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

Yang Hu used himself as bait to force the hidden hand to make a move.

He didn't have to wait long.

Early that morning, a military order was delivered to him, the assistant physician.

The military order came from the central army and was worded in a grand and solemn manner: The Xueling outpost, thirty miles to the north, is located at the forefront. It has been bitterly cold for days, and many of the soldiers have suffered from frostbite and fallen ill. Medical officer Zuo Yang Hu has been specially dispatched to go there immediately to treat them.

"Snow Ridge Outpost?" Qin Ying, disguised as a medicine boy, glanced at the military order, and a chill suddenly appeared in his clear eyes. "That's a lone outpost perched on the edge of the barbarian's blade, with only a few dozen soldiers. Normally, even scouts don't want to go there."

"It just so happens to be at this critical juncture, and of all times, I've been singled out for that most dangerous place." Yang Hu tapped the military order lightly with his fingertip, a cold smile playing on his lips. "It's losing its patience."

This military order, seemingly out of consideration for the soldiers, actually harbors a hidden murderous intent.

The Xueling outpost is isolated in the border region. If the barbarians attack, there will be no one to help. Sending him to such a deadly place means that even if something happens to him, it will only be recorded as "military medical officer who died in the line of duty to the king," clean and simple, and no one can find fault with him.

He used a borrowed knife to kill someone, borrowing the barbarian knife from beyond the Great Wall to kill this thorn in his side.

"It's a trap." Yang Hu said calmly, "But I'm going to go through this trap anyway. The more they want to kill me, the more they'll use their most secretive methods. I'll go to that outpost and follow this line to see how far they've extended their reach."

Qin Ying remained silent for a moment, then finally nodded: "I'll go with you."

That day, Yang Hu, along with Qin Ying and Liu Ye, went north with a group of soldiers delivering supplies.

The further north you go, the colder it gets.

The wind and snow swept across the land, cutting like knives against our faces. The snow underfoot was knee-deep, and every step required immense effort. The snow-covered outpost stood alone at the edge of this vast white expanse, so dilapidated that it seemed a gust of wind could blow it away.

The outpost had only about thirty soldiers in total, all of them pale and thin, huddled in the dilapidated barracks that let in drafts from all sides, shivering from the cold. Many of them had frostbite on their hands and feet, which were festering and oozing pus, but they didn't even have a decent set of medicine.

This isolated outpost at the very front was exploited and plundered by that hand, making it even more miserable than the Western Camp.

Yang Hu didn't have time to think about the murderous intent behind the military order. He immediately set up the medicine stove and treated the frostbite and colds of these soldiers who were suffering from the bitter cold.

The unexpected happened that very night.

In the latter half of the night, the wind and snow raged fiercely. Suddenly, a piercing horn blast tore through the night sky.

"Barbarians! Barbarians are coming up here!"

Chaos erupted instantly both inside and outside the outpost. A small group of elite barbarian cavalry, taking advantage of the snowstorm, charged straight at the isolated outpost under the cover of the blizzard.

That hand calculated perfectly. It predicted that the barbarians would come tonight.

A fierce battle unfolded amidst the wind, snow, and firelight.

Although the garrison was small, each of them was a fierce soldier accustomed to guarding the border walls. With sheer courage, they once again repelled the elite barbarian cavalry.

But the cost was enormous.

As dawn broke and the snow subsided, Yang Hu rushed out of the barracks to find more than a dozen wounded and killed soldiers lying haphazardly on the snow-covered ground. Their blood stained the white snow, a horrifying sight.

He suppressed his grief and immediately began treatment.

Just then, several soldiers carried a man over, and the leader of the garrison looked ashen-faced.

"Dr. Yang, don't bother." The captain's voice was hoarse. "This is Squad Leader Zhou. He was knocked unconscious by the barbarians with a stick and fell into a snowdrift. By the time we found him, he was already buried in the snow and hadn't breathed. We brought him out so that... he could be laid to rest."

Yang Hu's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly stepped forward.

The sergeant stood stiffly upright, his body ice-cold, his face as pale as paper, his lips purplish-black, completely motionless, looking exactly like a dead man.

But when Yang Hu touched the side of his neck with his finger and brought his mouth and nose close, the despair in his eyes suddenly lit up.

"He's not dead!"

"He's not dead?" The officer was stunned. "Dr. Yang, his whole body is stiff, he's not even breathing..."

"They're frozen stiff, not frozen to death!" Yang Hu said decisively.

The person was knocked unconscious and buried in the snowdrift in the freezing cold. The warmth in his body was gradually taken away by the severe cold, and his body became stiff and cold as a corpse. His breath and pulse were so weak that they could hardly be detected.

These frozen people look like they're dead, but that last breath of life is still hidden deep inside them, not yet extinguished.

"Quick! Carry him into the barracks, away from the fire!" Yang Hu made a decisive decision, issuing a series of orders: "Get dry cotton blankets and fur coats, wrap him up tightly! Also, boil some warm water, not boiling hot, just lukewarm!"

"Get away from the fire?" The officer was dumbfounded. "Dr. Yang, the person is frozen like this, instead of quickly warming up by the fire, you're telling them to get away from it?"

"Never suddenly put it under a fire or pour boiling water on it!" Yang Hu said in a deep voice, but his hands did not stop for a moment. "If this stiff and cold body suddenly encounters great heat, the cold air will rush back to the heart, and the person will die on the spot! We have to use this gentle method to slowly warm the frozen cold air back little by little."

This method is unheard of.

Yang Hu wrapped Zhou Shaozhang's body in a warm cotton quilt, and then took a cloth soaked in warm water and applied it to his chest, armpits, and sides of his neck—the important places where major veins and blood vessels converge—little by little, warming the fading warmth from the deepest part of his body.

Qin Ying assisted him from the side, handing him quilts and changing cloths with quick and efficient movements. Although she didn't understand the intricacies of the warming process, she had an unquestionable trust in Yang Hu.

Time passed little by little.

After an unknown amount of time, Zhou, who had been standing stiffly upright, suddenly let out a very faint groan.

His pale, paper-like face gradually regained its color.

"It moved! Commander Zhou moved!"

The soldiers in the room were all horrified.

Another half hour passed, and Commander Zhou slowly woke up. Although he was weak, he had truly been brought back from that cold snowdrift and that seemingly hopeless situation.

"He's...he's alive!" The captain looked at Zhou, the former sergeant, who had come back from the dead, then at Yang Hu, and was so excited he was incoherent. "It's incredible! A dead man frozen like that was brought back to life by Doctor Yang!"

A brother whom they had given up on and were preparing to die was once again pulled back from the brink of death by the skills of this young medical officer.

In this desolate place amidst the wind and snow, every soldier saved is a step closer to protecting the border wall that stands atop the barbarian's blade.

Yang Hu showed no sign of joy.

He squatted down in front of the snow that had been trampled by the barbarians, and by the light of day, carefully examined the rows of hoofprints that were half-covered by the fresh snow.

This elite barbarian cavalry arrived at the perfect time and with perfect timing.

How did they manage to find this isolated outpost so discreetly, bypassing all the beacon towers and scouts along the way? And how did they calculate that they would be sent here on this very night?

"Someone's leading the way again." Yang Hu's eyes gradually turned cold.

He searched carefully in the snow and finally found a small piece of something the barbarian had left behind in a sheltered snow pit.

It was a half-burnt tinderbox and a specially made sulfur signal for communication.

Yang Hu had seen the pattern of that signal and the sealing wax mark once from afar when he was investigating a case in the central command tent.

His pupils suddenly contracted.

The tail of that hand was revealed once again in this lonely, windy, snowy landscape.