Dawn broke over the battlefield, revealing the night's work in all its horrific, unflinching detail. The groans that had been a ghostly chorus in the dark were now attached to visible, broken men. Lin Wei sat amidst his small, saved circle, the adrenaline of the previous day replaced by a crushing fatigue. His arm throbbed in time with his heartbeat.
Ox Li slept fitfully, his breathing shallow but steady. Sly Liu was conscious, his eyes wide with pain and the lingering shock of the arrow's removal. Scholar Zhang was the most alert, his intelligent eyes taking in the sea of suffering around them.
It was Zhang who gave voice to the thought taking root in Lin Wei's mind. "They are all our comrades now," the scholar whispered, gesturing weakly at the dozens of other wounded penal soldiers left to die. "Their fate is ours."
The system, coldly pragmatic, agreed.
"[Analysis: Survival probability of unit increases with functional manpower. Directive: Maximize asset viability.]"
Asset viability. The term was a stark contrast to the human misery surrounding him. But it was correct. These men, if they lived, would be his first line of defense, his first loyalists in this brutal world. Saving them wasn't just morality; it was strategy.
He pushed himself to his feet. "Liu," he said, his voice rough. "You have one good leg. Start organizing the men who can walk. We need to bring the wounded here. To this spot."
Sly Liu looked at him as if he were mad.
"Here? Why? We should be trying to get out of this charnel house!"
"There is no 'out'," Lin Wei replied flatly. "The only way out is through. We get organized, or we die. Now, move." The command in his voice, forged in operating rooms and tempered by survival, brooked no argument.
It started slowly. Under Liu's direction, a few less-injured men began dragging their groaning comrades towards Lin Wei's position, creating a grim, centralized clearing of suffering.
This was when Lin Wei's modern mind took over completely. He began the process of triage, a concept that would have been alien to any Song-era physician. He moved from man to man with a terrifying, dispassionate efficiency, the system providing silent, critical data.
He pointed to a man with a ghastly belly wound, his guts exposed.
"[Terminal. Penetrating abdominal trauma. Sepsis inevitable.]"
Lin Wei looked at the men helping him. "Make him comfortable. He is beyond my help." It was the first of many brutal choices.
He found a man with a compound fracture, the bone jutting through the skin.
"[Critical. Immediate amputation required to prevent fatal sepsis.]"
Lin Wei's heart sank. Amputation without proper saws, without anesthesia, without antibiotics? It was a death sentence with extra steps. He marked him for immediate, desperate intervention.
He found others he could save: men with deep lacerations that could be cleaned and bound, with simple fractures that could be splinted.
What emerged over the next few hours was not an army, but a grim, macabre imitation of one—an assembly line dedicated not to production, but to the postponement of death. Lin Wei, operating on a cold, clinical instinct honed in a world of sterility and light, imposed a brutal order upon the chaos.
He pointed to a cluster of men with minor wounds. "You three. Your only duty is fire and water. Keep those pots boiling. The water must never stop bubbling." They became the keepers of the flame, a desperate attempt to hold back the microscopic armies of decay with the only weapon they had: heat.
He then turned to the more able-bodied, those with sprains and superficial cuts. "You will follow Liu's orders. Scour the field. Bring me every strip of cloth, every leather strap, every intact waterskin you can find. Be vultures. Our survival depends on what the dead no longer need." Under Sly Liu's limping but fiercely efficient direction, they became scavengers, stripping the fallen with a morbid, purposeful efficiency. They were no longer soldiers; they were ghouls foraging for the materials of life.
Finally, his gaze fell upon Scholar Zhang. The older man, though pale and breathing carefully, had already been observing, his mind cataloging the scant resources.
"Scholar Zhang," Lin Wei said, his voice losing its command tone for one of necessity. "Your knowledge is our apothecary. Direct them." He gestured to a few bewildered boys. "Find the dog's tail grass for swelling, the plantain for wounds. Anything you know of that can soothe or staunch." And so, the scholar became the heart of a desperate foraging party, using ancient knowledge to identify the weeds that would have to serve as their pharmacy, his intellectual pursuit now a matter of life and death.
It was a horrifying, brilliant perversion of an army's support corps. They were no longer a penal battalion; they were a field hospital run by the damned, for the damned, their economy based on scavenging and forgotten wisdom, all orchestrated by a surgeon from the future.
By midday, a grim, shocking order had been imposed on the chaos. The penal battalion's section of the field was no longer a place of random dying. It was a place of organized, if desperate, healing. The word spread through the survivors: Go to the Doc. The Doc will know what to do.
It was this unnatural organization that caught the eye of Commander Xin later that afternoon. He rode along the edge of the carnage, expecting to see the usual despair. Instead, he saw a functioning, if macabre, field hospital. His eyes narrowed, finding the source: Lin Wei, moving calmly between the wounded, his hands and robes stained dark with blood, issuing quiet commands that were instantly obeyed.
Xin dismounted and walked over, his boots crunching on the bloody ground. The activity around Lin Wei stilled.
"You. Physician," Xin said, his voice devoid of warmth.
Lin Wei looked up from a man whose leg he was splinting. "Commander."
"I am told you were convicted for killing a man with your… methods."
"I was, Commander."
"And now you play at being a savior." Xin's gaze swept over the organized scene. "Why?"
Lin Wei met his stare. "Functional men can fight. Or they can dig latrines. Dead men are useless."
A flicker of something—not respect, but pragmatic appreciation—crossed Xin's face. He saw it. Not compassion, but a cold utility. This was a language he understood.
"The regular physicians are occupied with regular soldiers," Xin stated. "From now on, the wounded of the Seventh Penal Battalion are your responsibility. You will receive the supplies no one else wants, spoiled wine, rotten rags, the dregs of the medicine chest. Use them as you see fit."
He took a step closer, his voice dropping. "If you can make this rabble last longer, that is useful to me. If they die, that is your failure. Do not expect praise. Do not expect help. You have made this your problem. Now live with it."
Without another word, Commander Xin turned and walked away.
Lin Wei stood alone amidst the groans of the dozens of men who were now officially his charge. He had traded the certainty of a spear in the front line for the immense, grinding pressure of leadership and responsibility. He was no longer just a convict trying to survive.
He was the doctor of the damned.
The system interface, ever-present, updated with a grim finality.
"[New Designation: Unofficial Medic, 7th Penal Battalion.]"
"[Primary Objective Updated: Establish a Sustainable Field Medical Operation under Austere Conditions.]"
The directive [Survive] had never felt so heavy.