Chapter 138: Compensating You with a Chest of Healing Ointment

"Someone! Help! Come quickly!!"

Seeing the other assassin subdued by Heizi, Ding Li crossed the distance to Zhang Wu in three quick strides and caught the sagging man in his arms. Casting a glance downward, Ding Li immediately whipped his head around and roared at the crowd. Zhang Wu's rib wound was not particularly severe, but the knife slash across his chest was extremely dangerous. Although Ding Li could not tell precisely what had been pierced or how deep the blade had gone, he knew that a wound in that area, if even slightly off, could easily claim a life. Thus, he dared not delay for a single second.

Aguda and his men had also rushed over from nearby. At the sight before him, he froze for a moment; especially upon seeing Zhang Wu's body still twitching convulsively, a jolt of panic shot through Aguda. Panic-stricken, he bellowed commands to the subordinates behind him, "Quick! Find a dock doctor, stop the bleeding first! Hurry, go!"

"Aguda, take those two bastards and transport them straight to the Zhang residence!" Ding Li shouted to Aguda, then scooped Zhang Wu up horizontally. Even with the sturdy Zhang Wu in his arms, Ding Li showed no sign of strain. He turned back and hollered at Zhang Wenbo, "Lead me to a doctor! Fast! Also, ready a carriage, we're returning to the Zhang residence immediately!"

The Zhang residence kept a number of imperial-style physicians on retainer. Although it was still some distance from the docks, Ding Li had once worked as a coolie at the Guangzhou port, and he knew that the dock doctors were mostly third-rate practitioners who merely patched up minor scrapes the laborers suffered at work to scrape by. For a wound like Zhang Wu's, Ding Li could not trust a dockside medic at all.

"Yes, yes! Please follow me! Quick, the carriage is this way!" Zhang Wenbo had never met Ding Li before, but he had just witnessed Zhang Wu chatting pleasantly with him, and Ding Li was the one who had given the warning and stepped in to save Zhang Wu. Moreover, even Aguda was taking orders from Ding Li, not to mention Ding Li's repeated references to the Zhang residence; Zhang Wenbo naturally understood that Ding Li was one of their own.

"Aguda, take some of the brothers to escort the carriage carrying me and Brother Wu! Heizi, those two scumbags are your responsibility!" Before leaving, Ding Li shouted out these final instructions to Aguda and Heizi, then set off at a run, keeping pace with Zhang Wenbo, who was jogging ahead and wiping sweat from his forehead.

The Nanhai Gang was currently the most powerful force in Fuxu Port. In the blink of an eye, Aguda gathered a hundred men to follow, pulling several minor leaders from the crowd and repeatedly instructing them to ensure adequate security. As for Heizi, Aguda arranged for men to assist him as well. Soon, members of the Nanhai Gang were carrying the two assassins out toward the docks. Heizi, completely unbothered, carried his short crossbow and swept his sharp gaze over everything around him. Even though he was holding a weapon banned among commoners, no one dared to point or comment; after all, an assassination attempt had just taken place, targeting Zhang Wu, a man of high standing in the Zhang Commercial Guild.

Before long, Ding Li and Zhang Wu boarded Zhang Wenbo's carriage, while Zhang Wenbo himself had to sit on the external bench alongside the driver. Meanwhile, a physician carrying a medicine box was escorted over by the Nanhai Gang. Without a word, they shoved him into the carriage, and Zhang Wenbo ordered the driver to set off.

"All of you damn well keep up! If Brother Wu suffers even the slightest mishap along the way, every last one of you can jump into the South China Sea and feed the fish!" A frantic Aguda vaulted onto a mount led over by a subordinate, glared angrily around the circle, and vented his fury on the crowd. Watching the carriage pull away, Aguda spurred his mount after it. Over a hundred members of the Nanhai Gang swarmed around the carriage, with Aguda bringing up the rear on horseback.

