Chapter 9: Earthbound Salvage
3185 Words
*Hack—Wheeze—Gasp—!*
A convulsive, rasping cough—like rusted bellows tearing apart—exploded from the earthen kang bed!
Old Man Cao, stabilized mere minutes prior, arched violently! A fish flung ashore!
His body stiffened! Seized!
Face instantly suffused with terrifying cyanosis—darker than his near-death episode!
Lips blue-black!
Throat emitted strangled, guttural huh-huh sounds—as if throttled by an invisible fist!
His chest’s fragile rise and fall ceased! Only violent, futile spasms remained!
Eyes rolled white! Fingers clawed the straw matting!
Precipice of death! More perilous than before!
“Old man—!!” Granny Cao shrieked, soul fleeing her body! The bowl of freshly brewed brown-sugar water crashed to the floor! “Doctor Zhang! Save him! He’s failing—!”
“What happened?!”
“Wasn’t he recovering?!”
“Look! His face’s purple!”
“What witchcraft did this city doctor perform?!”
Panic reignited at the doorway! Fear and suspicion surged anew!
Zhang Chi whirled!
His gaze—razor-edged—scanned the dying man.
Not the quill airway blocked—it remained patent! Air flowed!
Something worse.
Mucus plug.
A viscous, obstructive bronchial cast from the asthma attack—choking the alveoli! Oxygen starved! Lungs rendered inert chambers! Suffocation imminent!
“Move!” Zhang Chi shoved the paralyzed Granny Cao aside! Lunged to the kang!
Stethoscope? His kit’s was shattered—useless!
Zhang Chi bent low—pressed his ear directly against Cao’s violently spasming chest!
Not for sound.
For resonance. For location.
Five years of ER-honed instinct—human stethoscope!
Left lung base! Near the spine! Airflow nearly absent! There!
Aggressive secretion clearance! Urgent! Or divine intervention would fail!
Electric suction? Manual aspirator? In this godforsaken hollow? Fantasy!
Zhang Chi’s mind raced!
Seconds meant life!
What was here?!
Hot water? Futile!
Back percussion? Insufficient force! Couldn’t dislodge this concrete-like sputum!
Medication? Inhalers couldn’t penetrate deep plugs!
Primitive method!
The most brutal primitive method!
“Baijiu! High-proof baijiu! Got any?! NOW!” Zhang Chi roared at Granny Cao!
“Bai…jiu?” She blinked, then pointed to a dust-crusted crock in the corner. “Last year’s… homemade sweet-potato liquor… strong enough?”
Zhang Chi surged forward! Seized the crock!
*CRACK!*
Smashed the clay seal!
Pungent, fiery fumes—cheap grain alcohol—assaulted his senses! Sixty-proof? Barely adequate!
“Fire!” Zhang Chi’s glare shot to the hearth!
A glowing ember was wrenched from the coals!
“Zhang Chi! What madness?!” A shrill, theatrically horrified voice pierced the air—Li Pockface! Vulture-like, he reappeared! Feigned terror and naked incitement warped his face!
“Using fire?! Roasting him alive?! Look! All look! This doctor’s insane! Flambéing a living man!!” He shrieked, pointing at the liquor crock and ember, whipping villagers into frenzy! “Stop this butcher!!!” He lunged—aiming to finish Zhang Chi under chaos!
“f**k off!” Zhang Chi didn’t turn. As if eyes lined his skull. To universal shock—
Left hand gripped the crock!
Right hand snatched the hearth’s long-handled, grease-caked wooden spatula!
No glance!
Full force!
Swept it backward in a vicious arc!
*WHOOSH—!*
Air split, reeking of rancid oil!
“Aiyo! Mother—!” Li Pockface, mid-lunge, took the spatula’s broad face square on his chest!
*THUD!!*
Dull impact!
Thick wood, weighted by grime, delivered crushing force!
Li’s ribs screamed! Stars exploded! He staggered back—*SPLASH!*—plunged ass-first into a reeking slops bucket!
Filth geysered! Maggots writhed on his sleeves!
“Guh… Guh…” He retched bile, humiliation complete!
Silenced.
The crowd froze, cowed by Zhang Chi’s demonic spatula strike! Utter stillness! Villagers gaped at this mud-blood-caked, liquor-wielding, spatula-brandishing healer-demon! Breath held!
Zhang Chi ignored them. Crisis demanded seconds!
He ripped a cleaner swatch of cotton batting from his padded coat. Formed a fist-sized wad.
