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

The case of the fake medicine murder at Jichuntang has been cleared, but the hand hidden behind that disaster is like a thorn stuck in Yang Hu's heart, impossible to remove.

To invest such a large sum and execute such a ruthless scheme, solely to bankrupt a single pharmacy, is no ordinary business feud. What exactly does this force want?

Having survived this ordeal, the entire Su family regarded Yang Hu as their second father. Old Master Su would tell everyone he met that the renowned physician Yang from the east of the city was a great benefactor to his Jichuntang pharmacy. The previous polite, somewhat reserved manner typical of businessmen had faded considerably, and they treated Yang Hu with genuine sincerity. Su Qing even regularly prepared fine tea and snacks, hoping he would visit more often. Yang Hu noticed this closeness, but he had another matter weighing on his mind.

These days, under the pretext of cleaning up the mess at Jichuntang and discussing medicine with Su Qing, Yang Hu frequently visited the Su family. Over time, he also inquired about the market prices of medicinal herbs in the city.

Su Qing was the daughter of a pharmacy owner; she knew better than anyone where medicinal herbs were bought and sold in the city, and how prices fluctuated. One day, the two chatted idly in the herb garden in the Su family's backyard. The rows of herbs were growing perfectly. Su Qing casually picked a seedling, talking about the recent chaos in the herb market, her face full of bewilderment. She had grown up in this business and had seen all sorts of market fluctuations, but this recent strange trend was something she couldn't understand.

"It's strange," Su Qing frowned. "For the past six months or so, a buyer has appeared in the city, and his spending is frighteningly generous. He specializes in buying medicines for wounds, hemostatics, tissue regeneration, and bone setting. He needs them urgently and in large quantities. He offers extremely low prices, but the quantities are outrageously large, forcing even established businesses like ours to face shortages and price chaos. Ordinary medicine dealers always pick and choose when buying medicine, carefully weighing its quality, but this buyer, however, buys all those wound medicines without hesitation, no matter how many, without any complaints."

She sighed, "Business is all about long-term, steady profits. How can you buy like this? It's like you're trying to plunder all the medicinal herbs in the city at once, regardless of the cost. Our Jichuntang has a solid foundation, so we can hold on, but those small pharmacies in the city have already been driven to despair."

"Who is this buyer?" Yang Hu's heart skipped a beat, but he remained calm on the surface, asking casually as if it were just ordinary curiosity.

He'd been investigating that grain supply line these past few days, hitting roadblocks at every turn; the threads were scattered and couldn't be pieced together. But Su Qing's seemingly casual words were like an unexpected thread being handed over in a tangled mess.

"We can't find out anything." Su Qing shook her head. "They all went through several unfamiliar brokers, and their origins are kept very secret. My father was also puzzled before, so he asked someone to investigate the buyer's background. But before he could find anything out, that fake medicine murder case came out."

Yang Hu's hand, which was holding the teacup, slowly stopped.

He didn't speak immediately, but his heart was already in turmoil. An ordinary medicinal herb transaction, to others, would at most be considered a strange occurrence in the marketplace. But in his eyes, which were accustomed to seeing the wounds of war, the combination of these herbs made all the difference.

It is used to treat wounds, stop bleeding, promote tissue regeneration, heal injuries, and set bones.

Who wants these things? They are the things that those who fight on the battlefield and lick blood from the edge of a knife want. They are the things that the army needs, and they are the things that those barbarians beyond the Great Wall, lacking medical care and medicine, dream of obtaining.

The thread he'd been investigating for so long suddenly became clearer. The grain store in the west of the city was sending military rations to the area beyond the Great Wall every night. And this clandestine buyer was scrambling to collect medicine. One was dealing in grain, the other in medicine—both on the same scale, their sources equally secretive. What they were feeding into the insatiable mouth beyond the Great Wall was both grain and medicine.

Food is what keeps the barbarian soldiers well-fed and strong enough to wield their swords. Medicine is what heals the wounded so they can return to the battlefield. An army never lacks just weapons. With food and medicine readily available, a ferocious army that would otherwise be worn down and exhausted is transformed into a robust and powerful force, ready to pounce and tear apart the borders of Dacheng at any moment.

This is no ordinary smuggling for profit. This is sharpening and feeding the knife that is held to Da Cheng's neck outside the Great Wall.

Could these two lines actually be from the same source?

Yang Hu's heart sank little by little.

The problem with Jichuntang is that it controls the lifeline of medicinal herbs in the city. This hand can scour the city for herbs undetected by ordinary people, but it can't hide from a large institution like Jichuntang. Boss Su's investigation likely inadvertently reached into the place this hand least wanted to be seen.

If something is in your way, you must get rid of it. A case involving counterfeit medicine nearly caused Jichuntang, whose eyes saw everything too clearly, to close forever.

Thinking of this, Yang Hu felt a thin layer of sweat break out on his back. He had previously thought that the mess at Jichuntang was just a matter of business maneuvering, something he could choose to ignore. Now he realized with a start that he had stepped into the same quagmire as the grain supply line he had been secretly investigating for so long. The Su family's unexpected disaster was simply a drop of blood spilled from that line.

"Miss Su," Yang Hu said slowly, choosing his words carefully, "your father asked someone to investigate the buyer. Once they found out, put it aside for now and don't investigate any further."

Su Qing was taken aback: "Why? That buyer is making our business impossible to continue..."

"Precisely because he's causing you so much trouble, it's all the more important to save your lives first." Yang Hu's voice wasn't loud, but every word was heavy. "If someone is willing to take a life and set up a scheme just to collect a few herbs, then if you go and get involved with him, you're not just getting involved in business, you're getting involved in your life and fortune. Let me handle this."

Looking into his calm yet unfathomable eyes, Su Qing felt a sudden chill run down her spine. She wanted to say that Ji Chuntang was upright and honest, so what was there to be afraid of? But the words caught in her throat as she remembered the corpse that had been moved to her doorstep and the gang of thugs who had demanded Ji Chuntang pay with their lives, and she swallowed them back. People capable of such things were indeed capable of anything.

"I'll listen to you." She was a sensible person after all, and nodded emphatically. "I'll go back and persuade my father to stop and not investigate anymore."

She suddenly realized that this young miracle doctor was investigating far more than just a case of counterfeit medicine leading to death. The trouble at Jichuntang, in his eyes, seemed to be just the tip of a much larger net. But what exactly he was investigating, she dared not ask, nor could she bring herself to ask.

Just how big and how far that hand, which was secretly collecting medicine and distributing grain, was, was still unclear even to Yang Hu.

A grain dealer who deals in grain, a medicine buyer—they appear to have nothing in common, yet their ruthless spending and cryptic methods are strikingly similar. If they are indeed the same entity, then this entity has been operating in this border town for quite some time. It controls the grain destined for the border with one hand, and the medicine flowing beyond with the other, feeding the wolves and tigers outside the city while hollowing out its foundation. Such a coordinated, destructive scheme could not have been devised by an ordinary unscrupulous merchant.

All he knew was that the waters were much deeper and more murky than he had initially estimated. These few loose threads were far from enough to bring down the hand beneath the surface. He had to remain calm and, inch by inch, trace this thread from the medicine shop, from the grain shop, all the way to the military camp.