Chapter 42 - A Noble Assistant
Chapter 42 A Noble Assistant
There was a moment when Su Muge wanted to cry. Why was she so unlucky? She dared not to think if her identity was unveiled, what would happen to her. Would this royal highness, the King of Jin, get angry with her and directly put her to justice?!
Indeed, one could never win a game played with God!
Xia Houmo kept his promise and had her scalpel made before dark according to her previous drawings. After knowing his identity, she was no longer surprised at his high efficiency.
It would only be a joke if a person who was among the highest rank of people in the country like him had no ability superior to a normal village man.
Su Muge took a scalpel and checked it carefully. It’s rougher than a modern scalpel, but she believed that if he had been given two more days, he could have made the scalpel even better than the modern one.
Just as she was about to cut her fingertip with the edge of the scalpel as a trial, her waist was caught by him.
“Lord Su, you don’t have to test the sharpness of this scalpel with your flesh and blood.” Xia Houmo had been staring at her for quite a while and didn’t know what she was up to with that focused look. He stopped her just in time when she was about to touch the edge of the scalpel.
Su Muge paused with some doubts, only to see that he pulled several hairs from her head.
“Ouch!”
Su Muge glared at him with dissatisfaction. How could he pull one’s hair like that though he was a Royal Highness! But her discontentment was ignored by him.
Xia Houmo blew the hairs gently to the edge of the scalpel.
Su Muge saw the hairs being cut before even touching the edge!
Now she could imagine what would happen if she had just put her hand on the scalpel-edge!
“Thank you very much, Lord Xia.”
“When are you going to treat the patients, Lord Su?”
Yesterday, Su Muge had already arranged people to help her clean out a simple operating room. She only slept for two hours last night, preparing for the medicine needed for today’s operation.
She looked at the sky. It’s not noon yet. She could operate the surgery in the afternoon.
“In the afternoon.” She replied.
Before Su Muge came there, Yueru had already sewed several surgical gowns for her under her instructions, and she also made herself several isolation masks for the operation last night.
At noon, she was ready to go to the temporary ward after lunch.
It was just that… Xia Houmo wanted to go with her. He was a real trouble that could not be dumped!
“Lord Xia, you must have got important affairs to deal with, so I’m not going to bother you.”
“Never mind,” Xia Houmo slightly pulled his sleeve and said in an easy tone.
“…”
Su Muge could do nothing but let him follow her.
Adviser Li came out to greet Su Muge just as she arrived. “Lord Su, you are here.”
Su Muge nodded and walked to a room aside. She took all the stuff out from her package.
“What are they?”
Xia Houmo asked in a low voice when he saw the white gowns and masks.
Su Muge answered him without raising her head, “These are for the operation.”
There was a slight movement of Xia Houmo’s dark eyes. It was his first time to know that clean clothes and masks were needed to treat a patient.
Su Muge ignored Xia Houmo behind her. She took off her robe and put on a clean surgical gown. She didn’t walk to the operating room until Li Damao sprayed the disinfectant on her. She stopped at the door.
“Bring me the shoes that I told you to prepare yesterday.”
“Shoes…” Zuoqiu was wordless looking at Su Muge’s complicated equipment. It was treating a patient but not having an important ceremony!
Li Damao helped Su Muge with the shoes on.
At the moment when Su Muge took off her shoes, Xia Houmo’s eyes fixed on her delicate and small feet for an instant.
“In order to avoid anything unclean entering the room during the operation, please wait outside. Xiaohu, come in with me,” Su Muge said, pushed the door open, and walked in.
The medical assistant who was called Xiaohu by her had also changed into the same equipment as Su Muge. He carried the medical kit and was about to walk in.
However, just as his foot was about to step in, someone grabbed the collar of his clothes to lift him up and then put him down aside.
Xiaohu looked back to see what was going on when his eyes were met by a pair of black and deep ones…
Su Muge detoxified her hands again after she entered the room. The person who came in after her glimpsed at the water aside that she had used, and did the same.
She came to the operating table to check the situation of the child. The temperature of the little boy was getting higher and higher. Only with the touch of his hand, she was sure that the temperature was about forty centigrades at least.
She first took out a pill for the child to take to cool his body down and diluted the anesthetic for him to drink. Then she fixed his hands and feet with bandages to avoid possible accidents during the operation.
“Scissors.” Su Muge stood in front of the operation table, reached out her hand without looking back.
The man behind her paused a bit, looked at a sharp scalpel on the small table, reached out and handed it over to her.
Su Muge took the scissors, cut the clothes on the child’s body quickly and neatly. Most of the boy’s belly was now exposed, and she then disinfected it.
“Scalpel No.1.”
Looking at the small hand reaching out in front of his eyes, the man behind put the scalpel marked with the number in her hand.
The belly was soon cut open with the scalpel sliding on it with not too much effort.
