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

The man from the neighboring county pleaded earnestly with Yang Hu, who, seeing his sincere words and the fact that his condition was indeed critical, agreed.

After settling into his clinic, he took Liu Ye as his bodyguard and rode with the newcomer to a neighboring county. Traveling on medical missions was fraught with danger, and the further his reputation spread, the more eyes would likely be watching him. Having Liu Ye, who knew martial arts, by his side would be safer.

Qin Ying had to stay and guard her stall in the east of the city, so she didn't go with her. Before leaving, she secretly slipped the short knife she always carried into Liu Ye's bag, whispering only, "Take good care of him." Liu Ye nodded solemnly.

The lord surnamed Zhou from the neighboring county was one of the wealthiest men in the area. As soon as Yang Hu entered, he saw a somber atmosphere in the main hall, with several local doctors standing helplessly to the side.

The patient was Mr. Zhou himself. He leaned against the couch, his expression panicked. Every now and then, he would press his hand tightly against his chest, his whole body jerking violently, a strange hoarse sound coming from his throat, as if something was rushing up from his lower abdomen to his throat, almost knocking him unconscious. After the attack, he was covered in cold sweat and lay paralyzed on the couch, panting heavily.

When this illness strikes, it's incredibly dangerous, looking as if something invisible is gripping your throat. No wonder the local doctors are helpless, and even a sorcerer has been summoned. The whole room was terrified by this strange illness, not daring to even breathe.

"This is a case of being possessed by an evil spirit," a local doctor whispered. "We've invited several sorcerers, burned talismans, and chanted incantations, but nothing works."

Yang Hu remained calm and unhurried. He first sat down beside the bed and pressed down on Master Zhou's pulse. The pulse was wiry and rapid, indicating disordered Qi. He then examined the tongue and complexion, and inquired carefully about the circumstances of the attack: Was it caused by a great fright? Did it occur in waves, with Qi rising from the lower abdomen and then subsiding on its own? Did the patient usually experience palpitations, be easily startled, or have restless sleep at night?

Master Zhou agreed to everything, becoming more and more astonished as he listened. This young doctor hadn't touched him much, yet he had described his symptoms perfectly.

Mr. Zhou nodded repeatedly, saying that his house had been robbed half a month ago, and he was so frightened that he had developed this ailment ever since.

Yang Hu then understood the situation.

"It's not an evil spirit," he said in a deep voice. "It's a running pig."

"A running pig?" Everyone in the room was stunned.

"Exactly," Yang Hu said. "Fear damages the kidneys, causing the Qi to become disordered. A surge of Qi rushes upward from the lower abdomen to the chest and throat, like a piglet thrashing around inside the abdomen, hence the name 'running piglet.' This illness has existed since ancient times and is not caused by any ghosts or gods. Naturally, a sorcerer's talismans cannot cure it."

He picked up his pen and wrote a prescription, using a formula to calm the mind and relieve nausea and vomiting, and to warm the yang and soothe the nerves, with cinnamon twig, poria cocos, licorice root, and jujube, plus a few other herbs to astringe qi and calm the nerves.

"There was a specific remedy for this disease in my previous life." He only murmured these words to himself, without saying them aloud. The frightening illness caused by qi rushing up from the lower abdomen, like a pig running wildly, has been known since ancient times. It's just that the doctors of that time hadn't read that book.

"The root of this illness lies in the word 'fright' and the word 'rebellion'," he said as he wrote. "We must calm down and subside that rebellious energy, and then settle the spirit that has been hurt by the fright."

The local doctors gathered around to look at the prescription, and the more they looked, the more alarmed they became. They recognized these herbs and used them regularly, but they had never thought of such a combination or such an intention.

"So...so this isn't an evil spirit, it's just a qi-related illness." An old doctor with a white beard murmured, his face showing both shame and admiration. "I've practiced medicine for thirty years, and I actually mistook it for possession, almost harming the patient."

