CHAPTER 238: CHAPTER 170 UNTITLED

After Izumi Hichiji handed Saito Dosan’s National Inheritance Document and will to Harano, it was as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders. The relief in his spirit and the exhaustion in his body surfaced at almost the same time, making his aged face instantly look drained of all life.

Harano couldn’t bother to ask for more details at this point and decided to deal with his and Ah Qian and Ah Gu’s wounds first.

Ah Qian and Ah Gu’s injuries were relatively light, clearly well-protected, or perhaps not the main targets of the enemy’s attacks, so there was little to worry about, but Izumi Hichiji’s wounds were in terrible shape.

He had at least four knife wounds on his body, seven or so sores similar to arrow injuries, and countless other scrapes and scratches. Worse yet, all the wounds had been soaked in water. Now, the flesh around them was swollen and curling, showing the pale dead-fish color, and though some emergency bandaging and cauterization had been done after the fact, a faint smell of rot was already drifting up.

Izumi Hichiji lowered his head to look at his own gruesome wounds, and no longer held much hope for survival. After day and night fighting and breaking out of the mountain siege, he had forded rivers several times to evade enemy pursuit. All his wounds were contaminated, and at his age, his resistance was far inferior to that of his youth. Suppuration and necrosis were now unavoidable—his death was almost certain.

This time he was able to find Harano and hand the National Inheritance Document into his hands—it was a stroke of luck. He didn’t have to drag his wounded body all the way to Qingzhou City under hot pursuit; the mission was done with relative ease. In his mind, this was also a kind of "entrusting the orphan"—delivering the document to Oda Nobunaga was a major meritorious deed, and should help Ah Man and the others secure better treatment from Harano after his death.

At his age, he had long since taken death lightly. He was about to tell Harano not to waste further effort on him and to just give his wounds a casual bandaging for form’s sake. But to his surprise, after observing his wounds for a while, Harano’s expression remained entirely calm; he lifted his head and said, "It’s not a big problem, but... it’ll hurt a bit, old sir, you’ll have to bear it."

Izumi Hichiji couldn’t help but look at his wounds again and asked in surprise, "These wounds can still be treated?"

"They can." Harano first smiled and offered reassurance, then immediately turned to Ah Qing and instructed, "Prepare saline solution and allicin!"

He had poured a great deal of effort into the military, doing everything he could to minimize casualties; when it came to treating external wounds, he’d racked his brains. He once tried to make penicillin by crude methods, but found the results disappointing—too many impurities were hard to remove, the output was extremely low, and application was cumbersome, sometimes even killing the patient rather than saving them. So he settled on allicin, which—though less effective than penicillin—was much easier to prepare and still had antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory effects.

The main thing was that allicin was easy to make: peel and mash the garlic, add an appropriate amount of purified water and heat it quickly, so the allicin is steamed out with the vapor, then condense and purify. Under current conditions, this made for much better production and cost-effectiveness for the army.

Izumi Hichiji didn’t understand any of this; in his eyes, Harano was basically a stranger, and he was very skeptical. But Harano had already slipped into his "Mongolian Divine Doctor" mode, no longer caring what his patient thought—his understated words were simply habit for comforting patients. In fact, Izumi Hichiji’s wounds were quite tricky, so he went straight for the heavy medicine.

After carefully washing his hands, he began rinsing Izumi Hichiji’s wounds with saline solution, directly cutting away some of the rotting skin and flesh, then, depending on the depth, either applying allicin ointment or filling the wounds with gauze soaked in allicin solution.

As someone who’d served for a long time as Harano’s personal guard, Ah Qing was already highly attuned to his routines; with just a gesture, she knew exactly what he needed. To outsiders, it looked almost telepathic—there was a strange sense of rapport about it.

Izumi Hichiji quietly watched Ah Qing for a while, feeling that this "granddaughter" had changed a lot. But then waves of excruciating pain hit him—he barely stifled his groans, losing all ability to focus on Ah Qing’s transformation. After all, allicin was not a good external wound medicine—applied directly, it made a person wish for death. But that was life in the old days—anything that could save a life was a good thing, pain or not!

Soon, the overwhelming pain made him woozy and unable to think straight. Coupled with the exhaustion from fighting and fleeing for his life, he gradually drifted off into sleep.

......

Izumi Hichiji slept uneasily. In a daze, he first felt unbearably cold, then was constantly fed medicine and soup. Sometimes it seemed someone was calling to him from a great distance; other times he felt he was being tossed through the clouds.

When he finally woke, the first thing he saw was his granddaughter, whom he’d raised since childhood, the rightful successor of Koka Life-saving Style, Ah Man, cross-legged beside him, propping up her chin as she nodded off. He watched her for a while—this granddaughter, now considered independent—and then looked around, realizing he seemed to be lying inside a tightly covered ox cart.

