Chapter 56: Scholar [3] —Dudududu
The Busa and Shin Rip left the village in a cloud of dust.
Only a dozen or so soldiers left behind for defense, the wounded, the villagers, and Kanghyeok's group remained in the village.
"There are fewer wounded than I expected."
Kanghyeok muttered this as he went around several houses that had been temporarily opened up for the injured.
Dolseok, walking beside him, quickly answered,
"Most of them either died or were abandoned while fleeing in confusion. Well, some probably ran off."
"I see. Well..."
Kanghyeok recalled the road where he had fled with Yeoni.
It had not been only the two of them from the beginning.
Quite a few soldiers had clearly been with them.
Most of them must have ended up in one of the three fates Dolseok had just mentioned.
"You said the severely wounded were gathered here, right?"
"Yes. Yeoni and I handled the rest roughly earlier."
"Well done."
"Hehe."
Dolseok grinned foolishly at his master's praise.
He was not as deft with his hands as Yeoni, but he had a very good memory.
Once taught something, he rarely had to ask a second time.
Simple lacerations or abrasions were easy enough for him to treat.
"Where's Yeoni?"
"She'll be with Miss Yeoju. Shall I call her?"
"No, no. There's probably something women understand with each other."
Kanghyeok immediately shook his head.
He had lost a father too, had he not?
Not as horribly or as suddenly as Yeoju had.
But if someone stayed by her side, it would surely help.
It's a bit of a shame not having Yeoni assist me...
Still, he could hardly leave Makbong with Yeoju.
There was a real chance he would try to offer his own somewhat strange style of "comfort."
"Come to think of it, where's Makbong?"
"Well... he probably went to where the villagers are being sorted out."
"Why would he go there?"
"Didn't a lot of people die in the war? Especially the men..."
Meaning there would be many widows now.
Kanghyeok waved a hand, not wanting to hear any more.
"That lunatic. Seriously."
"But we survived thanks to him. When it comes to swordsmanship, he's incredible."
"Really? If not for Yeoni, I'd probably have died too."
If not for Kanghyeok, Yeoni would have died too.
Come to think of it, it was a strange connection.
Really strange.
Who would have thought that saving the pyeonsu by chance would lead all the way to this.
Nodding to himself, Kanghyeok opened the wicker gate.
As expected of a place where the severely wounded had been gathered, even the smell was different.
"Mm."
"It helps that a lot of them died on the way here. These are the ones in better shape. Most of the severe cases are villagers from this place."
"How much medicine did you say you used earlier?"
"Half of the medicine you called antibiotics, and half of the anti-inflammatory medicine too. We didn't touch the rest."
True to his exceptional memory, Dolseok recited the amounts of medicine used one after another.
In this at least, he was better than Yeoni.
"What about the bandages?"
"Half of those too."
"Good. Let's look at the patients first."
"Yes, Young master. There aren't that many."
Dolseok hurried ahead of Kanghyeok and opened the first door.
A smell of blood mixed with a strange stench rushed out.
Inside lay a man who had been struck in the chest by a sword.
"He was fighting with us earlier."
Kanghyeok recognized him at a glance.
He had thought all the scholars were dead, but that was not the case.
He had definitely been one of the men fighting beside Changgwon until the end.
"Dolseok, you boiled the water, right?"
"Of course."
"Good. Bring some here. Let's clean the wound first."
"Yes, Young master."
The moment he received the order, Dolseok darted out.
While waiting for him to return with the water, Kanghyeok examined the wound in detail.
How much it was bleeding, how deep it was, whether any bones might have been broken.
Ah, had the sword broken then?
That seemed to be why it had failed to cut properly.
Not a single rib was broken.
Naturally, all the internal structures were intact as well.
If even part of the lung had been cut, he would have been looking at a corpse by now.
The pectoralis major is completely torn... but at this level, he might live.
—Slide
Right then, Dolseok came back in with the water.
"Young master, here is the water."
"Good. Put your gloves on and come over here."
"Yes."
After wetting the gauze with water, Kanghyeok began cleaning the wound.
As the thick crusted blood came away, fresh red blood started streaming out.
"Young master, should I press on it?"
"Yes. Press."
"Yes."
By now, they worked together with perfect understanding.
Cleaning and pressing, cleaning and pressing, they repeated the process until they had removed all the clotted blood.
"It doesn't seem to be very deep."
"That's right. The sword must have glanced off the bone."
"He's a lucky man. First he was wounded, and then he met you, Young master."
"Is he?"
Kanghyeok tilted his head.
Shouldn't it have been better not to be cut in the first place?
Just like him.
Somehow, even though a master like Yeoni had been wounded by a blade, he himself had not been properly injured at all.
He only had a few scratches on his face from pushing through the bushes.
"For now... I'll have to suture this."
"Should I hold it?"
Dolseok brought together the middle of the wound, which had been gaping wide open.
It was actually a fairly sensible move. Maybe if Dolseok had been a practicum student and his supervising professor had not been Kanghyeok,
he might even have been praised.
"Yes. But you can't do it like that."
"What?"
"The left and right nipples don't line up. If you don't match them, it'll look really strange later."
"Huh... that's true."
Kanghyeok had seen it happen before.
A wound had been stitched up nicely, but the patient's nipples ended up uneven.
He still had not forgotten the smug expression on the fourth-year resident who had done it.
I took it all apart and redid it.
It had been an incredibly annoying job.
Since he was doing it himself now, nothing like that would happen.
"All right, let's numb it first."
"He doesn't even seem conscious."
"If it hurts, he'll wake up."
"Ah, right."
A general anesthetic would be really useful at times like this.
As Kanghyeok picked up the local anesthetic, he recalled the prescription Heo Jun had written for him.
