Chapter 4- Familiar Business

Liren was back in forty five minutes. The doctor was wearing a blindfold and curled up on the bottom of the cart. Liren had picked up the cart and carried it over her head to make travel quicker, but it didn’t make the journey a pleasant one. Neither she, nor Tian, cared. Tian had already lost four more villagers in the time she was gone. He needed all the help he could get.

“The group on the left should live for at least two more hours, the group on the right needs urgent care.” Tian pointed at his “wards” laid out on the dirt. There were no homes big enough to treat all of them in. “Before you ask, no, any medicine I have would kill them, not help them. I’m currently steeping a tea that should help fight infection, but I am guessing on how far down it needs to be diluted. I have experience as a hospital orderly and battlefield medic. I will follow your instructions.” Tian bowed to the dizzy doctor, and pointed him at the patients.

Fewer patients now. They were down to just twenty five surviving villagers. Out of hundreds. And the only child they found, alive or dead, was the single burned boy.

The doctor looked blankly at the scene in front of him, then bolted for a bush. He threw up. Violently threw up. Shoulders shaking, knees trembling, watery bile coming after whatever solid food he had managed to eat before being ‘recruited’ by Liren.

Tian walked over and slowly rubbed the old doctor’s back. “First time at a massacre?”

The doctor couldn’t answer. His stomach was convulsing. His hands, normally so steady, trembled like a hummingbird’s wing.

“Wash your mouth out with some cold tea. Then drink a little. Just a little, though. The qi should be more than enough to replace what you have lost.” Tian kept his voice soft and handed over his calabash. The doctor managed to hang on to the gourd, but drinking was beyond him for the moment.

“It’s simpler than you think. I am keeping very close track of who’s in what condition. I will tell you who needs your help first.” And Tian just prayed he was right about that, but it’s what the doctor needed to hear. If he guessed wrong, he was willing to accept the blame. “So from your perspective, there is really only one patient. The one in front of you. Where you are doesn’t matter. How they got that way doesn’t matter. All that matters is the problem in front of you. And you have spent a lifetime healing mortal ailments. This is just one more day on the job. And you will be paid well for your work.”

“A lifetime of births, fevers, broken bones and farming accidents. This? This?” The doctor finally managed to rinse and spit. His eyes went wide and he took a cautious sip of the cold tea. Tian could feel the qi rushing through the old man. This much would be fine, but more would be dangerous. He gently took back the gourd.

“I have never attended a birth, Doctor. Never had the opportunity to learn about maternal care at all, actually. I would learn all you are willing to teach. Afterward. For now, a patient needs your help. That good mother right there.” Tian gently turned the doctor to his first patient.

Liren hovered outside the orderly rows of the wounded. She shifted from side to side, her hands making little clenching moments as she swept her eyes around. Tian had seen her like this before. Feeling useless and hating it. But the medicine dao was not within her. She could tie a bandage and give someone their medicine, but it wasn’t her path. She had done all she could here, now. All that she could do at this point would be –

“I’ll cremate the dead.” Her voice was bitter.

“Creamate? We bury-” The doctor looked up. Tian cut him off with a hand on his shoulder.

“Not today. Thank you, Sister.”

“But if they are cremated-”

“Then heretics cannot defile their corpses or use them for evil magics. Eyes down, Doctor. Tend to the living.” Tian kept his voice kind but firm.

They lost another five before the remainder were out of immediate danger. Just twenty survivors out of a village of roughly four hundred souls.

“The Yellow Banner Bandits.” The doctor had pulled himself together by the end, but Tian knew that look. The outside was composed. The inside would never be quite right again. He saw that look in his reflection. He saw it in Liren too.

“Yes. We had already killed off two thirds of them, and were coming to finish the job. I had thought we were traveling more than fast enough.” Tian sighed. “No more time for subtly, I think.”

The doctor snorted. Then took a deep breath and firmly exhaled. “I suppose I should be thankful that Immortals condescended to intervene here at all. On behalf of the survivors, I thank the ancients.” The doctor clasped his hands together and bowed deeply. Tian straightened him up.

“I’m fifteen, Doctor. No need to bow so deeply. It is I who am grateful to you.” The words were rote politeness, of course. A mortal who didn’t bow to an immortal would be ignored at best, with death a very normal outcome. The Monastery had strict rules about that sort of thing, but Tian had never heard of them actually being enforced. Largely because nobody ever seemed to have anything to do with mortals in the first place.

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“Fifteen. You are fifteen.”

“Yes. I know I look young for my age-”

“I thought you were some ancient monster practicing some kind of age reversion art! Fifteen?”

“Is that a thing? Age reversion, I mean?”

“You tell me, you are the immortal!” The doctor’s confusion and irritation momentarily overtook his survival instinct.

“Never heard of it if it is. Most of the seniors I know look like seniors.” Tian shrugged.