Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

behind Sun to examine the butt end of the stake. Each time the stake moved, top or bottom, colored bubbles oozed out, carrying the stifling stench of rotting flesh and sending the flies into convulsions of deafening buzzes. The physician staggered up to me and slumped to his knees on wobbly legs. His face twitched and his mouth twisted, like a man about to break down completely. His teeth chattered as he managed to say:
    “Laoye . . . his internal organs have shut down . . . there is nothing I can do . . .”
    “Nonsense!” Zhao Jia, his eyes wide, glared at Cheng Buyi. “Take my word for it,” he said sternly, “there is nothing wrong with his internal organs!” Then his gaze shifted to me. “If they had suffered any damage,” he defended himself, “he’d be dead by now. He could not have lived this long. You can see that for yourself, Laoye!”
    I weighed his comment for a moment. “Zhao Jia is right,” I said. “Sun Bing’s injuries are just beneath the skin. The pus and blood you see are coming from infections, something a surgeon sees all the time. If you cannot deal with that, who can?”
    “Laoye . . . Laoye . . .” He was nearly incoherent. “This humble . . . I . . .”
    “Stop wasting time with that Laoye and humble business!” I cut him off. “Do what you’re here to do. If it’s a dead horse, treat it as if it were alive!”
    Cheng finally summoned the courage to remove his robe and spread it on the platform floor, wind his queue atop his head, roll up his sleeves, and ask for water to wash his hands. Xiaojia ran down the plank and brought up a bucket of water, then waited on Cheng as he washed his hands. That done, Cheng laid his white cloth bag down on his robe, opened it, and removed its contents: two knives, one long and one stubby, two pairs of scissors, one big and one small, two pairs of tweezers, one thick and one thin, and two glass vials, one tall and one short. The taller vial held alcohol, the shorter one medicinal ointment. There were also cotton balls and a roll of gauze.
    He picked up a pair of scissors and—snip snip—cut open Sun Bing’s clothing. He then poured alcohol onto a cotton ball, with which he cleansed the open wounds, top and bottom, squeezing out quite a bit of blood and pus, not to mention all the foul odors. Sun Bing shuddered violently and moaned with such agony that it made my skin crawl and gave me the shivers.
    Cheng Buyi’s confidence and courage returned in force as he ministered to the injured Sun Bing; professional honor had won out over fear. At that point he stopped what he was doing and walked up to me, not bent over submissively, but standing tall and proud.
    “Laoye,” he said, “if you remove the stake from his body, I guarantee that not only will he survive until the day after tomorrow, but he will regain his health completely . . .”
    I stopped him in mid-sentence. “If you are willing to have the stake inserted in your own body,” I mocked him, “then feel free to remove it from his.”
    Cheng’s face turned ghostly white, his back went from straight to bent, and his eyes shifted evasively. He went back to Sun Bing and continued rubbing his wounds with alcohol-soaked cotton, but this time his hands shook. Next he scooped some dark red medicinal ointment out of the small purple vial with a sliver of bamboo and daubed it on Sun Bing’s injuries.
    His work finished, he backed away, bent at the waist. I next summoned Su Zhonghe, who came closer, shaking from head to toe as he reached out with one long-nailed hand and laid it on Sun Bing’s wrist where it was tied to the crossbar. With his hand in the air, his shoulder slumped to one side, and his head bowed in a meditative pose, he presented a comical yet pitiful sight.
    His diagnostics completed, Su Zhonghe announced:
    “Your Honor, the patient’s eyes are red, his mouth foul; his lips are dry, his tongue charred; his face is swollen, his skin hot to the touch. All symptoms point to internal heat, but his pulse has a floating quality, hollow like a green onion from excessive blood loss, all symptoms of weakness masked as strength, a deficit in the guise of plenty. An inferior physician would be powerless to cure what ails him, and treating him with heat or prescribing the wrong medication would place him at death’s door.”
    Su Zhonghe’s reputation as a third-generation master physician was well earned. He was a man of exceptional knowledge, and I was impressed by his