He said toad venom and aconite, right?
Once the war was over, he decided he would ask the Busa to procure them for him.
Aconite was just a plant, so it could probably be found anywhere, but he was less confident about getting toads.
If soldiers were sent out, they would probably catch some soon enough.
"He might move, so hold him tight."
"Yes."
Kanghyeok began injecting the anesthetic carefully in close intervals.
Looking while he worked, the cut surface was remarkably clean.
In a way, it's fortunate he was struck by a master.
Yeoni, and this scholar too.
Whoever had cut them had done it with ghostlike precision, leaving a clean wound.
If one had to be injured, it was better to be injured like this.
Those cut down by common troops had jagged wounds that were much harder to treat.
This almost looks like something opened up deliberately for surgery.
That was a good thing.
"Now hand me the scissors."
"Yes, Young master."
"How did I say a wound this deep should be sutured?"
"Hmm."
Dolseok carefully examined the cross-section of the wound.
It was a wound so deep that the bone was exposed from a single strike.
The skin and subcutaneous fat, and even the muscles beneath, had all been cleanly cut.
"First, stitch these muscles."
"And then?"
"The con... connective tissue!"
"Good. And then?"
"The skin."
As expected, once told something once, he rarely forgot it.
The English words were unfamiliar enough that it could not be helped.
"Good. As expected, with such an excellent teacher, you're doing quite well."
"Ahh..."
Dolseok let out a quiet sigh, then flinched.
Because he had met Kanghyeok's intense gaze.
"No. Yes, that's right, Young master."
"Right. Now hold this here like this."
"Yes."
After positioning Dolseok's hands where he wanted them, Kanghyeok began suturing.
First, the muscle fibers, closely and carefully.
So that it would not split open even if the man moved.
"Wow."
Without thinking, Dolseok let out a sound of admiration.
No matter how many times he saw it, it was amazing how the widely gaping wound slowly drew closed.
"Young master, you truly are amazing."
"This? This is nothing."
Compared to the surgeries Kanghyeok usually performed, this was almost embarrassing to call surgery.
Was he not the man who had once shown miracles like taking a liver from the dead and transplanting it, or cutting the stomach and attaching it to the intestine?
This brat. To be this shocked over something like this.
Kanghyeok smirked as he looked at Dolseok, who was staring with wide eyes in amazement.
If he could, he would have liked to drag him into an operating room and show him.
That surgeries like that also existed in this world.
He'd be so shocked he'd collapse.
Before long, the muscle edges were drawing tightly together.
The basic principle that bleeding stopped when pressure was applied was always true.
Few methods were as effective and powerful as pulling a wound shut with sutures and pressing it closed that way.
Thanks to that, the blood that had been trickling out had almost stopped.
What remained was only the minor bleeding coming from the subcutaneous fat, connective tissue, and skin.
"He might start waking up soon."
"Should I give him one painkiller?"
Dolseok treated the narcotic painkiller like a sleeping medicine.
That was largely Kanghyeok's own fault, since that was usually how he used it.
"No, no. If he wakes up, just hold him down. I'll try to calm him with words."
"Yes, Young master."
The man was small enough that it looked like rough restraint would be enough.
Though Dolseok had grown thinner from the chaos of war, he was still huge.
"Now for the connective tissue."
"Yes, Young master."
"What happens if you get too greedy here?"
"It makes it harder to stitch the skin."
"Right. Keep it a little loose, like this."
Kanghyeok began suturing the subcutaneous fat and the connective tissue beneath the skin together in one layer.
If he brought it too close to the skin in an effort to make it firm here, the shape could actually be ruined.
In the worst case, the tied tissue could die altogether.
It was better to leave it feeling slightly insufficient.
After all, skin was one of the tissues that healed frighteningly well.
Especially here, where the blood circulation is excellent.
Was this not the part closest to the heart?
The blood had no choice but to flow abundantly.
"Ugh..."
Just as Kanghyeok finished the connective tissue and was about to move on to the skin, the scholar opened his eyes.
The way he panicked the moment he woke suggested he remembered nothing after the fight.
"We are treating you right now, so stay still!"
While Dolseok held him down with rough hands, Kanghyeok tried speaking to him.
"Do you remember me?"
"Ugh... Baek... physician?"
Even in his dazed state, the scholar managed to recognize Kanghyeok.
"That's right. You were wounded fighting that masked Japanese raider, and I am treating you now, so be at ease."
"Ah."
At Kanghyeok's words, the scholar winced.
The memory of being struck by the blade must have returned all at once.
"What became of that bastard?"
"The Japanese raider is dead."
Kanghyeok answered while quickly suturing the skin.
Perhaps because he had done the muscle and connective tissue so well, the skin was incredibly easy.
He even had the fleeting thought that he could leave this part to Dolseok from time to time.
"I see... that is a relief."
The scholar nodded, then opened his mouth again.
"But who killed him? Was it the warrior who was with you?"
By warrior, he must have meant Yeoni.
Kanghyeok nodded readily.
"That's right."
"Ah... then what happened to Teacher?"
Instead of answering immediately, Kanghyeok finished the skin sutures.
Even after that, he stayed silent for a long while before finally speaking.
"Elder Changgwon died fighting that man."
"Ah! Teacher..."
"Thanks to Elder, we were able to kill him, and I was able to live."
"Ah..."
The scholar could not bring himself to continue.
In silence, Kanghyeok wrapped the scholar's wound with a bandage.
"For now, stay like this. There are other patients too."
"Ah... what happened to Teacher's remains?"
"The Busa personally gave the order. By now, they should have reached the government office. I hear the funeral will be held soon, so do not worry."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Read 45 more chapters ahead on NovelDex!
https://noveldex.io/series/doctor-goes-back-to-joseon
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━