Chapter 3

Is there still a collection?

"Can you save Robert? You said there's still a chance, right?" A soft female voice interrupted Zhu Jishi's thoughts. He looked at the beautiful foreign girl with tears on her face, then at the fat man lying on the ground, who was groaning, and nodded.

"Then please save him, save him quickly."

"It's impossible to save him. Opening the abdomen is easy, but how do you stop the bleeding?" The doctor who claimed to be "the best gunshot wound doctor in England" shook his head and asked.

"Use a hemostat." Zhu Jishi thought that hemostats should have been invented by now.

"But there's still a high probability of massive bleeding. Mr. Churchill will most likely die on the operating table." The doctor still shook his head. Surgical operations in this era were not without doctors daring to attempt them, but the success rate was too low. The failure rate for major surgeries like opening the abdomen was almost 70-80%! The main cause of death on the operating table was excessive bleeding.

"Can we transfuse blood?"

"Transfuse blood! How?"

"Extract blood from someone else and inject it into the patient's veins." Zhu Jishi paused and added, "You must use compatible blood; otherwise, it will cause hemolysis."

"Compatible blood? Hemolysis?" The old man shook his head, completely unable to understand what Zhu Jishi was saying. He hesitated and asked, "How do you solve the problem of wound infection? Wound infection is the main cause of death from gunshot wounds!"

Zhu Jishi didn't know that this old doctor indeed had rich experience in treating gunshot wounds because he was a military doctor. Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries was almost in a state of constant warfare, and the main method of infantry combat was to line up and shoot. The soldiers who died in battle often didn't die immediately but would struggle with wound infections for a long time before dying in pain.

"Ensure proper surgical disinfection."

"Disinfection? What does that mean?"

"It means..."

"Hmm!" The fat man on the ground suddenly groaned, interrupting the conversation between the two doctors from different eras. The fat man looked at Zhu Jishi pitifully, "Tartar, do you really have a way to save me?"

"We can try, but there's only a 50% chance." Zhu Jishi knew that the Opium War might have just ended. Considering the lack of advanced communication methods like telegraph, the British might not yet know that the Qing Dynasty had already surrendered. So he decided to continue pretending to be a Tartar to avoid being arrested by the British as a Qing underground party member—actually, if he said he was Chinese, no one would believe him. Who had ever seen a Qing Chinese person without a braid, tall and strong (he was about 1.75 meters tall, which was considered tall in this era's Europe), and could speak fluent English? This was clearly a Tartar who had been completely westernized under Russian rule!

Zhu Jishi glanced at the groaning fat man again, thinking that this half-dead Churchill might be his meal ticket for the next few months. The fat man was short and fat, yet a goddess-like woman was crying for him. The only explanation was that the fat man's family was extremely wealthy! If he could save him, he would charge at least a thousand pounds! If he could become a famous doctor in Europe in the future, he would definitely not be cheap. He would have to represent the Chinese people and reclaim the silver that the Qing Dynasty had paid in the Opium War!

However, he wasn't entirely confident about saving this guy. If Ye Yiren, that girl, could have come with him, it would have been better. She studied surgery, and although her goal was to be a plastic surgeon, she was still better than he, an internal medicine doctor.

Hearing that he had a 50% chance of survival, the half-dead fat man managed to force a smile, "There's a 50% chance? That's great!" He turned to the old doctor and said, "Mr. Blumenstein, let this Tartar try."

"Yes, sir." It seemed that this fat man named Churchill was no ordinary person. The old doctor respectfully nodded and turned to Zhu Jishi, "Tartar, where do you plan to perform the surgery on Mr. Churchill?"

"Let's use that house." Zhu Jishi pointed to the nearest two-story building, "I think the owner would be willing to lend us the house."

"That's my villa," the foreign girl named Isabelle stood up and answered. She wiped her tears and turned to the young man who had shot the fat man, "Will, what are you standing there for? Come and help carry Robert over."

...

Robert Charles Spencer Churchill, the youngest son of the 5th Duke of Marlborough, the fat man with a bullet wound in his belly, was now stripped naked and placed on a long wooden table in the kitchen. His hands and feet were tied to the four legs of the table with hemp rope—this was not Zhu Jishi's idea but the old doctor Karl Blumenstein's. In this era, there were no effective painkillers in Britain, although the old doctor's medical kit contained opium and a pipe, but they were not very effective for severe pain. So the fat man had to be tied up like a pig. The person who tied him up was his lover, Isabelle, whose full name was Isabelle Deneuve, a French countess living in Britain. Seeing how skillfully she tied him up, Zhu Jishi suspected that she might often play with ropes.

"Lucy, go and shave all the hair off Mr. Churchill's belly." After seeing Isabelle finish tying up the fat man, Zhu Jishi instructed a young maid named Lucy to shave the fat man's belly—looking a bit like preparing to slaughter a pig.

Actually, the opium-saturated fat man felt like a pig waiting to be slaughtered. He really regretted it. If there were a pill for regret, he would have been willing to trade all the inheritance he received from his father, the 5th Duke of Marlborough, for one. As the son of the Duke of Marlborough, he had a bright future ahead of him, with countless beautiful women waiting to sleep with him. How could he impulsively agree to a duel with Will Heming, the son of an Irish landowner? The other party was just a commoner.

Wasn't it just for a French girl? The title of countess was inherited from her ex-husband, a Bonapartist, and the Orleans Dynasty of France did not recognize it! In the eyes of true nobility, such a background was just a commoner, not worthy of a son of the Marlborough family. Marriage was impossible; at most, she could be a lover. Was it worth it to duel with Will Heming for her? Sigh, he must have drunk too much whisky to agree to the duel!

However, what he regretted most now was not being afraid of death and letting the Tartar doctor operate on him. As a result, he was stripped naked and tied to a table, and his hair had to be shaved off! Oh God! Was this Tartar a butcher? Even if not a butcher, he must be a veterinarian! How could a doctor tie a patient so tightly and shave his hair? Sigh, as the son of the Duke of Marlborough and the descendant of the great military strategist John Churchill, dying from a bullet wound was not shameful, but being treated like a pig and dying in such an ugly manner... What should he do?

Thinking of this, the fat man groaned again—his mouth was already stuffed with a handkerchief by Isabelle, allegedly to prevent hearing his screams! So now, the fat Mr. Churchill could not die with dignity and could only wait for the amateur Mongol doctor (weren't Tartars Mongols?) to open his abdomen.