Alchemist Huang Yeyan stared at the wounded… person she’d carried into her tent and tried to process the storm of emotions that surged through her as she worked. First and foremost she considered herself an alchemist. While there were doctors who weren’t alchemists there were no alchemists who weren’t also doctors and as such she considered her very first obligation to be treating a patient’s injuries.
When she’d seen the bear strike out at Wu Ling and the long bloody gashes it left on… his chest, she’d known that if their unflinching guardian survived the battle he would need immediate medical treatment. She’d already left the relative safety of the place where the Scholars who couldn’t fit aboard their limited number of boats had gathered to hide and observe the battle, drawing dangerously close to the confrontation by the time Wu Ling managed to freeze the massive beast.
It wasn’t until she’d carried the delicate young man into her tent and began cutting away the elegant ice-blue dress he wore that she realized she wasn’t trying to save the life of an elegant young fairy but a sublimely beautiful young man. Her breath had frozen and her heart stilled for several moments before the sound of people approaching from outside pulled her out of the fog of disbelief. She’d shouted that she wasn’t to be disturbed until she finished her treatment and then returned her attention to the battered and bloody celestial figure laying on her bed and the protective Golden Crow perched by his head, eying the alchemist warily.
“It’s okay, Hou,” Huang Yeyan said, reaching out to gently stroke the bird’s head. “I know it looks bad,” she continued, her heart aching at the state Wu Ling was in. She imagined that it was the same for the little bird, or perhaps she was projecting her own emotions on the little creature, but she chose to believe that its weary stare came from a place of deep anxiety about his master. “I’m going to take care of him, I promise,” she told the little bird.
Stopping the bleeding was the most important thing. Moving slowly and with great care she sprinkled Bloodstop Powder over the three bloody gashes across his chest. Too much could oversaturate the wound and would slow the flow of blood within the body, potentially stopping the heart. Too little and the cuts wouldn’t entirely stop bleeding but would instead seep constantly at a rate that may go unnoticed. The focus required by the delicate task helped orient her mind away from the identity of the patient and onto the wounds themselves. The deepest of them, the one in the center, ran from the center of his sternum all the way to the base of his floating ribs along the side. The two gashes next to it were shallower but unlike most men and certainly any martial cultivator who would have been fighting against the Burning Yang Sun Bear, Wu Ling didn’t have a thick layer of muscle and flesh to protect his body against powerful blows and rending claws. Several of his ribs had been cracked by the impact of the massive claw and without more medicinal support he was certain to be bedridden for months.
Moving lower along his slender legs she cut away most of the skirt leaving only a narrow band to preserve his modesty. Several embers from Hou’s fireball attack had left small coin-sized burns on his pale alabaster flesh but even more concerning was the purple and yellow swollen mass that had once been a delicately arched foot. Cutting away the soft-soled shoe revealed that nearly every bone in the foot had been broken and the ankle itself had been dislocated.
“Little Hou, you see these?” Alchemist Huang said to the bird, pointing out the small burns. “I know you didn’t mean to do it, so watch, I’m going to take care of these so no one will ever be able to tell that it happened. You don’t have anything to feel bad about, okay? I know you were doing your best,” she said, reassuring the pensive guardian beast with a light pat before resuming her treatment.
The statement seemed like it got through to the young Golden Crow who finally fluttered up from his perch to land on the alchemist’s shoulder, watching her movements carefully and rubbing his head against her soft hair.
“Okay, you can watch,” she told the bird. “But don’t get in the way.” Before she could do anything about Wu Ling’s shattered foot, she’d have to address the swelling. From her collection of supplies, Huang Yeyan produced a crock of Winter Frost Paste and began applying it to both the bruised and shattered foot and the scattered burns on his legs. On the bed, Wu Ling shivered with the sudden cold but otherwise showed no reaction to Alchemist Huang’s touch.
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“Alchemist Huang,” Su Xiang called from outside the tent. “May I come in?”
