77 Path to Life

Five months passed by in a flash.

Cha Ming concentrated as he swiftly covered a blank page with over a thousand brush strokes, filling it with condensed medical knowledge that he'd gleaned over the past six months. Once the page was completely filled, he set it aside to dry and quickly scanned the next portion he needed to copy.

This book was on contagion and the spread of disease. He couldn't help but nod his head in amazement as he reviewed the contents. The doctor had speculated that disease was not a mystical phenomenon but a physical one, and that many steps could be taken to prevent its spread. The same applied to infection. Various procedures for disinfection of tools had been identified, such as washing with distilled alcohol, burning, and immersing in boiling water. The latest one was only a new addition; the doctor had somehow taken the time to evaluate the effects of disinfecting metal via boiling by collecting infection statistics after minor surgeries.

Cha Ming's condition improved with each passing day. Every week, he destroyed and rebuilt a qi pathway. Soon enough, qi flow had been fully restored to the organs that had been most severely damaged. He felt gratified that he hadn't given up hope.

His brush paused momentarily as Li Yin walked up behind him to inspect his work. Then, he dipped the brush in ink and continued to write. His writing hand was a blur as intricate strokes covered three quarters of the page. He breathed out with relief, then put away the brush and set the page out to dry.

"Not bad," the kind doctor said. "It only took you six months to take in, comprehend, and write out my life's work. I confess myself impressed."

Cha Ming chuckled. "My body was ravaged and my meridians ruined. Fortunately, my soul force remained intact. My comprehension and memorization abilities are far greater than the average person. In addition, my dexterity allows me to write three times faster than a normal person. You say you are impressed with my work, but I'm impressed that you were able to accumulate so much knowledge over the past three decades. The breadth and depth of this work is simply staggering."

"If only they hadn't burned my book," the doctor said mournfully. "It took me a long time to dredge up most of this content from memory. I even had to repeat several key experiments to confirm certain claims. Still, I am proud of what I've achieved over my lifetime." He walked over to the desk and picked up the last two pages, placing them on the stack that would soon be bound together as a single book.

"How is your condition coming along?" Li Yin asked.

"I'm much healthier than before," he replied. "I've restored qi flow to my most damaged organs, so my life is no longer at risk. In addition, I can now exert four tenths of my original strength. I believe things will improve, in time. However, it will still take around a half year to completely connect the remaining organs. Healing the qi pathways in my limbs will come next."

At Li Yin's insistence, Cha Ming followed him into the kitchen. Fortunately, the doctor prioritized Cha Ming's transcription and had taken over cooking for the past half year. They began eating their supper quietly. Li Yin nibbled away at a piece of fish while Cha Ming ate tofu and vegetables.

"So, it seems that you have nothing to keep yourself occupied with for the next half year," the doctor said, smiling. "I have another job for you, if you're interested."

Cha Ming smiled. "I'm eternally in your debt. How can I refuse?"

"This isn't something I can force on you," the man said with a chuckle. "If you don't want to, feel free to do your own thing. I'm looking for an assistant in my clinic. I want to spend time conducting personal health sessions with the town's residents, but I find myself short-handed. I can hardly find a better candidate, given that you've already internalized my life's work."

Cha Ming hesitated. "You know I'll leave after another year and a half or so," he said softly.

"That doesn't matter," Li Yin said, smiling. "You can practice medicine anywhere in the world, not just here. Everything you learn here will be useful to you after your recovery. All you need to do is remember to help those in need whenever you see them. Besides, none of those in the village are keen enough to learn from me yet. There are a few youngsters I have my eyes on, but it will still be five years before I can recruit them."

All I need to remember is to help those in need whenever I see them. Cha Ming had been thrown into the cultivation world so swiftly that he'd forgotten that cultivators could do more than just fight. They could help people.

"Thank you reminding me," he said quietly. "I accept. I'll be your assistant from now on. Though bear in mind that I'll need to commit three days every week to my recovery."

"Good, good," Li Yin said. "You start tomorrow."

***

"What's your name, little one?" Cha Ming asked a girl who couldn't be more than eight years old. She was much taller than boys her age and had broken her arm while falling down the stairs. As usual, horseplay was involved.

"My name is Luo Xin," she replied. "Are you a doctor?" Her eyes were laced with suspicion. This didn't surprise Cha Ming, as he was considerably younger than Dr. Li.

Cha Ming chuckled. "No, I'm not a doctor. I'm Dr. Li's assistant, which is why he's keeping an eye on me as I treat you. He's always busy, so he's asked me to help him for a while."

