"Zhuren doesn't have a golden core because my sister, the best doctor in China, cut it out and implanted it in Sect Leader Jiang after Sect Leader Jiang had his golden core destroyed by a cultivator who can destroy golden cores." The teenage boy says this with obvious pride. 

What the FLAMING POOP does that even MEAN and why would you do that to someone even if it were possible has this entire world heard of the concept of medical ethics Merrin is not going to ask right now. She has enough concerns on her mental stack. Until she finds a tidier way to chunk them, she's not going to hurry to add any more. 

Merrin takes a deep breath. 

"Um. Right. I...see why that's important to know for his medical treatment. Although it doesn't actually change my plan very much because where I'm from that's all true of everyone. Anyway. I - am gathering that it's a secret, that he doesn't have a golden core, and so he's been - going along like he doesn't need to eat or sleep, but that's going to cause exactly the same problems it would for a normal non-cultivator person?" 

She considers asking if they can just get his sister, who is apparently the best doctor in...wherever 'China' is...but she has also apparently never heard of the concept of basic ethics and has in fact done something horrible to Wei Wuxian specifically, and Merrin is not at all sure she wants to let someone like that near her patient. Any of her patients. But especially the one whose entire problem was apparently his sister's fault. 

"Please don't tell Sect Leader Jiang! It would destroy him to know that zhuren had made that kind of sacrifice for him, he always feels like he has to be responsible for his own achievements. --Most of the time this humble one makes sure he eats and sleeps and boils his water, but this humble one had-- duties-- elsewhere." 

"....Wait, does this 'Sect Leader Jiang' not...know...that your sister did this? It seems - hard to miss." 

"Mistress Foreigner, we told him one of the immortals-- people with cultivation so powerful they can't die-- gave him a new golden core."

Merrin is of the opinion that actually this is an EVEN WORSE violation of - not even just medical ethics, it's just - what - why would you do that and if you were going to do that why would you LIE - 

Maybe it makes more sense in context but she's somehow not feeling very hopeful about that. 

"All right. I am not going to run off and tell him right now because whether or not that should have happened, it did happen, and it doesn't sound like more chaos is really what we need right now. Although I do want to say that in my world that would be a horrifying abuse of medical professional standards and I'm not impressed." 

She takes another deep breath. Merrin prides herself on her ability to rapidly orient and handle even the most bizarre situations, and this is sorely trying her skills. 

"Are the corpses or the demonic resentful energy thing going to present any complications to his medical treatment that I have to worry about in the short term, or can I ignore that for now and treat him as though he's a perfectly normal non-cultivator person who made some questionable life choices." 

"This unintelligent one thinks he's like an ordinary non-cultivator, Mistress Foreigner? --Do you use needles and incense and herbs in medicine where you're from? If you don't have qi, medicine might be different."

"I think medicine is really different, yeah. We - use needles for some things but - not just needles by themselves, they're for administering drugs, which I don't have. I am guessing the herbs are medicinal and might serve a similar purpose to drugs I know but I'm not familiar with them. I don't have the faintest idea what to do with the incense or the random stones. Unless one of them is salt. I considered licking them all to check but then I did not do that. How long until the water's boiled? And did you find sugar?" 

"The stones are for scraping across the skin to balance qi? --I think the water is almost boiled, Mistress Foreigner, and I stole some sugar from the Jin supply train, the young masters like it in their tea."

"Okay."

Right now it is not her top priority to find out why there's no better way of getting medically-required supplies than stealing them, although Merrin makes a mental note to ask more about the local infrastructure and legal system.

"If it's not easy to get salt I guess that'll do for now. Once that's ready - and the water is cooled down a bit - I want to try to wake him and get him to drink it, he's really dehydrated right now. And then he's going to need food, something easy to swallow, but that can wait a bit longer. ...You didn't answer my other question. About what's going on here. I - noticed a lot of old injuries, when I was examining him, and right now I still have no explanation for why. If we're likely to be in danger while he's recovering then that seems important for me to know." 

"This slave can make zhuren congee, if that would help? --I got salt from the supply train as well, that was easier to get." The boy swallows nervously. "We're in the middle of the Sunshot Campaign, where the Nie, Lan, Jin, and Jiang clans and their allies are making war on the Wen clan and its allies."

"Oh, good, perfect. Um, is there any chance you have a scale here? Normally I would do the quantities by weight. I can estimate it based on volume if I have to but it's not going to be as accurate, salt or sugar have different density depending on humidity levels and things." 

...Right. Non-medical information. This takes longer to process and Merrin is a lot less happy about it. She checks on Wei Wuxian while she's thinking; gauging whether his skin is any warmer, and checking his pulse and observing his breathing for any change, don't require much working memory. 

