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

Two days after the incident with the child with the pharyngeal congestion, Yang's shop in the east of the city was even more bustling than before.

But half of Yang Hu's thoughts were always on that unseen line.

On this day, an unusual patient arrived.

He was a lowly soldier in uniform, covering half his face, saying he had been suffering from a toothache for several days, so swollen that he couldn't eat. The doctor in town had pulled his tooth, but it didn't help. He had heard that the doctor in the east of the city was very skilled, so he took advantage of a break from his shift to sneak over and have a look.

Yang Hu's heart skipped a beat. Ever since that competition, soldiers had been coming to his clinic in twos and threes, as if they had caught a whiff of something. Some openly sent notices to urge him to get better, while others pretended to be ordinary patients but secretly inquired about his condition. He remained calm and treated the soldier as an ordinary patient, inviting him to sit down at his desk.

Yang Hu could tell at a glance that this was no ordinary toothache, but a toothache caused by wind and fire with pus, which needed to be drained and the fire cleared. While administering acupuncture to drain the pus to the soldier, he kept the conversation flowing without making a sound.

Asking questions is a doctor's duty, and the more detailed the questions, the more attentive the doctor is. The soldier not only didn't doubt him, but also felt that this doctor had good medical ethics and was attentive, and his words and actions revealed a sense of closeness.

The soldier was straightforward and in great pain. The miracle doctor relieved his pain in no time, and he was grateful, so he started talking.

Yang Hu asked very tactfully, only picking out trivial, everyday questions. He asked about the food in the camp and how tough it was for the soldiers. The soldier, spitting out pus and blood, mumbled a complaint, saying that something strange had been going on in the camp lately. Although cartloads of grain were being transported in, the soldiers' food was getting worse every day; there was more sand in the coarse rice than in the grains.

"Our brothers are holding the city walls, braving the wind and snow from beyond the pass, only getting two thin meals a day, drinking until they're completely empty." The soldier grew angrier as he spoke. "The higher-ups keep urging us to train and prepare for war, saying the barbarians will invade in the spring. But who knows whose dogs are getting our supplies? We're sending our brothers to fight on empty stomachs. How are we supposed to fight?"

"Where did all the grain that was brought in go?" Yang Hu asked casually.

"Who knows?" the soldier said in a low voice. "The brothers are all whispering among themselves, saying that they asked those big shots up there to smuggle it out without anyone noticing. A few days ago, a gossipy cook even said he saw the quartermaster set off with a caravan in the middle of the night, and the next day, he was nowhere to be seen. They say he offended some important person and was exiled."

Yang Hu's hand, which was applying acupuncture, paused almost imperceptibly.

Quartermaster. A convoy that leaves camp in the middle of the night.

This perfectly aligned with the grain store in the west of the city that Liu Ye had been watching, and with the grain route that ran nightly to the borderlands. The grain was being hauled from the military camps, passing through the grain store in the west of the city, cartload after cart, and fed to the barbarians beyond the borders. And that talkative cook was probably long gone.

A cook, merely for mentioning the quartermaster's night cart, was falsely accused of offending a powerful figure and vanished without a trace. This wasn't exile; it was blatant murder to silence him. The power to eliminate a living person without a trace in an entire military camp, without anyone daring to question it, was far greater and deeper than Yang Hu had initially estimated.

Yang Hu's hand, holding the bowl of medicine, remained motionless. The deeper he investigated, the clearer it became that he was facing not just a corrupt official embezzling military rations, but a deeply entrenched, ruthless web that devoured its victims. One wrong step would not only cost him his life, but also the lives of everyone in the room who had entrusted their livelihoods to him.

He remained impassive, offering the soldier a few words of gentle comfort and advising him to avoid certain foods before seeing him out.

As night fell, Liu Ye brought back new news.

"Young master, I've figured it out." Her eyes gleamed. "There's a hidden door in the backyard of that grain store, leading to an inconspicuous mule and horse inn next door. Grain carts enter the grain store, unload their goods, and then go through that hidden door to the mule and horse inn, where they change pack animals and drivers before leaving the city at night. With this simple change of hands, on the surface, the grain store is just an ordinary shop that buys and sells grain, perfectly clean and tidy."

"I also saw that the innkeeper and the grain shop manager were in cahoots. He arranged everything from changing pack animals to hiring porters." Liu Ye paused. "These porters all had clean backgrounds, signed short-term contracts, and were gone after each trip. Nobody knew they were transporting military rations that could cost lives. If something went wrong, they could cover up the truth and no one could implicate anyone else."

"What a clever escape!" Yang Hu said slowly.

Qin Ying had been sitting by the window listening, and now, the hand gripping the dagger tightened subtly.

"The quartermaster left the camp in the middle of the night, the cook mysteriously disappeared, and the grain store secretly sold its goods." Her voice was as cold as ice. "These are all ruthless methods of murder to cover up crimes and deceive the public. The person who could connect the military camp, the grain store, and the area outside the Great Wall into a single, airtight operation is definitely not a nobody. The person pulling the strings behind the scenes is not a minor official, but also a wicked one."

"I've led troops before." Her voice lowered even further. "Supply is the lifeblood of an army, and those in charge of supplies are always the most trusted confidants of the commander-in-chief. A quartermaster, carrying the weight of the entire camp and the eyes of the court, dares to send military rations beyond the Great Wall. If he didn't have someone with absolute power backing him up, covering his tracks, and silencing him, he wouldn't dare do it even if he had ten lives."

She paused, a suppressed hatred surging in her eyes. The investigation was becoming clearer and clearer, and the mastermind behind the destruction of her family and the wrongful deaths of soldiers on the border was getting closer and closer.

"The clues are getting clearer and clearer." Yang Hu's gaze fell on the flickering candlelight. "But the clearer they are, the less we can rush things. What we're holding onto now are just loose threads—a soldier's complaint, a secret door, a few carts of grain. None of these alone can bring down that hand. It's watching the entire camp from the shadows. If we show even the slightest intention to mess with it, it can turn around and wipe us out silently, just like that cook."

Everyone in the room fell silent.

"So, are we just going to wait here like this?" Liu Ye asked, somewhat unwilling.

"It's not about waiting idly." Yang Hu shook his head, his eyes calm. "It's about leveraging power. My reputation as a doctor is now known throughout the city and countryside. The more it spreads, the more that hand wants to get me into the military camp, right under its nose. It wants to lure me into its trap, so we'll play along. It wants me in, so I'll go in. But on that day, what goes in won't be a lamb to the slaughter, but a knife hidden in a medicine chest."

The candlelight crackled.

Qin Ying raised her eyes and stared intently at him. For the first time, her calm eyes revealed a resolute determination to face danger alongside him. She had hidden in this city for so long, enduring and concealing herself, living as a dead person who couldn't see the light of day, waiting for this very day.

"But that day hasn't come yet." Yang Hu changed the subject and pressed on, "The thread hasn't been untangled, and that hand hasn't revealed its true form, so we can't enter this military camp. We still have to wait, we still have to endure."

He spoke calmly, but beneath that calm lay a murderous intent that even he himself could barely contain.

The night grew deeper. In the backyard of the mule and horse inn in the west of the city, a grain cart with a new pack animal once again took advantage of the thick darkness and silently turned out through the hidden door.

The place it was going to was north of the city, beyond the pass, in that bottomless hole that countless border soldiers had filled with their lives.