When the other person spoke, his left hand rested atop his right, gently clasped together. This was the fist salute, the fist salute! The standard greeting ritual of ancient China!

Peter Bolton had seen it before in TV dramas! Back in high school, during a year when a plague was spreading, some people in society even tried to promote this gesture to avoid spreading viruses through handshakes!

This finally made his heart, which had been plummeting, touch the bottom of the abyss. It wasn’t ten thousand fathoms deep—at most, two or three thousand.

Although he had traveled through time, at least he was still in China, on Earth, and the people he encountered should be Han Chinese. He hadn’t ended up on some alien planet with no connection to himself, nor had he run into headhunter tribes or cannibals!

“Disai ke kou shou hang... (Master, are you hurt?)” Seeing that Peter Bolton’s behavior had finally become a bit more normal, the man in the black round cap lowered his head from horseback, eyeing Peter Bolton’s clothes as he continued to ask loudly.

It was still like a chicken talking to a duck, but the man’s expression and actions made Peter Bolton believe he meant no harm. Struggling to sit up a bit straighter, Peter Bolton placed his left hand over his right and gently clasped them together. “I’m fine! Thank you!”

The man in the black round cap didn’t understand what he was saying, but he did see the fist salute clearly. A friendly smile immediately bloomed on his travel-worn face. “￥@#Disai￥#@##&％￥... (Great, the master is alright)”

This sentence wasn’t directed at Peter Bolton, but at the blue round cap beside him and those with cloth headscarves. As soon as he finished speaking, except for the two who remained on horseback to keep watch along the mountain path, everyone else jumped off their mounts and hurried over to Peter Bolton, working together to help him up.

“I’m fine, really. Just exhausted, I’ll be okay after a rest!” Not used to being cared for, Peter Bolton blushed and waved his hand. However, the people with cloth headscarves probably didn’t understand a word he said. They just kept supporting him under his armpits and on his back, forcibly dragging him up from the ground.

“Hiss—” The sudden movement tugged at the wound on his thigh, making Peter Bolton suck in a sharp breath.

That sound was more effective than any polite words before. The people with cloth headscarves immediately slowed down. The guy in the blue round cap dashed over to his own horse in a few quick steps. As he turned, two short flaps on the back of his cap bounced up and down, looking just like rabbit ears.

“Pfft...” Peter Bolton barely managed not to laugh out loud, quickly shifting his gaze from the back of the blue round cap’s head to the people with cloth headscarves beside him.

The people with cloth headscarves all wore grayish-blue long robes, right-lapped, and reaching below the knee. This discovery made him feel even more at ease.

As a liberal arts student, Peter Bolton remembered Confucius’s saying, “If not for Guan Zhong, I would be wearing my hair loose and my robe left-lapped!” Not because he had any particular Han chauvinist sentiment, but because his scant historical knowledge told him that in ancient times, agrarian civilizations had more food, better hygiene, and at least some herbal medicine for illnesses, rather than just bloodletting or shamanic rituals.

However, less than twenty seconds later, his happiness faded.

The blue round cap took a gourd from under his saddle, pulled out the stopper, and poured a kind of earth-gray powder into his own left palm.

Just as Peter Bolton was wondering what that earth-gray powder was, the blue round cap had already plugged the gourd, hurried back to his side, lowered his head, and spat twice onto the powder—“ptooey, ptooey!”—then, with lightning speed, smeared the mixture of spit and powder onto his wound!

“Ah—” Peter Bolton cried out and tried to dodge, his vision going black again. Not from pain, but from the other man’s actions.

Dodging was useless! Four people with cloth headscarves held him firmly, more than enough to counteract the little strength he’d just regained. In the next instant, the scent of medicinal powder and the stench of bad breath rushed into his nostrils at the same time.

“He’s treating my wound, he’s treating my wound! He means well, he means well! In ancient times, the land was vast and the population sparse, no infectious diseases, no infectious diseases! Don’t hit the doctor—people who hit doctors have kids with no assholes!” Peter Bolton tried hard to calm himself, to keep from raising his fist and punching the man treating his wound.

“Shang@#*&...％! (Just a minor wound, it’s nothing)” The well-meaning blue round cap doctor had no idea his nose had almost been flattened by his patient. He used his dirty fingers to touch each of Peter Bolton’s three wounds, loudly giving his assessment.

“It’s fine, really, just a flesh wound, just a flesh wound!” Peter Bolton got goosebumps all over from being touched, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

The blue round cap doctor didn’t understand him, nor did he pay attention. His gaze was fixed on the area near the wound, unwilling to move an inch.

“Please, take a break, let me do it myself, I’ll do it myself!” Fearing the doctor would try some new trick on his wound, Peter Bolton quickly lowered his voice and pleaded.

The blue round cap doctor still ignored his plea, once again slowly reaching out with his dirty fingers to gently stroke the area near the wound, as if caressing a priceless treasure.