Chapter 2: The Kind Village Doctor

  The night in the mountains was always particularly cold, and Han Ankang, who had been brought into a dark place by a severe pain, suddenly felt a chill run through his body. Woken up by this chill, Han Ankang looked at the starry sky and the mountain wind blowing over his body.

  "I'm not supposed to have fallen off the cliff and gotten seriously injured, am I? So why don't I feel any pain now, but instead feel a bit chilly?"

  Han Ankang, who had finally remembered that he had fallen off the cliff and passed out due to his exhaustion from digging ginseng, slowly sat up from the rocks beneath him with a surge of severe pain all over his body. He rummaged through his pocket for a lighter, gathered some dry branches and leaves from the foot of the cliff, and lit a bonfire.

  Under the illumination of the flames, Han Ankang only discovered that the camouflage uniform he wore when entering the mountain had turned into a blood-stained red color. The feeling of the dried and sticky blood on his body clearly proved that Han Ankang was indeed severely injured when he fainted. However, now that Han Ankang felt it, his body didn't have any discomfort. On the contrary, he felt that he was healthier than ever before.

  What's going on here?

  It's hard to understand what happened before he passed out, and Han Ankang didn't dwell on it. He remembered the ginseng that almost cost him his life, which was scattered among the rocks where he fell. As Han Ankang hurriedly picked up the wild ginseng, he saw that two of them still had red bloodstains on them, proving that he had indeed been seriously injured when he fell.

  After taking a look, the glass on his wristwatch was shattered, but this mechanical watch that had been worn for many years was still stubbornly working. Seeing the hour hand pointing to ten o'clock, Han Ankang knew that he probably wouldn't be able to get down the mountain tonight. Walking in this pitch-black mountain at night is undoubtedly a very dangerous thing. How could Han Ankang, who had just managed to save his life, take the risk of going down the mountain again?

  Han Ankang, who had made up his mind to spend a night in the mountains, soon found a place at the foot of the cliff that was sheltered from the wind and dry, and transferred the bonfire he had just lit to the resting platform. Feeling the warmth brought by the firelight, Han Ankang, who had put away the medicine basket, also felt that at this usual time, he would normally go to bed and rest, but now he didn't feel sleepy at all.

  Taking advantage of his insomnia, Han Ankang carefully examined his hands and feet as well as his body, only to find that there were indeed no injuries. What surprised him even more was that the long scar on his leg from when he was a child and had been cut by glass had also disappeared completely.

  If he didn't think his mind was clear, the various parts on his body and the things in his pockets were all proof that this body was indeed his. Han Ankang couldn't help but suspect that he had also borrowed a corpse to return to the world of the living, just like the protagonist in the novel!

  Until Han Ankang found that the red rope around his neck seemed much lighter, and when he pulled out the blood-colored jade Buddha he had worn since childhood but didn't see it, Han Ankang became somewhat flustered. Although he didn't have high hopes for news of his biological parents, this jade Buddha was the only thing that could prove his identity, and if he lost it, he would also feel like something was missing from his body.

  Han Ankang, who thought it was possible that the jade Buddha had fallen off the cliff earlier, made a simple torch and carefully searched the bloody area, even checking the gaps between the stones next to it, but didn't see any fragments of the jade Buddha.

  Han Ankang, who had been feeling a sense of loss, suddenly remembered that he had asked an expert to appraise the jade Buddha when he was in college. The expert couldn't determine the age or material of the jade Buddha, which was the only thing his parents had left him. Han Ankang felt that there must be some unknown secret about the jade Buddha, and now that it had disappeared without a scratch after falling off the cliff, it might have something to do with its disappearance.

  Just as Han Ankang was searching for the jade Buddha but couldn't find it, he could only hang an empty red rope, which was a comfort to his soul. Sitting by the bonfire and thinking about the disappearance of the jade Buddha, wondering if it had anything to do with his fall down the cliff and whether he was injured, Han Ankang slowly leaned against the medicine basket and fell asleep, perhaps due to excessive blood loss.

  When Han Ankang was frozen awake by the chill again on the second day, he looked at the extinguished bonfire in front of him and the bright mountain valley. It wasn't until then that Han Ankang realized he had slept leaning against the medicine basket for a whole night. Seeing that his watch showed it was already past 7:00 am, Han Ankang quickly slung the medicine basket over his back and set foot on the mountain road back to the village.

  On the way down the mountain, Han Ankang suddenly found that his mind had a lot of knowledge about medicinal herbs in the mountains. But one thing he could confirm was that these medicinal herbs, which were usually considered weeds by him, could now be analyzed in his mind to see how they could be combined to treat various diseases that he had never heard of before. This made Han Ankang wonder whether this brain was still his own as he picked the herbs!

  As the medicine basket was filled with countless previously unharvested medicinal materials, Han Ankang finally ended his harvesting work and continued to hasten his pace up the mountain. However, along the way, he saw many plants that were normally considered weeds, but in his mind, they would display as a kind of medicinal material that could be used for medicine.

