Chapter 20: West Pit

In ancient traditional medicine, the first step in treating trauma is debridement, generally using boiled water to clean the wound.

The second is applying medicine; there are many specialized formulas and prepared medicines for stopping bleeding and regenerating tissue. Prepared medicines are usually powders, which are convenient for external application.

The third is bandaging; the cloth used for bandaging is best when white and must be steamed.

The fourth is internal medication to promote healing. If conditions permit, a Physician will prescribe medicine on the spot based on the patient's specific constitution; when conditions do not permit, standard formulas or prepared medicines are used.

Aside from stitching the wound, the procedure was actually not much different from Li You's. The issue was that such medical methods were relatively high-end, used basically only by nobles and wealthy families. This bunch of mud-legged peasants had never seen them before, and adding the use of mold to ward off inflammation was an even rarer folk remedy, so it was only natural that they were astonished by Li You's medical methods!

Having dealt with Qi Jingkun, Li You was about to start providing aid to Xiang Ying and Dang Suozhi, but Shi Jiuen shouted from the side: "Save our people first; those two mud-legged peasants can die if they want."

Li You looked up and coldly glanced at Shi Jiuen, saying sternly: "In my eyes, there are no such things as mountain bandits or slaves!"

Once these words were spoken, the eyes of all the miners and salt slaves instantly burned with heat, and many even had their eyes turn red in an instant.

Li You did not know what kind of joy his words had brought to the miners and salt slaves.

"Happiness" is like a snob; in this world, blessings are reserved only for the wealthy who never lack them, while suffering is left entirely to them—endless bitterness, unspeakable hardships, lasting until death.

After Li You finished speaking, he began to wipe and disinfect Xiang Ying's left leg; the leg wound was deep enough to see the bone.

He cleaned it extremely carefully, finding quite a bit of mottled iron ore dust and sand inside. If this were not cleaned thoroughly, survival would be unlikely. However, there was no anesthetic, so all the pain had to be endured raw.

Except for the groans of the patients, the crowd remained silent, watching Li You finish treating Xiang Ying, then begin treating Dang Suozhi, Lu Yi, and finally the two lightly injured, Xu Sanshui and Yan Fengchun.

From beginning to end, he was meticulous. Sweat as large as beans had long since seeped down his forehead, yet his hands became increasingly skillful. The crowd also shifted from their initial astonishment to slowly becoming filled with admiration...

Especially when Li You had forcefully rebuked Shi Jiuen just now, it had long since changed their opinion of him!

Strangely enough, ever since Li You showed off his skills the day before yesterday and then saved people with his "immortal" methods, everyone, whether miner or mountain bandit, suddenly began to respect Li You.

To be able to pull people with severe injuries like Xiang Ying and Lu Yi back from the gates of the underworld—if that isn't a living immortal, what is?

One must know that among the hundreds of people on this Longmen Mountain, whether miners or mountain bandits, all lived dangerous lives; everyone would eventually suffer knife wounds or catch colds.

The appearance of a Physician, and a living immortal who could bring the dead back to life and regrow flesh on bones, meant everything to these people; it went without saying.

Even Huang Mao, Gu Laosan, and others who had previously spoken rudely to Li You began to greet him with smiles. As for Zhao Duyan, it went without saying; he kept dodging Li You whenever he saw him, fearing that Li You would cause him trouble.

Li You was a bit uncomfortable at first; after all, in that era, anyone with some medical common sense knew about surgical bandaging. But since it was like this, he might as well happily accept it.

"It's a pity I don't know how to treat diabetes! Otherwise, I would quickly gain the favor of Wu Zhuge and rise through the ranks... Forget it, this is fine too."

Li You felt regretful, but this was also a way to accumulate connections for himself.

If Wu Zhuge proved completely unreliable, he could always take the second path!

As he was gradually accepted, for the past two days, besides taking care of the patients, Li You spent his spare time collecting a large amount of penicillin mold from mustard greens from Wa Qingyun.

