Zhou Dahua had no objections and did as Qin Sang said.
Qin Sang wasn't idle either; since her two sons were out, she had to do it herself.
Taking Third Sons Wife, Si Jin, and Eldest Girl, they moved the mosquito coils made last night in the main hall out to the courtyard one by one. Nearby, Tian Wenmo watched Mother's busy figure from the woodshed door, and after hesitating for a long time, he finally joined in, becoming a member of the mosquito coil moving army.
Since she planned to sell them, packaging was also very important. Qin Sang intended to use bamboo tubes to hold the mosquito coils, which would provide good shock absorption and prevent them from breaking or cracking.
There wasn't much else in the countryside, but there was plenty of bamboo. Old bamboo of four or five years could grow as wide as the mouth of a ceramic bowl.
As long as they were slightly larger than the mosquito coil rings and could fit inside, it was fine.
Qin Sang was responsible for cutting the large bamboo and dragging it home with Si Jin. She planned to put twenty coils in one bamboo tube, so cutting two large bamboos would be enough.
Tian Wenmo used a wood-cutting knife to trim the branches off the bamboo, while Eldest Girl picked up the branches and bamboo strips from the ground and piled them together to be dried for firewood later. Third Sons Wife was sweeping up the bamboo leaves to feed the rabbits.
Just as she was about to go to the Village Head's house to see if she could borrow a saw, before she even arrived, she saw a crowd of people rushing back in a hubbub:
"Someone's dying! Help!"
Tian Sangui ran in this direction. Seeing Qin Sang, he rushed over in a few steps:
"Mother, Paternal Cousin-Uncle was beaten. Big Brother told me to hurry home and call you. Please go and take a look."
The thing Qin Sang feared most had happened. She quickened her pace and, upon reaching the scene, saw that everyone had bloodstains on them. When the people made way, she saw You Gen lying on the bed. He had been slashed in the abdomen. With summer clothes being so thin, the wound was a large, gaping hole, gurgling with blood.
The Old Village Head was supported by others as he walked over tremblingly. When Mrs. Tian Li saw her husband, who had gone out perfectly fine, return covered in blood, she let out a scream and fainted.
You Gen was already the de facto Village Head of Tianjia Village and was essentially the next patriarch of the Tian clan. With such a serious injury, no one dared to take initiative. They carried him back thinking he could see his family one last time to give his final words before dying.
Da Zhuang, having witnessed Qin Sang's bone setting with Eldest Girl last time, held a glimmer of hope and had his younger brother run home to call their Mother. It was also lucky that Qin Sang happened to be coming over for something; otherwise, the round trip would have caused an even longer delay:
"Mother, Paternal Cousin-Uncle was slashed by Local Ruffians from Wen Family Village, and he ended up like this. I couldn't stop them..."
Qin Sang knew that in this situation, she had to stop the bleeding immediately, or he would die from hemorrhagic shock:
"Don't say so much now. Everyone, move aside. Cousin-in-law, do you have a needle and thread in the house? Light an oil lamp. Boil water, hurry and boil water, and boil some clean linen..."
Mrs. Tian Li's sister-in-law was nearby. Hearing Qin Sang's shout, she immediately replied:
"Yes, yes, I'll go get them."
"I'll go boil the water."
"I have linen at home; I'll go back and get it."
The Old Village Head watched anxiously from the side:
"Tian Qinshi, can you save my son?"
Qin Sang didn't overpromise:
"I can only try. The wound isn't deep. I'll try to suture it to stop the bleeding first. Otherwise, by the time he reaches the town, he'll have bled out completely."
Soon, the needle and thread were brought. Qin Sang inconspicuously replaced the thread with cosmetic sutures. There was nothing she could do about the needle, so she had to use a sewing needle.
"Da Zhuang, his uncle, come here."
After giving her instructions, Qin Sang said to You Gen, who hadn't fainted:
"Paternal uncle, I have to use thread to sew up the wound on your belly. It will be very painful, so bear with it and don't struggle. The more nervous you are, the more you'll bleed."
Someone behind her cried out in surprise:
"Sew it up? Like sewing clothes?"
"Tian Qinshi, when did you learn how to save people?"
"Can a person be sewn like clothes? Are you sure this isn't a joke?"
Amidst the chatter of the crowd, You Gen, who was already seen as a dead man by others, gave a weak nod:
"I'll trouble you then, Tian Qinshi. It's okay if you can't save me; just consider me already dead."
The Old Village Head and the others didn't quite believe it either, but was there any other choice?
Qin Sang was right; if he bled like this all the way to the town to find a doctor, he would be drained dry.
What else could be done?
He said in a heavy voice, "Tian Qinshi, go ahead and sew. If You Gen can't be saved, it's not your fault. Just do your best."
"Mhm." As Qin Sang held the needle over the oil lamp to sterilize it, she instructed:
"Everyone else, get out. Da Zhuang, his uncle, hold him down. Find a piece of cloth for him to bite on."
The Old Village Head asked everyone else to leave. Once You Gen bit down on the cloth and was held steady, Qin Sang washed her hands and began the suturing.
When Qin Sang was an intern at a hospital after graduation, she had rotated through various departments. Suturing was something she had practiced during her medical studies, so it wasn't unfamiliar to her.
You Gen was a tough man. As the needle and thread wove in and out of his flesh, Da Zhuang, Tian Youdi, and Tian Youcai's eyelids twitched as they watched from the side, but he didn't even let out a groan.
Qin Sang focused on the suturing. The wound was a foot long, and it took her fifty or sixty stitches to finish. Her suturing technique was good; it looked like a straight centipede, and the bleeding gradually stopped.
Qin Sang dropped the needle into a basin and washed her hands. Mrs. Tian Li, who had already woken up, immediately rushed to the bedside and asked loudly:
"Father of my children, how are you? Are you alright?"
You Gen raised his hand and pulled the cloth out of his mouth. Drenched in sweat, he said:
"I'm fine, it just hurts."
Two incense sticks' worth of time had passed during the suturing. When the people waiting outside heard the commotion inside, they were all astonished and squeezed in to see:
"Good heavens, a person really can be sewn like clothes."
"Tian Qinshi actually saved You Gen. That's incredible."
"Who would've thought? Tian Qinshi, who did you learn this skill from?"
Qin Sang calmly wiped her sweat:
"My Long River mentioned it to me before. He said when they were out fighting in the army, the Military Doctor didn't treat them like humans at all. If someone's belly was sliced open and their intestines were showing, they'd just sew them up, and the person wouldn't die. There was another whose leg was half-detached; the Military Doctor pulled out the veins and tied a knot, and that person didn't even end up crippled. He told it to me as a joke back then, and I just remembered it."
No one doubted her at all. After all, few in the village had returned alive from the battlefield. Seeing was believing, and no one had ever seen a doctor use this method before.
Ignoring their chatter, Qin Sang instructed:
"Sister-in-law, I'll go back and brew some medicine in a bit. Come and pick it up later."
"You Gen can't move for the next few days. Every day, you need to use water boiled with willow leaves and mugwort to wipe the wound. Use clean, boiled linen like today's. If he gets a fever, come to my house and call me again."
Mrs. Tian Li agreed repeatedly and insisted on keeping Qin Sang for a meal. Qin Sang declined, saying that taking care of the patient was more important, and that the person from Wen Family Village who did this couldn't be let off so easily.
At Qin Sang's mention, everyone began to discuss the matter with righteous indignation, putting the matter of her suturing the wound aside.
Qin Sang also managed to borrow the saw. On the way home, Da Zhuang and San Gui accompanied her, their eyes shining like stars.
"Mother is so amazing."