Among the crowded throng outside the docks, several figures were wandering about seemingly at random. When they saw the large contingent of the Nanhai Gang suddenly surge out, those men instantly perked up. But what they saw next were two tightly bound assassins being carried by the gang members, followed closely by a fellow holding a short crossbow whose piercing gaze made them utterly unable to meet his eyes, let alone harbor any thoughts of stepping forward to snatch the prisoners back.

Before these men could react, another carriage burst through the side gates of the dock. The driver, acting like a hopelessly drunken sot, focused solely on whipping the horses into a frenzy, paying no heed whatsoever to the pedestrians and carts on the road. Some people were about to open their mouths to vent their grievances, but upon seeing the hundred-odd angry, burly men trailing the carriage—especially with many of them wielding clubs, staves, and swords—they instantly shrank their necks back and scurried to the sides of the road, any thought of complaining evaporating entirely.

Inside the carriage, within the span of mere minutes, the summoned physician was already drenched in sweat. No matter what methods he tried, he simply could not stem the bleeding from Zhang Wu's chest wound. Most of the linen gauze and refined cotton for stopping blood in his medical kit had already been used up, yet the results he achieved were negligible.

"Are you damn well useless or what?! If you can't do it, why the hell did you come?!" Ding Li was also sweating profusely with anxiety. At first, he had retained some patience, but seeing piece after piece of blood-soaked cotton tossed into the corner of the carriage, his temper finally snapped. He grabbed the doctor by the collar and roared the question.

"I... I don't know either..." The doctor's reply was laced with a crying tone, his aggrieved face slick with sweat. Two teardrops squeezed from the corners of his eyes mingled with the sweat, making it impossible to tell one from the other.

"D-Doctor..." At that moment, Zhang Wenbo, hearing the commotion inside the carriage, poked his head in through the curtain. Eyeing the doctor, and though furious, he realized this was the only medic available and forced himself to calm down, tentatively asking, "Can you... can you do acupuncture? T-Try that... maybe it'll... it'll work..."

"Yes, yes! I'll try it right now, right this second!" Hearing this, the doctor clutched at it like a drowning man grasping a straw, nodding his head frantically like a chick pecking at rice. But Ding Li grabbed him by the collar once more. With a cold, gloomy expression and a razor-sharp gaze, Ding Li stared straight at him, his voice chillingly frosty: "Let me tell you this: it's at least the length of an incense stick before we reach the Zhang residence. I'm not asking you to cure him, just keep him alive until we get to the Zhang estate safely! Otherwise, I'll let you taste what it's like to bleed uncontrollably yourself!"

The doctor shuddered violently at these words. Facing the fierce and terrifying Ding Li, he couldn't even muster a shred of anger; he could only nod repeatedly in assent. Yet his hands trembled constantly as he fished the needles from his kit, infuriating Ding Li standing nearby, though he knew he had no choice but to rely on this man. Although Ding Li possessed some basic emergency medical knowledge, firstly, he had no supplies on hand; secondly, they had already tried the traditional hemostatic powders of the era without success; and thirdly, Zhang Wu's wounds were indeed severe. After weighing his options, he had no choice but to gamble on this doctor.

The time it took for an incense stick to burn usually felt fleeting, but to Ding Li and the physician, it dragged on as long as a day or a month. As the silver needles in the kit dwindled one by one, the doctor finally finished driving dense rows of silver needles into Zhang Wu's body and head. After repeatedly replacing the cotton pads, Ding Li watched with a surge of joyous surprise as the bleeding slowed down significantly compared to before.

"Hemostatic... hemostatic powder, quickly!" A flicker of excitement flashing through his mind, the ecstatic Ding Li pressed down on the cotton pad over the wound and barked an order to the doctor without looking up.

"Right! Right!" Realizing that the bleeding had been suppressed, the doctor breathed a sigh of relief and replied repeatedly. However, after pulling out the hemostatic powder, he tapped the side of the bottle with his finger as if it were precious treasure, dusting the powder onto the wound grain by grain. This infuriated Ding Li, who reached out, snatched the bottle from his hands, flipped the opening straight down, and shook his wrist a few times, dumping the entire bottle of powder onto the wound without leaving a single speck.

