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

The one-armed old soldier returned several days later.

The first time he came to invite Yang Hu to the border, he was politely refused. The military camp was not a place a doctor could just walk into, and Yang Hu certainly couldn't go to that camp at this critical juncture. But this old soldier actually dragged his festering leg all the way from the city to Jichuntang.

Yang Hu frowned as soon as he saw the leg.

The old soldier, surnamed Sun, had lost an arm, and a large festering sore on the outside of his left calf. The ulcerated wound was dark purple and oozing fluid, constantly scabbing over and then reopening, plaguing him for two whole years. When his trouser leg was rolled up, a putrid stench hit his nose.

"The army medic said it's called shin ulcer, a chronic leg ulcer that can't be cured." Old Soldier Sun grinned, but his expression was numb. "He said the leg would eventually rot through and be amputated. I thought, so be it, I'll just have to amputate it, I'll lose an arm anyway... But a few days ago I heard that a miracle doctor came to the east of the city, who can even cure broken medicine. So I thought I'd give it one last try."

Yang Hu squatted down and examined the sore closely.

The sore was sunken, with dark, hard edges, and the surrounding skin and flesh were black and shiny, leaving a pit when pressed. This was a fatal condition caused by years of standing, poor blood circulation in the legs, repeated ulceration, and lack of proper care. Doctors in the city and the army would treat leg ulcers by applying some ointment or sprinkling some wound medicine, covering up the pus, and considering it healed once a scab formed. But if the necrotic flesh under the scab wasn't cleaned properly, the sore would reopen after a few days, festering deeper and deeper.

Yang Hu then asked Old Soldier Sun how he had managed to get through the past two years.

The old soldier didn't speak much, speaking haltingly: He was originally a veteran of the Western Camp, having guarded the border for most of his life. Last year, in a fierce battle, the barbarians' curved swords sliced ​​off his arm, and he was also wounded in the leg. His arm couldn't be saved and had to be amputated; but the wound on his leg refused to heal, festering repeatedly for two years. The army medics had applied ointments and other wound treatments, but nothing worked. Finally, they simply said that once the rot had penetrated through to the bone, they would amputate the leg as well.

"If I saw off my arm, and then my leg, this old bone of mine will be finished," Old Soldier Sun said calmly, as if he were talking about someone else's situation. "There are many like me in the army. On the city wall, exposed to the wind and sun, a cut on the leg is hard to heal, and it festers until the person dies. The army doctors are too busy to treat everyone."

Yang Hu listened, his heart heavy.

"It's cured." He stood up and said calmly.

Old Sun suddenly looked up, and for the first time, light shone in his numb eyes: "Really...really?"

"Yes," Yang Hu said, "but it will be painful. This sore needs to have the rotten flesh cleaned up first, and then new flesh needs to grow layer by layer. It can't be rushed."

He began. First, he washed the wound with strong liquor and boiling water, then used a small knife to remove the blackened, foul-smelling rotten flesh. Old Sun was in so much pain that sweat beaded on his forehead, but he didn't utter a sound; after all, he was a man who had been on the battlefield and seen blood. After cleaning away the rotten flesh, Yang Hu applied a tissue-regenerating medicine, and then used clean strips of cloth to tightly wrap his entire lower leg, starting from the ankle and moving upwards.

"What is the meaning of this binding method?" Old Sun asked, puzzled.

"Your leg is so badly rotten that it won't heal. Half of it is because the necrotic tissue hasn't been removed, and the other half is because the blood and qi in your leg are stagnating and can't rise," Yang Hu said as he bandaged the wound. "Banding it tight will force the stagnant blood and qi to move around, and new flesh will grow faster. Come every day to change the dressing, clean it once, and bandage it again."

