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

His medical reputation was renowned, and people from all walks of life sought his treatment. This ironically provided Yang Hu with the perfect pretext to weave his net.

That day, Su Qing took advantage of a break while getting medicine to quietly go to the backyard to look for him. She was now in charge of purchasing medicinal herbs for Jishetang, and she knew the ins and outs of the big pharmacies in the city better than anyone else.

"Young master, there's something I find strange." She lowered her voice, "In the past two weeks, those who collect medicine for injuries in the city have reappeared."

Yang Hu paused, pen in hand: "Here we go again?"

The previous medicine shortage was a ruthless move by this cunning force in the city, choking Jishetang. After he used his medical reputation and the Zhou family's influence to defuse the situation, that force went silent and lay low, and the city enjoyed a period of peace. He had thought that after suffering a loss, that force would behave itself for a while. Now it seemed it had simply changed to a more covert method, continuing its shady business.

"Hmm." Su Qing nodded. "It's different from the time they cut off our medicine before. Last time, they tried to strangle our Jishetang, causing a huge uproar in the city. This time they've learned their lesson. They're not making a fuss. They're just quietly taking away batches of wound medicine, hemostatic and tissue-regenerating formulas, and over-the-counter medicines for arrow and knife wounds from several pharmacies in the city. They're paying 30% more than the market price, but there's only one condition: they need it urgently, in large quantities, and they're not allowed to ask where it's going."

Having followed Yang Hu for so long, she had absorbed much more of his knowledge and skills than before. Ordinary business wouldn't be so secretive. The more someone fears being questioned, the more they try to hide their activities.

Yang Hu put down his pen.

Wound medicine. Large quantities of wound medicine specifically for treating knife and arrow wounds.

Yang Hu's fingertips tapped lightly on the table. Previously, they had found military rations and weapons; now, they had added medicine for wounds. Each item seemed scattered, but if strung together, they all pointed to the same point.

Ordinary people, who would take so much medicine for knife and arrow wounds in one go? This stuff can only go to one place: the battlefield, the place where people die, the borderlands beyond the Great Wall that are being disturbed by barbarians.

"Have you found out who's been collecting them?"

"On the surface, it's an inconspicuous general store in the south of the city that's in charge," Su Qing said. "But that general store has only been open for two months, and it's usually deserted, yet it's been buying medicine in large quantities with great generosity. It seems suspicious no matter how you look at it. I kept an eye on it and asked a familiar pharmacy owner to inquire about it. It turns out that the owner of that general store used to be a courier for a grain store in the city."

Yang Hu's eyes narrowed. A grain store. Another grain store.

"I had Liu Ye keep a close watch on them for two days," Su Qing continued. "After the medicinal herbs were collected, they weren't put into the general store's warehouse. Instead, they were loaded onto carts at night and headed north out of the city. They didn't take the main road, but rather a less-traveled path in the north of the city."

Head north.

Yang Hu's gaze darkened. Grain, medicine—everything was flowing towards the large camp to the north.

This was the same hand he had previously investigated. The hand that covered several counties, silently feeding military supplies, food, and life-saving medicine to the wolves beyond the Great Wall. This criminal gang in the city had been forced to back down by him, but this blood-sucking channel had never truly stopped flowing.

"Where are the willow leaves?"

"We're still keeping an eye on it," Su Qing said. "She said the way they loaded the trucks and the way they tied the goods were exactly the same as... the same as the group that harmed her father back then. The knots were tied so tightly and skillfully, a skill only someone who travels mountain roads and escorts smuggled goods year-round would have. Ordinary porters couldn't tie knots like that."

Yang Hu's heart skipped a beat. Liu Ye's father had been killed years ago when he stumbled upon a plot by barbarian bandits while gathering herbs. Now that the craftsmanship of this bundle of goods was up to par, it added another thread, tightly binding the city's hidden channels to the wolves beyond the pass.

Just then, Qin Ying returned with her dressing changed. Her arrow wound had completely healed, and now at Jishetang, she was still the same taciturn, ascetic apprentice with her hair smeared with ash. Only in the secluded backyard did she reveal a hint of the sharpness of a former military family member.

After hearing Su Qing's words, she frowned: "Collecting medicine for injuries is even more urgent than collecting grain."

"How so?"

"The grain is for feeding the barbarians, and the medicine is..." Qin Ying's voice turned cold, "...to prolong their lives. On the battlefield, every wounded soldier we save is another sword to cut down our Great Cheng soldiers. Sending out this medicine is like adding more corpses to our own city walls."

The chill in her eyes when she said this was something Yang Hu rarely saw. It was the kind of hatred that only someone who had truly watched their soldiers fall one by one on that pass could feel.

She was once the backbone of that pass, the granddaughter of the Duke of Zhenguo's family, a spirited and ambitious daughter of a military family, sent to patrol the border by imperial decree. But an ambush turned her into a dead woman listed on the register for "fighting to the death for her country." Even seeking justice for her unjustly killed brothers required her to smear on ashes, hunch her shoulders, and disguise herself as an inconspicuous medicine boy. Yang Hu saw this frustration and hatred, and understood its weight better than anyone else.

"We'll find out," he said in a low voice. "Every drop of medicine fed through this channel will have to be vomited up by them in the future."

Qin Ying glanced at him, and her tense shoulders relaxed slightly.

"The root of this underground canal lies in the camp to the north," Yang Hu said slowly. "The ones collecting medicine in the city are merely scoops of water at the end of the canal. The real hand that holds the source and issues the orders is hidden deep within the camp, without even a trace of it showing itself."

He didn't reveal the name. Because even now, the true mastermind remained shrouded in a thick fog. All he could find were fragments of clues: the grocery store in the south of the city, the errand boy's employer, the truck heading north at night... Each link pointed north, but each one stopped abruptly before reaching the threshold of that military camp.

"No rush." ​​He said to Qin Ying, to Su Qing, and also to himself, "We've already figured out the end of the canal on this side of the city. The remaining section is on the other side of the wall."

He looked up and gazed northward.

That camp, lacking medical supplies and riddled with wounded soldiers, that blood-sucking ditch, that hand hidden deep within, and Qin Ying's brothers whom he couldn't let go of, and the injustice he couldn't clear his name from, all waited quietly on the other side of that city wall.

He had already paved the way to that door inch by inch.

His medical reputation spread throughout the city, and his business was firmly established. He had won this round in the city with a sure win. From a wandering doctor who was ridiculed as "a greenhorn" to a miracle doctor that people in this border town could only dream of, he spent more than half a year, taking one step at a time, and deeply rooting himself in the business.

But the splendor of the city was never his final destination. What he wanted was that hand in the military camp to the north, to seek justice for Qin Ying and her brothers who had died unjustly.

All that remains is to wait for that summons, and to walk through that door with dignity. The northern army is short of doctors and medicine, and wounded soldiers are piling up. Sooner or later, someone will remember this miraculous doctor in the east of the city who can bring the dead back to life, and invite him to the camp. At that time, he will follow this hidden channel all the way to its source.

Only then will this canal, which has been flowing in the shadows for who knows how long, truly be choked.

A night breeze swept through the courtyard of Jishetang, causing the newly hung lanterns under the eaves to sway slightly. Yang Hu withdrew his gaze from the north, picked up his pen, and meticulously recorded every detail Su Qing had just mentioned on the paper before him. The threads of the net grew more numerous, and each day the net became denser.