Chapter 1: Help Me Up! I Can Still Stitch!

Chapter 1: Help Me Up! I Can Still Stitch!

Wu Zhou, the Deputy Chief of the emergency department, awoke from unconsciousness to the sound of someone slapping him. Hard.

“Little Garrett! Little Garrett!”

The voice called out frantically, in rhythm with the slaps. Wu Zhou barely managed to crack open his eyes—only to be met with complete darkness. The guy shouting didn’t give up. When slapping failed, he grabbed Wu Zhou by the shoulders and shook him violently.

“Garrett! Wake up! Are you okay?!”

Wu Zhou’s head wobbled under the force, and he suddenly realized—he was lying face down. His whole face was buried in dirt. As he inhaled, the stench of blood, soil, and god-knows-what assaulted his senses.

Cough! Cough! Cough!

He doubled over, hacking uncontrollably, back arching with reflex. And in the midst of his coughing fit, an angry voice echoed in his head:

Who the hell positioned me like this?! Don’t they know you’re not supposed to lay an unconscious person face-down?!

What if I had aspirated on vomit?! That’s how people die!

He’s going to make them do drills. No—they're doing twenty drills. Minimum.

His professional instincts kicked in, and he mentally chewed out the irresponsible nurses, interns, and residents who’d let this happen. When he finally finished his internal rant, eyes teary from coughing, he looked up—then froze.

Where's the shadowless lamp?

Where's the OR table?

The gurney? The nurses and doctors in white coats, running all over the place?

Where's the hospital?!

Gone.

Instead, there was a squat little building made of rough stone and thatch. The walls were patched up with clumps of dirt. A low circular fence made of stones sat nearby, enclosing a patch of bare earth and a few strands of dry grass.

What the hell is this?!

Wasn’t I just in the ER doing an emergency surgery?!

Wu Zhou’s head buzzed, and his knees gave out. He almost collapsed again on the spot. The last thing he remembered was working non-stop from 9 a.m. to 4 a.m., just finishing a major trauma case—splenectomy, liver sutures, bowel repair. It had gone smoothly. No signs of active bleeding. He had just told the assistant to close up when—

Blackout.

“Garrett, are you okay?!”

Wu Zhou stiffly turned his head toward the voice. His pupils slowly adjusted.

The one shaking him was a broad-shouldered redhead, tall and rugged, with deep-set eyes and a prominent nose—your classic Westerner look. He wore a rough sleeveless vest made of sackcloth, arms thick as tree trunks, a bow slung over one shoulder.

Calling it a "vest" was generous. It looked more like someone had folded a rectangle of fabric in half, cut a hole for the head, and called it a day. Loose threads dangled from the collar and armholes, and the whole thing was so dirty its original color was impossible to guess.

—Honestly, the surgical gauze back home had tighter weaves.

Wu Zhou looked down at himself.

Same sackcloth.

Same makeshift vest.

Same…

Wait, are my toes poking out of my shoes?!

Darkness swam before his eyes again. He really wanted to just pass out this time.

Why?! Why throw me into a place like this?! I saved that trauma patient, didn’t I?!

At the very least, their vitals were stable before I collapsed! The surgery was a success!

Let me go back!

I’ve got emergency resuscitations waiting for me!

Unfortunately, no divine being answered his plea.

But an emergency did arrive.

Just ten steps away, a shrill scream pierced the air.

“Help!!”

“Ca–Captain!”

“Oh no! His intestines are coming out!”

Instantly, Wu Zhou forgot all his grumbling. Just like every time he heard a cry for help, he sprinted toward the sound without a second thought.

“I’m coming!”

But someone beat him to it—or rather, someone was already there. As Wu Zhou gasped his way down the path, he saw a figure kneeling beside the injured man, muttering something under their breath.

Then—

A flash of white light shot from their clasped hands, streaking straight down onto the wounded soldier’s body.

Bathed in that brilliant white glow, the gruesome, gaping wound… actually began to heal before his eyes.

Wu Zhou slammed the brakes in his mind.

What the hell did I just witness?!

Time-lapse video on wound healing in real life?!

High-energy particle therapy?!

Just one beam of light and the injury starts knitting itself together like magic—literally?!

Wait a second… this was…

Healing Magic!

Two sets of memories surged to the surface—one was Wu Zhou’s own, drawn from years of binging novels, games, and anime. The other… belonged to the original owner of this body. But regardless of the source, both memories arrived at the same conclusion:

Healing Magic—calling upon divine power to perform miraculous medical feats. Even the weakest healing spell could instantly close minor wounds. At the highest levels, it was said to bring the dead back to life…

So this guy casting the spell must be… a priest?

Wu Zhou darted a glance at the caster. Kneeling beside the injured man was the best-dressed person he’d seen so far—a boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen, in a light brown linen robe. The front hem brushed the ground, while the back draped down to his calves. The collar and sleeves were properly hemmed, and embroidered over the chest was a small dark brown shield insignia, outlined with careful stitching.

Hmmm…

So spellcasters are the top dogs in this world, huh? Wu Zhou mentally snarked.

He turned his gaze to the injured man. Middle-aged, rugged, with a messy brown beard and matching hair and eyes. At least he had leather armor—but it hadn’t done him any good. A massive tear in the stomach area revealed a grotesque mess of intestines spilling out, blood soaking everything.

Compared to that, the multiple wounds on his arms and legs were basically scratches.

The man was slumped against a tree stump, semi-conscious, his eyes barely open. Kneeling next to him was a younger man with a similar face—maybe a brother or a son—visibly trembling, eyes full of desperate hope fixed on the glowing wound.

That brutal tear, edges jagged and uneven like it’d been ripped open by claws, was wriggling, twitching, pulling together. The exposed flesh slowly shrank, blood flow eased…

Wu Zhou’s eyes lit up. 

This world’s healing spells were no joke, the results were nearly instantaneous!

If he had something like this back in surgery… oh, the possibilities~

But just as that thought bloomed—

The light vanished.

Only a tiny section of the wound had closed. The rest remained exposed, intestines still dangling out. The magic had stopped.

Wu Zhou: “…”

Priest: “…”

The young man kneeling beside the injured soldier went pale. He was still cradling the man’s intestines in his shaking hands. After watching the priest struggle and chant again and again with no result, his hope collapsed.

He couldn’t help but shout:

“Don’t stop! Please—just one more! The captain’s hurt bad!”

“I—I can’t!” the priest stammered. He looked barely out of childhood, cheeks flushed red, eyes shimmering with panic. The sudden outburst startled him so much his freckles looked like they were about to pop off his face.

“I’m just an apprentice! I— I can’t save him…”

Despair flooded the young man’s face. He lowered his head, shaking all over, and began trying to stuff the intestines back in with trembling fingers—

“Stop!” Wu Zhou bellowed.

And the moment the words left his mouth, he realized something was off.

The language he shouted in—it wasn’t Chinese. It wasn’t English. It wasn’t anything he’d ever studied. But he understood it. He could speak it.

Same with the others—their conversations were in a language he’d never heard before, yet he understood every word.

What… is happening?

Wu Zhou was baffled. But a glance at the wounded man cleared his mind. Someone was hurt—and that meant only one thing.

This was a call to arms for every ER doctor. Whether the sky was falling, the earth splitting open, the sun exploding, or the entire universe being isekai’d—it could all wait until the patient was stable.

He barked again:

“Don’t push them back in! Got a clean bowl? No? Then hold them! Steady—don’t move!”