The Apprentice Medic’s Grim Initiation

Having eaten her fill, Lin Yu tossed aside the Filler Baby equipment and began immersing herself in various treatment methods under Nangong’s tutelage.

Starting with the basics of changing dressings, an unfortunate middle-aged uncle, having lost his right foot, became her unwitting textbook. Lin Yu’s clumsy, unpracticed movements soon sent his pained cries echoing both within and beyond the tent walls.

It was a record that would, regrettably, not hold for long.

The next casualty presented with less severe injuries; a stray bullet or shrapnel had merely grazed his right hand, causing some venous bleeding. As Nangong was preoccupied with mixing disinfectant, she directed Lin Yu to tend to his bandaging.

“Could you perhaps hurry?” the man grumbled. “I wouldn’t have come all the way back here if they hadn’t run out of bandages at the front lines.”

“If you know how,” Lin Yu retorted, “you can just bandage it yourself. They hand out bandages directly if you only ask…”

Whenever she assisted with bandaging or changing dressings, Lin Yu found herself inevitably striking up conversations with the wounded. Sometimes it was the patient who was chatty, other times she proactively engaged them to divert their attention—a technique Nangong had specifically taught her.

Yet, as she helped with the bandaging this time, Lin Yu suddenly looked up, her gaze distant and unfocused.

“Is there something on my face?”

Lin Yu recognized this particular casualty, the man with the injured right hand. Barely an hour prior, while still a private, she had encountered him in the shared, temporary truce of the shell crater.

“Nothing at all,”

Lin Yu shook her head, resuming her task, and consciously pushed away thoughts of the Ranfors soldier who had been shot. From his subjective viewpoint, he had simply fired a casual shot to save a comrade, and Lin Yu found she had no right to condemn him.

In silence, she wound the slightly yellowed bandage several more times around the injured limb.

****

The next unfortunate soul carried into the tent was far less fortunate, having lost the upper half of their left arm to an artillery shell.

Nangong, returning with her prepared medicine, took but a single glance before delivering her grim diagnosis: “Traumatic amputation. Fetch the saw.”

The tall, imposing figure of Nangong ruthlessly pronounced the casualty’s fate, while Lin Yu, a slender silhouette, tremulously lifted the crude surgical saw.

Given Lin Yu’s undeniable lack of strength to hold the casualty still, the gruesome task of sawing off the remaining limb inevitably fell to her.

“Remember to apply force,” Nangong instructed. “Saw quickly if you wish to spare him prolonged agony.”

“Perhaps,” Lin Yu ventured, her gaze drifting towards two soldiers poised to return to the front, “we could ask them to help hold him down?” She tightened her grip on the saw. ‘If it’s left to me, this being my first time, I’m afraid… I might not be able to bring myself to do it,’ she thought, the words unspoken.

“You’ll only gain experience by doing it yourself at least once, won’t you?” Nangong countered, then sighed. “Never mind. I’ll demonstrate this time; just observe closely.”

The soldiers who had just stepped out of the tent were called back inside. Upon seeing the horrifying saw clutched in Lin Yu’s hand, they exchanged silent, knowing glances, fully understanding the grim task that awaited them.

Barely thirty seconds later, a far more agonizing shriek erupted from the operating table, a sound likely piercing enough to reach even the distant trenches. Had a towel not been clenched between the casualty’s teeth, they might well have shattered them.

Blood spattered beyond the confines of the table, and Lin Yu found she could barely bring herself to look directly.

“If a limb is struck, and the wound is too extensive, or nerves are damaged,” Nangong calmly explained, “amputation becomes a necessity. Removing the limb is the only way to prevent infection.”

“As for injuries to the chest or abdomen, it largely depends on the circumstances. If no vital organs are compromised, we can attempt surgery to ascertain if recovery is possible. However, if organs like the liver or lungs are perforated, one might as well find a suitable spot for immediate burial.”

“And if one is struck in the head,” she continued, a chilling pragmatism in her tone, “there’s likely no point in even transporting them to the rear, is there?”

With the chilling rasp of the saw on one side and Nangong’s utterly dispassionate explanations on the other, the casualty’s screams gradually diminished into muffled groans. As the amputation drew to its grim conclusion, the stark knowledge of injury assessment, inextricably fused with the agonizing cries, became permanently etched into Lin Yu’s mind.

To witness, to endure, and even to grow indifferent to such horrific scenes—these were the grim rites of passage required to become a competent medic.

****

After meticulously bandaging the severely wounded, Lin Yu was tasked with the disposal of medical waste. Nangong precisely directed her to the designated spot for the putrid-smelling barrel.

Curiosity overriding her revulsion, she pinched her nose and peered inside. The barrel was filled with the gruesome byproducts of surgery: excised necrotic flesh, mangled limbs torn asunder by blasts, various tissues removed during operations, and a profusion of empty medicine wrappers.

By this observation, the medical standards of this world did not seem low. At the very least, Nangong understood the importance of sterilizing surgical instruments, a stark contrast to a certain infamous amputation in Lin Yu’s previous life, a procedure rumored to have claimed three lives.

How much better it would be if anesthetics were properly utilized, sparing Lin Yu from constant immersion in agonizing wails, a torment that made her very soul tremble.

Then again, such thoughts might be premature. Infections didn’t manifest instantly, and the ultimate survival of the wounded remained an uncertain prospect.

After emptying the refuse into the designated pit, she cast a distant glance back. The white tent, firmly rooted in the crimson earth, held within its canvas walls every reason why she would not have to return to the trenches.