Lifted the crock!
*SPLASH!*
Cheap, high-proof liquor cascaded onto the cotton—saturating it instantly!
Acrid fumes choked the air!
Zhang Chi seized the dripping, alcohol-soaked mass! Thrust it toward the hearth—onto the blazing, white-hot ember!
*IGNITE!!!*
*WHOOM—!!!*
Alcohol met flame!
A searing, blinding azure fireball erupted—half a meter high! Heat-wave scorched!
“Aah—!!!” Villagers recoiled! Screams! Retreat!
Zhang Chi’s face remained stone. Focus absolute. Right hand snatched the heavy wooden spatula—fresh from battering Li.
Summoned every ounce of strength!
Planted the violently burning, blue-white flame-wreathed cotton mass—
Firmly! Irrevocably!
Onto—
The spatula’s broad, thick wooden back!
A makeshift incendiary platform!
Instantly!
The spatula’s coarse wood hosted a malevolent blue-white inferno!
Searing heat radiated through the damp timber!
Ready!
Zhang Chi vaulted back to the kang!
Under petrified, silent stares—
Barked: “Flip him! Expose his back!”
Granny Cao and Liu Tiezhu obeyed instinctively! Wrestled the convulsing Cao onto his belly!
Tore open his shirt!
Revealed a thin, age-spotted, slightly hunched back!
Zhang Chi’s eyes locked onto the left lung base!
Right hand steadied the flaming spatula!
Aimed!
Like feeding a dying furnace its last coal—
Through a rag Granny Cao provided (skin protection!)—he slammed it down!!!
*THWACK!!!*
A muffled impact! Searing wood-on-flesh sizzle!
The alcohol-fire, rag-muffled, unleashed scalding thermal force!
Violently compressed the obstructed area’s flesh!
Not a touch—a percussive blow! With concussive force!
Acrid alcohol vapor and scorched protein stench flooded the air!
Cao’s body jolted!
Simultaneously—
The combined thermal shock and compressive trauma—
Triggered Cao’s spasm-locked, mucus-plugged intercostal muscles and diaphragm—
Into a primal, convulsive inspiratory reflex!!!
Like a drowning man’s final gasp!
*HUUUH—!!!*
A violent, chest-sundering inhalation and explosive cough!!!
A thick, turbid, yellow-green gelatinous sputum plug—
Shot like a bullet!
From Cao’s gaping mouth!
Alongside the life-giving quill!
*SPLOOT!*
Sailed across the room!
*SPLAT!* Hit the floor—stretching viscous strands like a slug’s trail!
Asphyxiation—instantly broken!
*Inhale—Exhale—Inhale—Exhale—!*
Clear! Strong! Unobstructed breaths! Celestial music in the hovel!
Cao’s cyanotic hue vanished like magic! Replaced by post-crisis pallor and sweat! His chest rose and fell—autonomous, powerful! Residual coughs, but purely clearing!
Alive!
Throat to lungs—cleared!
Silence.
Absolute.
Only Cao’s life-affirming, resonant breaths!
The crowd—including Li Pockface, clambering from the slops bucket—stood transfixed! Eyes saucers! Jaws agape!
Stunned senseless!
Alcohol fire on a spatula?! Back-slamming?!
Expelling that lethal mucus cannonball?!
Resurrecting a suffocating corpse?!
What sorcery was this?!
“Papa! Papa breathes! Cleared!” Granny Cao collapsed weeping on her husband, joy obliterating speech!
Zhang Chi peeled back the heat-blackened rag. The spatula’s residual flames guttered out.
He wiped sweat, mud, and blood from his face.
His gaze swept the now-stable Cao.
Steady.
Stable.
Rest, recuperation, proper meds later.
But unfinished!
Zhang Chi’s eyes—eagle-sharp—scanned Cao’s face!
Pallor! Cold sweat! Signs of dehydration and energy depletion! The ordeal had consumed him!
Hypothermia! Energy crash! Cardiac arrest risk! Shock imminent!
Rapid energy infusion! Core temperature stabilization!
But here…
No IV glucose!
No saline!
Nothing!
Only a crock of sweet-potato swill and brown sugar?!
“Sugar water! The brew?!” Zhang Chi barked!
“Spilled… dirtied…” Granny Cao stammered.
“Rebrew! Hot water—basin!” Zhang Chi ordered, eyes scouring the hut!
Basin? A chipped clay pot in the corner!
Water? Muddy floor!