"...I don't know what any of those clans are or what your relation is to them. Or - to him, actually, we haven't done proper introductions. I don't know if that's immediately relevant. My name is Merrin." 

Wei Wuxian is a little bit warmer and starting to make whimpering noises and move his fingers a little bit. A nice thing about teenagers is that they do bounce back very quickly from their bad decisions.

He unburies a scale from under some robes, scraps of paper, and chunks of gold. "Mistress Foreigner, this humble one is Wen Ning, of the Wen clan of Qishan. The Sunshot Campaign captured this useless one as a prisoner of war. It's-- a little more complicated than that, but that's more or less this useless one's position. This unintelligent one was Wei Wuxian's personal servant. Or-- this unintelligent one was? Before this humble one was transferred to logistics. --Is that your clan name, Mistress Foreigner?"

Prisoner of war. Aaaaaaaaaaah??? 

"Merrin is my personal name. I don't think we really have clans." She accepts the scale and thanks him and starts folding some of the scraps of paper into makeshift cups to measure out salt and sugar. "Show me how big your container of water is? Thank you. Um, can you keep giving him qi while I do this? I think it's helping." 

Estimating the volume of said container and then calculating the appropriate, very-roughly-approximated weight of salt and sugar for the concentration she wants - she has to use her necklace as calibration for the scale, which has completely different units - takes all of her concentration for about a minute, but from there it's just busywork, filling her makeshift paper cups a tiny bit at a time until the weight is right, and then dumping and mixing. The water is still much too hot for drinking, but this is if anything helpful for dissolving solutes in it. 

And she can multitask while she does that. "....Listen, um, Wen Ning. While he's still out and we have privacy, I - have to ask - are you all right? Are you in danger here? Is Wei Wuxian - or anyone else in the camp - hurting you?" 

"You have to have a clan, Mistress Foreigner, or no one will know how to be polite to you!" He holds Wei Wuxian's hand and seems noticeably more comfortable now that he's doing that. "Zhuren would never hurt this useless one, Mistress Foreigner, and he tries to keep this useless one safe from the others in the camp. This humble one is very happy to be here with zhuren."

"...That's good. I'm glad."

Merrin spends a few seconds considering whether he might still be too afraid to tell her the truth, if he were being mistreated, and decides that she believes him. He - definitely gives off the impression of being someone who has had some intensely traumatic experiences, given the air of constant anxiety that he radiates, but he also seems very attached to Wei Wuxian, and more relaxed when near him.

"I don't - hmm. I...guess you could say I'm from the dath ilan clan. But it's not - the same world as where we are now, I'm pretty sure. We have more material wealth - a lot more - and we don't have, um, inter-clan conflicts, but we also don't have cultivators. Or, what did you call them - fierce corpses." 

She stirs the water some more. Checks its temperature against the inside of her wrist. "- All right. I'm going to see if he wakes up more with enough stimulation. He probably isn't going to be very happy with me about it and he might be confused or disoriented about where he is, so - stay right where you are. He knows you and he doesn't know me." 

She carefully sets down the container of water out of her way, and then kneels by the bundle of blankets. She checks his pulse again - maybe a little steadier, hard to tell - and then reaches under the blanket and drags her knuckles along his sternum, hard, and SHOUTS. "Wei Wuxian! Wake up!"

Merrin keeps her other hand firmly planted on his shoulder, in case he goes straight from unconscious to fighting her, which would be pretty understandable. She always feels really terrible about doing this. 

Wei Wuxian looks up, sees an unfamiliar face, whistles three notes, and then Merrin has been GRABBED by a fierce corpse and SHOVED to the ground. 

"Who the fuck are you and what the hell are you doing in my tent?"

....This is a novel experience for Merrin but is not, actually, the scariest thing that Merrin has ever faced while treating a patient. She didn't realize the corpses could do that! It's unsettling but also honestly very impressive! 

She holds extremely still and is very glad that she set the precious hand-mixed oral rehydration solution far out of the way. "Please try to relax," she says calmly. You're very ill and you collapsed. I'm - a doctor," not exactly true but best to go with simple explanations when talking to confused patients, "Wen Ning brought me here to treat you. Wen Ning, can you tell him what's going on." 

"It's all right, zhuren, she's a doctor, she's here to help."

"Ningning! Are you all right-- if the Jin clan touched you I am going to rip them all apart, I do not care--"

"No one touched me, zhuren-- uh, some of the Jin clan tried to take liberties but I told them I was yours--"

"Good. You're mine and no one else is allowed to touch you."

He is very angry and, relatedly, about to collapse into unconsciousness again.

That is not going to help with anything. 

"Wen Ning, keep talking to him - tell him to take deep breaths and that we need to help him sit up a little to drink something." Is the fierce corpse going to let her move now. 

"Oh, right." Wei Wuxian whistles again and the fierce corpse lets Merrin up and meanders outside.