Chapter 19: Saving Lives

Just a moment ago, so many people were working there; with such a massive landslide, many must have been crushed and injured. Li You, concerned for Wu Dading, took off running toward that side.

At the same time, everyone near the wooden sheds shouted and ran over, and those boiling salt on the north side of the salt field also stood up one after another and began to yell...

Li You was the fastest. By the time he arrived, the side of the mine near the foothills had already changed completely. The black dust had not yet settled, and twenty or thirty people, covered in dirt and grime, had scrambled out. Li You spotted Dading at a single glance.

"Dading, are you alright?"

"No... nothing... ptooey... luckily it was just some dirt, though some people were hurt by rocks."

Wu Dading said to Li You while spitting out his mouth.

Li You’s heart settled slightly, but soon cries for help began to rise one after another...

"Quick, Brother Jingkun... and Brother Shuzi..."

"Someone help, someone help! Xiang Ying is buried under the rocks, come quickly..."

"Hey, where are Brother Sanshui and Lu Yi? I’m afraid they’re still in the dirt pile..."

The cries for help came from both the miners and the mountain bandit guards.

Cao Er ran over, shouting for the miners to save their own people first. What a joke—those were their enemies!

So, no one paid him any mind. Everything fell into chaos at once; everyone began digging, saving, and carrying people on their own, and the scene was extremely disorderly for a time.

Wu Dading turned to look at Li You. With a pair of bright eyes set in his blackened face, he tugged gently on the corner of Li You’s clothes and, almost imperceptibly, raised his eyebrows toward Cao Er, who was standing alone in the distance.

Li You shook his head slightly and said, "Save people first!"

He began to busy himself alongside the miners. Because he was agile and possessed astonishing strength, in a short while, he had carried a person out. However, this person was not a miner, but a mountain bandit named Chen Shu.

"What are you standing there for? Help!"

Li Qinxiang saw that the person Li You had saved was a mountain bandit; he pursed his lips but still let out a shout.

Gao Conghu, Guan Hongxin, and the others behind him finally moved. Gao Conglong was cursing and looked completely unwilling, but in the end, he followed along.

After all, only a small number of people had been buried, so the rescue ended quickly. However, the groans and cries of pain were endless. This open-pit iron mine was not entirely iron sand and soil; the foothills and hills were also mixed with quite a few rocks.

Therefore, many people were only slightly buried by mud and were not seriously hurt, but several unlucky souls had been struck by millstone-sized rocks, and their injuries were severe.

The most serious case was a mountain bandit named Zhao Ding, who had been struck on the head; his neck was crushed crooked, and he stopped breathing shortly after being carried out.

There was also a sturdy mountain bandit named Qi Jingkun, who had a sharp rock pierce into his abdomen. Blood gushed out like a spring, and judging by the situation, he did not have long to live.

Next were a mountain bandit named Lu Yi and a miner named Xiang Ying. While running, both were struck by the same giant boulder; one was hit in the left leg, the other in the arm, suffering from both internal and external injuries.

There were three or four others with lighter injuries, but most had been wounded.

In this era of medical standards, no wound could be taken lightly. Just like on a cold-weapon battlefield, most deaths were due to blood loss, infection, fever, or even being pained to death.

The phenomenon of dying from pain was not rare, which is why many heroes often asked only for a quick end when they were dying.

As the surrounding clamor faded, the miners and mountain bandits looked at the wounded lying on the ground, all of them stunned and staring.

"Give him a quick end!"

Cao Er frowned for a long time, spoke in a booming voice, and turned to leave, surrounded by Xu Lifang and his men.

"Qianjun, what are you... standing there for? Give him a quick end!"

The mountain bandit Qi Jingkun, lying on the ground clutching his stomach, could not bear the pain; he stiffened his neck and shouted at a mountain bandit with whom he was on good terms.

The mountain bandit named Mu Qianjun sniffed, threw away the leather whip in his hand, and with a "shing," drew the sword at his waist. At the same time, several other mountain bandits drew their blades as well.

Looking at them, they must have done this kind of work many times before. No wonder Cao Er was always short of men here.

With this kind of "cutting," no one could hold up.

"Don't, don't, I don't want to die."

"Don't you dare mess around, I feel like I can still live!"

Most of those lying on the ground were not tough guys like Qi Jingkun; many still wanted to cling to life.