Time bled life!
Fast! Crude! Effective!
Force-feed!
“WHO!! Has wounds?! Snake bites? Insect stings?!” Zhang Chi bellowed at the crowd! Gaze raked them!
“Me! Leech bite! Calf! Two days back!” A wiry man tentatively raised his hand! Rolled his pants—a festering, pus-oozing wound glared above his ankle!
“Here!” Zhang Chi commanded!
The man shuffled forward, bewildered.
Zhang Chi acted! Grabbed the back-slapping spatula—still warm! Swung it down!
Its thick, greasy back—
Jabbed near the wound!
*SQUELCH!*
Dark, purulent blood gushed!
The man howled! Agony!
Zhang Chi snatched a cracked bowl from Granny Cao!
Caught the stream of hot, viscous filth-blood!
Half a bowl! Steaming!
Metallic stench!
“You!” Zhang Chi pointed at the clay pot half-filled with warm water. “Lay him in! Sit him! Keep chest dry!”
Warm-water immersion—external warming!
The blood… must be force-fed!
Zhang Chi lifted the bowl of gore. Thrust it at the semi-conscious Cao: “Drink! Now! Or die!”
Cao grimaced at the bloody mess! Instinctive revulsion!
“DRINK!” Zhang Chi’s voice—a thunderclap! Iron command! One hand pried Cao’s jaws! Poured the vile, steaming blood-broth down his throat!
Gulp! Gulp! Retch… Gulp! Cough…
Cao swallowed most!
Face smeared crimson!
Foul! Hot! Nauseating!
But entering his gut—
A surge of heat! Blood’s iron and sugar’s energy—flooding his system!
Zhang Chi wasn’t done!
He seized the rebrewed, scalding-thick sugar syrup!
Like drenching a ox—
Glug! Glug! Glug!
Poured another full bowl down!
Warmth from immersion outside!
Energy-sugar from within!
Twin assault!
Minutes later—
Visibly!
Cao’s ashen face bloomed with color! Not cyanotic—healthy flush!
Cold sweat ceased!
Breaths steadied! Even soft snoring!
Eyelids drooped shut—exhausted, healing sleep! Peaceful!
Not coma!
Restorative slumber!
“Heavens! Alive! Truly alive!”
“Pink! Like a living man!”
“Miracle! Godsend!”
Awe-struck villagers! Fear and doubt vaporized! Replaced by volcanic reverence! Zhang Chi—a living Bodhisattva!
Knees hit mud! Kowtows began!
Li Pockface slumped by the slops bucket—shivering leaf! Face corpselike! Defeated!
Then—
“What bedlam is this?! Insurrection?!” A faux-majestic, bureaucratic roar shattered the scene!
Flickering lantern light revealed—
Director Qin’s obese frame at the compound gate! Pushed to the front! Face bloated with manufactured outrage! Chest puffed for authority!
Behind him—
A starched, snow-white Mao-suited elder! Coke-bottle-thick black glasses! Slicked-back hair! Brand-new Red Cross medical kit! Pomp incarnate!
County-retired “miracle physician”—Zhao Bing’an! Zhao One-Needle!
“Director Qin? D-Doctor Zhao?! You honor us?!” Villagers gasped!
“Hmph!” Qin puffed, straining to dominate the din. “This pandemonium! Disgraceful! Cao’s state?! Dr. Zhao—expert I summoned from the county! Witness true…” He gestured dismissively toward Zhang Chi.
His words died—
“PREPOSTEROUS!!!”
A shriek—outrage, horror, authority defiled!—detonated inside!
Zhao One-Needle!
He’d pushed to the kang!
Thick lenses magnified eyes bulging in disbelief!
Fixed on…
The blood-smeared goose quill protruding from Cao’s neck!
And…
The dried blood crusting Cao’s lips! The scorch-smelling rag!
And…
The dregs of filthy blood in the clay pot!
Finally—
His appalled, sacrilege-witnessing stare—
Impaled Zhang Chi! Mud-blood-caked, bowl in hand!
“SACRILEGE!!! UTTER SACRILEGE!!!”
Zhao lost all composure! Trembling with fury and shock! Finger quivering at the quill and Zhang Chi!
“Lawless! Barbaric!!”
“Goose quill tracheotomy?! What medical canon sanctions this?!”
“Alcohol-fire branding?! Intent on cremation?!”
“This… this sanguinary filth! Force-feeding blood?! Physician or demon?!”