Huang Yeyan’s hands stilled before she could reach for the next thing she’d need to treat the young man on her bed. “Brawler Su,” she said, more formally than she had in the past several days since the battle at the bridge. For a moment, she nearly told the young woman that she’d instructed everyone not to bother her until she was done treating Wu Ling but with his sworn sister, she hesitated. She didn’t believe for a moment that Su Xiang didn’t know the truth of Wu Ling’s gender so letting her in wouldn’t break her medical ethics to protect a patient’s privacy. Still… “Brawler Su, are you injured?” Huang Yeyan managed to ask.
“The bleeding has stopped for now,” Su Xiang said through the fabric of the tent’s entrance. She had no doubt that Alchemist Huang had her guard up after getting a close look at Wu Ling but as much as she wanted to throw the fabric aside and rush in to see her wounded sworn brother, she knew that doing so would only make things worse. Besides, what if Alchemist Huang really was doing delicate healing that couldn’t be interrupted? Then she’d only be making matters worse. Instead, she held herself back at the door and waited for the alchemist to decide what to do next.
“Come in,” Huang Yeyan said with a sigh. She might as well take it all in at once. At least this way she’d be able to get some answers out of Wu Ling’s sister before she had to face the rest of the Amber Lily Academy.
Stepping inside, Su Xiang’s eyes scanned the richly decorated and spacious interior of the instructor’s tent before landing on her injured sworn sibling. “Brother Ling,” she cried, taking three steps toward him before she winced and nearly crumpled at the pain that flared in her side when she moved too quickly and pulled at the tender, torn flesh.
“Stop, don’t move,” Huang Yeyan said, appalled at the amount of blood that stained the young Brawler’s white and yellow robes. “Let me see,” she said, kneeling by Su Xiang and pulling the robes aside. The fabric peeled away with a thick sticky sound as drying blood had started to glue the fabric to her body and the action of pulling it free elicited a wince of pain from Su Xiang but little else.
“You’re lucky this wasn’t a bite,” Huang Yeyan said as she began to clean the wound before applying more Bloodstop powder. “The saliva of Red Mist Wolves thins the blood and stops it from clotting. If they’d as much as drooled on you this would be much worse,” she said, adding a thick medicinal paste to the wound before wrapping it tightly. “That will hold for now,” she finished, drawing back to survey her work. “Now, let me tend to your… brother.”
“Alchemist Huang, about that, I…” Su Xiang started only to be cut off by the focused Huang Yeyan.
“I have questions, you’ll have answers, we’ll get there eventually,” she said, worry settling on her brow as her eyes scanned once again over Wu Ling’s injuries. “Let’s start with a simple one. Some men prefer to wear their battle scars with pride, others don’t care. I’d never leave scars from those wounds on a woman but you tell me, if I ensure those wounds heal without a scar, am I helping him or robbing him of his battle honor?”
“Brother doesn’t care about battle scars,” Su Xiang said. “He doesn’t say much about it but I think he likes being pretty. Will he be okay?”
“He survived being mauled by a Burning Yang Sun Bear and his injuries aren’t life-threatening,” the older woman said, inwardly relieved that she wouldn’t be asked to leave ugly scars on such a beautifully sculpted figure. She’d have done it, but somehow, the idea of spoiling the beauty on her bed just didn’t sit well with her. “Now is all about giving him the best possible recovery.”
Reaching into her personal store of medicines, Alchemist Huang withdrew a small porcelain bottle of Heaven’s Dew Restorative Elixir. “This will speed up the healing of the flesh, fade the bruises, and it should clear any fog or muddling of his mind from his head hitting the ground when the bear flung him,” she explained, gently pouring the expensive elixir down Wu Ling’s throat. As emergency treatment for low-level cultivators, little was better than Heaven’s Dew Restorative Elixir but the relative ease of its concoction and the endless demand for it had driven the market price to nearly a thousand spirit crystals, substantially more than it should have cost given its ingredients. Worse, by becoming so expensive, the cultivators who needed it most often did without leaving it as a medicine for the disciples of powerful sects or the children of wealthy families. For Wu Ling though, it didn’t feel like a waste, but what he’d earned for the suffering he’d endured to keep them safe.
“That’s all I can do for now until the medicines have time to do their work,” Huang Yeyan finally said, settling into a nearby chair. “Now, I have questions for you,” she said, peering intensely through her spectacles. “And I expect truthful answers.”