Chapter 23 Nothing happened
A makeshift field hospital in northern Syria.
The December wind, carrying sand and gravel, lashed against the makeshift shacks made of canvas and plastic sheets. This place, once the playground of a rural school, was now filled with cots and medical equipment. The smell of disinfectant couldn't mask the stench of blood, along with the suppressed groans of the wounded, the hurried footsteps of medical personnel, and the intermittent sounds of artillery fire in the distance—all forming a constant background cacophony.
Song Zhiyi had just finished a six-hour translation session—an informal consultation between the UN observer mission and several local factions. When she emerged from the negotiation tent, it was already dark, the temperature had plummeted, and her breath quickly dissipated in the twilight.
Instead of returning to her lodgings to rest, she went straight to the medical area. This was a habit she had developed during her two years of overseas assignment: she would come to help out every evening unless there was an urgent meeting.
The medical ward was brightly lit, with generators humming. Dr. Ian—the French Doctors Without Borders—was bending over, tending to a boy who had been shot in the leg, his forehead covered in sweat. Nurses moved between the beds, clearly understaffed.
“Song!” Ian’s eyes lit up when he saw her. “You’ve come at the right time. The old man in bed number three needs his chest drainage tube changed, but Mary went to get the blood bag. Can you help him?”
“Okay.” Song Zhiyi nodded and walked quickly toward bed number three.
The man was a local elderly man in his sixties who had been injured three days earlier by a collapsed wall during an air raid. He suffered broken ribs and a pneumothorax. The old man was disoriented and breathing rapidly. Song Zhiyi gently comforted him in Arabic while skillfully putting on sterile gloves and opening her dressing kit.
She handled the procedure with remarkable focus: disinfecting with iodine, removing the old dressing to examine the wound, confirming the drainage tube was in the correct position, applying a new sterile gauze, and securing it with tape. Her movements were fluid and steady, belying her expertise.
After treating the boy's wound, Ian came over, glanced at it, and nodded approvingly: "You should switch to studying medicine."
Song Zhiyi simply smiled and continued with her work.
Just then, a commotion arose at the entrance of the medical tent. Several local militiamen carried in a middle-aged man covered in blood, shouting in Arabic, "Doctor! Doctor! He's been shot!"
Ian rushed over immediately. The injured woman had been shot in the abdomen and was bleeding heavily, requiring immediate surgery. But the operating room was already in use—a woman who had been hit by shrapnel was undergoing a cesarean section.
"Treat him here first!" Ian made a quick decision, directing the militia to carry the wounded to an empty cot.
Song Zhiyi followed. She quickly checked the injured man's condition: he was conscious, his pulse was rapid and weak, and blood was gushing from his abdominal wound. While reassuring the injured man in Arabic, "Hang in there, the doctor is here," she assisted Ian in emergency treatment—establishing an intravenous line, applying pressure bandages, and preparing for a blood transfusion.
As she moved, she needed to bend down to reach for the first-aid kit under the bed. The canvas cot was low, and she knelt on one knee, her upper body almost touching the ground. As she stood up, a familiar sharp pain shot through her lower back—it was an old injury.
She frowned slightly, but didn't pay much attention, and continued with her work.
However, the back of the shirt was lifted up by this large movement, revealing a section of the lower back.
Anna, a young nurse from Italy who was passing by, caught a glimpse of it, stopped abruptly, and gasped.
“Song…” Anna’s voice trembled, “your back…”
Song Zhiyi straightened up and turned around with some confusion: "What's wrong?"
Anna pointed to her lower back, her face pale: "There... is a huge scar there."
Ian also turned his head. He had been busy treating the injured and hadn't noticed, but now, following the direction Anna was pointing, he stopped in his tracks.
Under the dim light of the medical tent, a gruesome scar was revealed at the back of Song Zhiyi's white shirt, which had been lifted up. The scar was large, extending from her right lower back to near her spine. Its surface was uneven, dark reddish-purple in color, and its edges radiated outwards, as if it had been torn apart by some enormous force and then roughly healed.
That's a typical... mark left after a shrapnel wound has healed.
Moreover, judging from the shape of the scar, the injury was very serious at the time, and the treatment conditions were probably very rudimentary.
The air seemed to freeze for a few seconds. Even the wounded man with a gunshot wound to the abdomen was temporarily ignored—of course, Ian's hands didn't stop moving, but his eyes remained fixed on the scar on Song Zhiyi's waist.
Song Zhiyi then realized what had happened. She calmly pulled down the hem of her shirt, straightened it, and said in a normal tone, "It's nothing. It's an old injury from a few years ago."
She spoke of it so casually, as if it were just a shallow cut that had been accidentally made, rather than a hideous scar that would make anyone's heart tremble.
Anna opened her mouth, wanting to ask something, but looking at Song Zhiyi's calm face, she couldn't say anything.
Ian continued treating the wounded, his brow furrowed. He had seen countless wounds and could immediately tell what that scar meant—it wasn't an ordinary external injury, but a blast wound, a laceration caused by shrapnel or a shockwave. For such a scar to remain, the injury must have been life-threatening, and most likely treated under conditions lacking adequate medical care.
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