“Nerve-stitch concoction,” she said in a cold, professional voice. A bottle flew from the supply desk and into her outstretched hand. She formed a few hand seals and sent eight runes into the man’s leg, temporarily suppressing the pain.
She loaded a crystal syringe with one shao of the light-blue potion, expelling any excess air before holding it to the man’s leg. He flinched as the sharp object approached his bare skin, a telltale sign of someone with light aichmophobia.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” Yue Bing lied. Her bright smile only brought slight relief to the patient. Having been to the infirmary before, he simply nodded and prepared himself for the inevitable pain. She inserted the needle and injected a tenth of its contents, working quickly to minimize the irrational fear in the man before her. She then repeated the process nine more times, fully saturating his flesh with miraculous nutrients. “Try not to move too much for the next sixty breaths,” she commanded the soldier, who gulped.
A wooden case opened up on the desk beside her and spat out twenty-four silver acupuncture needles. They landed on his chest and arms, piercing his meridians with frightening accuracy. Before he could even react to the fact that he was effectively a living pincushion, she pressed her hand against his forehead, causing his fear and tension to evaporate as she poured both qi and incandescent force into his worried mind. Then she formed several complex hand seals with one hand and poured blue and green qi into the needles. It writhed and transformed, and by the time it made its way through the thin silver objects, it had completely transformed into thousands upon thousands of healing and numbing runes.
The patient clenched his teeth as the nerve stitch spread throughout his flesh at the direction of the runes and latched on to his torn nerves. Fortunately, he was a cultivator. Mortals would have likely fainted long ago.
As the man grimaced, Yue Bing’s thoughts moved elsewhere. Her incandescent soul force had seeped into his wounds, effectively taking over as commander in chief of the forces of healing. She directed the runes to key locations around the sheared flesh and fractured bone.
Nerves were a priority. She located these precious tissues and drew on the active nerve-stitch concoction to mend them with inhuman precision. The man’s pain intensified as each nerve was restored, but there was little she could do about that. The healing wouldn’t be nearly as effective if he was unconscious. The healing continued under her supervision, and just when it seemed he could take it no longer, the pain stopped.
Yue Bing wiped her sweaty brow. Having completed the most crucial of steps, she moved on to the man’s qi pathways. They were like broken pipes trying their best to deliver vital water to a dying city. Though most of the damage had taken the form of small missing patches, entire stretches of pipe were also missing from the network. Her healing runes restored most of the minor damage in the torn tunnels, but for those tunnels too far damaged to salvage, she cut them off. Instead of being allowed to waste good water in forsaken parts of the city, she blocked them off and destroyed any excess piping, for fear that their bits and pieces might cause residual trauma.
Twenty-three minutes passed. In that time, she managed to heal ninety-six percent of the network, one percentage point better than estimated. Either she’d improved, or her estimate had been off. Which it never was. Pushing the thought aside, she focused on the next task: mending the bones.
Bones were tricky. When fixing bones, any mistakes made would be remembered by the cultivator’s body, becoming a permanent fixture unfixable by subsequent treatments. Yue Bing carefully gathered the shards of broken femur while sweeping away any tainted marrow that had leaked into the surrounding tissue. Then she began assembling one of the most complex puzzles she’d ever seen.
The wound was a strange one, from a strange Southern weapon. As a precaution, she held shards of bone in place as she looked for any stray pieces. Her decision proved wise; the bone puzzle was incomplete, and a substantial amount of bone had been ground to dust on impact by the dreadful weapon.
“Intermediate bone-growth concoction,” Yue Bing said robotically. A vial flew into her outstretched hand. She forced it down the patient’s throat and immediately guided the growing bone into empty locations. Ten percent, twenty percent, thirty percent…
Soon the entire bone was fully mended. After confirming the bone’s integrity, she immediately sent marrow-growth runes inside it to replenish the man’s depleted stock. Then she moved to stitch the remaining flesh in the leg. Muscles, blood vessels, tendons, and other lesser components were rapidly stitched into place by invisible needles of qi. Then, once all internals were mended, the skin closed over, leaving nothing but a thin, near-imperceptible scar on a perfectly good leg.
