Stitches (continued)

A Da understood. "Sew it up like you would clothes?"

Jian Mo looked at his leg and nodded. "That's about it. Stitches will help it heal. Let's go to Wu Jiong's house first. I'll rinse it out and take a look."

A Da's leg already hurt, and the mention of stitches made his calf twitch all the more. "Can't you leave it alone?"

Jian Mo glanced at him. "It'll heal slowly without stitches. And if it gets infected, you might end up lame."

A Da sucked in a breath.

Hong Qiu said from beside them, "You should listen to Jian Mo. He's a very skilled healer. He treated me when I was sick last time."

A Da fell silent.

The two of them helped A Da to Wu Jiong's house.

A Da's partner, Heng Man, and their sub-beastman child, Wan Ling, came over too.

The child kept looking at his father's leg with wide, dark eyes. His face was full of anxiety, like a helpless little beast.

Fortunately, Jian Mo had wrapped A Da's injured leg, so he couldn't see the blood.

When the child edged closer, Jian Mo gently nudged his head with a broad palm. "Go outside and play. I don't let children watch me treat patients."

Wan Ling looked up at his dad, who hurriedly told him to go outside first too.

Wu Jiong came out and took over from Jian Mo, helping A Da inside.

Jian Mo found his medical kit on a shelf and took out the tools he had prepared in advance.

Inside were fishbone needles of varying lengths and thicknesses, as well as wooden tweezers, shell scalpels, cloth to serve as gauze, long bandages, and all sorts of other tools-all made by Wu Jiong and him.

Wu Jiong had just finished boiling water.

Jian Mo didn't need to boil another batch. He poured a little under half a jar of white salt into it, then poured the saltwater into a clean basin to cool. After that, he dropped the tools he needed into the boiling saltwater.

Most of the salt used by the tribe was reddish-brown coarse salt. It was Hong Qiu's first time seeing white salt, and he couldn't help taking another look.

Jian Mo didn't explain. He prepared his tools, told them to wait there, and went to the backyard to pull some herbs that reduced swelling and prevented infection. He quickly crushed them with a small stone pestle.

By the time he was ready, the saltwater had cooled enough.

Jian Mo poured the saltwater into an animal bladder he had sterilized beforehand—his homemade water pouch-then unwrapped the hide robe from A Da's leg.

As soon as he opened it, blood welled out again.

Without a change in expression, Jian Mo rinsed the wound with the saltwater from the bladder.

Once the blood and dirt had been washed away, slightly pink muscle was exposed, along with yellow fat and pale skin. It was an intensely shocking sight.

Heng Man sucked in a breath.

Jian Mo said to Wu Jiong, "It'll hurt a little. Hold him steady."

Wu Jiong gripped A Da's thigh and ankle with his broad hands and nodded to Jian Mo.

Jian Mo said to A Da, "I'm starting now."

Before A Da could react, Jian Mo gripped a curved fishbone needle with the wooden tweezers and began stitching.

Neither Hong Qiu nor Heng Man dared watch. Both turned their heads away, sweat pouring down their faces, as if the wound were on their own bodies.

A Da was already numb with pain, but his hands still clenched involuntarily into tight fists as the needle went in.

Ignoring the others' reactions, Jian Mo worked the needle in and out. In just a few breaths, he had actually finished stitching the long wound.

Wu Jiong looked up at his face.

His face was expressionless, his eyes focused and his hands so steady that most people would have found it hard to imagine he was stitching the flesh of a living person.

Once the wound was stitched, Jian Mo calmly tied off the thread. He looked at the wound, which had all but stopped bleeding and was now just an ugly stitched seam, and nodded in satisfaction. "All done. I'll put some herbs on it. Once the wound has healed in a couple of days, you can come back and have the stitches removed."

A Da opened his cramped hands. "Do those stitches have to come out too?"

Jian Mo nodded. "Yes. They can't stay in the wound forever. Come see me tomorrow evening so I can check how it's healing."

As he spoke, Jian Mo applied the herbs he had crushed earlier to the wound, then carefully wrapped it in cloth. "There."

A Da let out a great sigh of relief and tried standing up and walking around. "It hardly hurts."

Jian Mo said, "Once it's stitched up, it usually doesn't hurt much as long as you don't touch it. You'd better not go hunting for the next two days. Stay in the tribe and rest."

As he spoke, Jian Mo looked at Wu Jiong.

Wu Jiong nodded to show it was fine. "Rest in the tribe for a few days."

"Okay," A Da said.

Jian Mo tossed the tools he had used back into the boiling saltwater.

He and Wu Jiong had made these tools themselves, bit by bit. Just choosing the materials had taken considerable time, so they had to reuse them.

Although the materials meant the tools wouldn't last long, they still couldn't be wasted.

Hong Qiu watched him clean up and couldn't help saying, "You have so many things here. I've never seen a lot of them."

Jian Mo said, "They're tools invented where I come from. Wu Jiong helped me make them."

Hong Qiu looked at Wu Jiong.

Wu Jiong paid no attention to Hong Qiu's gaze. "Is there anything else to do?"

Jian Mo shook his head. "Nothing else. A Da, you can go home now. Try not to move that injured leg for the next two days so it can heal properly. Heng Man, keep an eye on him."

Heng Man quickly nodded and gave a serious reply. "Okay."

Wu Jiong said to A Da, "I'll carry you home."

A Da said, "No, you don't need to, do you?"

Jian Mo said from the side, "It would be best if you could carry him."

Wu Jiong simply carried A Da home on his back in human form.

Hong Qiu and Heng Man followed them back too.

But before long, when Wu Jiong returned, Heng Man came back with him, carrying a large piece of semi-dried leg meat.

A little embarrassed, Heng Man said to Jian Mo, "This is the best meat we have left at home. Please take it and eat it."

Jian Mo smiled. "There's no need. I don't charge people in the tribe for treatment. A Da's injured, so make him some good food over the next few days to help him recover."

Jian Mo himself was staying and eating at Wu Jiong's house, so naturally he had no reason to charge anyone else.