The others nearby were also blushing, no longer daring to underestimate this young, inexperienced doctor.

The medicine was decocted and administered. That night, Master Zhou's strange, flaring-up ailment subsided. After three days of continuous treatment, the life-threatening urges gradually subsided, and he was even able to close his eyes and sleep.

The strange illness, diagnosed as "possession by an evil spirit," was cured by the young doctor with three doses of medicine. The local doctors who had previously been helpless watched as the patient recovered from the near-death experience, and their initial disdain for Yang Hu turned into genuine respect. The sorcerer they had invited had already slipped away, looking utterly dejected.

The entire Zhou family was astonished. Master Zhou held Yang Hu's hand, tears streaming down his face, expressing his deepest gratitude. He offered Yang Hu a large sum of money and insisted that he stay for a few more days to be treated with the utmost hospitality.

Yang Hu accepted the consultation fee but declined the excessive gifts, saying that treating illnesses was his duty. This skilled yet ungreedy young doctor earned the Zhou family even greater respect. As word spread, relatives, friends, and wealthy neighbors—anyone with a difficult or complicated illness—came to Yang Hu for treatment. Yang Hu welcomed everyone and even cured several ailments that local doctors had failed to treat.

Yang Hu's reputation as a doctor spread to neighboring counties as well.

However, during the two days that Yang Hu stayed at the Zhou residence, his eyes were not idle.

He overheard the Zhou family steward chatting and learned that there was a strange thing happening in the county recently: a buyer of unknown background was quietly buying up wound medicine and hemostatic and tissue-regenerating medicine. He was offering high prices and had to buy urgently, but the medicine he bought had disappeared without a trace. Several local pharmacies were being disrupted by this buyer, causing shortages and price chaos.

Yang Hu found that tone and approach very familiar.

He asked a few more questions without showing any emotion: "The buyer, are they only buying wound medicine and hemostatic drugs? Which direction are the medicines being transported?" The Zhou family steward, without suspecting anything, answered one by one: "They are only buying medicines for treating injuries, reducing swelling, and promoting bone healing. As for where they are being transported, I only heard that the goods are picked up by carts heading north."

Northward. Again, northward.

Yang Hu's hand holding the teacup tightened almost imperceptibly.

More healing medicine.

That hand in the city extends far beyond the city walls. Its net is wider and farther than Yang Hu had imagined. From his city to the neighboring county, and then to the grain route heading north, that hand in the shadows is inch by inch plundering the wound medicine and military rations of this area, feeding them to the land beyond the Great Wall.

He remained outwardly calm, slowly sipping his tea, but inwardly he was experiencing a turbulent storm.

He had thought that the hand was nothing more than a giant rat entrenched in his city. Now he realized that its claws had already reached the neighboring counties, reaching every corner of this area, absorbing the local medicine bit by bit, and then feeding it continuously into the camps of the barbarians beyond the Great Wall through the secret passage to the north.

The lack of medicine among the common people caused them great suffering, like the man in the city who nearly died from a boil. Meanwhile, on the border, the wounded soldiers of the barbarians, thanks to this medicine, picked up their swords again. This back and forth was a drain on the hard-earned money of the people of several counties in Dacheng, feeding wolves that could pounce at any moment.

This trip to the neighboring county cured a patient, but it also made him realize something far more important: the hand he was trying to turn over was not just a local shady merchant, but a vast network covering several counties and reaching all the way to the border. He couldn't yet clearly see how big this network was, or how far the hand behind it stretched; he only knew that the deeper he probed, the more alarmed he became.

The road ahead of him is longer and more dangerous than he imagined.

On the way back, Liu Ye noticed his silence and asked if he was tired. Yang Hu simply shook his head, gazing at the receding fields outside the window without uttering a sound. Beneath that seemingly peaceful land, a blood-sucking underground river was surging. And he had already stepped into that river.