The wounded awaiting treatment, the dinner yet to be properly eaten, the formidable ‘big sister’ prepared to impart her medical knowledge, and, in time, it would also contain Lin Yu herself—a fledgling medic.

Having forsaken everything in her mountain village, she now stood alone behind the trenches, a medic resolved to exert every ounce of her strength to salvage the lives poised on the brink of extinction.

Ah… such profound thoughts were ultimately pointless, she concluded.

She had learned the surname of the medic who initiated her into this grim profession, and also the name of the one-legged uncle who had accompanied her from the trenches. With these two individuals, her very first acquaintances in this new life, a nascent friendship began to blossom within the confines of the tent.

Ambling back to the tent, Lin Yu settled beside Nangong, and together they awaited both new casualties and the evening meal to be delivered by the cooks. This, she realized, was the future that awaited her, her destiny as a medic.

“The Ranfors artillery barrage has ceased,” Nangong observed. “It seems unlikely we’ll receive any new casualties tonight.”

Ahead, the trenches lay in an unnerving silence, devoid of artillery fire or the concussive roar of explosions.

Within the tent, a kerosene lamp had been lit. In its dim, flickering glow, the medic in white, Nangong, was engrossed in a thick, oversized book. For reasons unknown to Lin Yu, as Nangong read, a faint, unfamiliar smile began to play upon her lips.

“Nangong,” Lin Yu inquired, “what book is that?”

With a decisive ‘thud,’ Nangong snapped the book shut. “A secret,” she declared.

Her ‘big sister’ remained unwilling to divulge its contents.

“Well then,” Lin Yu pressed on, “I wanted to ask about something else, something concerning…” She hesitated, then uttered a word she rarely had cause to use: “Magic.”

In this 异世界 (TL Note: A common term in Chinese web novels, referring to an ‘otherworld’ or parallel dimension, often with fantasy elements), ‘magic’ was undeniably real, and so were mages. Beyond mages, the world had once teemed with various non-human races, distinct from humankind.

Yet, up to this very moment, aside from the peculiar magic arrays adorning the muzzles of firearms, Lin Yu had discerned no other trace of ‘magic’ within the trenches before her, nor within the confines of this very tent.

“Shouldn’t magic encompass healing spells or similar enchantments?” Lin Yu pondered aloud. “Why isn’t it employed for treatment?”

“There are still painkillers and anti-infection medications stocked right here in the medical tent,” Nangong retorted, clutching her book closer. “Why aren’t *they* being used for treatment?”

“…Huh?” Lin Yu blinked. “We have such things?”

“Of course we do,” Nangong confirmed, “but they are strictly forbidden for privates. Such items are precious resources, reserved for non-commissioned officers and ranks above. Magic, naturally, operates under the same restrictive principles.”

Nangong then proceeded to elaborate on the underlying reasons for this policy.

Diacla, she explained, was not the birthplace of magic. This foreign concept had initially been a mere novelty introduced by outsiders, utterly distinct from the ‘immortal arts’ practiced by Diacla’s own cultivators of old.

Then came the Great Collapse. Overnight, all sects and factions disintegrated, and the once-exalted cultivators reverted to the status of ordinary mortals.

Diacla’s ‘modern’ life had been entirely sustained by immortal arts; without them, intricate mechanisms ceased to function, talismans lost all efficacy, and countless convenient inventions were rendered useless—mere scraps of iron, paper, and wood.

To compensate for this catastrophic loss, the Emperor of Diacla was forced to embrace magic and magical technology.

Massive magical stone-driven machinery replaced the subtle mechanisms powered by immortal arts. Heavy industry and magic stone production lines descended upon a predominantly agrarian society, profoundly impacting the lives of ordinary people and indirectly leading to the downfall of the previous dynasty.

Fortunately, the current emperor, a diligent and ambitious ruler, adopted the strategy of ‘learning barbarian techniques to control barbarians.’ He swiftly and relentlessly pushed for the development of magic-based industries, aligning with Western magical industrial trends, utilizing the new dynasty’s still-effective national power without regard for the consequences. Soon, ‘Diacla Made’ products earned a reputation for being inexpensive and durable, selling far and wide overseas, and a trade surplus was largely re-established.

“Nangong,” Lin Yu interrupted, “you can praise His Majesty outside. It’s just the two of us here.”

“Ahem… The truth is, our level of magical development pales in comparison to the Ranfors. We simply don’t yet possess the means to make healing spells accessible to every ordinary soldier.”

“Furthermore,” she continued, “this unit is a subsidiary of a subsidiary, nominally under the current Prince Qi, but in reality, it serves as cannon fodder, maintaining the front line and providing phantom payrolls (TL Note: A practice where salaries are paid to non-existent soldiers, with the funds usually embezzled by commanders). No good resources are allocated here. Our medicine is substandard, our medics are subpar, and all those capable of healing magic are concentrated at the main stronghold, dozens of kilometers away.”

Even Filler Babies could mount a counter-charge and push the Ranfors back, so it seems the enemy isn’t exactly an elite force either.

“The lives of a thousand or so men in these trenches hang entirely on our scalpels and sutures. There’s no magic, no miracles, only ‘medics,’ only ‘surgeons.'”

“So, push yourself, strive to become a competent medic, a qualified military doctor.”

However, as dinner had arrived, Lin Yu, cradling a bowl of steaming pork, vegetable, and vermicelli stew, barely registered Nangong’s words.