After Exile, I Married the Amnesiac General [Rebirth] Chapter 2

Late at night, the wind howled outside the tent.

The cold seeped in from all directions. Li Chanxiu lay on a bed spread with dry straw and old bedding, wrapped tightly in his somewhat stiff quilt.

When he had been assigned to the kitchen, he had stayed there. But after being transferred to wash clothes for the wounded, he had no choice but to move into the tent.

The tent housed only female exiles. To avoid suspicion, he slept near the entrance, keeping as much distance as possible from the others. Fortunately, there were not many women inside, and since the entrance was colder, they all chose to sleep further in, leaving him relatively apart.

But this arrangement could only be temporary. He still needed to think of a way to leave as soon as possible, or at least move out of the tent.

Li Chanxiu closed his eyes and pondered.

The deep winter chill slipped through the cracks of the tent flap in thin threads. He tightened the quilt around himself, curling up smaller and smaller, yet his hands and feet remained icy, trembling with cold.

In his dream, when he had drifted into the lands of the Western Qiang, he had been fortunate enough to meet a traveling physician from the Central Plains who, like him, had been swept there by the chaos of war. From that man he learned a method of breathing and regulation said to be practiced by martial artists, beneficial for strengthening the body and improving vitality, especially suitable for someone like him who had been sensitive to cold since birth.

Now, unable to sleep from the chill, he unconsciously began practicing as he had in the dream. Gradually, his blood seemed to circulate more vigorously, and his hands and feet truly felt a little warmer.

At last, drowsiness came. Before falling asleep, he wondered whether he might dream again of events from that previous life.

But he dreamed nothing that night.

***

The next morning, after breakfast, Li Chanxiu went with the other women to the wounded soldiers’ camp.

Yongfeng was a small town, with only three or four thousand troops stationed there. Although it had recently suffered a surprise raid from northern Hu forces, it had only been a small-scale harassment, no major battle had occurred, and there were not many wounded. They did not need to collect and wash clothes every day.

However, there was only one physician in the camp, and manpower was short.

Among this batch of exiled women, a few fortunate ones had been assigned to the kitchen to cook and tend fires. The rest were sent to the infirmary. Besides washing clothes, they also boiled water, decocted medicine, mended garments, and cared for the wounded.

As for the male prisoners, on the very first day they arrived, they were all taken to the city walls to repair fortifications and beacon towers.

Li Chanxiu, along with Aunt Xu and several older women, was assigned to tend to the wounded.

As usual, after helping several soldiers with injuries to the waist, abdomen, and thighs change their dressings, he lifted the back of his hand to wipe a thin layer of sweat from his smooth forehead.

The young soldier whose bandages he had just replaced had white cloth wrapped around his waist and abdomen. A faint, awkward flush rose on his dark face.

Li Chanxiu did not notice. His cold had not fully recovered, and after being chilled again by the river the previous day, he indeed felt somewhat weak. When he rose carrying a bamboo basket, his vision suddenly darkened.

He stood still for a moment until his sight gradually cleared, then carried the basket out. Passing an inconspicuous corner of the tent, his steps suddenly halted.

On a broken plank bed covered with dry straw and old quilts lay a man who looked as though he had been entirely soaked in blood. His eyes had remained closed for days, unconscious.

The face, however, was unexpectedly young, sharp brows like ink strokes, a straight and prominent nose, handsome and well-defined features. His right hand, hanging at his side, gripped a black iron curved blade. Even in his coma, he held it with extraordinary force, as though the bones of his fingers had fused with the hilt.

Li Chanxiu knew of this man. When he had first been transferred to the infirmary, he had heard the wounded soldiers discussing him.

A month earlier, the prefect of Yongzhou had cooperated with Yan Wang Shizi, Pei Zhen, who was stationed in Bingzhou, in several engagements against the northern Hu.

Midway through the campaign, supplies had run short. The garrison soldiers at Yongfeng received urgent orders to dispatch a thousand-man unit to escort provisions in support. Unexpectedly, they were ambushed by the Hu en route. The supplies were entirely seized, and the entire thousand-man unit was annihilated.

Afterward, the garrison sent people to search. Apart from corpses scattered across the battlefield, they found only one soldier some distance away behind a sand dune, gravely wounded but still faintly breathing.

It was the very man now lying on the plank bed, soaked in dried blood and unconscious.

