Chapter 25: Knowing One's Enemy, Knowing Oneself[1]

The smell of blood and sweat was thick in the musty air. Even after stepping out of the tent for a breather, the metallic scent still clung to the back of my throat.

It had been four days since the troops left the encampment under the leadership of General Yi as they headed in the direction of Fanzhou City in the kingdom of Bei Yue. On the second day, a small number of soldiers who suffered minor injuries and symptoms of heatstroke appeared in our makeshift hospital. On the third day, a handful of soldiers with open wounds were carried back to the barracks for treatment. This group of soldiers also informed us that the Bei Yue army protecting Fanzhou City was outnumbered and was supposed to surrender to Da Jin; however, their commander was deceitful and launched a surprise attack when the Da Jin troops had let their guards down. As a result, the Da Jin troops suffered a larger than expected number of casualties.

Today, we were expecting a lot more casualties to be brought back to the camp. The hospital at our base had only three physicians who came with us from Guizhong City. When we arrived at the encampment more than a week ago, there was only Shuzhen stationed at the hospital. A nurse in the modern era, she could only be a physician's assistant at present. But in the face of life and death, who would still be bothered with the archaic feminine virtues?

Even Fu Wanxi had joined in the lifesaving mission as she shouted at groaning patients to listen to her or be prepared to die and scolded the male physicians who felt that we were of no help at all. Shuzhen and I watched with wide-eyed astonishment earlier as Fu Wanxi expertly felt for a patient's pulse before climbing over him to do chest compressions. In another instance, we silently assisted as she sewed shut a profusely bleeding open wound on a soldier's lower abdomen. In yet another example, we squirmed as she performed a simple surgery to remove an arrow lodged in the back of a soldier as he endured the painful extraction without the assistance of anaesthesia.

Shuzhen and I stared at each other in confusion after Fu Wanxi did all of the above and even told us to monitor those patients with serious injuries, to ensure that their wounds did not get infected and did not fester. Somewhere in her instructions to me, she had even dropped the words "sepsis", "sterilisation", "handwashing", "hygiene" and "ventilation".

For Shuzhen, she was probably confused as she did not read the The Eighth Verse before entering the book. The whole time, she had only followed Ji Kai around. However, ever since they arrived at the encampment, she was separated from him and had not seen him since.

As for me, Fu Wanxi's current behaviour was full of anomalies. Since when did she acquire her medical skills? And since when did she start using modern language?

"Zhuang Zi! Stay with us! Don't close your eyes!" Two soldiers dashed past me, one of them carrying an injured comrade on his back. A trail of blood droplets followed behind them. "Physician! Take a look at my buddy!"

I immediately moved into action and headed back towards the tent. As I prepared to dip my hands in the jar of alcohol by the entrance, the sound of urgent footsteps hit my ears from behind. A pair of bloody and dusty hands shoved me aside and plunged straight into the clear liquid.

Turning to glare at the person who had treated me so roughly, I saw Ji Kai's face covered in mud and speckled with blood.

"It's you?" We gasped in unison. But the desperate and pressing cries of the casualties and their comrades distracted us.

"Any clean cloth?" Ji Kai asked breathlessly as he scoured the wooden rack where all our medical supplies were stored; and I handed him one cooperatively. With just the meeting of our eyes, a tacit understanding arose between us. I followed him as he rushed to injured soldier's side and requested for the non-casualties to leave the tent.

The soldier called Zhuang Zi suffered several cuts and abrasions on his arms and legs, but the most critical wound was a laceration at the side of his neck. Emergency first aid had been applied by his comrades but the fabric used to apply pressure to his wound was entirely soaked in fresh blood. Zhuang Zi was already in an unconscious state and it was a miracle that he still had a pulse.

"Apply pressure to the wound while I prepare to suture it," Ji Kai pointed to the tear in the patient's neck which was still oozing bright red blood.

"You want me to press on it? But I've never done it before!" I echoed in bewilderment, my mind going blank. Earlier, I had only assisted Fu Wanxi and the other physicians with post-treatment care. Even when they were treating the patients, I had only watched the process. "Wait, do you even know surgery? Aren't you only a medical student?"

Without a word, Ji Kai thrusted the piece of clean cloth in my hand and guided my hand to cover the wound directly. Pushing down on my hand, he casted me a cold stare. "Apply pressure. Don't let go."

I nodded meekly, feeling a warm dampness soak up the cloth under my clammy palms.

One patient after another, Ji Kai and I worked together until the sun had set to treat the injured soldiers that made it back to the military base alive, albeit for some of them, their lives were hanging by a thread. When there were no more new patients brought to the tent, Ji Kai and I were told to have a meal and to take a rest. As we left the tent drenched in sweat and stained with blood, Fu Wanxi and Shuzhen were just making their way in to start their shift.

Ji Kai walked ahead of me as I drifted along in silence, my body and mind fatigue from the overloading of my senses from a whole day of lifesaving. He suddenly stopped in front of a tent and turned around to face me with a wearied smile: "Go take a bath first, then come over to my tent for dinner." Without waiting for an answer, he entered the tent. Staring blankly at the entrance of Ji Kai's tent, I only understood his words half a minute later and could only respond with a belated nod.

