The Genius Doctor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 19

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 19
Dunford was hardly a major city.
Just a fringe town they’d happened to pass through.
Yet the fact that someone of such keen intellect existed in this provincial backwater seemed impossible to believe.
Allen pressed on with his directives, leaving William’s shock in his wake.
“Fortunately, he’s still breathing. We need to move him quickly.”
“I’ll carry him! Let me run—”
“No.”
Allen cut him off without hesitation.
“If you carry him on your back, his legs hang down. That means gravity pulls the blood into his lower body. With such low blood pressure, that’s fatal. There won’t be enough blood reaching his heart and brain, and it’ll stop again.”
“Ah…!”
William let out a ragged breath at his own ignorance.
Seven years of medical apprenticeship, countless dissections, volumes of study—and yet standing before the threshold of life and death, he was nothing but a frog in a well, a truth that cut to the bone.
“We need a stretcher. I’ll watch the patient. Go find two sturdy, long wooden poles.”
William ran without delay and returned with the poles.
The two men stripped off their coats, threaded them between the poles, and assembled a makeshift stretcher.
They laid Fred upon it with swift, careful movements.
“Prop something under his legs—his feet need to be higher than his head so blood pools in the vital organs.”
William peeled off his own shirt, rolled it tightly, and wedged it beneath his friend’s heels.
Both men gripped the front and back of the stretcher and heaved to their feet.
“Into town.”
“Where should we go?”
“The clinic where I work. Follow me.”
They charged toward the heart of Dunford.
They had no time for the stares of curious passersby.
At last they reached a small, two-story house tucked into a quiet alley and came to a halt.
Bang!
Allen shoved through the door violently.
Edward, who had been sitting peacefully in the clinic reading, startled at the sudden commotion and dropped his book to the floor.
“Good heavens! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?!”
Edward clutched his chest and hurriedly retrieved the book.
Though he tried to hide it, William caught a clear glimpse of the cover.
*The Duchess’s Fifty Shades*
“Could you possibly enter a bit more… decorously? And what, pray tell, is that stretcher doing here?”
Leaving Edward’s alarmed gaze behind, Allen spoke curtly while ascending the stairs.
“Emergency patient. I’ll explain later.”
Once upstairs, Allen laid the patient swiftly on his own bed.
Fred’s neck, face, and limbs remained grotesquely swollen, like balloons stretched taut.
“Bring me cold, wet cloths.”
At Allen’s firm command, William bolted down the stairs at once.
He met Edward standing below with an anxious expression and bowed apologetically.
“I apologize for the intrusion.”
“What on earth has happened?”
“My friend collapsed suddenly. The physician here saved his life.”
“What could have caused him to collapse in such a state?”
“I’m… not entirely certain myself.”
The two men regarded each other with bewilderment.
Edward sighed and shook his head.
“Well, we’ll save him first and ask questions later. I own this house, so if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you. But who is that man upstairs?”
“My medical apprentice.”
“……?”
William’s mind reeled.
That someone wielding medicine like a divine art was merely an apprentice—impossible.
Yet he quickly remembered his duty and sprang into action.
When he returned upstairs with the cold, wet cloths, Allen was examining Fred’s condition intently.
He was feeling the carotid artery, quietly gauging the blood pressure.
‘I can feel it at the carotid, but the radial artery is still faint. Systolic pressure barely reaches eighty. Still critical.’

William stood transfixed, overwhelmed by Allen’s unflinching composure.
Allen caught the sound of movement and gestured for assistance.
“Bring me a cold compress.”
Allen draped the cloth across Fred’s neck and shoulders.
The cold would constrict the blood vessels, reducing the swelling in the airway even if only slightly.
William sank down beside him, his strength depleted.
His friend still hovered between life and death, each breath shallow and precarious.
‘Fred….’
If he hadn’t chosen to stay in Dunford, would this have never happened?
Guilt crashed over him like a tide, but before he could surrender to it, something else demanded his attention—gratitude.
Only now did it strike him that in his panic, he’d forgotten the most basic courtesy.
“I….”

William forced the words through.
“Sir, I cannot thank you enough. You saved my friend’s life… I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
Allen offered a faint smile, though his eyes remained grave.
There were still too many hurdles ahead to declare him truly saved.
“The problem is the brain.”
“The brain?”
“I began Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation the moment his heart stopped, but there was a gap before circulation normalized. During that time, the brain was starved of blood flow. I can’t say how much damage it sustained.”
William realized that Allen’s perspective reached far deeper and further than his own—there was no comparison between them.

‘While I clung to his pulse, this man was already looking ahead to complications and prognosis.’
As an aspiring surgeon, he felt a profound sense of inadequacy, but at the same time, an indescribable curiosity bloomed within him.
“What caused my friend to end up like this in the first place?”
“I can’t be certain, but most likely bee venom.”
“A bee sting alone could do this to a person?”
“Some people have an abnormally heightened sensitivity to certain substances. When exposed to a trigger like bee venom, their body mounts a violent, systemic rejection response—and that produces this sort of catastrophe.”