This method of binding was unknown to any doctor in the city, and even more so to the military physicians. In Yang Hu's view, the root of this leg ulcer lay in two things: decay and stagnation. Without clearing away the decayed flesh, new flesh couldn't grow; and with the blood and qi in the leg stagnating downwards year after year, the sore would never receive nourishment. The former required a knife, while the latter required these layers of binding to force the stagnant blood and qi to circulate again. He couldn't explain this principle in detail to Old Soldier Sun; it was a method he had memorized from his previous life as a physician.

Old Sun was skeptical, but the meticulous and thorough method of removing necrotic tissue and promoting tissue regeneration made him believe it. During the days of changing the dressing, he simply stayed at an inn near Jichun Hall, coming early every morning to let Yang Hu clean the wound, apply medicine, and bandage it.

After seven or eight days of changing the medication, the rotten leg that had been plastered on for two years and which everyone said should be amputated actually got better day by day.

For the first two days, the wound, from which the rotten flesh had been removed, still oozed blood. Old Sun himself dared not look at it, attributing it to a final burst of life before death. But by the third day, the stench that had lingered for two years, a stench that made one nauseous, gradually faded. On the fifth day, the edges of the wound began to close inward. By the seventh or eighth day, tender, pink new flesh was growing little by little beneath the previously dark purple, sunken wound.

This was something even he himself couldn't believe. In the army and in the city, countless doctors had broken legs that were destined for death, but in the hands of this young miracle doctor, they had actually come back to life.

Looking at his legs, this tough man's eyes reddened.

"Miracle doctor..." he choked out, "So many brothers in the army suffer from these leg sores and ulcers. Standing on the city wall all day long, once a wound on their leg is broken, it's hard to heal. The army doctors just spray medicine and cover it up, and if it festers, they'll amputate it. Over the years, I've lost count of the brothers who have had their legs amputated or lost their lives."

He raised his head, his cloudy eyes staring straight at Yang Hu: "Miracle doctor, if you could go to the military camp with your skills... how many people could be saved from dying?"

Yang Hu's heart skipped a beat.

He stared at the one-armed old soldier, speechless for a moment. He would enter that gate of the military camp sooner or later. There lay Qin Ying's old troops, whom he couldn't let go of, and the deepest roots of that connection. And this old soldier before him, with his healed leg and the words, "How many fewer people could die?", was that gate, opening another crack towards him.

"That day will come," he finally said.

He was saying this to Old Soldier Sun, but also to himself. So many brothers in the army were dying from lack of medicine and medical care, so many men like Old Soldier Sun sentenced to have their legs amputated—he would have to take care of them sooner or later. That camp held the people he needed to investigate, the people he needed to save, and countless lives that could have been saved.

But the time isn't right yet. He has to wait.

When Old Sun left, his legs were much more agile. He kept turning back to look at people as he went, and he would talk about the skills of the miracle doctor in the east of the city whenever he met someone.

Within a few days, the news that the one-armed old soldier's leg had been saved by the divine doctor from the east of the city spread little by little through the porters, wounded soldiers, and old soldiers returning home from the border, reaching the gray-blue camp.

"That miracle doctor in the east of the city can even cure a leg ulcer that's been festering for two years. He just wraps it with a few strips of cloth, cuts out some rotten flesh, and new flesh grows back."

"The medics in the army only know how to spray medicine and saw off legs, but that guy's skill is real."

"If such a miraculous doctor could come to our camp, there would be hope for the brothers' injuries and illnesses."

These words were quietly passed among the border soldiers, who were suffering from a lack of medical care and medicine and were plagued by injuries and illnesses. One by one, the men, tormented by leg sores, festering sores, and arrow wounds, remembered the name of this young miracle doctor they had never met.

The army was desperately short of doctors. The name of a young, miraculous doctor who could cure leg ulcers and festering sores began to quietly spread among the border soldiers who lacked medical care and medicine and were plagued by injuries and illnesses.

Yang Hu stood at the entrance of the clinic, gazing at the unseen border to the north.

The door he was waiting for was slowly opening towards him.

What pushed open that door was not a knife, nor a soldier, but his own hands, capable of snatching people back from the clutches of Yama, the King of Hell.