Chapter 86 — The Medicine Bearer Through the Chaos

In the Besieged City

Ten days have passed since the first attack, and just as Ve Khai Ze predicted, the Northern Dich army has no intention of retreating. Instead, Great Khan Truy Phong ordered his troops to set up camps to surround the entire capital of Yen Phung, cutting off all supply routes from the outside, turning the war from fierce attacks into a long, slow but no less brutal siege.

Inside the city walls, people's lives began to change markedly. Rice prices have skyrocketed day by day, the once bustling markets now have only a few stalls with exorbitant prices, while the stream of refugees from the suburbs is increasingly $1 into makeshift camps hastily set up around squares and courtyards. Tinh Yen, every time I pass by those camps on the way to the first aid stations, I can't help but remember Ben Lau refugee camp, even the last days in Nghinh Phong before the epidemic broke out.

"Every day I find this scene more and more frighteningly familiar." She told Ngan Ba Thuyen, when the two went to inspect a newly built camp near the South gate, where hundreds of people were crowded in a tight space, with only a few common water wells serving thousands of mouths to feed.

"I understand your concern." Ngan Ba Thuyen replied, his eyes scanning the camp area with the pensive look of someone with decades of experience. "But this is the capital, not a small border citadel. The sewer system and water reserves here are much better than Nghinh Phong."

"Better doesn't mean absolutely safe." Tinh Yen replied, observing more closely how people were drawing water from a common well, a few children mischievously dropped their hands into the water without washing them first, while not far away, a family was pouring domestic wastewater into a small ditch not far from the source of the well.

She stopped, looked more closely at a child sitting on the side of the road, her face pale, eyes dull and lifeless, and immediately, a familiar premonition arose in her heart - the premonition that had warned her about the July epidemic many years ago, when she was a fifteen-year-old girl standing next to Mrs. Khue.

"Let me see this child." She said, kneeling next to him and placing her hand on the baby's forehead. Its skin was extremely hot, and when she asked the mother who was holding it, she learned that the child had had continuous diarrhea for the past two days, accompanied by a high fever that would not go away.

"This may just be a single case of illness caused by unhygienic food." Ngan Ba Thuyen said, although his voice could not hide the caution. "But do you think this is a sign of something bigger?"

"I don't dare say for sure." Tinh Yen replied, stood up, her eyes looked around the crowded camp. "But this symptom, the way it started, is exactly like what we saw in Coconut Creek the year the July epidemic started — high fever, diarrhea, rapid dehydration. If the water here really has been contaminated, even in a small way, with this dense population in the middle of a siege, the consequences could be worse than anything we've ever faced."

She immediately reported this concern to Kinh Ba Van and another veteran royal physician in the hospital - Linh Ho Ba Tuyen, who has been in charge of the infectious disease section of the Royal Hospital for many years. He is an older man with a stern appearance, always proud of the orthodox medical background he was trained in.

"A single case is not enough for us to close or re-treat the entire water well system of the entire South gate area." Linghu Baquan said, his voice somewhat annoyed at what he considered an excessive panic. "You just examined a child, based on a so-called hunch from an epidemic that occurred in a remote fishing village many years ago, and dare to conclude that there is a risk of an epidemic breaking out in the capital?"

"I can't come to a certain conclusion, sir." Tinh Yen replied, trying to keep her voice calm even though she clearly felt the contempt in his words. "I just ask that we be more careful right now — temporarily quarantine areas with cases, boil water before using, dig more wastewater drainage ditches away from the well source. These measures do not cost much effort, but if you are right, they can save thousands of lives."

"Oral folk methods do not have a solid theoretical foundation." Linghu Baquan waved his hand, his voice full of superiority. "The Imperial Hospital has its own protocol for handling epidemics, based on official medical books that have been proven over many generations. I'm not opposed to being cautious, but I also won't let a young medical doctor upset the entire system just because of a vague hunch."