*Clatter!*

Tossing the empty bottle aside without a glance, Ding Li kept his eyes fixed on the wound and continued, "Not enough! Too little! Give me more!"

Yet the stubborn, narrow-minded doctor seemed utterly oblivious, staring with a heartbroken expression at the bottle rolling around the corner of the carriage floor in a daze. Not hearing any movement after several seconds, Ding Li looked up in a blaze of fury and roared at the physician, "Hurry up! I'll give you a whole box of it later! Stop making that weeping face, damn it!"

This threat proved far more effective than any interrogation or scolding. Upon hearing that he would be compensated with an entire box later, the doctor—regardless of whether it was true or false—deftly pulled another bottle of hemostatic powder from his case. This time, he handed it to Ding Li without the slightest hesitation or pause, acting remarkably brisk and shedding his previous miserly demeanor entirely.

With Ding Li's lavish use of the powder—though the doctor's acupuncture had undoubtedly played the primary role—the bleeding from the wound was quickly brought to a halt. Before the doctor could suggest temporary bandaging, Ding Li took matters into his own hands, pulling cotton and gauze from the medical kit with a practiced familiarity that left the doctor staring in gaping astonishment.

The moment the bandaging was complete, Zhang Wenbo poked his head in through the carriage window again, shouting anxiously, "We've arrived, we're here! Just one more street, hold on a little longer!"

Hearing this, Ding Li nodded, leaned out the carriage window, and shouted to Aguda, who was riding close behind, "Aguda, ride ahead to the estate and report! Quick, have Second Brother prepare a physician! We've just stopped the bleeding, but we don't know the full extent of the injuries yet! There's no telling how long this clotting will hold!"

"Understood, Brother Li, leave it to me!" Aguda nodded heavily on horseback, shouted his reply, and dug his heels fiercely into his mount's flanks. Then he yelled to the surrounding men, "Keep your eyes sharp, we've arrived!"

Minutes later, the carriage came to an abrupt halt outside the Zhang residence. Before Ding Li could move, the carriage curtain was violently ripped open, revealing Zhang Mingzi's anxious face: "A-Wu! A-Wu, how are you?"

"Second Brother, he's passed out. We need to treat him immediately!" Ding Li spoke directly to Zhang Mingzi, bent down to lift Zhang Wu, and carried him to the carriage door. Zhang Mingzi did not step aside; instead, furrowing his brow tightly, he extended his arms to receive Zhang Wu. Knowing how vital Zhang Wu was to Zhang Mingzi, Ding Li did not stand on ceremony and handed the injured man straight over. He then hopped down from the carriage and shouted to Zhang Wenbo, "Give that doctor a box of hemostatic powder! I promised him just now!"

With that, ignoring Zhang Wenbo's bewildered expression and the physician's ecstatic face, Ding Li strode swiftly after Zhang Mingzi.

"Make way! Everyone get the hell out of the way!" Carrying Zhang Wu, Zhang Mingzi roared at the crowd blocking the estate gates, his pace unyielding as he flew into the Zhang residence.

Just as he was about to enter, Ding Li suddenly halted, turned back, and grabbed the equally hurried Aguda by the arm. With a stern and solemn expression, he gave a low injunction, "Aguda, go join Heizi and deal with those two assassins. Find a way—use any means necessary—to pry open their mouths! I want the details. Who is the mastermind behind this?"

"Got it, Brother Li, I understand!" Aguda nodded, cast a glance toward Zhang Mingzi's retreating back, and added, "Brother Li, as soon as there's any news about Brother Wu, be sure to send someone to notify me!"

"Alright, go! Brother Wu will be fine!" Ding Li replied with a nod, gave Aguda's shoulder a heavy pat, and turned to chase after Zhang Mingzi.

Amidst all this commotion, a pair of bright eyes in the corner of the estate gates remained fixed on Ding Li. Those lovely eyes were filled with a strange kind of hope, but as Ding Li's figure vanished behind the gates, a trace of melancholy crept into them, quickly followed by a flicker of worry. Then, that graceful figure slipped swiftly through the gates as well.