They said that when he had first been carried back, he had been barely clinging to life, inhaling more than exhaling. Yet he had still gripped that black iron blade so tightly that no one could pry it from his hand.

The camp’s sole physician had examined him and simply shaken his head with a sigh. “No saving him.”

Perhaps thinking he was as good as dead, and unable to force open the hand clutching the blade, no one even removed his armor. He was placed just like that onto the broken wooden bed.

“With the supplies lost, even if he wakes, he’ll surely be punished.”

“But that blade he’s holding, it looks like a Hu weapon. Might even belong to some Hu general. Could it be a trophy?”

“If the whole unit was wiped out, how could it be a trophy? Maybe he just got lucky and picked it up.”

“If the supplies hadn’t been seized, even picking up that blade might’ve earned him some military merit, maybe enough to become a squad leader.”

That was what Li Chanxiu had heard the wounded discussing on his first day.

Back then, the blood on the man’s clothing had still been red. Slowly it had dried into the dark brown it was now, whether his own blood or someone else’s, no one knew.

That day, after finishing with the other wounded, Li Chanxiu had hesitated when passing this neglected corner. Then he crouched down and changed the dressings of the man left there to quietly await death.

The man bore many wounds, but only the arrow wound in his right chest was truly fatal…

“Miss Shen, you’re changing that fellow’s dressings again?”

From not far away, a soldier with a broken leg propped himself up curiously from his bedding.

Before Li Chanxiu could answer, he continued, “If you ask me, don’t waste the medicine. We don’t have much to begin with. He was nearly gone the day they brought him back. Now he’s just hanging on by a thread. Physician Hu already said he can’t be saved.”

Another wounded soldier glanced over and shook his head. “The arrow’s been pulled out, medicine’s been applied. If he could wake, he would have by now. He’s been lying there for days, his injuries haven’t improved, and he’s breathing less each day. His face is nearly as white as the snow outside.”

“Probably just a matter of a day or two. Sigh, fate’s cruel.”

Seeing that Li Chanxiu remained silent, the wounded men continued chatting among themselves.

Li Chanxiu withdrew his gaze from them and let it settle once more on the “blood-soaked man” before him.

These past few days, every time he came, he had changed this man’s dressings as usual, no different from the other wounded, regardless of whether he was truly near death or whether the camp’s only physician had already declared his “deadline.”

As usual, he set down his basket, lifted the man’s armor, paused briefly, then reached out to untie the bandages and carefully examine the wound.

Before, he had not known the reason for the man’s persistent coma. But after that dream, especially after studying medicine in the dream with the physician in Western Qiang, it was as though he had inexplicably gained real experience. He quickly determined that the arrow wound was poisoned.

However, there was no antidote at present. After staring for a moment, Li Chanxiu proceeded as always, cleaning the wound, applying medicine, and rebandaging it.

This was the standard treatment for ordinary external injuries in the camp, and the only method available.

As the dark paste was spread evenly over the arrow wound, the unconscious man seemed to sense the sudden pain. The muscles around the wound tightened abruptly, the knuckles of the hand gripping the curved blade turned white, and his right arm appeared to spasm.

Li Chanxiu acted as if he hadn’t noticed anything. His expression remained calm as he skillfully wrapped the bandage and tied the knot. Only then did his gaze sweep over the sharply defined body before him, a very young body, firm and smoothly contoured. If he weren’t unconscious, he would likely be very strong.

With his little finger, Li Chanxiu lightly poked the muscle that had tensed moments ago and was now gradually relaxing. It was not as rock-hard as he had imagined. He withdrew his hand as if nothing had happened, then casually pulled the man’s clothing back over him, his expression unchanged, as though nothing at all had occurred.

He lifted the basket and rose. Before he could leave the tent, a commotion suddenly erupted at the entrance.

“Quick! Where’s the old doctor? Where’s Physician Hu? Hurry, someone’s dying!”

“Lay him flat, lay him flat! Don’t crowd around! Go get Physician Hu!”

“Ah, Mother, Brother, it hurts, ah, ah!”

Amid the shouting and cries of pain, the camp’s only physician, Old Mister Hu, hurried in, followed by his young grandson, Hu Yuan’er.

Squeezed to the edge of the crowd, Li Chanxiu peered through a gap and saw a young soldier lying on a wooden plank on the ground, his face deathly pale, wailing in agony. His abdomen had been split open somehow; someone was trying to hold it shut, but his intestines had already spilled out.