  This made Han Ankang suspect that he had knocked his brain silly from the fall. How did so much mysterious knowledge of medicinal herbs and seemingly effective traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions appear in his mind?

  With a puzzled look, Han Ankang finally returned to the village before lunch. When he ran into a villager who had just finished work and was heading home for lunch, the villager rushed over with a worried face: "Xiao An, what's wrong? Why is there so much blood on your body? Were you injured while picking herbs? Is it serious?"

  Looking at the old man's concerned eyes, Han Ankang smiled and said: "Sixth Uncle, it's nothing. This blood was accidentally dropped into someone else's unfilled pit yesterday and was stained with the residual blood inside. Judging from the amount of blood in the pit, I estimate that someone has recently caught something big in the mountains again.

  Otherwise, there wouldn't be so much blood left in the pit. Fortunately, the thing that pierced me was removed from the pit. Otherwise, I would have really been on the verge of death this time. Don't worry about it! Look, I'm fine now. Nothing's wrong!"

  Because of its location in the depths of the mountains, some hunters around here still like to use the method of digging pitfalls to hunt, and it's also very possible to accidentally fall into these traps set by hunters. Han Ankang had no way to explain to others where this bloodstain came from, so he could only use this relatively easy-to-believe lie to dispel the concerns of the old man who was worried about his health.

  Sixth Uncle heard Han Ankang's explanation and felt slightly relieved, but still grumbled: "Xiao An, next time you go up the mountain, be more careful. This time you were lucky to encounter a pit that had been cleared of traps. If the trap in the pit hadn't been removed, you would have lost your skin even if you didn't die."

  "But those who dug the pit should also die, how can they dig such a trap that easily hurts people?! Are they not afraid of hurting someone and getting into trouble with the law?! They are really a bunch of money-loving, life-disregarding guys!"

  As for the villagers who often go to the mountains to chop firewood, apart from the venomous snakes and wild beasts in the mountains, what they fear most are undoubtedly these traps set by hunters. In the past few years, someone fell into this trap set with sharp bamboo and thorns and was seriously injured and died, which led to the hunter who set this trap being caught by the public security of the town.

  Later, the hunter's family privately paid a large sum of money to settle the matter. It was also because digging pitfalls is easy to hurt people, and no one dared to dig in the mountains for a long time. If it weren't for having no way to explain the origin of this bloodstain, Han Ankang wouldn't have fabricated such a lie.

  With this fabricated lie, Han Ankang finally alleviated the old man's concern and walked back to his own courtyard built at the village head. As soon as he arrived at the gate of the courtyard, he saw that there were already many villagers who were ill or uncomfortable sitting on the stone strips in the courtyard waiting for him. Seeing him return, these villagers who often came to see him asked Han Ankang what was going on with the blood on his body.

  After another round of reassurance, Han Ankang let the patients rest in the courtyard for a while. After he changed his clothes, he began to examine them. The villagers who came to see him naturally had no objections.

  After putting the medicine basket in the backyard pharmacy room, Han Ankang quickly came to the bedroom and took off his camouflage uniform with dry bloodstains, changing into a white coat representing a doctor. Knowing that these villagers who came to see the doctor didn't have much time, Han Ankang quickly led the villagers who had come early to the room where his grandfather used to see patients, which was also his medical clinic in the village.

  If it weren't for the room being filled with medicinal herbs and some medicines, perhaps no one would have imagined that the conditions for seeing a doctor in the countryside were so simple. Nevertheless, villagers who had lived nearby for many years, as long as they didn't have any major illnesses, were willing to come to Han Ankang's home to get some medicine or injections and drips to alleviate their pain, rather than going to the relatively better-equipped health clinic in town.

  Because it's cheaper than Han An Kang, the clinic's fees are undoubtedly more expensive. For farmers who have worked hard for a year and can't make much money from farming, they naturally prefer to come to Han's house to see a doctor.

  When the first villager with rheumatism, Wu San-shan, sat in front of Han An-kang with a bitter smile and said: "Little An, my old illness has relapsed again. Take a look and give me another two injections. I'm really sorry to trouble you like this all the time!"

  Rheumatism is notoriously difficult to cure, and Wu San-shan, who had fallen ill with it in his youth, was still not cured even after his grandson was born. In recent years, whenever he fell ill, he would think of coming to the Han family for acupuncture, which used to be done by Dr. Han's grandfather but is now done by Dr. Han himself. For this fellow villager, both Dr. Han and his grandfather provided free treatment.

  He felt so embarrassed every time he came to see a doctor. Wu Sanshan had also gone to the town clinic, but when he saw that the doctor prescribed over 100 yuan worth of medicine at once, he was scared and immediately left without taking the medicine, returning to the village to continue seeking treatment from the Korean grandfather and grandson who did acupuncture and massage. In this day and age, ordinary people are most afraid of spending money like flowing water when seeing a doctor; who would go see a doctor who charges money if there's one that's free?