Two of Bamboo 1

Tang Yiyi carried her herbal formulas on her back, not knowing when or why she had returned to the school. The teacher stood at the lectern and suddenly pulled out a stack of exam papers from behind, letting out a sly laugh, his expression practically shouting, “Let’s see how you all survive this.” The classroom was filled with wails and groans, except for Tang Yiyi, who remained calm—she knew all the questions and none could stump her.

But why was Qin Baike also in the exam room? And why was he sitting right next to her?

He called to her: “Yiyi! Yiyi!”

She snuck a glance at his exam paper—completely blank. “Do you ever study? I’m not letting you copy,” she decided to ignore him and focused on her own test.

But he wasn’t deterred. He reached out and shook her arm, calling her name even more urgently: “Yiyi! Wake up!”

Drowsily, Tang Yiyi opened her eyes to see Qin Baike’s face right in front of hers. She reached out and touched him. “So real…” she murmured, then rolled over to continue sleeping.

Qin Baike’s voice sounded in her ear, very real: “Yiyi, wake up, I need your help with something urgent.”

He pulled the thin quilt over her, then shook her by the shoulders through the covers. This time, Tang Yiyi woke up fully, sitting up abruptly and staring at Qin Baike in a daze. He was indeed right there in front of her—it wasn’t a dream.

Qin Baike quickly bundled her up in the quilt from her neck down. “Are you awake? I need your help, it’s a matter of life and death.”

“What is it?”

“Someone’s injured. I need you to help me treat him. I’ll explain later. I’ll wait outside—get dressed quickly.” With that, he got up and left the room.

Tang Yiyi glanced down at herself, tightly wrapped in the quilt—thank goodness she hadn’t been sleeping naked. Still, she was only wearing a camisole nightdress.

She jumped up and dressed quickly, glancing at the time—it was 4 a.m.

When she came out, Qin Baike led her to the balcony, where a folding ladder had been set up below.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“We can’t alert anyone else. We have to go down this way. He’s in my room.”

“Who is it?”

“A younger brother of mine. He’s hurt. Please treat his wounds first.” He gripped her shoulders, his tone a little desperate.

“Oh…” Tang Yiyi was still a bit foggy. She looked down. “Where did the ladder come from?”

“It’s always been in the shop.”

“Did you not use it yesterday?”

“I didn’t need to. You do.” Qin Baike said, “Hold onto my neck.”

Tang Yiyi hesitated, and he bent down and scooped her up in his arms. “Or just hold onto my clothes,” he said, lifting her over the railing.

She glanced down nervously and quickly wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, pressing her face against him. At 4 a.m., it was the coldest time of day, but his neck and face were so warm and comforting.

He held her close with one arm, and with the other, he placed her feet on the very top step of the ladder. “Are you steady?”

“Mm.”

He gripped her arms. “Alright, go down.”

Tang Yiyi descended two steps clinging to his arm before grabbing the ladder’s handrail. As soon as she reached the bottom, Qin Baike jumped down, landing steadily despite bending his knees.

As they entered the house, he glanced back at her. “Don’t be scared by what you’re about to see. I’m here.”

His reminder made Tang Yiyi shiver. She was cold already; she hugged herself tighter. Qin Baike put his arm around her shoulders, and in the dark living room, he skillfully navigated around obstacles and opened his bedroom door.

Inside, the lights were on. A young man with long hair was lying face down on the bed, his shirt soaked in blood across his back. Tang Yiyi instinctively took a step back in shock. Qin Baike’s arm tightened around her. “He was slashed on the back. We need to treat it immediately.”

“Call 120, get him to a hospital.”

“The ones who attacked him are still out there looking for him.”

“Then call the police!”

“It was a fight between small-time gangsters. If he dies, even the police can’t save him by the time they arrive.”

“But…”

“Just help treat him first.”

“I’m a traditional medicine doctor. External wounds aren’t really my specialty.”

“You studied both Chinese and Western medicine. You learned wound treatment. Right now, you’re the only one I can turn to.”