The room jolted as Yue Bing retrieved her incandescent force. Her senses returned to normal, and the usual bout of dizziness followed. She steadied and reoriented herself before looking the patient in the eyes. “It was good that your friend brought you here so quickly,” she said. “Most of the damage has been healed, but you may find it difficult to mobilize qi in your leg moving forward. I suggest you spend the next eighteen hours familiarizing yourself with it before going out again.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” the man said, standing up. “You’re an angel to every cultivator on this battlefield. If ever you’re in danger, I’ll gladly trade my life for yours.” He bowed awkwardly before leaving with his friend. With each step he took, his gait adjusted until his strides were perfectly natural. It probably wouldn’t take eighteen hours for his leg to fully synchronize, but she’d would rather be safe than sorry. Mistakes happen.
“Take care of yourself out there,” Yue Bing murmured. She cleaned the bed with a disinfectant concoction before returning to the staff room. Many spirit doctors were relaxing, meditating, reading, and brewing medicine. It wasn’t busy now, but that wouldn’t last long. it was only a matter of time before another battle sent a flood of patients their way.
“Good work on that leg,” said Meng Yuan, her supervisor. “I couldn’t have done it better myself. It won’t be long before you pass your exams and become a high-grade doctor.” The middle-aged man was clothed in spirit-doctor blue, and a silver medal engraved with the character “peak” adorned his chest. He had shoulder-length black hair and a short beard. And like most spirit doctors, he was a proud man, comporting himself like the dignity of his profession was dependent on his every action.
“I made a few mistakes while bone mending,” Yue Bing admitted. “I’ll reflect over them and adjust my technique.”
“Everyone makes mistakes during bone mending,” Meng Yuan said firmly. “And if Gu Guo paid half as much attention as you did, he’d also be a mid-grade spirit doctor.”
“I still have much to learn,” Yue Bing said, feeling her face flush. Her supervisor nodded and walked out of the staff room to check up on some long-term patients.
“Why does he harp on me every time,” Gu Guo said from a meditation mat. He was a short, skinny man, neither handsome nor ugly. Yet with every action he let off an aura of unrestrained laziness. Were it not for his very real medical skills, Supervisor Meng would have kicked him out of their crew in a heartbeat. “You’d almost think he was trying to scare me away from here,” he remarked.
“He’s just under a lot of pressure,” Yue Bing said. “Don’t you feel terrible when you make a mistake, or heaven forbid, you fail to save someone?”
“Of course,” Gu Guo said. “I don’t think there’s a spirit doctor out there who doesn’t.”
“Then you should consider that Supervisor Meng is responsible for all the patients in the third quadrant,” Yue Bing said. “No matter whether it’s our failure, his failure, or even our inability to cope with all the patients, he’s bound to take a bit of it personally. Even if he does his best to numb it out, it still gnaws away at him like insects at a mighty oak. He wants you to advance as quickly as possible. Only then will you be qualified to share his burden.”
“I didn’t know you were such a w
ise woman,” Gu Guo said, smirking.
“Your compliments are unfounded,” Yue Bing replied automatically. She walked over to the bench and began mixing various liquids together. Though she was no alchemist, her hands were swift and skillful. It took her no time at all to replace the concoction she’d just used. “Compared to my apprentice brother Zi Long, I’m just a naïve little girl.”
“Little girl? You?” Gu Guo said, looking her up and down. “If you’re a little girl, I’m just a baby, barely making my way in this world. If your apprentice brother is half as wise as you say he is, he has the soul of an old man.”
Yue Bing chuckled. “If you say so.” Lazy joker as he was, Gu Guo always managed to lighten her mood when she needed it most. Seeing nothing else to do, she sat down to cultivate.