I took an hour to wash up. First, I had to find hot water. Next, I had to soak and scrub myself clean of the bloody stench. But even until my fingers had wrinkled and had been scrubbed red and raw, there was still no way of getting rid of the lingering smell of raw meat. Bringing a finger under my nose, the thought of how it had been stained with human blood caused me to gag. I could not even bring myself to take a whiff of my hair. Finally, I had to wash the blood out of my clothes. By the time I was done, my aching body and soul only desired to snuggle under my blanket.

But my empty stomach reminded me of Ji Kai's invitation to dinner. Even though I had no appetite to stomach dinner, food was sustenance.

When I entered Ji Kai's tent, a simple meal had already been set up on the table. Ji Kai sat at the table, his head buried in a book. It was a book on the practice of medicine in ancient times.

"Is that how you knew how to treat the patients today?" I raised my eyebrows at the book in his hands as I sat down at the table opposite him.

Ji Kai closed the book and set it aside. "I did some brief research online before coming here. But to tell you the truth, given the unsophisticated facilities and resources, I'm not certain how many of those who have been treated for major injuries will survive."

"Wow," I marvelled in a flat tone, "I see that your duty doesn't end even when you're not in the real world—even though if you're still a student."

He placed his hands on the table with his fingers interlaced and frowned while his unfocused gaze hovered over the bowls of millet porridge, meat buns and plain vegetables on the table. "I suppose one way to see it is that there are multiple universes and multiple realities existing at the same time. If this world is as real as our world, shouldn't these people deserve medical treatment too?"

I stared at him intently, suppressing the swirl of legal knowledge at the back of my mind—an occupational hazard for legal practitioners. But in the end I could not help but voice out my concerns. "And I suppose that laws on medical malpractice and negligence would apply in this world too. Aren't you afraid that you might cause the death of someone and be guilty of an offence?"

Hearing the word "death", Ji Kai's head snapped up. "Are you talking about those with serious injuries? In those cases, they would have passed away on the battlefield if they had not been rushed here. But by the time they get here, their pulses are so weak it would require a miracle for them to survive. I can only treat a dead horse as I would with a live horse," he said in a sighing voice and after a brief moment of uncertain silence, he added, "we can only leave the rest to fate."

Setting my lips into a tight smile, I gave a small shrug. There was no point in us delving into this ethical dilemma any further. In my view, we were only guests in this world after all. Who knew what the laws of this universe were—whether there existed avenues of complaints for medical negligence suits or whether all doctors had to have official qualifications?

What if our reality was the only reality; and a fictional world was just another fictional world?

I sighed, propping my chin against my hand and slowly steered the topic in a different direction. "Sometimes I admire doctors. Their skills are applicable wherever they go. On the contrary, lawyers can't be lawyers if they are not in a courtroom or at a negotiation table. Putting aside what people usually call 'soft skills', we may be kind of useless..."

"But that doesn't make you a useless person. Even though you were just standing beside me earlier to press down on a wound, you were already very helpful. Perhaps, different seasons and situations call for different skills." Ji Kai shook his head reprovingly, a gentle tenderness to his voice. "If we were negotiating a peace treaty now with Beiyue, don't you think that your skills will come in handy? And how about this—what if one day I lose my hands, do you think that I will still be able to conduct a surgery?"

"Maybe that is already possible with artificial intelligence?" My corner of my lips hooked up into a playful smile.

Ji Kai seemed to have rolled his eyes as he said with a placid smile: "Let's just eat."

Snickering to myself, I reached for a steam bun and tore it into half, only to reveal the paltry meat centre. "Ah, I want to eat steak. I've been craving it for weeks," I exclaimed abruptly.

Ji Kai's spoon halted mid-air.

Looking at me with twinkling eyes, he let out an unrestrained chuckle. "You've already seen so much blood today, can you still eat a steak half-raw?"

"But that's still not blood, isn't it? The red steak juice we see is just a protein—myoglobin or something like that. I can still stomach it." I lifted my chin with a broad smile. "I'm still pretty well-read."

***

Word travelled to the capital of Da Jin that General Yi was successful in defending the frontier and Guizhong City. Storytellers in every city recounted the events to crowds in the marketplace, to patrons in the most popular teahouses in town, and even to the madams in the inner quarters of the affluent and noble households. In the capital, an announcement was made that General Yi would be arriving soon for an audience with the Emperor.

The public narrative was that Bei Yue forces had overstepped the boundary between the two nations, attacking and plundering villages in Da Jin. The Emperor had ordered the Yi family, who was the defender of the northern border to defeat the enemy. After much strategic planning, the young General Yi Yan led his army in a rapid attack on the Bei Yue troops led by General Wei, a supporter of the Second Prince of Bei Yue. In their state of unreadiness, the front and the rear of the Bei Yue troops were separated, the various divisions were scattered, and the commanding officers lost control of their men. Just like that, General Yi wiped out the invading forces. The only lament that the people had was that General Yi would have conquered Fanzhou City after General Wei was killed in battle; but at the crucial moment, reinforcements arrived to protect the city. Even so, General Yi Yan was a hero.

