Chapter 14

“By the way, I think I’ve seen you before.” Kraft’s memory activated, pulling up the recently stored details: “Did the pain start after you fell forward? It’s your shoulder, right?”

He had merely passed by them, yet the entire sequence had been unconsciously etched into his mind: the fish tail’s splashed droplets, the sleeve raised to shield away, the collision, the loss of balance, then the forward tumble—hands reflexively reaching out to cushion the fall, palms hitting first, then the entire forearm slamming into the ground with a cry of pain.

On the sleeve of the arm he was supporting, traces of friction from the ground still remained; his hand bore several abrasions, untreated for now. He held the elbow, actually controlling shoulder movement.

Yes, perfectly matching. It was him.

Seeing their lingering doubts, Kraft added: “Try this motion—press your elbow and fist simultaneously against your chest.” He demonstrated, bending his left arm effortlessly until both fist and elbow touched his chest. “If I’m right, you won’t be able to do this at all—your hand and elbow won’t both reach.”

The student on the ground gritted his teeth and tried—exactly as Kraft said, only one of elbow or fist could touch the chest at a time.

The law student’s companions and the three medical students also tried it on themselves—undoubtedly, all of them could press both elbow and fist to their chests. The success of this small experiment earned them confidence in Kraft’s expertise, and his noble status further boosted his credibility.

Fortunately, they had no real understanding of the actual knowledge level of military nobles from the lower classes, Kraft thought. He knew his own family well—his grandfather’s medical knowledge extended only to washing wounds with clean water and summoning someone who could pray. Even that was already a remarkably advanced idea, far ahead of those who smeared ash on wounds. “My family specializes in trauma” was a lie he could only invent himself.

Hmm… maybe it wasn’t entirely a lie either. Since the new two-in-one version of Kraft appeared, this family now had at least one person with normal medical understanding. But even that phrasing was inaccurate—given the current societal context, Kraft’s medical knowledge was slightly beyond “normal,” to the point where most of it was probably useless.

But this situation here didn’t fall into the “mostly useless” category.

Once the sequence was clarified, the logic became clear: a student who rarely exercised fell, landed on his forearm, then held one arm, complaining of shoulder pain, unable to press both elbow and fist to his chest.

An easy question. A gift. It was handed to him like an exam problem so obvious he could smile knowingly at the professor.

If you were a medical student who had genuinely studied before the exam—meaning not the three black-robed men beside him, but the kind Kraft from the other world knew, the ones who stayed up late and lost hair—you’d find in some overly thick textbook an archaic term: Hippocrates’ Method.

A term that looked no different from others, but when spoken aloud, it rang disturbingly familiar—like the name of some famous historical figure.

Indeed, it was him: Hippocrates, the Hippocrates of the Oath. Many, including Kraft himself, had never imagined that something invented by an ancient Greek would still appear in textbooks a thousand years later, still the standard treatment for shoulder dislocation.

“Shoulder dislocation,” Kraft explained. “I mean, one end of your bone has slipped out of where it’s supposed to be in the shoulder. From my experience, it happened when you fell to the ground.” Too bad this world had no Hippocrates—further crippling its already underdeveloped medicine.

After Kraft finished speaking, the nearby medical students didn’t exclaim “Ah!” in realization, nor nod as if they’d learned this. Instead, they looked at him with an unsettling admiration. The enthusiastic brown-haired student especially—his face practically screamed, “Your noble family must have deep medical traditions,” and he looked eager to ask for detailed guidance.

No way? Without Hippocrates, you guys never even studied this kind of thing?

Kraft felt a deep sorrow. This didn’t make sense. Wendeng Harbor was the only city in a vast region, and if the medical students here were this clueless, there was no hope for anything else. If he ever got sick later—a simple appendicitis could easily kill him.

The law student on the ground, hearing his words, grew pale and grim. His tension spiked: “Is my arm still salvageable?”

“Of course, of course—your case isn’t serious,” Kraft snapped out of his despair over the future. “Can you walk? I need a bed so I can treat you properly.”

He stepped forward to help the patient up, scanning the surroundings. The empty square had no public bench—definitely not an ideal place for treatment.