Kinh Ba Van, standing in the middle of the debate, pondered for a moment before speaking. "Medical Doctor Linghu has his own reasons, but Doctor Do was also right in the past, when no official process believed her." He said, his voice conciliatory. "I allow you to apply preventative measures in the South Gate camp alone, under your own supervision, as a limited test. If the situation worsens, I will expand the measures to the entire city immediately."

That was not the comprehensive support Tinh Yen wanted, but it was enough for her to immediately take action. She mobilized Nhuoc Lan, Ton Ba Nghi and a few volunteers in the camp area, teaching them how to boil water before drinking, how to dig drainage ditches far from the well, and how to recognize early signs of illness to immediately report to the nearest ambulance station.

In the evening, when the initial prevention work was temporarily stable, Tinh Yen sat back in a small temporary tent set up right in the middle of the camp area, without taking his eyes off the Bach Thao Chan Sutra open in front of him, looking for Lieu Nguyen's notes on the remedies to clear heat, detoxify, and stop diarrhea that he once taught. Next to those old pages, she placed a small notebook of her own, where she wrote down all the folk lessons Mrs. Khue once taught - how to use young guava leaves, mangosteen peel, and roasted rice water to stop diarrhea in young children when there is not enough precious medicine.

"Two seemingly different paths, now we must walk together towards the same destination." She whispered to herself, her fingers skimming through the pages, clearly feeling the invisible presence of both teachers who had guided her life, even though both were no longer around to witness this moment.

That night, the sound of rain began to patter on the roof of the tent, a rare late-season rain amid the sultry days of the siege. Tinh Yen sat quietly listening to the sound of rain, both hoping it would help relieve the stifling heat in the camps, and fearing it would make the ground even more muddy, creating conditions for pathogens to silently multiply in the dark, waiting for the opportunity to break out into a real storm.

Near morning, when the rain had completely stopped, Ton Ba Nghi came to her tent, his face clearly showing fatigue after a night of non-stop patrolling. "Doctor Do, I just went around the entire camp as you instructed." He reported. "There were three other cases of young children who also started showing similar signs of fever and diarrhea last night, although not as severe as the first case."

Tinh Yen's heart sank at that news, even though it partly confirmed what she feared. "Take me to them now." She said, quickly putting on a coat and carrying the medicine bag out of the tent amid the morning mist that still covered the path.

The three children, when closely examined, all had one thing in common — their families all got their water from the same well near the sewage ditch she discovered the day before. That coincidence further reinforced her suspicions about the source of the pollution, but at the same time gave her a small bit of comfort - if the source of infection was correctly identified, localization and containment would be much more feasible than a widespread epidemic of unknown origin like the July epidemic last year.

"From now on, no one in this camp can get water from that well anymore." She gave a decisive order, appointing a guard right at the mouth of the well, and at the same time dug a new well in a location farther from the drainage ditch, under the close supervision of Ton Ba Nghi and a few soldiers sent to support.

She also immediately sent someone to bring a water sample from the suspected well to Thai Y Vien, asking Ngan Ba Thuyen to carefully check it with traditional methods - observing the color, smell, and letting it settle overnight to see if there was any unusual dirt or not. The results, although they could not be proven by the orthodox medical theories that Linghu Baquan still believed in, were enough to clearly show signs of pollution - a cloudy layer of sediment settling at the bottom of the jar after one night, a slight foul odor passing through when boiling.

"You were right." Ngan Ba Thuyen said, his voice serious, as the two stood in front of a water sample bottle under the light of an oil lamp in the institute's small laboratory. "I will report back to the Prime Minister tomorrow morning, suggesting that preventive measures be expanded to all areas with similar water sources in the city, before it is too late."

Tinh Yen nodded, but in her heart there was no feeling of relief of someone who had just been proven right. Instead, there was only a heavy worry left - because she knew that discovering the origin was only the first step, and ahead, if the pathogen had spread further than what they had just localized, another war, silent but no less cruel, might have begun smoldering right under the heart of the capital, which was bracing itself against the outside siege.