After the scalpel was put aside, Su Muge opened the cut on the belly and began to check the internal organs.
She opened it very carefully, but her look was very calm, like choosing a better cabbage in the food market.
“This lung indeed has a problem. No wonder there was dropsy! It has been corroded by something so terribly! Scalpel No.2.”
The hand reaching out this time was stained with blood all over.
Su Muge cut off the corroded lung, expelled the dark blood, and checked other organs again. After that, she counted the surgical instruments carefully and took the needle and thread to sew up his belly.
When all of these were finished, Su Muge took a deep breath. The first operation in this era could cause her more or less nervous, but the result was good.
“The way of Lord Su treating a patient was so unexpected.”
Su Muge startled upon hearing this, and the scalpel in her hand almost fell to the ground.
She looked at Xia Houmo in surprise, and she didn’t know when he had come in. He was still wearing a surgical suit, which was meant to be also suitable for men. However, the one on him appeared like a shrunk version.
“When did you come in, Lord Xia?”
“When I handed you over the scissors.”
“…”
So it was not Xiaohu who had helped to hand her scalpel during the whole operation, but this man in front of her!
Very good. The king, whose position was superior to the highest-ranking officials in this state, had been her assistant personally. This was another thing she could be proud of and to show off!
“The operation was finished, and Xiaohu can handle the rest.”
Xia Houmo nodded. He turned and left the room.
Su Muge followed him with the stuff in her hands.
“Xiaohu.” Su Muge looked at Xiaohu, who was huddling himself outside. He quickly walked towards her with a look of feeling wronged.
“Lord Su, just now, I…”
Su Muge patted on his shoulder gently. “You don’t have to explain. I understand.” Thin and small as Xiaohu was, how could he stand up to this strong and powerful Xia Houmo?
“Start to check the patient’s condition every two hours from now on. If the patient wakes up, you can dip cotton with water to moisture his mouth and let him drink a bit, but not too much. The wound will hurt after the anesthetic effect disappears. Don’t let him move around. Do you understand?”
Xiaohu wrote it down carefully. “Don’t worry, Lord Su. I understand.”
To avoid infection of the lung she cut, she decided to conduct the study of it here immediately.
“I’ve got something else to do, so I will not accompany you, Lord Su.”
Xia Houmo said before Su Muge could open her mouth.
Su Muge managed a smile to him. “Who wanted your accompany? You came to stick with me yourself with no shame from the very beginning!” She sneered in her mind.
When Xia Houmo left, Su Muge went into the room to do her research.
She took out the lung she had cut off and cleaned it with liquid medicine. She found that there were many tiny holes in it.
They were only as big as pinholes. If not checked carefully under the light, they couldn’t be found at all.
“Are they parasites?”
Su Muge cut the lung with a scalpel and immediately saw a long and thin worm, like a hair. She quickly clamped it with forceps and pulled it out…
…
After leaving, Xia Houmo did not return to the county yamen but entered a very humble house.
“Lord, I’ve sent people to the Su Mansion to investigate carefully. Su Lun’s wife, Madam An had sent people to look for him secretly. He had disappeared more than ten days ago.”
The finger of Xia Houmo was poking on the table, making out some noises. Donglin knew the Lord was thinking.
“Anything else?”
“I also found out another weird thing. A few days ago, the eldest Miss of Su Mansion had left, taking with her one carriage driver, and headed towards Zhou county. But the driver left halfway.”
It was inconceivable that the miss of a mansion, who would usually stay at home and not go out, would have the courage to go to the disaster area alone.
The finger stopped promptly, and Xia Houmo looked up at Donglin. “The eldest Miss of Su Mansion.”
“Yes. But the eldest Miss is not the daughter of Minister An’s daughter, but the daughter of a village woman who had married Su Lun before his success in the imperial exam.”
“Fine.”
Donglin finished his words and suddenly thought of something. He lifted his eyes and looked at Xia Houmo in astonishment. “Lord, is that ‘Lord Su’…”
Xia Houmo chuckled. “Of course.”
Though Donglin had been following after Xia Houmo those years to many places, such a fact still struck him.
If this “Lord Su” was disguised by the eldest Miss of the Su Mansion, then she was too bold!
It’s a felony that deserved to be quartered by horses to pretend to be a court official!
“Lord, shall…I send people…”
“No. Let’s see what she’s going to do.”
“Yes.”
…
Su Muge, who was still studying the infection of the lung, sneezed violently.
She sniffed and looked out of the window. It was dark.
“Xiaohu, what’s the time now?”
“Lord, it’s around ten.”
“So late.” Su Muge packed everything. She had left some things back at the county yamen that she needed to fetch, and conveniently, she could have a rest there.
With all ready-packed, Su Muge got on the carriage with her medical kit.
The streets were terribly quiet.
Su Muge, with her eyes closed, was leaning on the carriage and trying to sort things out. But suddenly, the carriage stopped with a violent shake!