“How am I supposed to do it? There’s nothing here.” Tang Yiyi spread her hands.

Qin Baike went to the chest of drawers and took out a medical kit from the bottom drawer. “See what’s missing. I’ll go find it.”

The man on the bed turned his head and called out, “Bro, you got a Mongolian doctor to stitch me up? Can she do it?”

“Shut up!” Qin Baike cut him off sharply. The man grunted and obediently turned his head back, falling silent.

Tang Yiyi opened the kit: the top layer held medicine—Yunnan Baiyao, burn ointment, some cold remedies, and Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid. The lower layer contained disinfectant gauze, adhesive tape, cotton swabs, alcohol, disinfectant, saline, alcohol pads, scissors, tweezers, and bandages.

“You’re well prepared!” Tang Yiyi said as she took the scissors, knelt beside the man, and began cutting open his shirt to expose his back.

A large tattoo sprawled over his left shoulder and upper back—a fierce beast wreathed in auspicious clouds. Across its body was a ten-centimeter-long gash, the flesh laid open. There was another three-centimeter cut on his right waist, both still bleeding and a bit frightening. There were also some abrasions.

“This wound is too long. It needs stitches. There’s no suture, no anesthesia—what now?” Tang Yiyi was already disinfecting her hands with alcohol as she spoke, then set the alcohol, disinfectant, and saline on the bed and began cleaning the man’s back.

“Is there any at the clinic?” Qin Baike asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen them use it.”

“I’ll ask Xiaobin.” Qin Baike pulled out his phone and dialed. No one answered for a long time, but finally the call went through.

He spoke into the phone, “I need a suture kit and anesthetic right now. Is there any at the clinic? Don’t ask anything else.” He listened to the reply, grunted twice, and hung up.

“The clinic has it. Where’s your key?”

Tang Yiyi pointed upstairs. “In my bag.”

Qin Baike went out, closing the door softly.

Tang Yiyi moved quickly, disinfecting the man’s wounds. He twisted his head to ask, “Hey beautiful, what’s your name?”

She dabbed alcohol on the wound at his waist. He convulsed in pain, clenching his fists. “I won’t ask anymore, okay?” he pleaded.

She flushed the wound with saline and wiped his back with sterile gauze.

The man was a bit plump, and the cut had only injured the flesh, not the bone. His hair hung nearly to his shoulders, swinging as his head moved.

Tang Yiyi pressed his head down. “Don’t move.” She cut a length of gauze and tied his hair into a bun.

He protested, “Don’t touch my hair.”

“It’s getting in the wound. Do you want an infection?” Tang Yiyi snapped.

He quieted down, grumbling, “I hate when people touch my hair. What did you do to it?”

“Worry about your wounds first! You’ll need a tetanus shot and an IV at the hospital tomorrow.”

“Beautiful, please be gentle later. I’m scared of pain.”

“If you’re afraid of pain, why did you get in a fight and end up getting slashed like this? A little deeper and you’d have lost your left arm. And those bruises on your back didn’t just appear today.”

“You sound just like my sister, always nagging. How old are you? You’re just a kid, right?”

“If my brother acted like you, I’d stitch him up without anesthesia,” Tang Yiyi threatened fiercely.

“Are all big sisters so heartless?”

“Guess your sister’s just disappointed in you.”

“You’re a kid; don’t act so old.”

Tang Yiyi disinfected her hands again. Qin Baike returned, opened the medical box, and said, “No anesthetic.”

Tang Yiyi paused as she reached for the gloves, glancing at the man on the bed. He looked back at her. “I’ll die, bro!”

“No, you won’t die, it’ll just hurt a bit,” Tang Yiyi replied. Qin Baike handed him a roll of gauze. “Bite down on this.”

Tang Yiyi put on gloves and threaded the needle. “Bear with it. I’ll keep it to five stitches—very quick.”

The man turned his head, gritted his teeth, and said, “If you dare start, I’ll—”

Smack! Qin Baike slapped him on the head. “If you keep whining, get out!”