The little girl nodded.

"Fortunately, your bone isn't broken very badly," Cha Ming said as he ran his fingers around the blue spot on her arm. "There are no pieces of bone floating around, and your arm hasn't broken in many places. Your circulation is fine as well. All we need to do is put your arm in a splint for two months, and it will be good as new."

To make such an accurate judgement, he relied on his spiritual force. He used a technique that Dr. Li had taught him for scanning injuries, and while his technique was not as sophisticated as the old doctor's, his stronger spiritual force more than made up for it.

"Two months?" she said with wide eyes. "That's way too long. I don't want to." Fortunately, her mother was there with her. A sharp, rebuking stare from the woman quieted her down instantly.

"Don't worry. It won't hurt at all. It will just itch occasionally," he explained. He turned to the mother. "I'll have to trouble Miss Luo to wash her wrappings every few days.

"Of course," the middle-aged woman replied.

He then took a piece of wood from a corner of the room and whipped out a carving knife. He whittled away at it proficiently, shaping it in a way that would accommodate her little arm perfectly. He then carved an opposite piece and placed it around her arm with padding and bandages and wrapped it with cloth and hung it off her neck as a sling.

"You'll need to come back in two weeks for me to check how the bone is healing," he instructed. "Now, let's take a look at that cut on your forehead." He spent a short while applying a salve to various cuts on her body. Fortunately, the gash on her forehead didn't warrant stitches. After the treatment, he placed a glob of salve in a container and instructed her mother on its use.

"You'll need to apply this twice per day for the next three days," he said."The cuts should heal well on their own. If the area around them gets very red or white, bring her back, as the wound may have gotten infected."

The mother and child soon left, leaving a basket full of freshly baked bread and another basket full of bandages. Her husband was a baker, while she herself weaved cloth. Cha Ming collected the cloth, and after inspecting it, put it in a pile which would be laundered with chemicals for disinfection.

"Good job, young lad," Li Yin said from behind his desk. He was currently writing a program for his upcoming educational sessions. "In a few more weeks, the villagers will begin to trust you, and I'll be able to leave you to treat them on your own while I'm out of the office."

Cha Ming nodded and began cleaning up the area. Shortly after he finished, the door burst open, and a young boy ran in, gasping for breath.

"Doctor!" the boy said. "You need to hurry. Mother is having her baby, and it's not going well!"

Li Yin frowned. "Isn't the midwife there? She's much more experienced than I am in these matters."

"She is," the boy replied. "But she told me to come get you as soon as possible."

The doctor nodded and got up quickly, grabbing a portable medical kit before heading toward the door.

"Come along, Cha Ming," he said. "Things aren't so simple if Madame Su can't handle it."

They followed the boy for a half mile before arriving at a newly built house. The boy's father was a carpenter, and he'd just built the house to accommodate their growing family.

Two little girls greeted them when they arrived, along with a man who was extremely worried and panicking.

"Where is Madame Liao?" Li Yin asked. His authoritative voice snapped the man back to reality. He quickly led them to a small room on the ground floor.

They heard weak panting as they walked in. An older woman frowned when she saw Cha Ming. "Should he be here?"

The doctor nodded. "He is my assistant, and I may require him during the process. You know I won't always be around to take care of everything." The woman relented and allowed Cha Ming near the bed.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asked while touching the woman's belly.

"She's been in labor for eight hours, and she hasn't progressed much," she replied softly, clearly to avoid alarming the mother. "She's almost out of energy, and I don't know what to do anymore. When I feel where the baby is, I can only feel his shoulder. If that was all, I wouldn't have called you. However, this labor is unreasonably difficult. If it lasts any longer, neither she nor the baby will make it."

The doctor frowned when he directed his spiritual force toward the woman's stomach. He continued examining for just over sixty breaths before stopping. His complexion was pale, and his forehead was covered in beads of sweat.

"Cha Ming, get over here and take a look," he said to Cha Ming, who walked past the older woman. "I need to you to examine the position of the baby, his size, and the position of the umbilical cord. I can't make out these details exactly with my weak spiritual force, so I need your help."

Cha Ming didn't waste time and immediately projected his spiritual force into the woman's body. He felt a small resistance, a person's natural spiritual defenses, but pushed through regardless. Inside the woman's womb, he saw a small, curled-up baby. His shoulder was impinging at an awkward angle, making it difficult for the baby to come through. It seemed like forcing it through would break its neck in the process.

