When Chen Mo wakes up, he is lying in a mass grave. His body is covered in festering sores, and his fever is over 40 degrees.
He remembers being a fifth-year student at Huada Medical University's School of Clinical Medicine. He studied medicine for five years, but has already forgotten half of what he learned. What he cannot remember is how he ended up in the late Eastern Han dynasty, where there are no antibiotics, no scalpels, and not even clean water.
Then he meets Zhang Jiao, the Taiping cult leader who “treats illnesses” with talisman water. Zhang Jiao says he does not want to be emperor. He wants a world where no one ever has to eat another person again.
The day Zhang Jiao coughs up blood, Chen Mo takes his pulse for a long time before saying, “I know what illness you have, but I can’t cure it.”
Zhang Jiao is not disappointed. “If I can live one more day, that’s enough.”
Later, Zhang Jiao dies. Chen Mo studied medicine for five years, yet he cannot save even one life.
This is the story of an ordinary medical student struggling to hold on in a time of chaos. No golden finger. Just one person, a pair of hands, and a mind that forgets, makes mistakes, and sometimes has no idea what to do. But he refuses to give up.
The heavens are dead. Let the Way of Medicine rise.
