Mo Shaolin saw through Murong Feiyan's intentions. He swiftly drew two arrows from his quiver and ran in the same direction as her. Whoosh! Whoosh! Both arrows flew out, but both were aimed at Hu Xiaotian.
Hu Xiaotian lay motionless on the ground, his mouth wide open and his eyes shining with utter terror. His life was no longer his to control. He could only watch helplessly as the two arrows hurtled toward his chest and abdomen.
Holding the reins in one hand, Murong Feiyan leaned sideways and swung her sword twice in rapid succession, knocking both arrows away. Then she sheathed her sword, seized Hu Xiaotian's arm, and hauled him up with all her strength, leaving him draped over the horse's back again.
Just then, Mo Shaolin loosed another arrow. The black shaft tore through the curtain of rain at an astonishing speed and struck Murong Feiyan's left shoulder. It entered from the front, its point emerging behind her shoulder. The pain nearly made her faint. Biting her cherry-red lips tightly, she endured the agony and reached back to slap the horse's rump. The horse neighed in pain and thundered away into the distance.
By the time Mo Shaolin tried to shoot again, the horse had already carried them beyond his range.
Rain mingled with blood dripped onto Hu Xiaotian's cheeks. Some trickled past his lips, tasting salty and bitter. Since he was lying facedown over the horse, he could not see exactly what had happened to Murong Feiyan. He could only judge from the steadily dripping blood that she must have been wounded.
Murong Feiyan's face was deathly pale. Whether from blood loss or the rain, her vision grew increasingly blurred. Through the wind and rain, she dimly made out the sign for Easy Origin Hall. Unable to hold on any longer, she went limp and collapsed onto Hu Xiaotian.
Although Hu Xiaotian could not move his limbs, he still had his mouth. He shouted, "Someone! Help... help!"
At last, someone inside Easy Origin Hall heard the commotion and opened the door. Everyone who came out was startled by the sight before them. Before long, they called several more people from inside, took hold of the white horse's reins, and carried Murong Feiyan and Hu Xiaotian indoors.
Hu Xiaotian was not injured; his acupoints had merely been sealed. Yuan Shiqing, the second-in-command of Easy Origin Hall, recognized him at once. Murong Feiyan, meanwhile, was an even more familiar face there.
Yuan Shiqing first released Hu Xiaotian's sealed acupoints. Without stopping to explain what had happened, Hu Xiaotian immediately went to Murong Feiyan's side. The arrow was still lodged in her body.
This arrow was different from ordinary arrows. Its shaft was fitted with barbs, which sprang out only when a mechanism inside the shaft was triggered as it entered a human body. Forcibly removing it would certainly cause Murong Feiyan tremendous harm. Yuan Shiqing had never seen such a peculiar arrow either, and he dared not act rashly before understanding how it worked.
Murong Feiyan now woke from her brief unconsciousness. She frowned, then saw that Hu Xiaotian was unharmed. "You certainly have a stubborn hold on life," she said in a trembling voice.
Hu Xiaotian smiled. "This worthless life of mine isn't so easy to snuff out." Inwardly, however, he was deeply grateful to Murong Feiyan. Still, he was not foolish enough to waste time thanking her now. Finding a way to remove the arrow from her body was the urgent priority.
Murong Feiyan's beautiful eyes flicked toward the arrow's fletching. She whispered, "A Fang-Barbed Arrow... there's a mechanism in the shaft... you mustn't pull it out by force..." Before she could finish, the pain left her too weak to continue.
"Do you know where the mechanism is?" Hu Xiaotian asked.
Murong Feiyan shook her head.
"Could it be in the fletching?" Yuan Shiqing asked.
Hu Xiaotian shook his head. "The mechanism was probably triggered when the shaft pierced her flesh." He began examining it from the arrowhead, discovering no mechanism on the exposed portion of the shaft. Once the external sections were ruled out, only one possibility remained: the mechanism was lodged inside Murong Feiyan's body. That meant surgical exploration was necessary, and exploration would require enlarging her wound. In the past, with modern medical instruments at his disposal, none of this would have posed a problem. But in an age so lacking in medical resources and medicines, even the simplest surgical procedure presented considerable difficulty and enormous risks.
