Chapter 427: Surgery

Seeing the master lifted onto a strange flatbed cart and then wheeled into the operating room, the Huang family grew somewhat uneasy. These Yizhou physicians, dressed in thin green cloth robes and wearing the mouth-covering cloths commonly used by corpse collectors, rushed about in a flurry, seven hands and eight feet as if ready to butcher a pig — the onlookers could hardly remain calm.

Truly, the womenfolk and maidservants had never experienced such a scene before. Now, aside from Master Huang himself, who remained relatively composed, the rest of the group following behind, Huang Xieshi and the others, were all filled with panic in their hearts.

Fortunately, the operating room was a high-tech product. Though it lacked the electronic screens common in later generations, it had one-way glass windows and speakers, allowing family members to see what was happening inside in real time. This put the Huang family, left waiting outside, much more at ease.

As for the surgery itself, the conditions in the General Hospital's operating room were actually quite crude. Only certain operations could be performed here — cutting out acute appendicitis and circumcision were about the limit.

As for anything more complex... the Transmigrators would go to the dedicated Hospital on Dayuan Island. Ming patients could only be sent away; no one would perform a heart stent procedure here.

Huang Xieshi clutched a Huzhou silk handkerchief tightly in her hands, her face full of worry as she stared at the master behind the glass window, her heart brimming with deep unease and dread.

As the saying goes, husband and wife are one body. Here, "wife" naturally does not refer to a concubine, but to a principal wife like Huang Xieshi — formally betrothed, married with full rites, and brought through the door with three letters and six ceremonies.

As a principal wife from a family of equal standing, and one who had always been in harmony and accord with the master, Huang Xieshi knew every single thing her husband had been up to with perfect clarity.

Back when Fang Tangjing returned from overseas, the master, for reasons unknown, wholeheartedly believed in this trusted confidant's way and began preparing for the matter of seeking medical treatment in Yizhou.

For this, the master did not hesitate to transfer some of his businesses and even went to Shanghai County to play the part of Jiang Gan — Huang Xieshi was a lady from a distinguished family; she could see through these matters at a glance.

During this period, although Huang Xieshi had tried to dissuade her husband, in the end she did not succeed. After all, Master Huang was the head of the family; whether Huang Xieshi agreed or not, she ultimately had to obey.

In this era, women were entirely dependent, in person, upon their fathers, husbands, and sons. Outside the back residence, women actually had little discourse power and could only drift with the current.

The saying "marry a chicken, follow the chicken" was no joke: if a man achieved success and fame, the woman followed, receiving imperial titles and living in glory; but once a man committed a crime and his household was confiscated, the woman likewise had to hang herself or go to prison, with no right to choose.

That said, Huang Xieshi herself was also extremely conflicted. Setting aside business matters, which Huang Xieshi did not much care about, on the matter of healing illness, Huang Xieshi on one side felt it was far too illusory, yet on the other side clutched at it as if it were a life-saving straw.

Over the years, the Huang couple, in their desire for even a single child, had secretly sought countless doctors, swallowed countless bitter medicines, and endured countless ridicule and schemes.

In the end, bearing the immense pressure of the family, Huang Xieshi had no choice but to force herself to believe those strange words about "infertility" that Fang Tangjing had brought back, and followed her man to this land beyond civilization to seek medical help and medicine.

"Truly, what a sin!" Like a gambler who had staked her entire fortune on the lottery, having paid an enormous price and now waiting for the draw to be revealed, Huang Xieshi stood outside the thick glass window, her face pale, her heart flustered and racing, a sense of absurdity flooding her entire body. "I pray the Bodhisattva for protection, to remove all these visible and hidden ailments from the master's body..."

The next moment, her eyes widened again. Because a commanding voice came from the speaker overhead: "Tie him down."

Following the words, several Apprentices deftly bound Master Huang with restraint straps — Ming patients were often scared witless by this routine of being cut open and having flesh sliced, and would try to jump off the bed and escape despite bleeding knife wounds. So now the doctors had learned their lesson: anyone under local anesthesia was tied down first before proceeding.

This binding action further heightened the atmosphere of terror on the scene. The series of pre-operative preparations that followed were all completed under a row of panicked gazes outside the window. When they finally saw the doctor insert a silver needle into the master's toe, some maidservants even let out low gasps.

Unlike his family outside, Master Huang, a man who had seen the world, grew increasingly composed at this moment. With his life experience, he could naturally discern that this White Divine Doctor's arrogance was no empty bluff: this gout was probably not difficult to treat in his hands!

And so, while waiting for the anesthetic to take effect, Master Huang, entering a hospital for the first time, actually chatted cheerfully with the White Divine Doctor for a few sentences, adopting an attitude of relaxed ease.

Seeing the master's face full of smiles, the family members relaxed slightly as well. However, the next moment, as the sharp scalpel cut open the master's big toe, revealing stark white bone, someone outside the window still could not help but let out a shriek.

Fortunately, this was one-way glass, and the operating room could not hear the commotion outside; otherwise, Master Bai might well have twitched his hand and sliced off Master Huang's toe.

