Tianji Hall had only about twenty or so physicians available for house calls. Now that Qiao Mu had taken more than ten of them, those who had not yet been brought in were most likely badly injured.

Right now, with so many patients already in the main hall and manpower critically short — they were stretched to the limit.

“Jian Yi, you and Xiao Yingtao go to the medicine storeroom and bring as much wound medicine as you can carry. I’ll go check on things first.”

“Got it!” Xiao Yingtao answered, and without waiting for Feng Jiu’er to move, started immediately toward the storeroom.

She had only taken two steps when something felt off. Jian Yi? Was that what the person behind her was called?

“What are you standing there for? There are injured people everywhere — come help me get the wound medicine!”

Jian Yi had only paused for a brief moment before remembering that he had agreed, upon staying, to help with whatever needed doing here.

So he stopped hesitating and followed immediately at Xiao Yingtao’s heels.

By the time the two of them came out carrying the wound medicine, several more patients had already been brought into the main hall.

Feng Jiu’er and Xuegu were busy bandaging and treating the injured everywhere around them. Even Tuoba Keyan, who rarely liked to step outside, was there helping.

Xiao Yingtao set aside whatever was between herself and Tuoba Keyan for now — saving lives came first.

“Jian Yi, go help Young Master — quickly!” Xiao Yingtao said, carrying the wound medicine over to Xuegu and throwing herself into the effort at once.

But Jian Yi felt a little at a loss. Killing people — that he knew. But saving people… in all his years of living, he had never once tried.

“Aah… it hurts, it hurts so much… Doctor, my stomach hurts so much…”

A woman who had been unconscious suddenly came to and began to cry out in anguish.

“Save my wife, please, Doctor, save my wife — she’s with child, please, Doctor…”

“Sir, please save my child — he’s only two years old…”

The main hall had dissolved into weeping. Some patients lay completely unconscious; others, awake and drenched in blood, passed out from the pain only to regain consciousness again. The scene was chaotic beyond describing. Some patients’ family members were lashing out in desperation, grabbing at the few physicians still on hand. “Save my father first — quickly…”

Calming patients in a state like this was exceptionally difficult. They were not causing trouble out of malice — they were simply terrified and frantic. When someone’s family member was in danger, of course the people who loved them would panic. That fear could not be helped. But if things continued this way, it would only interfere with everyone’s work.

“Manager Xiao, send someone to the nearby medical halls and invite all available physicians over. Tianji Hall will pay double the call-out fee.”

“Yes.”

Jian Yi watched Feng Jiu’er’s busy figure, and his view of this young person suddenly became complicated all over again.

She had seemed so petty — petty to the point of squabbling over a tael here and there, refusing to let even a debt slide. Yet tonight, she was willing to put up double the call-out fee in Tianji Hall’s name to bring in physicians from the neighborhood?

This was not at all how a person of business should behave. In this moment, she was acting entirely and only for the patients.

Feng Jiu’er had just finished placing needles in a patient with severe damage to the heart meridian and was about to perform chest compressions when a man beside her grabbed her hand, tears streaming from his eyes. “Doctor, please save my child — save my child!”

“One moment, please — just one moment, I’ll be right there — please wait.”

Feng Jiu’er was genuinely stretched beyond her limits. The man lying beside her had almost no pulse. If she did not revive him immediately, if he stopped breathing, she might never bring him back.

“Doctor, please, I beg you, save my child… the doctor… my child has been bleeding, and no one is paying attention, everyone is busy…”

His voice had gone hoarse from weeping. His child had been bleeding the whole time, and yet everyone was occupied elsewhere, no one had attended to them.

Feng Jiu’er glanced back. Every single person was occupied. If someone could take over the compressions for her, she could go check on the child.

Right now, everything was in utter disarray.

Her eyes fell on Jian Yi, standing nearby and watching her with a blank expression. She called out urgently: “Come here — help me give him chest compressions!”

Jian Yi had no idea how, but looking at the patients all around him, every one of them fighting on the edge between life and death, everyone else pouring out their sweat to save them — his body moved before his mind had decided anything.

Yet when his long fingers pressed to the man’s neck to check, he immediately pulled them back. “Feng Jiu’er, he… is dead.”

“No, he still has breath in him. He’s only gone into shock.”

Feng Jiu’er had no time to explain. She placed both hands on the man’s chest and began pressing down in a steady rhythm. As she pressed, she said: “Do it just like me — push down hard. Don’t stop. You absolutely cannot stop. There’s still a chance for him to come back.”

Beside them, the child suddenly broke into a violent fit of coughing, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth. Feng Jiu’er was sweating through her hair with anxiety.

“Jian Yi — quickly! Press down like I’m doing — quickly! I need to check on the child! Go, now!”

At her final shout, the moment Feng Jiu’er let go, Jian Yi’s hands — by sheer reflex — pressed down onto the man’s chest, mimicking exactly what she had just been doing, pressing down with force.

But the man showed no reaction at all, no sign of any breath.

He hesitated. Was he desecrating a corpse? He himself had killed his share of people — but this man was simply a patient, and apparently already dead. To keep pressing down on a body that had no life in it, that he could not bring himself to do.

“Don’t stop!” Feng Jiu’er was taking out her silver needles. The sound of movement behind her went quiet, and without even turning around, she called out: “Keep going!”

Jian Yi drew a breath, and pressed down again.

“That’s it, that rhythm, keep going — don’t stop, not even for a moment!”

Feng Jiu’er tore open the child’s clothing with one hand and brought down the silver needles. The child coughed twice, and the blood at the corners of his mouth seemed to lessen slightly.

The man kneeling beside the child had gone pale as ash, afraid to move a single muscle, terrified of interfering with the physician’s work.

“Jian Yi, keep going!”

“Yes!” Jian Yi had only glanced back at the child for a moment — that pale face was something a person could not bear to look at directly.

There were so many patients. He had never in his life seen so many people severely injured at once, nor ever seen such a frenzied, unstoppable effort to save them.

Everyone was saving lives. Even when some patients looked to be nearly beyond saving, no one gave up. They all kept going, doing everything they possibly could.

He looked down at the man beneath his hands. Though there was truly no breath there, Feng Jiu’er had said there was still hope…

Finally, he set his mind to it and pressed down again with full force.

Everyone else was refusing to give up. Even when he could see no hope at all, he found he did not want to give up either.

What if, just by some chance, there really was a miracle?

It was impossible to say whether even the heavens had been moved. But after Jian Yi had given the man dozens of unbroken compressions, the man’s chest suddenly contracted — his fingertip twitched — and he opened his mouth and coughed.

A man who had stopped breathing had come back to life.

Jian Yi stared, jaw dropping, unable to trust his own eyes.

Beside him, Feng Jiu’er called out: “Keep going!”