“Salvation?! Butchery! Heretical sorcery!!! SORCERY!!!” Zhao’s voice cracked! Spittle flew! Face purpled! Witnessing medicine’s ultimate desecration! “You’ve murdered Old Cao with your defilement!!!”
*BOOM!*
The accusation—a lightning strike!
Villagers reeled! Glanced between the snoring, ruddy Cao and the apoplectic, credentialed Zhao…
Confusion reigned!
Final rally?
“D-Doctor Zhao… calm… this… ruffian…” Qin, seeing Zhao’s verdict, swelled with vindication! Pointed at Zhang Chi, glee barely masked!
“Qin—the—Blowhard!” A voice—glacial, gunpowder-laced—froze Qin’s gloating!
Zhang Chi turned slowly.
Facing the enraged Zhao and accusatory Qin.
His face, blood-streaked in the low light, was granite. Eyes—obsidian pits—held ice and magma.
He raised the filthy bowl—
*SMASH!!!*
Shattered it on the floor! Shards flew!
Silence—profound! Zhao’s tirade choked off!
Zhang Chi stepped forward!
Blocked Cao!
His gaze—twin spectral daggers—stabbed through Zhao’s thick lenses into his “authoritative” eyes!
Voice low.
But freighted with battlefield c*****e. Unassailable. Each word struck sparks on stone.
“You! Zhao One-Needle?”
“Vision fogged by your spectacles?!”
“Blind to his rising chest?! Deaf to his thunderous snores?!”
“Oblivious to the stench of death versus the iron tang of life?!!”
Zhang Chi’s voice—avalanche! Each phrase harsher!
He stabbed a finger at the flushed, sleeping Cao!
“Acute severe asthmatic failure! Mucus-plugged! Oxygen saturation in the abyss! Pulseless half an hour ago!”
“I! Clawed through landslides! Bathed in filth! Nearly died to viper fangs!”
“Used a goose quill to pry open his windpipe! Stole breath from Death!”
“Set liquor ablaze on a spatula! Scorched his skin to ignite his last survival instinct! Detonated the petrified phlegm choking his lungs!”
“Finally! Lacking your imported glucose saline!”
“Poured his own foul blood—mixed with boiling syrup—down his throat! To fuel warmth! To spark energy!”
“I dragged him back from Hell’s gate! Now he sleeps like a starved hog!”
Zhang Chi stepped closer! Spittle near-hitting Zhao’s face! Voice a detonation!
“THIS!”
“To your eyes!”
“Is HERESY?!!”
“A trifling sniffle your sterile city clinic cures with imported potions?!!”
“f**k!”
Zhang Chi slashed his hand!
A blood-crusted finger nearly speared Zhao’s rigid nose!
“You! Ivory-tower deity! Never seen mountain folk die awaiting medicine?!”
“Disgusted by our dirt-forged survival?!”
“Revolted?! Nauseated?! Deeming our lives unworthy of your sterile theater?!”
“GET OUT!!!”
The final word—
Carrying Zhang Chi’s journey—exhaustion, battle, pent-up fury—
Erupted!!!
*BOOM!*
The hovel plunged into silence!
Pin-drop stillness!
Only Zhang Chi’s “OUT!” reverberated off the mud walls!
The oil lamp flame flickered violently!
Zhao One-Needle stood petrified!
His venerable, authority-accustomed face—as if slapped raw by invisible hands—
Flushed from apoplectic purple to stunned white to humiliated crimson!
Pupils behind thick lenses dilated—horror! Disarray! Disbelief!
Mouth agape! Retorts died—choked by the sight of the thunderously snoring, ruddy-cheeked Cao…
All righteous condemnation strangled in his throat!
“Treason! Mutiny!!” Qin sputtered, hopping mad! “Zhang Chi! Insulting Dr. Zhao! You’re finished! Disciplinary action! Major demerit! I’ll—”
“OUT!” Zhang Chi whipped his head! Death-laden eyes pinned Qin! One syllable—colder than Zhao’s rebuke! Naked lethality! “One more syllable—next spatula strike crushes your swine skull! Join Li Pockface in the slops!”
Qin glimpsed the vomit-streaked Li, then Zhang Chi’s snake-blood-greased, bone-crushing spatula! Words died. His bulk quivered! Shrunk back!
Finished!
Authority obliterated!
Utterly!
The villagers—
Transformed!
No fear! No doubt! No blind faith in “miracle physicians”! Only volcanic, eruptive reverence!