Space was limited in the infirmary, so she had to forgo a cultivation array. Instead, she sucked on refined qi pellets, a spirit medicine with little to no side effects. Hers contained five colors, and they dissolved in her mouth as she became one with heaven and earth. The steady streams of five-element energy entered her dantian automatically, splitting into five streams that entered five qi seas. Each sea contained a pillar that comprised her foundation. It was the base of her power, the source of the liquified elemental energy splashing about in her dantian.
Time stretched on endlessly. As she merged with her surroundings and her cultivation became automatic, she focused on her back. Hidden beneath her blue robes were four rows of red runes; they were blurry and malleable, unreadable until she reached the next stage. They were her biggest asset but also her biggest liability. Should anyone discover them, discover their secrets, her path as a spirit doctor would be ruined. But despite the risk, she dared not neglect them.
The runes grew a little clearer as she infused her recent healing experience into the glowing characters. They clarified ever so slightly, and as they did, precious insights on healing entered her mind. They were the reason for her progress as a spirit doctor, the reason she’d been able to save so many lives in the first place. A curious boon, given the source of their power.
I wonder what the next boon will be? she thought as she cultivated the technique. When she’d first started, four lines had appeared on her back. At that time, she’d gained a frightening ability—the ability to manipulate vitality and life force to heal. By using the ankh as a medium, virtually any wound was curable, assuming she was willing to shorten her lifespan. She rarely used it, but when she did, the results were nothing short of miraculous. If she could obtain an ability even half as good as that one, it would more than make up for the trouble she’d gone through to cultivate it.
Hours passed before she suddenly felt an itching sensation in the back of her neck. It wasn’t a physical sensation but a spiritual one, one she’d learned to respond to after surviving enough battles. Yue Bing immediately ended her cultivation session and noticed that many others in the room had done the same. The normally lazy Gu Guo now wore a concerned expression.
Moments later, Supervisor Meng burst into the room. “Pack your bags, we’re going to the battlefield,” he instructed.
“Yes, sir,” they answered in unison.
Yue Bing hastily checked her emergency kit, which she kept in her bag of holding. It contained hundreds of bandages, coagulants, and all-purpose concoctions that might be useful in emergency situations. A small corner of her bag contained common antidotes and miscellaneous items like vises, needles, and syringes. After confirming that everything was in order, she lined up next to three others who’d finished before her. Moments later, the rest followed.
“Take out your flying swords,” Senior Meng said. Silver flashes followed as standard-issue treasures flew out beneath everyone’s feet. “Fly at my command,” he intoned.
They raced forward, hovering only a few feet off the ground. They whizzed past surprised troops as they flew out of a small opening in the Southhaven Wall and into an open plain. Only foundation-establishment cultivators could fly on swords like this, as both incandescent force and foundation qi were required to operate them.
Scattered trees could be seen in the otherwise dry and grassy landscape beside the wall. The grasslands eventually became fields that had been abandoned after the South invaded. Here and there, scattered yokes and plows lay abandoned in piles, their simple metals useful for nothing more than scrap in a conflict of this magnitude. There were no animals—every last one had been slaughtered by the South’s vicious forces.
Soon they heard the sounds of dying men and metal on metal. The plain opened up into a valley where three battalions were clashing. Two others stood atop a hill. They didn’t seem inclined to participate, despite the heavy losses taking place just a mile away.
“Should we go help the troops?” Yue Bing asked uncertainly. Despite her combat experience, it was all limited to small-scale skirmishes. Battles between dozens of cultivators were very different than the shifting matrix of thousands of men laying down their lives for their country below.
“Not a chance,” Senior Meng said. “You are to stay put until I give instructions.” Then, seeing her unconvinced expression, he elaborated. “If we move in now, their reinforcements will swarm in before our troops have a chance to save us. You might not have noticed, but their position is slightly suboptimal to cover a retreat, but favorable for attacking. Moreover, we’d have to retreat uphill, which is more difficult than you might think, even with flying swords. This is a trap, and we’d fall right into it if we take part. It’s also why our support troops haven’t acted. Now tell me, how useful is a dead spirit doctor?” His voice was laced with ice, and his question pierced their souls.
