nothing more.

He turned and walked to the wooden bed where Falcon lay, sat beside it, and gently pressed his right hand against the center of Falcon's bare chest.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then an exceedingly fine, gentle strand of qi and blood flowed from his palm like an invisible thread, piercing through Falcon's skin and muscles as it slowly seeped into his body.

The moment the first strand entered, Lin Yi's expression darkened.

It was worse than he had imagined.

Inside Falcon's chest cavity, nearly half his ribs were broken. The fractured ends were piled and misaligned like dry branches.

His sternum had visibly caved in, and shattered bones pressed against his organs. Fortunately, his heart and lungs had not suffered fatal punctures.

Lin Yi carefully circled around those fragile organs, first dividing his qi and blood into more than a dozen fine threads. Each thread wrapped around a broken bone, then exerted force, adjusted, and pulled at the same time.

The first rib was gently drawn straight, its broken surfaces joining. Then the second, then the third.

The chest cavity was an extraordinarily complex area. The slightest error could injure the internal organs.

Fine beads of sweat began to seep from Lin Yi's forehead.

At this moment, his Super Brain ran at full speed, simultaneously processing the positions of more than a dozen bones. The force and angle of every pull were all precisely controlled.

Once the chest cavity was finished, he turned to the limbs.

The ulna and radius in the left arm had each broken into two pieces, while a small fragment of shattered bone floated amid the soft tissue of the forearm.

Lin Yi carefully wrapped that fragment in threads of qi and blood, guided it to the fracture, aligned it, and fixed it in place.

The right arm was in somewhat better condition, with only one fracture. Both legs were worse: the femurs were broken, the tibias dislocated, and the joint surfaces at the knees were shattered.

Sweat dripped down his jaw, soaking the front of his robe. Yet the qi and blood in his hand remained as steady as ever.

Not a single person in the room made a sound. Everyone reduced their breathing to the lightest, shallowest level. Even Biao stood motionless by the wall like a stone statue.

Time slipped by bit by bit.

No one knew how long had passed before Lin Yi finally pushed the last dislocated bone in Falcon's body back into place.

He carefully examined everything once more, confirming that every broken surface was neatly aligned and every bone fragment had returned to its proper position. Only then did he slowly withdraw the threads of qi and blood.

He opened his eyes. The hair over his forehead had already been soaked into damp strands clinging to his skin.

Lin Yi did not rest. He immediately turned to the village chief and said, "Village Chief, bring wooden boards.

"From his chest to his ankles, secure every joint and every fracture with boards to prevent his bones from becoming dislocated again if he unconsciously turns over or convulses."

The village chief immediately got to work.

Several tribesmen carried over a stack of thin wooden boards and clean strips of hemp cloth. Under Lin Yi's direction, they tightly wrapped and secured Falcon section by section, from his collarbones to his ankles.

Every fracture was firmly locked in place by wooden boards and cloth strips, making his entire body look as though it had been encased in a hard shell.

After finishing this, Lin Yi reached out and pressed his hand against Falcon's abdomen. He gathered, bit by bit, the tiny bone debris he had previously wrapped inside Falcon's body with qi and blood, guiding it up through the esophagus to the mouth.

He lifted Falcon's head and gently patted his back. "Falcon, spit it out."

Although Falcon was unconscious, his body's instinctive responses remained.

He dry-heaved several times, and tiny gray-white bone chips mixed with traces of blood flowed from the corners of his mouth.

Lin Yi wiped them clean with a cloth. Only then did he finally let out a breath of relief and rise from the bedside. His legs were slightly numb from sitting too long, but his back remained straight.

"It's done. All the bones have been set back, and the fragments have been cleared out. Now he needs to rest and let his body heal on its own." Lin Yi's voice was somewhat hoarse. "He cannot move for at least three months. We'll see how he recovers after that."

After he finished speaking, the room was quiet for a moment.

Then a woman's voice, suppressed for far too long and thick with tears, suddenly rang out. "Thank you... thank you, Lin Yi..."

Falcon's mother rushed out from the crowd and tightly grasped Lin Yi's sleeve with both hands, her entire face streaked with tears.

She trembled violently, breaking one sentence into several fragments before managing to finish it. "You saved my boy... his father is already gone... I cannot lose this son too..."

The nearby tribesmen quickly stepped forward to support her. Lin Yi gently patted the back of her hand, softening his voice. "Sister-in-law, don't say that. Falcon is my tribesman. It is what I should do."

He paused, then earnestly instructed her, "You will have to work hard during this time. Falcon cannot move carelessly. Turning him over, feeding him, washing him—you must be careful with all of it.

"His bones are growing back together. Even if they set crooked by a single inch, it could leave lasting consequences later."

Falcon's mother nodded forcefully through her tears, firmly committing every word Lin Yi had said to memory.

Biao strode over. He wiped his large, rough hands against his robe hem again and again before carefully taking Lin Yi's hand.

He said nothing, but the deep emotion in his eyes, so heavy it seemed ready to overflow, outweighed any words.