Although they knew the mountain stronghold had no physician and no medicinal herbs, and that they would likely suffer unbearable pain in the end, they still wanted to survive. After all, loving life and fearing death is human nature.

"Don't mess around, they won't die!"

Li You roared, then shouted at Wa Qingyun: "Go get the big iron pot from the kitchen, boil some hot water, and prepare some slightly clean cloth, scissors, needles, thread, chopsticks, cotton... and that jar of mustard greens you gave me today... oh, and bring more clay pots and salt..."

Mu Qianjun, Gao Conglong, and the others were all stunned. Perhaps due to the deterrent power of the previously executed Tian Si, combined with the dual status of the scholar, no one refuted him for a moment, and they all followed Wa Qingyun to find the materials.

Soon, two large pots were set up. Roaring flames licked the bottoms of the pots, and the full pots of water were steaming hot.

In the meantime, Li You had already placed the six wounded in a row and had used ropes to bind the blood vessels of the four most severely injured: Qi Jingkun, Chen Shu, Lu Yi, and Xiang Ying.

"Cloth!"

Wa Qingyun threw some blue and black mixed cloth he had found to Li You. Seeing how dirty it was, Li You couldn't help but frown. He didn't take it, but instead took off his own outer robe. Underneath was a layer of white undergarment. Under the regretful gazes of the crowd, Li You quickly tore it into strips to use as bandages and threw them into the boiling water in the big pot.

Then he picked two clean clay pots, scooped clean water from the other big pot, and added some fine salt.

A moment later, he took out the boiled cloth, wrapped cotton into a ball with it, and walked to the side of the most severely injured Qi Jingkun to examine the wound.

***The sharp rock in Qi Jingkun's abdomen was triangular, and the wound it had pierced into his belly was the size of a teacup lid.

Seeing such an injury, Li You suddenly felt... there really was no saving him.

If he were vomiting blood, it would be quite severe internal bleeding. If the stomach wall were ruptured, the liver and spleen were likely already smashed to bits; even in later generations, spleen ruptures were often fatal.

If a broken rib had pierced the major blood vessels and the digestive tract, it would be even harder to save.

Fortunately, Qi Jingkun was not vomiting blood. Li You estimated there might still be a chance; what if the sharp rock hadn't pierced very deep?

Amidst Qi Jingkun's ear-piercing screams, Li You pulled out the sharp rock, and blood gushed out again instantly...

With such a large wound, Li You tried to cover it with his hand, but found he couldn't. He had no other choice for the moment and could only watch the blood flow out until the force of the gushing blood subsided. Only then did Li You begin to clean it with the cloth ball dipped in salt water.

He cleaned it with extreme proficiency. The cloth in his hand, aided by the cotton ball, was excellent at absorbing blood. During the cleaning process,

he noticed that the wound was not as shallow as he had thought, but very deep. After piercing the belly, the sharpest part must have shattered parts of his ascending colon and cecum, because a small section of intestine had fallen out.

"What the hell is this? I hope it's the appendix..."

Li You looked at the small section of intestine in his palm, shook his head, and threw it away, where it landed on the instep of Shi Jiuen, who was standing nearby.

Shi Jiuen looked down, and his face twitched wildly!

Others saw it too, and they only felt that Li You didn't look like a physician, but more like a paper-hanger, and a very unprofessional one at that.

Shi Jiuen stood on tiptoe, pointed at the object on his foot, and said: "Hey, good fellow, this section of intestine... you don't want it?"

"Yeah, otherwise what? Stuff it back in?"

Li You didn't even lift his head. After saying this casually, he changed to a new cloth ball to clean it again, then gently peeled the layer of mold off the mustard greens jar, smeared it onto the surrounding wound, and then, under the astonished gazes of the crowd, began his needlework.

Li You had been very dexterous since he was a child; when he was young, he often helped his grandmother thread needles and do sewing.

He was seen skillfully squeezing the upper and lower edges of the wound together, performing a hem stitch. His hands flew, and with the final stitch, he applied a backstitch technique near the ***, and incidentally tied a butterfly knot...

"Done!"

This whole set of movements was simply smooth and fluid. The crowd was dumbfounded. Was this really how one treated illnesses and saved lives?

Guan Hongxin, in the crowd, let out a strange cry: "My goodness... saving someone like this? It really is like a small knife cutting a butt—an eye-opener, indeed!"