If saving Cao was awe, Zhang Chi’s blood-and-mud truth, his “OUT!” roared at Zhao—ignited their deepest resonance and awe!
Life! In these mountains! Was clawed from the dirt!
“DOCTOR ZHANG—!” Liu Tiezhu bellowed—a raw, bestial cry!
*THUD!!!*
He crashed to his knees! Forehead slammed stone! Blood gushed! Unheeded! Voice tore from his throat: “Our mountain lives—saved by Doctor Zhang! Henceforth—our lives are yours! Water! Fire! A single flinch—we’re bastards born!!!”
“DOCTOR ZHANG!!!”
“LIVING BODHISATTVA!!!”
*WHOOSH!* Dozens at the door—men, women, old, young—kneeled as one! Foreheads pressed to cold mud! Wails of gratitude shook the valley!
Zhao One-Needle witnessed this kneeling sea—villagers gazing at Zhang Chi with near-deific fervor—then stared fixedly at the snoring Cao…
His spirit imploded!
Sagged! Face ashen! Aged a decade in seconds!
A drowned cur!
Supported by two terrified aides—
He fled!
Craven!
Ruined!
Silently swallowed by the rain-lashed night!
His pristine Red Cross kit—forgotten!
Qin, seeing his patron routed, Li useless, Zhang Chi’s corpse-cold stare—
Stayed?
That spatula would strike!
His bulk convulsed! Wordless! Scrambled!
Scuttled after Zhao’s shadow—a panicked rat!
Zhang Chi ignored the fleeing clowns.
He looked down.
At Zhao’s abandoned, gleaming Red Cross kit.
Inside…
Proper bronchodilators. Sterile syringes. IV bags.
Too late.
Useless.
His lips twisted.
A cold, exhausted, profoundly mocking curve.
He bent.
Hoisted his own mud-caked, sweat-stained, blood-stinking kit.
Slung it over his shoulder.
Hefted the pack holding the divorce decree’s frame.
Step.
By step.
Left the hut reeking of sweat, blood, scorched liquor, and hard-won life.
Outside.
The kneeling villagers remained.
Rain eased. Cold wind bit through soaked clothes.
Liu Tiezhu jerked his head up! Bloodshot eyes! Roared: “Doctor Zhang! Where bound?! We escort you! Night’s black! Perilous!”
“Unnecessary.” Zhang Chi’s voice—dust-settled calm.
He passed Granny Cao, still kneeling.
She clutched his trouser leg, weeping: “Miracle-worker! Benefactor! Stay… dawn breaks… we kowtow…”
Zhang Chi gently, firmly, freed his leg.
“Tend him.” He commanded.
Didn’t look back.
Step.
Lurch.
Dragging his sprained, throbbing ankle.
Alone again.
Plunged into the icy, cloying mud and fathomless, rain-slashed dark.
Behind him.
The torch-lit compound gate.
Someone lit the first pine-resin torch!
Then another!
Another!
Soon—
Dozens of blazing torches!
In the downpour’s gloom—
Formed an undulating river of fire!
Held high by villagers!
Along the muddy mountain path!
Silently!
Resolutely!
Following the thin, exhausted silhouette bearing the battered kit—
Banishing the dark!
Illuminating the treacherous ascent!
Torchlight flickered on Zhang Chi’s profile.
Unreadable.
Only the heavy, mud-sucking tread echoed—
*Thud!*
*Thud!*
*Thud!*
Pounding the valley’s silent heart!
Behind.
Qin and Zhao’s jeep—a drenched, bedraggled insect—skidded and fishtailed on the muddy track, accelerating its craven flight!
Wheels spun, spraying muck like filthy tears across its windshield!
Its headlights wobbled, briefly grazing the solitary, stubborn figure ahead, then swallowed by darkness.
Inside.
Qin white-knuckled the wheel, trembling with defeat and terror. Teeth ground audibly.
Zhao slumped in back, eyes closed, face cadaverous. The new kit lay discarded at his feet.
Through the mud-smeared rear window—
The silent, burning river of light—honoring one man—
Scalding!
Blinding!
Primordial! Reverent!
Its fierce glow—
Piercing cold rain!
Stabbing through the jeep’s chill—
Seared Qin’s contorted face!
His fist slammed the horn!
A despairing, furious beast’s shriek!
Tore the icy night!
“DRIVE FASTER, DAMN YOU!!!” Qin’s howl echoed within the jeep’s steel cage.
- Writer