Master Huang himself finally began to feel astonishment: when he saw with his own eyes his toe being cut open, yet felt no pain. Though there was an occasional sensation of soreness, swelling, and dull pain from his foot, compared to the bone-gouging, heart-grinding level of agony he had imagined, it was a difference of heaven and earth.

"Only today do I know the wondrous efficacy of anesthetic! The White Divine Doctor is truly brilliant!"

Seeing that the master, far from shouting and screaming, was instead chatting with the doctor with a normal expression, the cluster of ashen-faced family members outside the window finally realized something miraculous and gradually quieted down.

And the principal wife of the Huang family, who had been clutching her handkerchief tightly, pressing her chest, and looking on the verge of fainting, finally regained a trace of color in her face.

And so the surgery continued on.

Master Bai, while explaining this rare gout case to the interns, kept his hands busy without pause, prying and clamping, bit by bit extracting the uric acid crystals that had gathered on the joint of Master Huang's big toe.

The final spoils of battle were quite substantial. Master Huang had suffered from the disease for many years; the joint of his big toe had long since become deformed. From within the knuckle, swollen as large as a walnut, quite a few white crystals were removed.

After the most critical part of the surgery was completed, Master Huang was reduced to a white mouse, with the interns completing the subsequent suturing work.

Although the Imperial Medical System established by the Transmigrators lacked needles and medicines, these medical students had access to a certain basic resource far more abundant than what their later-generation counterparts would have.

This resource was what later generations would call "Body Teachers" — medical dissection corpses.

In later generations, one dissection corpse had to serve an entire class for lessons, and often had to be soaked in Formalin for repeated use. There was no helping it — corpse sources were too scarce.

But under the rule of the Transmigrators in the seventeenth century, with a nearly endless supply of corpses, every medical student was an expert at dissection — people died every day in the mines and lumber camps, and the same was true in the industrial zones.

In fact, the medical students simply could not dissect them all fast enough.

Due to the sweltering heat, many slave corpses were simply dumped into the distant sea to feed the fish; no one would waste cold air on this matter. Whenever the students wanted to dissect, they always had fresh, warm "live goods." As for Formalin... that stuff had scarce output from the laboratory; how could it be used to soak corpses?

In short, the medical students of this plane were the reverse of the Old World.

Master Bai's disciples had weak foundational knowledge, lacked theoretical understanding, were unfamiliar with professional Equipment, and were even ignorant of certain common life knowledge. But when it came to dissection and suturing, every single one of them was an expert. After all, they spent all day handling hearts, livers, spleens, and kidneys — and only these things were in ample supply.

In the end, a female student wearing a mask finished suturing Master Huang's toe in just a few swift motions. The suture line was neat and aesthetically pleasing, meeting professional standards.

Then Master Huang was wheeled out of the operating room. Smiling, Master Huang held a tray in his arms; inside were his surgical souvenirs: the uric acid crystals.

Back in the ward, looking at the master's toe restored to a normal shape, and then looking at those "filthy things" taken out from his foot, the previously tearful Madam Huang finally broke into a smile through her tears, endlessly thanking the White Divine Doctor.

Master Bai first instructed Master Huang on some matters requiring attention — for instance, switching to a vegetarian diet from now on, and once his foot healed, beginning to lose weight, and other matters unfamiliar to Ming people.

Next, Master Bai had originally planned to examine the couple for infertility, but seeing these Ming people looking as though they had just been parted by death, Master Bai had no choice but to decide to do the examination tomorrow.

After the doctor left, the effects of the anesthetic gradually wore off, and Master Huang's wound began to hurt again. At this time, there were no patient-controlled analgesia devices common in later generations, so Master Huang could only endure it.

But this level of pain, to someone who had endured the agony of gout year-round, was nothing at all.

Master Huang, leaning against the bed at this moment, looked at the family members gathered in a circle around him. Only then did he exchange a gratified glance with his wife, each seeing relief in the other's eyes: all the previous investments and risks now appeared to have been correct.

"Jinshu." The next moment, Master Huang turned his head and called Fang Tangjing by his courtesy name.

"What instructions does the master have?"

"Take a few of them out to the street and buy me a glass jar."

"Could the master be thinking of...?"

"Mm. These filthy things have plagued me for many years. This time, I shall take them back to Hangzhou, find a hundred-year-old locust tree, and bury them beneath its roots to dispel the bad luck."

"Your son-in-law understands."

"Also, have them all change into a set of local attire, and have their hair and faces tidied up at that 'Barber Shop' — when in Rome, do as the Romans do." Master Huang said this, his expression revealing a thoughtful look. "I fear we shall be staying here for quite some time. That being the case, it would be better to acquire some property locally."

Now that the surgery had succeeded, Master Huang was brimming with confidence for the subsequent "seeking a child" stage, so he began to consider the long-term plans ahead.

And so Fang Tangjing took the Servants and maidservants to buy clothes and get haircuts, leaving the madam and the master to begin discussing their future course of action: if the madam could become pregnant this time, they might well have to stay in Taiwan for over ten months, so acquiring some property was a reasonable move.

Then at noon, the most suitable person to consult arrived — Licentiate Nan, who hurried over after work to visit the master.