“A dead spirit doctor is a useless spirit doctor,” everyone repeated in unison. This was his mantra. Below, the valiant Song Kingdom army clashed against the Southern Alliance’s troops. Blood sprayed out on the battlefield as limbs were severed and lives were lost. The land became slick and slippery. Even cultivators struggled to maintain their footing.
The battle was a meatgrinder, as they had only sent cannon fodder. Yue Bing couldn’t help but feel uneasy at the scene. “It seems too easy,” she whispered.
“So you’ve noticed it too,” Supervisor Meng said, nodding appreciatively. “It’s likely a sacrificial play this time. They’re giving up worthless slaves to supplement their elite cultivators.”
“Supplement?” Yue Bing sputtered. “You mean…”
“Yes,” Supervisor Meng said gravely. “The elite blood cultivators are about to emerge.”
At this moment, the 600th Southern Alliance soldier had been killed, and ten cultivators emerged from the back. The battlefield turned crimson as the blood that had soaked the ground rushed toward them, causing their auras to soar out of control. Seeing these elites, the Song Kingdom sent their colonels out to battle. They clashed with these incarnations of death but were unable to subdue them. Even their stray strikes felled dozens of Song Kingdom troops. Despite the colonels’ savage counterattacks, any wounds these bloody warriors suffered healed in the blink of an eye.
“If it wasn’t for these damned blood cultivators, our casualties wouldn’t be so high,” Supervisor Meng spat.
“I can’t stand them,” another doctor said. “I’ve devoted my life to healing and saving lives, and all they do is reap them like wheat on harvest day. I hope our colonels are able to kill one or two of them this time, but I know that’s wishful thinking. Just the thought of it boils my blood.”
Yue Bing shifted uncomfortably at these words, but her expression remained unchanged.
The battle continued for an incense time. Over the course of this short reversal, half of the Song Kingdom’s troops were incapacitated. For the Southern Alliance, who had only lost useless slaves, this was a victory. They reluctantly retreated at their general’s command, leaving the Song Kingdom to clear the battlefield. Over three hundred wounded soldiers were dragged to the medic tents for treatment. Any wounded Southern soldiers were slaughtered, no quarter given
.
Yue Bing and the few dozen spirit doctors flew out and performed a quick triage. The dying went to one side; they were fed life-saving medicines to improve their chances of holding out for their eventual but unlikely treatment. The lightly wounded went to an encampment for low-priority cases. That left the heavily wounded but moderate-risk patients, to be healed as quickly as humanly possible. Most of them would survive, should they work quickly enough. Once they were finished, some of the dying could also be saved.
Yue Bing worked tirelessly. She mended bones and stitched together flesh with frightening efficiency. She worked twice as fast and twice as hard as anyone else, sacrificing accuracy for the sake of converging energy. But even she was eventually forced to slow down from exhaustion. The world blurred, leaving her no choice but to chew on a small black pill that slowly replenished her soul energy.
Why is incandescent force so difficult to recover? she thought as she operated a soul-recovery mantra and ate soul-recovery pills one after another. Her soul felt dull, but every breath brought an incandescent glimmer to it. It’ll take me at least a half hour to recover. I wonder how many will die before I’m back in action?
The tent was silent save for the gentle moaning of wounded patients. Each of them had been stabilized, but that did little for the pain they felt. Yue Bing peeked around as she meditated, briefly formulating a plan for the next round of treatments. Her vision blurred under the strain on her soul, but it was enough to make out the major details.
Strange, she thought as she noticed a thin red mist gathering in the tent. Though she was used to dizziness, it was her first time seeing things while suffering from soul exhaustion.
She closed her eyes and opened them once more. The last man she’d treated was sleeping soundly on a cot in the infirmary. His vital aura was stable. Just beneath him, however, a light red glow was dancing just above the floor. It was intangible and soft, barely noticeable to most people. Even she had barely noticed it.
Violet Heart Page 4