Allen fell silent for a moment, thinking, then added:
“Does your friend frequently suffer from hives, or does he have asthma?”
William shuddered and nodded.
“Yes, he has asthma. How did you….”
“I see.”
Despite displaying such extraordinary insight, Allen remained unmoved.
Looking at him, William felt himself spinning into a daze.
‘What kind of place is Dunford?’

A city where talent of this caliber merely apprenticed.
Were all the surgeons here monsters of skill?
Or had he been so provincial in his origins that he’d never even known medicine had advanced this far?
William stared at Allen intently.
The chestnut-haired young man continued to watch over his patient’s breathing, his expression serene and detached.
* * *
Fred regained consciousness only as evening deepened into dusk.
The moment his eyes opened, the first person he sought was William, and William, grasping his friend’s frail hand, finally released the tears he’d been holding back.
The grotesque swelling had subsided considerably; now only a mild puffiness remained.
“My chest… it hurts so much.”
Each time Fred coughed, his brow furrowed in agony.
When William lifted his shirt, dark bruising covered his chest in sickly blue patches.
“You probably fractured a rib or two.”
“Did I thrash about that badly?”
“No. Those are the marks from when your heart stopped and I had to compress your chest to bring you back.”
“You did that?”
William shook his head bitterly.
Just then, as if by design, Allen opened the door and stepped into the room.
“You’ve come to.”
He’d heard Fred stir at the sound of William’s name and deliberately excused himself to give the two friends a moment to reunite.
“This man saved you.”
William indicated Allen as he spoke.
Fred, pale as he was, managed a faint smile and bowed his head.
“Thank you. Truly, from the bottom of my heart.”
“Think nothing of it. Your friend’s been through quite an ordeal keeping vigil.”
Allen deflected the gratitude with modest grace.
He went on to explain the diagnosis.
“His heart had stopped completely, so I had no choice but to apply considerable physical pressure. In the process, his ribs may be cracked or fractured. He’ll need absolute rest for some time.”
“…compared to having my life saved, such pain hardly matters.”
As Fred answered with difficulty, William squeezed his hand all the tighter.
Allen watched the exchange with a soft chuckle, then turned his gaze to William.
“Stay here tonight, at least. I want you to nurse your friend through the night.”
“Ah….”
William exhaled a brief sigh.
In truth, he’d accumulated a mountain of questions he wanted to ask Allen.
Whether Allen sensed this or not, he was already closing the door and stepping out of the room.
Allen descended the stairs toward the kitchen.
A faint, acrid smell of something burning drifted through the air.
Edward, sitting at the table with his chin propped on his hand, fixed Allen with an intense stare.
“He lived?”
“Yes. He’s regained consciousness.”
“Did you really revive him using that Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation technique or whatever it was?”
About a month prior, Edward had heard Allen mention the principle in passing while lecturing on the circulatory system of the human body.
Allen nodded in confirmation.
“That’s correct.”
“Extraordinary. When I first heard about it, I was skeptical—but you actually brought a cardiac arrest patient back to life.”
Edward shook his head in disbelief.
“Master, the more I know you, the stranger you seem. It’s as though you don’t belong to this age at all.”
“The principle itself is simple. Since one cannot squeeze the heart directly by hand, we apply force over the rib cage to force the blood to circulate artificially.”
“It’s so straightforward—I can’t fathom why no one thought of it before now.”
Edward shifted in his seat, grumbling.
“You haven’t even eaten supper, have you? You must be starving.”
“Now that you mention it, I am rather hungry.”
“I displayed a bit of skill, so let’s see if it tastes any good.”
Allen’s expression darkened the moment he saw the pot.
He knew Edward’s culinary abilities better than anyone else, and the source of the burnt smell became immediately apparent to him.
* * *
The next morning.
Fred had fortunately recovered enough strength to walk with assistance.
With bandages wrapped tightly around his chest, he stood at the threshold of the clinic, leaning on William’s shoulder and repeatedly bowing his head.
“I cannot thank you enough.”
Though his chest still throbbed with pain, it was a bargain price for his life.
Moreover, Allen and Edward had refused to accept any payment for treatment.
“How could I take coin from wanderers? Go on to Kalden and achieve your dreams.”
Allen’s words left a deep resonance in the hearts of both young men.
William emerged onto the crowded streets of Dunford, matching his pace to Fred’s careful steps.
Every five steps Fred took, pain creased his brow ever so slightly.
“Will you be able to ride in a carriage?”
“Honestly… I don’t think I can manage it right now. My chest hurts too much.”
“Then let’s stay in Dunford for another week or two. Your health comes first.”
“But that will set back your medical apprenticeship journey.”
“Don’t worry about that. And….”
William glanced back at the clinic they’d just left.
“It seems there’s more I need to see and learn in this place.”
The two men returned to the Rusty Anchor, which also served as an inn, and unpacked their belongings.
Bruno, the proprietor, listened to their story and burst into hearty laughter.
“Those clinic folk are no ordinary lot! They’re the ones who saved someone with a metal tube!”
Bruno pointed to a metal tube hanging on the wall.
William stared at the metal instrument with hollow eyes.
His suspicion had been correct.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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