Warring States Survival Guide
Chapter 122 - 74: Legendary Creature: Big Headed Ghost_2

Chapter 122: Chapter 74: Legendary Creature: Big Headed Ghost_2

Even if it’s only temporary peace, sooner or later Oda Nobunaga and his brother will still have a fight to see who becomes the Family Head, but being able to restore peace for the time being is already pretty good!

...

Now that there’s no more fighting, Harano felt at ease being his "Medical Magistrate." He spent more than ten days stabilizing all the injured, so it counts as handing in another passable report card—though this time, with some severely wounded, there were over twenty deaths in fits and starts, including three Samurai. He scratched his head trying to figure out how to prove he’d done his best and how to explain to the victims’ families, but in the end nobody cared—just send the bodies off and that’s it.

On the contrary, his reputation as a "Divine Doctor" became even more widely spread. Everyone unanimously agreed that his medical skills were absolutely top notch. Out of ten patients, nine survived, which felt almost miraculous. Even many uninjured lower and middle-level Samurai came to him for treatment by name, or brought gifts to beg him for a house call to treat their family members.

Since Harano had nothing better to do, he genuinely helped out, and in his spare time asked these Samurai about their "secret family remedies" with great interest—only to discover, to his astonishment, that he really was a "Divine Doctor" and didn’t even need the "Mongolian" part. Most Samurai mumbled and refused to reveal their family’s "secrets," but some, more open-minded, were willing to tell him directly, blowing his mind wide open.

The most normal of these recipes was simply grinding up ginger and mugwort leaves into powder, and applying it to wounds to stop bleeding—this one actually worked a bit, or at least did no harm.

Second, the barely acceptable remedy: mixing egg white with plaster, spreading it on wounds to stop bleeding—this one’s pretty questionable, since egg whites have lots of bacteria and would greatly increase the risk of infection. Honestly, ashes would be better.

Then things got weird: horse dung soup and reed-hair soup, meaning boiling horse manure with black and white horse hair. The horse manure soup was for treating internal injuries by drinking it, and the reed-hair one was for washing wounds—Ah Man actually had this "secret recipe." Washing or eating it would probably kill you.

The worst of all: wrapping wounds with a woman’s menstrual cloth soaked with coarse salt—you don’t even need to think about it, you’re dead for sure.

After asking around, Harano promptly promoted himself from "Mongolian Divine Doctor" to "Legit Divine Doctor." I mean, just look at these pitiful secret recipes—if he isn’t a Divine Doctor, who is? Now he finally understood why Oda Nobunaga was willing to spend money to hire him as "Medical Magistrate." Without him, at least two-thirds of the wounded would’ve died. He only lost twenty-something—now that really was a miracle.

Of course, treating these lower and middle Samurai wasn’t only about digging for "Japan Middle Ages medicinal secrets"—that was just curiosity. What he really wanted was to find supply channels. After all, the Owari Samurai’s networks were tangled and deep, and anyone could have connections with a local landholding family. Through them, it was easy to get cheap soybean cakes, sulfur, and natural soda ash, so he opened up a new supply channel for raw materials and thus laid a foundation for scaling up soy sauce production.

Once those miscellaneous things were done, he directly handed Nobunaga a letter. Even having "cured to death" more than twenty people, he still had the guts to ask for payment and to go home. And Nobunaga, apparently in a foul mood, didn’t bother inviting him to eat or drink or chat. He just sent someone to give him an "exchange" voucher, didn’t ask for small change, and considered his duty done—he was free to roll back to Takeshige Manor.

Harano was finally liberated. Afraid that sticking around would bring more trouble, he packed up his family and rushed out that very day. But just as they’d hurried out of Nagano Castle Town, Ah Man slapped her forehead and yelled from afar, "Wait! Those guys are still in town!"

Harano looked back at her, didn’t get it, and asked curiously, "What guys?"

"Did you forget? The 89 old, frail, sick, and disabled people you splurged on!" Ah Man had always had issues with that batch, thinking their "quality as goods" was just too poor. Now, for Harano to outright forget them—she was indignant, and started nagging, "If I hadn’t asked Maeshima Shichiro to bring them some beans and buckwheat, they’d probably all be dead by now! Sometimes, seriously, you just ignore any side business. If it weren’t for me, that thirty kan of money would’ve been thrown in the water for nothing—honestly, whose house is this, yours or mine? Why am I always the one who has to worry..."

She kept on and on, and Harano had nothing to say—he couldn’t even argue back. He really had forgotten them in the chaos. After she finally paused for breath, he hesitated and asked, "They’re still there?"

"Of course! The day before yesterday... No, I think it was the day before that. I passed by and checked: all eighty-nine, not a single one missing."

"None ran away?" Harano couldn’t make sense of it. He hadn’t sent anyone to guard them; logically, they should’ve scattered days ago. Why hadn’t they? Did they need him to throw them a farewell party or what before they’d leave?

"Of course not!" Ah Man was a bit surprised by his reaction, but she was used to his weirdness by now, so she said bluntly, "And why would they run? You’re their master now!"

"I’m their... master?" Harano thought about it and realized it was true. He started feeling the headache coming on and hesitated, "Didn’t they think about going home?"

"Their homes have been burned down. There’s nothing to eat if they go back. Without you, they’d only starve to death—most of them wouldn’t even survive this winter." Ah Man’s look got weirder and weirder. "What on earth are you thinking? Hurry up and take them with you home!"

Harano was speechless. In times like these, trying to do a good deed is really damn hard—he’d only acted on a sudden kindness, didn’t want these innocent civilians to die or get trafficked, and now he’d ended up stuck with all of them.

Is he supposed to be responsible for marrying them off and finding them jobs before it counts as "sending the Buddha all the way to the Western Heaven"?

But now that things were at this point, he couldn’t just say, "Let’s leave them to fend for themselves in Nagano Castle"—that would just be inhuman. Besides, you can’t do good deeds by halves. So he could only hold in his frustration and gesture to Ah Man, Ah Qing and the Momoi brothers to go fetch the people, then head home and figure it all out later.

What a rotten world—things are so bad, but doing good just keeps getting harder! Makes no sense at all!

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?!

He was busy ranting to himself when soon enough the group was brought over by Ah Man and the others. Ah Man even dutifully did a headcount, making sure not a single one of the eighty-nine was missing—thirty kan worth, that could trade for fifteen donkeys, the equivalent of seven and a half Yayoi’s worth of "cargo." Not a loss! She finally relaxed a bit.

Harano took a look at the group, faces full of fear, none daring to look at him directly. Shaking his head, he ordered them to follow behind the ox cart, then turned his horse to lead the way home. Yet the farther he went, the more he felt his own head expanding—like he’d turned into the stuff of legends: the super sucker!