Chapter 1431: Chapter 1512: Old Man!
Li Yinong thought of events during middle school.
At that time, Li Yinong was just a little girl in the first year of middle school.
It was a day during summer vacation.
Li Yinong was playing in the yard when she saw a large crowd rushing toward the main hall of the house.
The crowd included her uncles and almost everyone at home; naturally, the young Li Yinong couldn’t resist her curiosity and followed them.
Upon arriving at the main hall, Li Yinong saw many people, all the members of the family had gathered.
Other than family meetings, Li Yinong had never seen so many people, and her smart mind realized today wasn’t a family meeting day.
Li Yinong became even more curious, but she was small in stature and the hall was spacious, so she maneuvered through the crowd, finally finding a spot to see what was happening.
But upon seeing, Li Yinong was so shocked that she almost screamed.
There was a person lying there.
But the person’s abdomen was slashed open, blood was pouring out uncontrollably, and the person had already fainted.
Still a middle schooler, Li Yinong trembled at the sight of the deep wound on the person’s abdomen. She couldn’t help but glance at the Naxi doctors, her uncles and others present, wondering why they weren’t saving the person.
Li Yinong was confused.
At that moment, the crowd parted, and someone approached. When Li Yinong looked, it was her grandfather, and upon seeing him, Li Yinong instantly felt relieved, seemingly forgetting her previous fear.
Because Li Yinong believed in her grandfather’s exceptional medical skills, as long as he was there, the person would surely survive.
Li Yinong kept her eyes on her grandfather and didn’t notice until the crowd pointed and whispered about an old man emerging from the group.
When Li Yinong saw the old man, she was taken aback. Except for a leaf cigarette in his mouth, he had gray hair, a small braid at the back, and wore a simple, plain robe.
The old man didn’t have any aura of mysticism; his face held a gentle smile, seemingly kind to everyone as he walked over, yet those present pointed and seemed extremely upset with him.
As a young middle schooler, Li Yinong couldn’t understand this, for she’d never seen such anger from those like her uncles.
Within that anger, there was something indescribable.
Li Yinong didn’t understand it then, but when she grew up, she knew it was jealousy.
Li Yinong saw her grandfather arrive but didn’t act to save the person; instead, he stood aside and coldly said, "Please go ahead!"
Like her uncles, her grandfather’s attitude was somewhat indifferent toward the old man, though slightly better, not overly so, indicating his dissatisfaction with the old man.
Li Yinong then looked at the old man, who still wore a faint smile that didn’t fit with the people in the room.
Suddenly, Li Yinong felt a chill.
Because the old man looked at her.
At the age of thirteen or fourteen, Li Yinong didn’t know why she wasn’t afraid of this strange old man but felt somewhat familiar.
...
The old man merely smiled at Li Yinong from a distance, then withdrew his gaze, not hurriedly acting, but speaking to her grandfather, "Old Li, why insist on competing? Though the Dong family’s old lady and the Zhang family’s old man lost to me, that’s due to their inferior medical skills. I’ve seen yours, not bad at all, so why take issue with me?"
Li Yinong’s grandfather said indifferently, "Medical skill varies."
"Is healing people a matter of skill levels?" the old man asked.
"..." Li Yinong saw her grandfather pause, then say, "Get started; the anesthesia will last only twenty minutes. If you don’t act within twenty minutes, when the person wakes up, the pain will be unbearable."
"Twenty minutes?" The old man paused.
"What, isn’t twenty minutes enough? Should we give another shot of anesthesia and give you an hour? Is that enough?" someone suddenly said from the crowd.
Li Yinong looked over; the speaker was one of her young uncles, arrogant and lacking integrity.
For some reason, Li Yinong suddenly felt a bit concerned for the old man but saw him shaking his head, smiling, "Twenty minutes is too long, barely ten will do."
"Ten minutes? What a boast!"
"It’s ridiculous, stop bragging!"
"This is for extraction, not merely stitching the belly!"
"When you fail, we’ll see if you keep boasting!"
The Li family members jeered, but when Li Yinong looked at her grandfather, his expression was cold, although unlike the others, his demeanor was extremely serious and solemn.
At that moment, Li Yinong saw the old man place a medical kit on the ground, rolling up his sleeves as he crouched down.
He then unlocked the medical kit.
The lock was unlike typical ones, appearing odd, requiring a dial to open; yet, the old man opened it effortlessly.
The next moment, Li Yinong saw the old man take out various surgical instruments from the kit, starting the operation on the person with a large abdominal wound.
Li Yinong grew increasingly nervous, glancing at the children’s watch on her wrist, calculating the time.
Seconds ticked by.
After three minutes passed, Li Yinong suddenly heard a ’ding,’ seeing the old man drop a blood-stained nail with tweezers.
A middle schooler still, Li Yinong quickly understood the nail was hidden in the person’s abdomen, and the old man’s task was to extract it.
The entire process took less than three minutes.
At that moment, Li Yinong saw her uncles’ faces change drastically, each looking as if they’d been slapped, their expressions extremely grim.
Like misdeeds of a wrongdoer exposed.
Li Yinong found it somewhat amusing.
Her gaze returned to see the old man stitching up the person’s abdominal wound, his needlework deft, at times delicate as butterflies, at others swift as thunderstorms.
Li Yinong checked the time again; barely two minutes, yet the person’s abdominal wound was gone.
But it wasn’t finished!
The old man took a few silver needles from the medical kit, inserting them into certain acupoints on the person’s body.
At that time, Li Yinong didn’t understand why; when grown, she learned those acupoints effectively act like anesthesia, minimizing pain upon waking.
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