He ground rice into juice, mixed it with juice boiled from yams as a culture medium, and finally planted all this penicillin mold into five ceramic jars, planning to check the results in six or seven days.

After finishing this, the matter had to be set aside for now. Li You began to take the initiative to chat with everyone he met, whether miner or mountain bandit.

In his speech, he would intentionally or unintentionally ask for everyone's name and ancestral home, silently recording all this information.

Since he had no paper or pen, he would deliberately recite it to himself several times in his heart every day, and when he was alone in his spare time, he would always squat on the ground talking to himself...

"Mu Qianjun said his hometown is in Anyi County, Pingyang Prefecture. The area of Anyi he mentioned is so large, and there is the Yaoxian Canal... it should be the Yuncheng of later generations!"

Li You muttered to himself, finding a point on the southwest corner of the "Shanxi" map he had drawn on the ground and marking it. Then he muttered again: "Lu Yi said he is a military household from the Xuanwei Five-Fortress Office in Jingzhou, Huguang. Where is this Five-Fortress Office?"

Combining the body's original memories with his knowledge of geography from his past life, he was constantly piecing together the current map. Fortunately, the terrain of the Ming Dynasty was not much different from later generations; after all, most place names in later generations were inherited from the Ming Dynasty, so Li You verified them very quickly.

"Mr. Li, why do you keep drawing circles on the ground? What exactly are you doing?"

A round-faced little boy of about twelve or thirteen, staring at Li You who was often drawing circles on the ground, couldn't help but ask.

He was the little boy Li You had saved from Zhao Duyan the day before yesterday. His name was Yu Zhengchun, and he was from Tongchuan Prefecture, Sichuan. When he was five, his father died of exhaustion on the field ridges. Later, his mother starved to death, his younger sister starved to death, and he fled with his uncle.

In the seventh year of Chongzhen, his uncle joined Li Zicheng's rebel vanguard just to drink a bowl of elm bark soup, but before he could even drink the bark soup, he was blown to pieces during a siege.

Seven-year-old Yu Zhengchun followed other refugees north in a daze and fainted from hunger by the side of the road.

Finally, he was saved by the old leader Wu Ying and had lived in this Longmen Mountain for six years. He had been with Wu Ying the longest and was the leader of this group of children.

"You little brat, what do you know!"

Li You imitated his accent and scolded him in Sichuan dialect.

"Heh!"

Yu Zhengchun giggled. He had been helping Li You for the past two days and had already become familiar with him. Moreover, Yu Zhengchun found this scholar to be very special, unlike any other scholar he had ever seen. He had never seen any other scholar who could save people by stitching them up like clothes!

And those other scholars, which one of them wasn't high and mighty?

The way they looked at mud-legged peasants like them was just like looking at livestock!

But this Mr. Li had a temperament that was incredibly good. He had no airs of a scholar toward anyone, and he would even joke with him, and even do some things that made him feel absolutely incredible.

For example, washing the feet of Xiang Ying, who had a foot injury, and cleaning them extremely carefully, and even joking with him, and even scolding people using their local dialect just like he did just now.

With all these behaviors, how could he look like a scholar? How could he look like a dignified scholar?

Yet he was clearly literate, and could even name places he had never been to, such as Shuntian Prefecture, Nanzhili, Tengwang Pavilion, Confucius Temple, Lion Mountain, the Tomb of the Prince of Chu...

Li You spoke as if he were there, which shocked Yu Zhengchun. He remembered that the provincial graduate in his hometown probably hadn't been to as many places as Li You, and Li You was much younger than that graduate.

In ancient times, transportation was inconvenient, and those who could understand geography and the trends of mountains and rivers were considered top-tier talent. After all, atlases and the like were extremely precious at that time, and were even military secrets.

Even in the early years of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, they were not very clear about the trends of geography and mountains, and like locusts, they just hit wherever they went.

"Let's go, let's go take a look at the West Pit you all mentioned today."