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

That fire!

The burning of the city made everyone uneasy.

"Things are really weird in the city these past few days..." In the backyard, Liu Ye put her hand into the charcoal brazier, still feeling the chill. "I don't know when all these unfamiliar guys appeared, checking every street and every inn, asking, asking what? Who were those people who robbed and burned cars in the north of the city the day before yesterday! Even the gates are locked tight, and the checks are ten times stricter than before!" The steward of the prefectural governor's office was so worried that he couldn't sleep for days, and sent out several teams to search the entire city.

"They also searched through several familiar inns and travel agencies in the city..." Liu Ye continued, "Anyone who came in the last few days and couldn't explain their origin was called in for questioning... I heard there's even a reward notice in the East Market for the thief who robbed and burned a car in the north of the city the night before last, and the reward is terrifying!"

Yang Hu nodded, his expression solemn.

"It's blinded by greed," he said. "Those three carts of goods are its lifeline, something it can't afford to lose... Now that the evidence has been burned and the irrefutable proof has been stolen, it can't explain itself to the prefect or the authorities in the capital. It's searching like a madman, trying to find the thieves and burn the carts before things get out of hand, and wipe them out along with that box of irrefutable proof."

"They won't come flying over our heads," Liu Da said in a simple-minded voice. "That night, our faces were covered in soot, and even the guards didn't see us clearly!"

"Though we say that, we still have to be on guard." Qin Ying sat on the windowsill, her hand holding the knife suddenly stopped, and a chill settled in her eyes.

"Now it's like a frightened bird, suspicious and paranoid, preferring to kill the innocent rather than let the guilty go free."

She looked up at Liu Ye: "You made a wasted trip to the west of the city. Those two men with swords at the entrance of the Prefectural Magistrate's Mansion both gave you a second glance... For the next few days, whatever you do, don't go there again. Whether you're buying things or just walking, take a different route, at a different time. Just don't let anyone recognize where this courtyard came from!"

"Furthermore, it doesn't have concrete evidence, so it doesn't dare to openly attack us. But it will secretly watch us, keeping an eye on where strangers have recently arrived or where strange things are being done. The more ordinary and normal we are as doctors, the less it will guess who's behind this hospital... What we fear most is that we'll panic and do something strange first, thus giving ourselves away!"

Yang Hu felt a surge of emotion. Qin Ying had served in the army, been an officer, set up ambushes, and guarded against ambushes. He understood the art of reading people and hiding one's tracks better than anyone else.

"Do as you say... These next few days, open the clinic as usual, and no one is allowed to show any abnormality. When Liu Da delivers medicine or Liu Ye goes grocery shopping, they should do so through the proper channels. When they're in crowded areas, absolutely do not act suspiciously, or it will arouse suspicion..."

The backyard fell silent for a moment, with only the crackling of sparks from the charcoal brazier.

"No matter how anxious it is, it can't rush things! Right now... it can only investigate secretly!" Yang Hu said slowly. "It dares not make a fuss, much less report it to the police. If it reports the three carts and the military equipment ledgers that were secretly used to communicate with the barbarians, it would be tantamount to exposing its crime of collusion with the enemy in public. So it can only grit its teeth and search the whole city quietly."

"The more anxious it gets, the calmer we need to be!" His gaze shifted to the small box Qin Ying had hidden close to her body. "What's most important right now? Solid evidence! We can't hide it on our bodies anymore, and we definitely can't leave it in the yard. If it senses something's wrong in the yard, the first thing it'll search will be here!"

"Where should I put it?" Liu Ye asked.

Yang Hu pondered for a long time.

“Hiding in the courtyard, hiding in familiar places in the city, won't work,” he said slowly. “It's rampaging throughout the city, familiar places, suspicious people, right under its nose. We have to find a place it would never even consider, a place that seems to have nothing to do with us!”

He remembered the road outside the city, and the Zhouji boss who had shown him kindness and left his address before leaving... He was a clean lead, unrelated to the case.

"Outside the city." Yang Hu's eyes flashed with a hint of ambiguity. "Find a clean route, one that has absolutely nothing to do with the case, and get this box of letters out of the city. Then hide it in a safe place. Without it in our hands, even if they turn our house upside down, they won't find a single thing!"

Qin Ying nodded slowly, her eyes full of admiration: "The object is far away, but the person is close. It can't find the object, and it can't find any concrete evidence against us, so it can only worry helplessly. This is a very brilliant move, a classic example of concealing one's strength in military strategy!"

"However," his expression suddenly turned stern, "what we looted and burned was at most a matter concerning the Prefectural Magistrate's office. The real key lies with the hand hidden in the capital, implicated in the letters in the box. If it obtains the letters and learns that this irrefutable evidence of treason is in our hands—"

His tone suddenly turned somber.

"Then it's no longer just using people from the Prefectural Magistrate's Office. Its ability to manipulate the court, to portray the entire Qin family as traitors, and to suppress a military report is what's truly deadly. The Prefectural Magistrate's Office is just an outstretched finger."

"So the tighter we hold onto this irrefutable evidence, the more we must hide it and endure it!" Yang Hu said, emphasizing each word. "Right now, a box of letters can take down the steward of the Prefectural Magistrate's Office! It can expose this layer of the Prefectural Magistrate's Office! But it's far from enough to overturn the hand in the capital! If we take this now to file a complaint or do anything, we'll alert the enemy. That hand will immediately shrink back and never show itself again. This hand will immediately discard the layer of the Prefectural Magistrate's Office, silence it, abandon it, or even cut off all contact."

Until we are absolutely certain that we can uproot it completely, not a single whisper or sound can be leaked out.

Qin Ying pursed her lips tightly as she listened, her fingers, gripping the knife, turning pale from the force.

She knew better than anyone how urgent it was to immediately bring up all that blood, tears, and hatred.

However, she also knew better than anyone that Yang Hu's patience was truly for the Qin family and for the border, to uncover the truth.

"I'll listen to you." Her voice was low, and her eyes, which were always cold, now showed a rare hint of tenderness.

In the backyard, the lights flickered.

Tonight, Liu Da, leading his horse and carrying a letter wrapped in several layers of oiled paper, disguised himself as a porter selling goods. Before dawn, as the city gates opened and crowds thronged out, heading south and north, he blended into the throng. No one glanced at him, and silently, they escorted the box in his hand—containing irrefutable evidence of the Qin family's massacre—out of the city gate onto a clean road unrelated to the case.

Yang Hu stood under the eaves, looking at the night sky in the north of the city, where chickens were running and dogs were barking.

Over the past year, from the origin of a deserted village to the evidence of the three carts burned in the snow at night, to the box he finally held in his hand, he dug out a section of hair root buried in the soil.

The roots that had taken hold in the capital, where even the prefectural magistrate had to bow down, were still deeply hidden in the shadows.

I can't see clearly, and I can't move.

In this round, they won the first step.

The real enemy still stands quietly in that high, distant, and indistinct place. This grand scheme, which weighs on the blood feud of the Qin family and the lives of the border soldiers, has only revealed a small corner of the truth at this moment.