Physician Hu froze on the spot at the sight.

He was only an ordinary physician. Treating common external injuries was manageable for him, even severed limbs could be cauterized to stop bleeding. 

But a ruptured abdomen with exposed intestines? He had never treated such a wound. If he had that kind of skill, would he still be stuck in a small place like Yongfeng?

“Physician Hu, don’t just stand there, save him!” someone urged, giving him a shove.

He came back to himself, sweat already beading on his forehead. “Th-this… injured like this, I, I can’t treat it.”

At those words, a burly man who had carried the wounded soldier in instantly turned red-eyed. With a fan-sized hand still smeared in blood, he grabbed Physician Hu, nearly lifting the frail old man off the ground. “How can you not treat him? Aren’t you the best physician in the camp? Save him! Please save him! He’s my only brother left. Our old mother is still waiting for him to come home…”

Halfway through his plea, the towering man’s voice choked.

The other soldiers who had come with them were equally anxious; some, moved by the situation, had red eyes as well.

From their hurried explanations, Li Chanxiu quickly understood. The burly man was Zhang Hu. The wounded soldier was his younger brother, Zhang He.

The Zhang family were hereditary military households. According to court regulations, one able-bodied man had to serve. If a soldier died before completing his term, another family member had to take his place.

With constant warfare on the frontier in recent years, the Zhang family had first sent the father and two sons. The father died; a son replaced him. That son died; another replaced him… Now, among the brothers, only the eldest, Zhang Hu, and the fourth, Zhang He, remained. Last year, during a plague, their youngest brother, who had stayed home and not yet come of age, also died. Their mother had cried herself blind, praying only that her last two sons would return safely.

Yet today, while the brothers were on patrol beyond the frontier, they were ambushed by a small group of Hu raiders. Zhang He had taken a blade meant for his brother, his abdomen slashed open. His life now hung by a thread.

“A rope always snaps at its weakest strand; misfortune seeks out the suffering,” one of the wounded soldiers muttered, shaking his head.

Zhang Hu’s eyes were bloodshot with panic. Seeing Physician Hu shake his head repeatedly, he suddenly dropped to his knees with a thud and begged, “Old sir, I beg you, save my brother! If you can save him, my life is yours from now on. I’ll serve you like an ox or a horse…”

He began banging his head against the ground.

“No, no, you mustn’t,” Physician Hu hurried to help him up. Unable to lift him, he sighed helplessly. “It’s not that I won’t save him, it’s that I truly can’t. In all my years practicing medicine, I’ve never heard of someone surviving such an injury. If there were a way, would I stand by and watch him die?”

Zhang Hu froze mid-bow. Despair slowly crept across his face.

Beside him, Zhang He’s cries had weakened to strained gasps. His throat emitted rough, broken sounds as he forced out words: “Older Brother… it hurts… it hurts…”

Unable to bear the sight, Physician Hu said gently to Zhang Hu, “Get up. While he’s still alive, say whatever needs to be said…”

It was a cruel way to die, unable to live, yet not dying quickly either. Only prolonged agony.

“How could this happen? How could this happen?” Zhang Hu trembled, tears streaming down his face.

Zhang He continued to writhe in pain, limbs restrained by others. Perhaps understanding he could not be saved, he struggled to turn his head and whispered hoarsely, “Older Brother… give me… give me…”

Zhang Hu wiped his tears frantically and crawled closer on his knees, grasping his brother’s hand. “What is it? What do you want? I’ll get it for you, I’ll get you anything!”

Zhang He’s face twisted with agony as he forced out the words: “Give… give me… a quick end.”

Zhang Hu went rigid, his face turning ashen. A pained roar burst from his throat as he turned back to Physician Hu, pleading once more, “Old sir, think of something! Please think of something! You must have a way, you must!”

Those around them could barely watch. Several soldiers turned away, red-eyed.

Physician Hu, who had seen much life and death, let out a long sigh. He could not bring himself to shake his head again.

Yet he truly had no solution. Just as he was about to say, “We can only apply medicine and bind the wound, but it won’t save him,” a clear voice suddenly sounded from behind.

“Perhaps… I can try.”

From the back of the crowd, Li Chanxiu looked at the writhing Zhang He on the ground and raised his eyes as he spoke.