Chapter 3 Grateful for the Doctor
Seeing the four dead bodies on the ground, Yuxiao realized what he had done. He felt everything he ate coming up and vomited. His face was pale and his eyes were filled with fear. He tossed the knife and got back onto the carriage to head south as quickly as he could.
He had no idea how long it took for him to come back to his senses. The burns on his butt and the knife wounds on his body made him dizzy. While trying hard to stay awake, he saw a village ahead that was bigger than the one earlier and hurried toward it.
Yuxiao asked the villagers for any doctors nearby, but no one talked to him when they saw his bloody clothes; everyone was afraid he was a wanted killer. Yuxiao had no choice but to stop at a restaurant and inn; however, the waiter blocked his way.
"Why can't I go in?"
Yuxiao demanded of the waiter.
The waiter saw all the blood on Yuxiao and was afraid to offend him. "Sir, I'm sorry, but the way you look will scare everyone here. I'll be fired if I get in trouble."
Yuxiao stared at him. "Just give me a room. I'll stay inside and won't scare anyone!"
"Sorry sir, but our inn is full right now." The waiter was too afraid not to lie.
Yuxiao felt weak allover and was seeing stars, too. If I wast any more time with you, I'll die here. He pushed aside the waiter to go in. The waiter wanted to stop him, but also didn't want to get hurt. "Sir, please stop. We really are out of rooms!"
The waiter's loud shout got the manager's attention. When he saw a bloody young man headed inside the inn, he came out from behind the counter, but didn't want to touch Yuxiao, either. The guests inside the lobby all scattered, seeing Yuxiao's arrival, and some even ran outside.
"Young man, what can I do for you?" asked the manager. He was more suave than the waiter.
"Give me a room now, and get me a doctor." Yuxiao took out a gold coin.
Seeing how generous Yuxiao was, the manager's eyes lit up. He quickly said, "The second floor has a room. Room 203, this way."
"Tell someone to get me a pan of water and get me a doctor who's good at wounds," Yuxiao said with a pale face as he walked upstairs.
The manager sent a waiter to show Yuxiao the way and another person to get the water. When Yuxiao followed the waiter inside the room, he whispered to another waiter, "Get Dr. Wang here, and if you see any guards on the way, bring them here, too."
The waiter understood the message and ran out of the inn.
Yuxiao used cold water to rinse and felt a little more alert. He took off his bloody shirt and his underwear and washed his wounds. When he was done, he washed his shirt in the wooden pail, tore the shirt into strips, and wrapped the fabric over his wounds. Pain forced him to stay awake. Gritting his teeth, he shouted. "Get me three pounds of beef and some soup! Make it quick!"
"Right away!"
The waiter rushed to the kitchen to fill his order.
Yuxiao felt close to passing out from fatigue. He forced himself into a lotus pose on the bed and tried to focus his qi so that he didn't faint.
With the exhaustion and pain, he could feel the qi coming up with difficulty. Ten breaths later, he was able to discard all wayward thoughts, and all of a sudden, he felt a fingernail-sized burst of qi in his abdomen. Unlike before, his mind told him to let the qi go downward instead of up. Maybe it could cycle through his whole body.
Even as he thought about this, he did it. After a while, the small burst of qi started to change; it didn't get bigger, but it turned into a ball of energy. The energy turned around and around in his abdomen, and he could feel other bursts of qi from other parts of his body joining the first one.
"Sir, your order is ready."
Yuxiao could feel the various bursts of energy in his body, so he was upset at the waiter for interrupting him. The energy in his abdomen dissipated, but he didn't scold the waiter. He only said, "C'mon in."
The waiter delivered a platter with a plate of beef, a water bowl, a kettle, and a pair of chopsticks. He put it on the table. Seeing the forlorn Yuxiao, he asked, "Anything else, sir?"
"It's fine. You can go." Yuxiao waved him off.
"Just let me know what else you need!" The waiter closed the door behind him.
Yuxiao started eating the beef and drinking the water, and as he chowed down, he forgot his pain. He didn't remember his wounds until after eating, and by then he was feeling back to normal. The wounds hardly hurt anymore.
Just as he puzzled over his quick recovery, a knock sounded on the door. Yuxiao became agitated again. I have to tell them no interruptions. "What is it?"
"Sir, the doctor you requested is here. Should we come in?'
Yuxiao was happy to hear this news. "Please come in."
The waiter led inside a forty-ish man carrying a doctor's bag, and following them were two burly, knife-carrying men in uniform. Yuxiao didn't check them out too closely before they were all in the room. Yuxiao folded his hands in a warrior's greeting, and said, "Doctor, I'm sorry that I can't greet you properly with my wounds. "
"Just call me Dr. Wang."
Seeing how Yuxiao was polite and didn't seem like a bad guy, the doctor was also courteous as he answered. "I don't know where your wounds are. Let me take a look."
Since everyone in the room was male, Yuxiao didn't stand on ceremony before disrobing, exposing the wounds on his arms, chest, back, legs, and waist. Dr. Wang was shocked at the level of injury. Even the guards were surprised, and the waiter almost passed out. They seemed to wonder, Is he even human? How is he not dead yet? But his face is healthy and ruddy. Is he faking being hurt?
Dr. Wang may have felt that Yuxiao was pretending, too, but before he asked, Yuxiao moved to show that his wounds weren't fake. The waiter was too terrified to look and ran out the room. On Yuxiao's right arm were two finger-length cuts and there were two equally long cuts on his waist, back, chest, left thigh, right shin, plus the burn on his left buttock.
"How can I even bandage these for you?" asked Dr. Wang, who was surprised at all the injuries on Yuxiao.
"Whatever you can do is fine." Yuxiao grabbed a stool.
"All right. I'll disinfect and bandage your upper body before doing the rest." Dr. Wang opened his medicine bag to get a bottle of medicinal wine.
"Great."
Yuxiao nodded. As Dr. Wang swiped medicinal wine on each wound, Yuxiao hissed in pain, and the two guards could only shiver in sympathy.
Before long, all of Yuxiao's wounds were bandaged and he was feeling more comfortable. He took out some silver ingot pieces for Dr. Wang. "Please accept these with my thanks."
Dr. Wang only smiled. "It's my professional duty to heal and save people. Ten coins is more than enough, no need for the rest."
Yuxiao replied, "If Dr. Wang wasn't here, I'd probably expire here. Doctor, you have to take the payment. If I didn't need a lot of funds for the rest of my trip to join the army on the border, I'd give you more money."