A divine healer, a general, a young marquis! Who can rival them!

That night, the wind was fierce.

Before midnight, there was a loud knocking at the door of Yang's shop.

Upon opening the door, a man carrying someone on his back was seen, his forehead covered in sweat. "Dr. Yang, please help! My father has been struggling to breathe all night, and he's about to pass out!"

Yang Hu hurriedly led the person inside and sat him down. He placed him half-sitting on a chair with his back stiff and his head tilted back. He was panting heavily, his breathing sounding like a bellows, each breath so laborious. His face was purplish-blue, his mouth and fingers were bluish-black, and his whole body was heaving with each breath.

"This illness has been going on for years. I get wheezing in the winter, but it's never been this bad before," the man cried. "But this time it's really serious. Two doctors in the city have seen us and said it's like we've run out of breath and are about to die. They told us... told us to prepare for the worst."

As the man spoke, tears welled in his eyes. "My father suffered so much. The old man was panting like this on his deathbed, enduring so much pain. The doctors in the city all said they couldn't save him and told us to prepare for his funeral. But I just couldn't bear to part with him. So, in the middle of the night, I carried him all over the city asking around. I heard there was a doctor named Yang in the east of the city who was very skilled and treated the poor. That's why I shamelessly came to your door late at night."

Yang Hu squatted down, listened to the old man's chest, felt his pulse, and glanced at his tongue. He then asked, "Do you get very short of breath when you catch a chill? Do you have trouble breathing when you lie down in bed? Is your phlegm thin and white?"

The old man, panting, nodded with difficulty, and the phlegm in his throat rolled back out again.

I felt more confident.

This isn't some kind of exhaustion or gasping for breath; it's because the old phlegm in my lungs was forced out by the cold of midwinter, blocking my airways and causing this wheezing. The ancients called this asthma. When it's cold and you have a mouthful of thin, white phlegm, it's called cold asthma. It's the cold and phlegm blocking the airways. Once the cold is dispelled and the phlegm is expelled, the airways clear, and the wheezing stops.

"It's not shortness of breath," Yang Hu said in a deep voice. "It's old phlegm in the lungs that's being forced out by the cold air, blocking the airways. Once the cold air is dissipated and the phlegm is cleared up, the shortness of breath will subside."

The people who gathered around were skeptical. This young man was panting heavily, his face was turning blue, and he looked like he was about to pass out. Both doctors in the city said there was no hope, so how could this young man say he could recover? It didn't sound like the truth at all.

"Really good?" the man asked incredulously.

Yang Hu didn't waste any time: "Alright, Uncle, sit down, sit down. Don't rush, breathe evenly, don't get more and more breathless!" After saying that, he found a few silver needles and moxa wool, and inserted them into the Dingchuan and Feishu acupoints on the old man's back and chest, and then lit the moxa. The technique of inserting the silver needles was very steady, and the old man only felt a "hissing" warmth starting to spread in his back.

"Hey! What's going on? He's already panting like that, and you're putting moxibustion and hot stuff on his body?" the people around him murmured.

"You can't suppress it. His breathing isn't hot, it's cold. If you suppress it, it's like adding insult to injury, making his cold breath even worse, harder, and freezing the phlegm. Warm things will help him open up that cold breath and let it out."

Aji, who was helping out nearby, found it amusing and couldn't help but ask after returning, "Master, what's the reason behind this panting?"

"Take a chimney in winter as an example," Yang Hu said. "When there's a fire in the stove, white smoke should be billowing from the chimney, rising straight up. But if the chimney is frozen by the cold and has accumulated a thick layer of ash, the smoke won't rise easily and will all accumulate inside the stove. So the fire roars and shoots straight up, just like the chimney is sealed shut. His lungs are like that sealed chimney in winter, frozen by the cold and blocked by phlegm, so he can't breathe properly and his throat is making a gurgling sound. When we use moxibustion, hot compresses, and phlegm-clearing methods, we're actually warming up the frozen, blocked chimney little by little, opening it up."

Aji seemed to understand but not quite, but he kept the idea of ​​"heating the chimney" in mind. He looked back at how his master listened to the rattling phlegm, what kind of phlegm he saw and what kind of asthma it was, and how he deduced from "wheezing when cold" that it was cold asthma... After following Dr. Yang for several years, Aji felt more and more that the knowledge in medicine was really profound.

After the acupuncture was finished, he drank some soup, and had a hot compress applied for about half an hour. The gurgling sounds in the old man's throat gradually subsided, his bluish-purple face regained some color, his mouth warmed up, and his shoulders slumped down. A little while later, he let out a long, smooth breath and was able to lie back in the chair.

"I lay down... I can lie here..." the old man murmured, tears streaming from his cloudy eyes.

The man knelt down with a thud and began kowtowing repeatedly to Yang Hu. "Thank you so much, Doctor Yang! If it weren't for you saving my father in the middle of the night, he would be dead!"

Yang Hu then went on to explain in detail how to prevent illness and protect the lungs, emphasizing the importance of keeping warm, avoiding exposure to cold and wind, and following the prescription to treat the latent phlegm in the lungs so that it wouldn't be so terrible if it flared up. The man's family ran a vegetable stall and struggled to make ends meet, so Yang Hu only charged them for the medicine; nighttime house calls and acupuncture were not charged.

Just as dawn was breaking, the man was about to take out the few coins he had left in his house when Yang Hu stopped him. Before leaving, the old man, leaning on his son's arm, turned back to look at Yang Hu, bowed deeply to him, and his cloudy eyes were filled with indescribable gratitude.

After hearing this story, the two old doctors who had been diagnosed with "asthma collapse and should prepare for their funeral" dared not leave their homes for many days. All the people in the city who used canes and suffered from asthma every winter spoke highly of Yang's family in the east of the city. Those in the city who suffered from asthma every winter and had been deemed "hopeless" by the doctors all came to Yang's house in the east of the city seeking treatment, hearing that he could save people from asthma collapse even in the dead of night.

After all the commotion lasted until late at night, and they finally saw the man off, their backyard was already ablaze with burning coals.

Lu Yan helped him put on his outer robe, then handed him a cup of hot tea, her eyes full of concern. She said with heartache, "It's the middle of the night, and someone's banging on the door and waking you up. It's another family that's already struggling to cope. You've really had a hard time, young master!"

"When patients come to me in the middle of the night, they're entrusting their lives to me." Yang Hu took the cup of hot tea, took a sip to warm his hands, and said, "I won't hold it against them for sleeping a little longer and saving one less life."

"What's wrong?" Lu Yan noticed that his expression was off and asked.

"It's nothing." Yang Hu put down the tea in his hand, smiled at her, and said, "You go and rest first. I have a few words to say to Liu Ye and Qin Ying."

How could Lu Yan not understand what was on his mind? Judging from his expression, there must be some new developments regarding their affairs in the west of the city.

She didn't ask any further questions, but silently replaced the cup of tea that had gone cold, added more embers to the fire, and then left.

Lu Rou helped the old man leave the last bowl of soup and cleaned up. Liu Ye had just returned to the courtyard, her whole body was a little cold. She walked to Yang Hu's side, leaned close to his ear and told him about the movements she had observed outside the abandoned manor in the north of the city that night.

Yang Hu slowly stopped holding the teacup.

The lamplight was dim yet warm, but his brows were furrowed with tension. The lives they had saved late at night in the eastern part of the city were simply the duty of doctors, the very foundation of their livelihood in this courtyard. But the hands in the abandoned manor in the north of the city seemed even busier and more anxious tonight than they had in the past few days.

It's about to make its move!