“Why not go to our medical academy? We have plenty of beds,” offered the brown-haired medical student, whose knowledge was average but whose character was genuinely good.

“Ah, but wouldn’t that…?”

“Don’t worry about distance—our carriage is nearby. Besides, you’ll need to return to the academy to rest after being treated, right?”

…

…

“I’m Lu Xiusi, from Xia’s family. I’ve been in Wendeng Harbor for four years,” the enthusiastic brown-haired youth introduced himself from the driver’s seat. “I’m so lucky to have met you today. If you don’t mind, may we observe?”

In the end, they all boarded the medical academy’s carriage, jolting along in the cargo space toward the academy. Trusting Kraft, and reassured by the sword at his waist, the two law students hesitated briefly but agreed.

As Lu Xiusi said, they had indeed come out to purchase experimental materials. Bottles and jars of unknown contents lay at the passengers’ feet; beneath them sat a heavy wooden box, its contents shifting with the carriage’s motion. Beside the box leaned dry plant material resembling straw and twigs; other small items were piled in the corners, requiring care to avoid stepping on them.

Kraft rode alongside the carriage, accepting Lu Xiusi’s request: “But the patient must agree. By the way, why does your medical academy have so many beds? Do you treat patients on campus?”

…

Lu Xiusi fell into an odd silence, offering no answer.

But the law student behind them overheard their conversation. Having borrowed the medical carriage and now about to borrow their bed, he felt his earlier behavior had been inappropriate—judging his own classmate based on rumors alone was utterly contrary to the spirit of law.

Thus, out of guilt and self-reproach, he agreed to Lu Xiusi’s request: “It’s fine. We owe you greatly today. To observe the treatment? I wouldn’t refuse.”

Thus, in harmonious atmosphere, Lu Xiusi led Kraft through the academy gates without hindrance, turning several corners until they reached a part of the medical academy Kraft had never seen. No guards questioned the outsider in non-academy attire—Lu Xiusi simply waved his face through.

Once inside the room and lying on the stone bed, the law student with the dislocated shoulder felt something was off.

Calling it a “bed” was misleading—it was more like a stone slab, its rectangular shape raising suspicion about its true purpose.

Though Lu Xiusi had kindly added a cushion, wasn’t this room unusually large? And why were there tiered benches around it?

Kraft fell silent too. He’d seen similar ancient medical classrooms in educational videos—he couldn’t say what kind of classroom this was, but he had a sinking feeling about who usually lay on that bed.

Considering the patient’s emotions, he didn’t explain. He simply told the patient to lie still and removed his upper garment. Once undressed, the displaced acromion was clearly protruding, forming a shape distinctly square and unnatural compared to the normal rounded shoulder—confirming his diagnosis.

He checked for abnormal movement or pain in the left arm, then bent the elbow to ninety degrees to verify the bony landmarks were normal, ruling out possible fracture or elbow dislocation.

“Now I’m going to push the bone back into place. Relax. Don’t resist.” Kraft kicked off one boot, pressed his foot under the armpit of the dislocated shoulder, gripped the left arm, and assumed the classic reduction posture—used for a millennium. “Someone, hold him down. Don’t let him move.”

Before he finished speaking, five or six black-robed figures rose instantly from the tiered benches behind, pinning the patient’s limbs and body firmly to the slab. Kraft hadn’t even noticed when they entered.

He applied steady, even traction to the arm, using his foot to push the humeral head outward while rotating the limb. A characteristic pop echoed—the humeral head snapped back into place, the shoulder’s shape instantly restored to normal.

“Alright, release him. Now, could someone bring me a triangular cloth? About the size of a chest.” Kraft halted the patient’s attempt to move his newly freed shoulder, placing his hand against his chest. “For the next twenty days, this arm must hang suspended here.”

Fortunately, this was a medical academy—Kraft quickly received a freshly cut triangle of coarse linen. He secured the injured limb to the patient’s chest, reiterated the twenty-day restriction, and dismissed the now-teaching-sample law student.

In that brief moment, two rows of black-robed figures had appeared. If he didn’t leave now, he wasn’t sure he’d ever make it back to the law academy.