He lay there awhile, then slowly clenched his fist, finding he’d recovered some strength. He propped himself up with his one arm, trying to sit. This immediately startled Ah Man, who woke in an instant. She looked at him in surprise for a moment, then rushed over to support him, exhaling in relief: "You’re finally awake! Any longer and I’d have thought you’d kicked the bucket!"

If Harano hadn’t repeatedly assured her that sleeping this long was perfectly normal—a sign of the body healing—she would’ve been preparing a coffin by now.

Izumi Hichiji didn’t immediately respond to his chatterbox granddaughter. He first pressed lightly on his deepest wound, feeling no residual swelling at all. That Harano had really dragged him back from the gates of death—he was amazed. Ah Man, seeing his expression, instantly knew what he was thinking, and arched her dodo eyebrows with pride: "That guy’s medical skill is really something—could easily be one of the top three practitioners in the land."

Without waiting for his answer, she suddenly remembered something. Lifting the curtain, she stuck her head outside and shouted. Soon, the cart came to a stop, and she turned back to Izumi Hichiji: "You must be starving. I’ll have them get you something to eat, but right now you can’t handle anything too rich—just rice porridge to nurse your stomach for now, alright? Once you’re better, I’ll stew a proper hen for you!"

Izumi Hichiji actually wasn’t very hungry; in fact, his mouth was full of a garlicky stench and he felt a bit nauseous—he had no appetite at all. Still, leaning against the wall of the cart, he nodded. Then he immediately asked, "Where are we going?"

"New Wanjin," Ah Man said directly. "Our turf!"

"Your turf..." Izumi Hichiji chewed over these words and murmured, "This is Lord Harano’s territory, isn’t it?"

"No, it’s our turf," Ah Man said, not holding back. "I’m a member of the Nozawa family too. New Wanjin is part mine. Even if you asked him, he’d admit it—so it’s ours."

Izumi Hichiji’s expression grew more serious. He looked at Ah Man for a while, then said in a low voice, "We are Koka folk. We only accept commissions. We never..."

Ah Man no longer bought that line. She waved her hand, cutting him off. "Enough, enough—he’s different. I haven’t lost my freedom, he’s never forced me to do anything against my will. Besides, it’s just me and Ah Qing who’ve risked life and death with him; if it were someone else begging to be his Household Retainer, he’d never take them. So don’t worry—he’s got no designs on you."

She paused, then added: "Me and Ah Qing are special cases, and he doesn’t treat us like ordinary Household Retainers—we’re more like family to him."

She hesitated again, feeling like there was some ambiguity, and quickly clarified, "Not that kind of family—I haven’t slept with him! I mean like family friends, Grandpa... uh, you get it, right?"

Izumi Hichiji looked her over carefully. She’d grown older, but her appearance hadn’t changed much; those dodo eyebrows were still the same. On her round little face, they were as humorous as ever—she still looked like an oversized Shiba Inu, and he couldn’t help nodding: "That much, I do believe."

His eldest granddaughter never relied on her looks, her character was headstrong and unruly—he could perfectly understand why nothing romantic had developed between her and Harano.

Ah Man scratched her face, feeling like the old man’s comment had a weird, sarcastic vibe. But since he was injured now, she let it go, turning instead to complain, "Stop picking on me. I told Ah Qian and Ah Gu—those two little brats—to pass my message to you, did they? I’ve told you many times to come find me, but you never listen! Saito Dosan gave you a little money, and look what you’ve turned yourself into? At your age, can’t you give me a break?"

Izumi Hichiji sighed quietly, realizing not only had Ah Man’s appearance barely changed, her personality was just as annoying as ever. He could only shake his head and say, "Take people’s money, resolve their troubles—we’re Koka folk, can’t damage our own reputation. Once we’ve taken the money, we have to give it our all."

"Fine!" Ah Man waved her hand, not bothered by this old fossil. "Anyway, you’re in this shape now—I’ll look after you from now on! Didn’t you always want a tiny Zong Village? I’ve already talked it over with him—when we get to New Wanjin, we’ll give you a plot of land. Do whatever you want. From now on, just retire in peace!"

"He... is willing to give you land?" Izumi Hichiji couldn’t help his growing amazement.

Ah Man was secretly pleased but looked utterly indifferent, "It’s just a piece of land, no big deal. If you wanted to loaf around in his house and retire, given my relationship with him, he wouldn’t object at all."

Izumi Hichiji fell silent—a plot of land! So many people have chased that all their lives...

But thinking it over, he realized he’d heard nothing but Ah Man’s nagging since waking up and still knew nothing about the Nozawa family, so he promptly said, "Tell me about New Wanjin, and about Lord Harano!"

He wanted to compare Harano and Saito Dosan—to see who was more outstanding.