Seeing Qin Baike’s anger, the man shut his mouth, bit down on the gauze, buried his head in the pillow, and tensed up, mumbling in resentment.

Tang Yiyi didn’t hesitate further and began to stitch him up. This wasn’t her first time handling trauma. She’d interned a few months in the emergency department of the medical college’s affiliated hospital—she’d seen plenty of young men coming in at night with head wounds needing stitches, or accident victims in much worse shape, and she’d helped save them all.

Normally, anesthesia—local or general—was always used for trauma cases, except for that one time when a street punk, head bleeding, refused anesthesia because his attackers were waiting outside the hospital and he didn’t dare risk being groggy. The doctor had told him local wouldn’t make him sleep, but he still refused, so they stitched him up raw, and he didn’t make a sound.

The man under Tang Yiyi’s hands now was no such hero. With every stitch, he trembled violently, whimpering even through the gauze in his mouth.

Qin Baike pressed down on him, reminding him to keep quiet.

Tang Yiyi worked quickly, but it took more than five stitches. After finishing the wound on top, she put a single stitch in the lower wound before the man absolutely refused to let her continue. He turned his tear-streaked face toward her, crying uncontrollably.

“Alright, alright, no more stitching.” Tang Yiyi bandaged him, helped him out of his shredded shirt, and with Qin Baike’s help changed the bed sheet, then had him lie back down.

She poured a cup of saline, had Qin Baike add some honey for energy, and gave the man a few anti-inflammatory pills. After all this, he finally fell asleep from exhaustion.

Tang Yiyi checked the time—5:10 a.m.

Qin Baike said, “I’ll walk you back up. Get some more sleep and skip your morning run today.”

Tang Yiyi looked at him. “How did you know I go running?”

Qin Baike suddenly smiled. “The lady at the barbershop at the end of the alley told me—she sees you coming back from the riverside every morning when she opens up. Your shifu’s wife says you recite herbal formulas as you run, and you’ve memorized over a thousand. Xiaobin says you do five thousand steps every day.”

Tang Yiyi laughed. “Not over a thousand—just under a thousand.” That was the charm of Magnolia Alley, perhaps.

At the ladder, Qin Baike climbed up first and swung himself onto the platform. Tang Yiyi stepped onto the top rung, and he bent down for her to hold onto his neck. But now, with none of the urgency from before, she looked at his approaching face and felt too embarrassed to reach out.

He said, “Just grab my shirt.”

She gripped his shirtfront. He wrapped his arm around her back, grabbed her waistband with his other hand, and lifted her up. Before she knew it, she was standing beside him on the platform, pressed close to him.

He released her and stepped back. “Thank you so much for tonight.”

Emerging from his embrace, she felt a hint of disappointment. Seeing his earnest gratitude, she didn’t dare let her mind wander. “No need to be so formal. You know what to do in the morning, right?”

“Yes, we’ll go to the hospital. There might be some street punks hanging around for a couple of days—just ignore them.”

“Mm. Was that guy a gangster?”

“No, just a troublemaker who messed with someone else’s business. They got mad and sent someone after him.”

“You helped him—won’t they come after you?”

“I’ll handle it. Don’t worry.”

Tang Yiyi nodded and turned to go back inside. At the door, she glanced back—Qin Baike was still standing there. “Baige, don’t tell Shifu about tonight. You came to my room in the middle of the night—people will talk.”

“I won’t say a word. I’ll return Xiaobin’s medical kit intact today, and I’ll make sure Ertong keeps his mouth shut too.”

“His name’s Ertong?”

“Yeah.” Qin Baike smiled and nodded.

As dawn crept in, Qin Baike stood tall and straight, making it all the harder for Tang Yiyi to pull herself away, and she couldn’t help but feel a little wistful.

Back in her room, she collapsed onto her bed, suddenly realizing how weak and exhausted she felt. Why couldn’t Qin Baike just behave like a normal noodle shop owner? Why did he always have to be so unpredictable?