But insiders close to him (and readers of The Eighth Verse) knew another story.

The celebrated young general known as Yi Yan in the Kingdom of Da Jin, was in fact a person named Sheng Yi. And Sheng Yi was a subject of the Kingdom of Bei Yue. His loyalty was to the Emperor of Bei Yue, and he was a hidden supporter of the Third Prince, Liu Heng.

Under the glamorous and dignified appearance of the royal family of Bei Yue was a power tussle for the throne. The Emperor was old and sickly and there were rumours that he was almost on his deathbed. The Crown Prince was placed in control of the affairs of the imperial court, but there was a faction of the court that supported the Second Prince, Liu Yang. The Second Prince and his supporters schemed to have the Crown Prince deposed and for himself to be appointed as the heir to the throne.

The Second Prince and the officials that supported him sought support from the royals of Da Jin. The short-sighted Second Prince had actually entered into a deal to sell out his nation in exchange for riches and power. The Second Prince had formed a secret rebellion army near Fanzhou City and a key step in the plan was to surrender Fanzhou City to Da Jin. This would act as a disguise to enable the military collaboration between Da Jin and Bei Yue as the Second Prince needed to increase manpower and resources. However, what the Second Prince did not calculate was that the Emperor of Da Jin intended to make him only a puppet emperor of Bei Yue. Ultimately, Bei Yue would be taken over by Da Jin, insidiously.

In support of his biological older brother—the Crown Prince—the Third Prince became his secret advisor to get rid of the Second Prince and his corrupted cronies. With the support of Wuchang Manor, the Third Prince recruited Sheng Yi to join in his grand plan on taking down the Third Prince.

Taking on the role as General Yi Yan, Sheng Yi's supposed mission was to lead troops towards the frontier and ensure that Fanzhou City was smoothly surrendered over to Da Jin. However, the day before the arranged date for the handover, Sheng Yi's army began their match in formation towards Fanzhou City. At the same time, Sheng Yi set on fire the "food supplies" in his own encampment. At this time, the inward spies which he had covertly installed within the Bei Yue army began to spread a rumour that the Emperor of Da Jin was about to renege on their deal. In a state of fluster and upon the advice of his military strategist, General Wei led his troops out of Fanzhou City to fight against Sheng Yi. But General Wei's army was outnumbered by Da Jin's troops and were annihilated.

Sheng Yi returned to his camp victorious and sent a messenger to deliver news to the imperial court that the Second Prince went back on his word, Fanzhou City was not surrendered and that the city could not be captured as reinforcements arrived at the crucial moment. The Emperor of Da Jin then issued an imperial decree to summon Sheng Yi back to the capital.

That was the reason why Sheng Yi, Fu Wanxi, Ji Kai, Shuzhen and I were currently at the western fringe of Hua City—the capital of the kingdom of Da Jin. Riding on horseback, a valiant Sheng Yi led the troops that accompanied us through the widely opened city gates. The residents of Hua City crowded on both sides of the road, cheering in jubilee as General Yi passed by.

Fu Wanxi let the curtain in her hands fall back in its place to cover the window of the carriage. "We're one step closer to returning home. Sheng Yi said that he will find a way to get us home from Da Jin," she said cheerfully, eyes twinkling. Following the plot, at this moment Fu Wanxi would have already discovered that Yi Yan and Sheng Yi were the same person.

My eyes swept over the girl in front of me. Her tone was so innocent, full of hope and anticipation; but there was a some sort of indifference in her demeanour. Her eyes shone with a fierce intelligence that was not previously present when we were in Bei Yue. In fact, after the incident with the overturned carriage, Fu Wanxi's behaviour had changed dramatically. It was also as if she had foreknowledge of the events in the book.

"Do you ever miss having wi-fi here?" I asked abruptly, my eyes watching her carefully.

Widening her eyes in unfeigned confusion, she echoed, "Wi-fi? Pardon me, could you repeat that again? I'm not sure I caught that."

I burst into an awkward laugh, not knowing how to read her response. Was she playing dumb with me? I decided to try again. "When you order a drink at a milk tea shop, do you drink yours with boba or without?"

Once again, Fu Wanxi looked at me questioningly. Tilting her head to one side, she asked with a smile in her voice, "Isn't milk tea just milk tea? Why would there be pearls in your drink?"

Arching a brow with a smirk, I leaned forward and lowered my voice: "Isn't tea just tea? Why do you add milk in yours?" I had never seen anyone here do that before in this world.

Fu Wanxi suddenly stilled, but a second later she erupted in laughter. Watching my stunned expression, she straightened up into a very demure and poised sitting posture. "Don't you also drink your tea with milk, and with sugar added sometimes?"

My heart skipped a beat.

I chewed on my lip, not daring to ask "Who are you?". I could only stare back at her, feeling foreign and cautious as her silent nonchalance increasingly unnerved me.

*** ***

[1]: Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Chapter 3, Attack by Strategem: "Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. 

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

Author's Note: I must admit that I'm not medically trained. :P I only know basic first aid... But I did some quick research on military medicine in ancient times and found that  many people died because of infections rather than their wounds.