"The baby is at an awkward angle; his shoulder is coming out first," he reported to the doctor. "He won't be able to come out unless this is readjusted. Furthermore, his size is approximately twelve and a half jin, much larger than average. To make matters worse, his umbilical cord is bundled up in such a position that makes readjusting the baby's position extremely difficult. I can sense that her energy stores are only sufficient for fifteen more minutes of active labor."

The doctor shook his head. "Too tricky. I'm not sure what to do, Cha Ming. This is beyond my current knowledge."

Seeing the doctor's mournful expression, Cha Ming recalled a procedure from back on Earth.

"Can we talk in another room?" Cha Ming asked the doctor, who could only shake his head and follow.

Once they were outside the room, Cha Ming asked, "Have you ever removed a baby from a mother by cutting her open ?"

The doctor looked thoughtful for a moment. "I've heard of this procedure being utilized before. However, it is almost always performed as a last-ditch effort. I've gathered some oral case histories that show that in nine tenths of cases, the mother dies. Even then, the baby's life is not guaranteed. It's unfortunate that we don't have a healer, because with a healer, the odds would be reversed to a nine-tenths success rate. I have also never performed such a surgery personally."

"Don't you think that we've gained sufficient ground in sterilization and disinfection to make it possible?" Cha Ming pressed. "If we don't do something, the mother will die very soon. Furthermore, if we're performing the procedure on purpose, she won't be completely exhausted and will have a better chance of surviving the procedure."

The doctor looked in the direction of the other room and sighed. "We can try. Have them prepare a constant supply of boiling water for disinfection, wash your hands, and prepare to assist me."

Soon enough, with the help of the midwife, they cleaned the woman's belly. She was delirious as they had fed her general anesthetic herbs and numbed the area where they planned to operate with a local anesthetic paste.

Cha Ming carefully poured boiling water over the freshly polished steel instruments. He then stood to the side and awaited Dr. Li's instructions.

"Scalpel," Dr. Li said. Cha Ming handed him the sharp instrument. Li Yin, using a combination of his knowledge of anatomy and his weak spiritual force, carefully cut a curved flap.

"Pincers," he commanded. Cha Ming immediately used these pincers to pull the flap back, exposing a bloodied placenta within her womb. A baby was struggling inside and trying to squirm his way out with no success.

Cha Ming watched as Li Yin carefully cut a thin incision on the placenta, then using his carefully shaved bare hands, pulled out a baby, who immediately started crying. The midwife rapidly wrapped the crying baby in a warm blanket, but Li Yin paid no attention to this. Instead, he quickly scooped up the remaining placenta and laid it out on an empty pan. Then, Cha Ming closed the flap at his instruction.

While one hand kept the flap closed, he used another to grab a second set of pliers, which he used to pinch one end of the cut closed. Li Yin moved quickly as he sewed the wound shut with a freshly sterilized needle and clean silk thread. Finally, after fifteen minutes, their gruesome task was complete. They carefully washed the wound with cloths dipped in boiling water, and Cha Ming fetched an ointment that prevented bleeding and disinfected wounds. He then took out a clean dressing, which he used to cover her wound.

"What now?" Cha Ming asked.

"Now?" the doctor mused. "Now we pray." He then handed a bottle of pills to the midwife to feed to the mother at four-hour intervals to help with the pain.

***

Six weeks flew by.

Cha Ming walked into a bedroom, where he was greeted by the cries of an angry baby. He was hungry, which was understandable, given the mother's unfortunate condition.

For some reason, her milk had given out a few days prior. Aside from that, she was perfectly healthy. The wound on her stomach had healed over properly, and she was now the proud mother of four children.

Cha Ming had followed up on the procedure all that time, inspecting the wound and changing the dressings. Naturally, the whole town knew that performing the surgery was his idea. The old doctor held nothing but praise for him, and he rapidly gained the trust of the people in the village. They no longer looked at him as an outsider; rather, he was now an integral part of their small town.

As usual, the mother handed him the child as she went to warm some goat's milk for the baby. Warmth filled him as he played with the infant, who smiled whenever he saw him. Soon enough, the mother returned with a small cup that facilitated dropping milk into the baby's mouth. Cha Ming inspected her wound as she laid down and fed the baby.

"The wound has completely healed," Cha Ming said, smiling. "I won't need to come check up on it any longer, but you should take it easy for the next few weeks as you adapt to moving around. Bed rest is no longer required."

Madame Liao smiled as she continued feeding her baby. "You'll come visit Lin Ming every once in a while, won't you?"

"Of course," he replied with a grin on his face. "Besides, you should bring him in every two months or so for a checkup. We'll be seeing each other often."