Although Yuan Shiqing was Easy Origin Hall's second-in-command and a physician of some renown in Great Kang, he too was at something of a loss over Murong Feiyan's injury. He quietly instructed his apprentices to fetch Li Yifeng, the head of Easy Origin Hall.
Hu Xiaotian asked someone for paper and a brush, then immediately drew the surgical instruments he needed: a scalpel, hemostatic forceps, towel clamps, scissors, tweezers, tissue forceps, a needle holder, a suture needle, and suture thread.
Looking at the diagrams Hu Xiaotian had drawn, Yuan Shiqing was utterly bewildered. "Young Master Hu, these are...?"
"To remove the arrow from Constable Murong's body, I'll need some tools," Hu Xiaotian said. "I've drawn all of them to the same scale. Could Easy Origin Hall find anything similar, or at least close?" In truth, he had little hope even as he asked. The chances of finding instruments used in Western surgery in this era were vanishingly small.
Yuan Shiqing studied the diagrams for a while, then pointed to the scissors. "We do have these, though ours are a little larger!"
"Is there any other way to find them?" Hu Xiaotian asked.
"I'll have someone see what they can do!" Yuan Shiqing said. He showed the diagrams to the storeroom keeper. After all, Easy Origin Hall was a long-established medical clinic with centuries of history. Who knew how many medicinal ingredients and tools had been handed down through the generations? Even Yuan Shiqing, its second-in-command, did not know whether they possessed similar instruments.
Hu Xiaotian also had people fetch strong liquor, gauze, and other supplies, along with a steamer. He first disinfected a dagger and a pair of scissors they had found. Whether or not they could locate suitable instruments, they would ultimately have to find a way to remove the Fang-Barbed Arrow from Murong Feiyan's body. Even if the arrow was not poisoned, it had caused a through-and-through wound in her shoulder, and she was still bleeding. The longer they waited, the greater the risk of infection.
Only after making these arrangements did Hu Xiaotian remember how frantic the servants from the Minister's Residence must be. He hurriedly asked Yuan Shiqing to send messengers to both the Minister's Residence and the Capital Prefecture.
About the time it took to smoke a pipe later, the storeroom keeper returned. Following the diagrams, he had found a small knife, scissors, and forceps. To Hu Xiaotian's delight, he had even found a curved suture needle. Of course, the needle had not been made specifically for stitching human skin, but its shape was a close match for the surgical suture needles Hu Xiaotian had used in the past. Even the storeroom keeper did not know what it was actually for.
Hu Xiaotian selected the instruments that would just about serve his purposes and dumped them all into a pot to disinfect them by boiling, then put them in the steamer for steam sterilization. While he was disinfecting the instruments, Li Yifeng, the head of Easy Origin Hall, arrived.
Li Yifeng was a man of broad knowledge and experience. At a glance, he recognized the arrow that had struck Murong Feiyan as a Fang-Barbed Arrow. He also knew they had to find the mechanism on the shaft and retract the fangs before pulling it from her body. On this point, his judgment agreed with Hu Xiaotian's: the mechanism lay inside Murong Feiyan's body. As for how to locate it there, he had no particularly good solution. Patients with such injuries had been treated before. The usual approach was to enlarge the wound and find the mechanism, but this often caused further trauma and bleeding. Some patients had died because their injuries were aggravated.
Hu Xiaotian quietly drew Li Yifeng aside and explained his proposed treatment. When Li Yifeng heard that Hu Xiaotian intended to cut open and enlarge Murong Feiyan's wound to locate the mechanism on the shaft, he frowned. In truth, there was no other way. "But wouldn't that cause Miss Murong even greater harm, perhaps even damage her vital energy?" Li Yifeng asked. "And enlarging the wound will leave a larger scar afterward." Despite his words, he already understood that he would have to use the same method if he treated her himself. A very large scar at the wound site would simply be unavoidable.
"There's no other choice," Hu Xiaotian said. "The longer we delay, the greater the risk of infection. I'm confident I can find the mechanism on the shaft while making the smallest possible incision."
"Could there be any problems?" Li Yifeng asked.
"If there are problems, one would be bleeding during the operation," Hu Xiaotian said. "The other would be closing the wound afterward. I don't have suitable suture thread."
Li Yifeng's eyes widened. "You mean you're going to stitch her wound shut?" A surgical procedure that seemed perfectly ordinary to modern people was shocking beyond belief in this era.
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