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

After the case of the appendicitis, Su Qing became a regular at Yang's clinic. Whenever she had free time, she would come to help with diagnosis, identifying herbs, preparing medicine, and memorizing prescriptions—her progress was remarkably rapid. Yang Hu was happy to offer guidance, and before long, they truly developed a mentor-apprentice relationship. Lu Yan, Lu Rou, and the others, seeing that this Su family girl was straightforward, efficient, and hardworking, all treated her with great kindness. Liu Ye, in particular, got along very well with her; one knew herbs, the other collected them, and they always had endless things to talk about when they were together.

But Yang Hu never let go of the matter in his heart. The hand that was secretly buying up wound medicines was always like a dark cloud weighing on his mind.

That day, Su Qing came again. Yang Hu dismissed his attendants and asked in a low voice about the buyer.

Ever since Yang Hu told her "don't investigate anymore," Su Qing verbally agreed, but she didn't truly stop. After all, she grew up in the pharmaceutical industry, and most of the large and small pharmacists and brokers in the city gave her Su family some face. Inquiring about the whereabouts of a few medicinal herbs was much cheaper for her than for others. She was extremely careful, treating it as a normal business transaction, and never revealing anything unusual.

Over the past few days, I've actually started to figure things out.

"I asked a few familiar old brokers to check the goods the buyer had brought," Su Qing said in a low voice. "Those wound medicines and hemostatic herbs, after being collected, didn't end up in any pharmacies in the city. Instead, they were transferred to a warehouse in the west of the city. That warehouse had a sign that said it was a general store. It was usually deserted, but at night, there were carriages coming and going."

Her brows furrowed even more: "In the medicinal herb business, the worst thing is for the goods to disappear without a trace. This buyer has collected so many herbs, neither selling them individually nor storing them in a warehouse, but hoarding them all in a shady warehouse. Either he's plotting some big deal, or he's not a businessman at all."

West of the city.

Yang Hu's heart sank. The west of the city was precisely where the grain depot that delivered military provisions to the border every night was located.

The medicine warehouses and grain stores were all located in the west of the city, heading north.

He made up his mind immediately. His face, that of a miracle doctor, was too conspicuous in the city; and Qin Ying's shady identity couldn't be revealed even for a moment. This job of surveillance and scouting, blending in unnoticed in the streets, had to be done by Liu Ye.

Liu Ye had dealt with barbarian bandits deep in the mountains, and her skills in finding paths, recognizing locations, and hiding were honed through sheer grit and determination. No one else could truly do this for her.

Having received her orders, Liu Ye disguised herself as a country woman carrying a bamboo basket and selling wild vegetables along the street. She silently squatted at the alley entrance near the warehouse in the west of the city for two nights. During the day, the warehouse was deserted, with a few shop assistants lazily basking in the sun; but as soon as night fell, there was movement in the tightly closed courtyard.

When she returned, the news she brought made everyone in the room frown.

"That warehouse does indeed have people receiving goods at night," Liu Ye said. "The people receiving the goods are not ordinary porters or merchants, but a group of nimble people who walk with the stride of soldiers. They unloaded the medicine and immediately loaded it onto packhorses. I recognize the way they tied the packhorses; it's exactly the same as the barbarian bandits who harmed my father back then."

As she said the words "harmed my father," her clenched fist tightened, and a ruthless glint flashed in her eyes. "That knotting technique is only used by people outside the Great Wall; the porters in the city could never learn it. I watched those pack animals leave through the west gate and head north, towards the border."

It's this line again.

The medicine brought in, like the military rations poured out, ultimately ended up in the mouths of the barbarians beyond the Great Wall. With medicine, the wounded soldiers could recover and return to battle; with rations, the soldiers were well-fed and had the strength to wield their swords. This inflow and outflow, all feeding the very blade held to Da Cheng's neck.

At night, Yang Hu laid out all these clues one by one.

Qin Ying, disguised as a medicine boy, had been listening silently. Suddenly, she spoke, her voice extremely low:

"Think about it, how many checkpoints would these medicines and grains have to pass through to get out of the city, across the border, and into the hands of the barbarians beyond the pass? The checks at the city gates, the checkpoints along the way, the verification of military license plates at the border—at each one, someone has to give their approval. No matter how capable an ordinary private merchant is, they can't possibly bribe all those layers of military checkpoints."

She paused, a cold glint flashing in her eyes.

"The root cause of allowing these contraband military supplies to leave the city and pass through the border so openly can only be found in the military camps. There are people in the military who are controlling these checkpoints and letting this hand pass through."

These are words only someone who has led troops and passed through this level could utter. Qin Ying knew better than anyone the intricacies behind each of those checkpoints. An ordinary, unscrupulous merchant might not even be able to get past the city gate; only someone with real power in the military could pave this shady path so smoothly and silently.

Yang Hu nodded slowly. This perfectly matched his previous deduction. The food supply line, the medicine supply line, the person who delivered the military report of "fighting to the death for the country"—every single thing pointed to the same place: the Western Camp that guarded the border.

But this hand is hidden too deeply. Right now, what he's holding are still fragmented threads: a warehouse, a group of people receiving goods, a road leading north. Piecing these together, they can outline the shape of that hand, but they're still far from revealing its true form. To bring it down, these alone are far from enough. He needs patience, like diagnosing a chronic, lingering illness, peeling back the layers to reveal the underlying structure.

But just as he was getting closer, that hand seemed to have sensed something.

A few days later, Jichuntang ran into trouble.

First, tax collectors from the yamen came knocking, saying there were "suspicious points" in Jichuntang's tax accounts and that a thorough investigation was needed. Then, someone else came to question the source of Jichuntang's medicinal herbs, saying that someone had reported that Jichuntang was smuggling prohibited medicinal herbs. One case after another, numerous and varied, yet each one was handled perfectly, neither finding any major fault to take to court, but like fine needles, keeping everyone at Jichuntang on edge day and night. Today, half a warehouse of medicinal herbs was sealed for investigation, and tomorrow the manager was summoned for questioning. Business could no longer be conducted properly.

Boss Su was in a terrible mess, spending all his time smiling and trying to smooth things over, which drained most of his energy.

When Su Qing rushed to find Yang Hu, her eyes were red again.

After hearing this, Yang Hu understood perfectly.

This was no ordinary official business. It was a hidden hand, using official pretext to send a warning to Jichuntang: if they dared to continue investigating along that line, the next time it wouldn't be as simple as checking tax accounts.

The noose is tightening inch by inch. What was once a covert spying has now come into the open, and the real action is underway.

As for Jichuntang, because it controlled the lifeline of the city's medicinal herbs, because it was too close to that hand, and because it was close to Yang Hu, it became the first to be strangled and dragged up for public display.

Yang Hu clenched his fist. He knew that if he investigated further, the Su family would be the first to be implicated.

But he couldn't stop this line. If he did, countless more soldiers would shed their blood behind that wall at the border; if that wall collapsed, all the men, women, and children in the city, along with the people he was protecting in his courtyard, would fall under the hooves of the barbarians beyond the border.

What he can do right now is to protect the Su family even more tightly, and never let that hand get away with it.