Chapter 637: A Half-baked Doctor (4)
"Chu'er, master, master is leaving, you take care..." Doctor Li held Li Shichu's hand with a weak voice, and reluctantly reminded his little disciple who he was worried about.
"Master, don't worry. I have inherited your medical skills. I will be able to support myself in the future. I can also prepare some drugs and poisons. You don't have to worry about my personal safety." Li Shichu whispered to comfort Doctor Li.
Doctor Li used up his last bit of strength, pressed her hand, looked at her for the last time, then tilted his head, closed his eyes, and died.
Li Shichu closed his eyes, suppressed the bitterness in his heart, changed Doctor Li's shroud, and went out to look for villagers to help with the funeral.
Life was not easy for everyone these days, and many people died in the village every year. However, Doctor Li was a skilled doctor and had a kind heart, and the people nearby had received a lot from him. So when they learned of his death, everyone was very sad. As soon as Li Shichu told them the news, they came to help without saying a word.
The funeral lasted for three days. After Li Shichu buried Doctor Li, he planned to pack up and leave Taohua Village.
Taohua Village is still safer than other places now, but she knows that within a few years, the war will extend here, and the village will eventually not escape the fate of being plundered and ravaged.
Li Shichu mentioned to the village chief that their village might be affected by the war in the future and asked him to make preparations early. Seeing her serious expression, the village chief listened to her words and kept them in mind.
Li Shichu had no worries, so one morning, he changed into men's clothes and left Taohua Village without saying goodbye to the villagers.
She actually didn't have any destination. After all, it was the end of the dynasty and every place was hit by natural disasters, frequent uprisings, and chaos. There was no peace anywhere.
She went wherever she wanted and became a free-spirited traveling doctor. Her medical skills were naturally superb, and she saved many people along the way. Gradually, she gained some fame, but this fame was not all good, because she was both good and evil.
She would save patients she found worthy, no matter how serious their conditions were; but she would ignore those she did not consider worthy, no matter how much money they offered; she would charge very high fees for seeing wealthy patients, but sometimes she would not charge a penny for patients from poor families.
Naturally, some people disliked her style of doing things, but she was an expert in medicine and martial arts, and could even concoct all kinds of strange poisons, so others could do nothing to her.
"Doctor Li, how is my son's illness? Can he get better?" A disheveled woman asked Li Shichu with red eyes.
"He is not sick, he has eaten poisonous mushrooms. First give him a bowl of muddy water so that he can vomit out the contents of his stomach." Li Shichu said to the woman.
“Attended poisonous mushrooms?” The woman was stunned when she heard the first two sentences of Li Shichu. She didn’t even listen to the words that came later, asking her to feed her son muddy water. She started to cry in grief, “How can you survive after eating poisonous mushrooms? My poor son, why do you have such a miserable life? You didn’t starve to death in the village, but died on the road to escape the famine…”
Li Shichu frowned. Seeing that the woman could no longer listen to anything, he could only say to the dazed middle-aged man next to him: "If you don't want your son to die, go get some mud and water!"
The middle-aged man shuddered: "Can my son still be saved?"
"Yes! But if you delay any longer, he will just have to wait for death." Li Shichu said coldly. This couple is really unreliable.
"I'll get some muddy water right away!" The middle-aged man immediately took out a broken bowl, dug some mud nearby, and then found water in a puddle and made a bowl of muddy water.
"Give your son the water." Li Shichu ordered. The muddy water was naturally dirty and could cause various diseases, but the more important thing now was to get the poisonous mushrooms out of the boy's stomach. Otherwise, he would die. Why worry about diseases caused by dirty water? Moreover, Li Shichu could completely cure these diseases.
The couple quickly fed their son the muddy water, and the little boy started vomiting soon after. The refugees watching around jumped far away, fearing that they would be contaminated by the dirty stuff he vomited.
After he vomited everything, Li Shichu stuffed a small pill into his mouth and wrote a prescription for the boy's father: "Your son is not in danger of death for the time being, but I don't have any medicine with me. Go look for it in the mountains yourself, or buy some medicine where there are people."
"I, I can't read, and I don't know how to pick herbs. How can I do that?" The middle-aged man said anxiously, and then looked at Li Shichu pleadingly, "Doctor, can you think of a way?"
Li Shichu pointed in a direction and said to him, "There is a small town about an hour's walk over there. You can carry your son to the town to buy medicine."
The middle-aged man paused, looking at Li Shichu with a sad face, wanting to say something but stopping himself. Li Shichu ignored him. She had asked him to go to the town to buy medicine and even pointed him in the direction. What else did he want? Did he have to pay him money? He was taking advantage of her.
Although this family of three was unkempt and ragged, looking similar to other refugees, a closer look revealed that they were not as skinny and pale with dull expressions as the other refugees. Instead, they were quite energetic. Otherwise, the woman would not have cried so loudly just now.
Perhaps their son ate the poisonous mushrooms not because he was too hungry, but because he was naughty and curious.
Li Shichu didn't charge for their son's medical treatment, so they wanted to take advantage of him, which was too much. If they angered Li Shichu, she could take back the prescription she had written. Anyway, it wasn't her son who died.
The middle-aged man knew that Li Shichu would not be kind enough to give him the medical expenses, so he carried his son and his wife on his back and headed towards the town.
The refugee group was still huge even without their family of three. Li Shichu asked around and found out that these people left their homes because of drought.
The land was barren, yet the government sent people to collect taxes. How could there be food to pay taxes when there was no harvest? Wasn't this forcing everyone to die? So the people in that area fled.
Li Shichu followed the group and occasionally saved a few patients, so everyone had a good impression of her and thought she was kind and didn't charge for her medical treatment... This was all an illusion. Li Shichu knew that they were refugees with no money or food. How could they pay for the treatment? She was not that cold-blooded.
"Doctor Li, where are you from? Has your hometown also suffered a disaster?" A thin old woman asked Li Shichu curiously, "I see that you have good medical skills. If your hometown had not suffered a disaster, you would not have left your hometown."
"My home is in a place called Taohua Village in Changrong County, Changning County. There was no disaster there, but I am the only child left in my family. I am afraid that I will be caught and forced to fight in the next recruitment, so I have to leave." Li Shichu made an excuse.
(End of this chapter)
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