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

The following day, although Captain Chen was seriously injured and unable to get out of bed, he held on to his post again to oversee the eastern section of the city defenses, commanding with composure.

This section of the city wall, which was almost torn apart, was held up by wave after wave of fierce attacks from the barbarians because the commander was not defeated and the morale of the army was not low.

If it weren't for Yang Hu's tourniquet and his hands that pulled Captain Chen back from the brink of death, the eastern section of the city wall would probably already be covered with the barbarian wolf flag.

The fighting continued until nightfall, leaving a trail of corpses beneath the city walls. Finally, the barbarians sounded the retreat and flowed back to their camp outside the pass like a receding tide.

On the city wall, the surviving soldiers sat slumped in a massacre, but the general's flag did not fall.

The West Camp, with the valor of its soldiers, won the first battle of this bloody war.

But everyone knew this was just the beginning. The barbarian army, stretching for dozens of miles beyond the pass, would not retreat because of this initial setback. The real battles were yet to come.

The fact that Yang Hu was able to win this battle, saving Captain Chen's life and stabilizing the eastern section of the city's defenses, was known to everyone in the camp.

"Medical Officer Yang saved the lord from certain death and protected the eastern section from imminent collapse; his merit is immense!"

In the tent where the central army held a meeting, during the distribution of rewards and honors, even the usually strict and disdainful generals of the central army looked at this young medical officer with new respect.

Who would have thought that after a bloody battle, the one who earned the greatest credit was not some fierce general, but a young doctor in his early twenties carrying a medicine box.

That military report delivered to the commander's tent added another significant chapter to his record, far more important than any ordinary victory.

"The army medical officer, Assistant Yang Hu, used his extraordinary skills to save the Eastern Commander, Colonel Chen, on the battlefield. He saved the commander, protected the city, and reassured the army. His merits were invaluable."

This line of text, though seemingly casual, is actually a testament to military merit earned through countless battles and bloodshed.

On this frontier, on this battlefield where life and death are a matter of life and death, a young, inexperienced itinerant doctor, initially looked down upon by others, actually earned merit that was recorded in the military newspapers, step by step, through his medical skills.

This is what he wants. Whether it's a reputation as a doctor or military achievements, these are the assets he has to uncover the culprit and protect this pass in this dangerous place.

Qin Ying, disguised as a medicine boy, stood beside Yang Hu, looking at his name on the military newspaper. A complex and strange light flashed in his usually cold eyes.

She knew better than anyone the significance of this military achievement. This was another step Yang Hu had taken from an unknown military officer to a key figure in the frontier.

Back then, as the granddaughter of the Duke of Zhenguo and a princess on imperial orders to patrol the border, she was used to seeing generals and commanders vying for merit; but the man in front of her, who earned his way up in the army by saving people, gave her a feeling she had never experienced before, a feeling that was hard to describe.

But Yang Hu felt no sense of relief or triumph.

In this bloody battle, the most deadly and unpredictable force was never the thousands of troops outside the city.

As night fell, while the soldiers rested and bandaged their wounds, he used the pretext of the medical officer inspecting the wounded to quietly move around the camp once again.

The barbarians attacked too accurately and too ruthlessly during the daytime battle.

On the surface, the barbarians appeared fierce. But Yang Hu, observing coldly, sensed a chilling unease.

The barbarians seemed to know exactly which section of the city wall had the weakest defenses, which spot was the first to run out of arrows and stones, and which moment was the most vulnerable during the troop rotation. They would specifically target these vital areas.

No matter how fierce the barbarian king is, he is still separated by a city wall. How can he know the true situation inside the city so clearly?

"The truth about the city has been revealed to those outside the Great Wall in detail." Yang Hu's eyes gradually turned cold.

This is the same hand that leaked military equipment, burned grain and fodder, and borrowed a knife in the snowy mountains.

When a major battle breaks out, everything falls into chaos. In this chaos, the hand that transmits military intelligence and coordinates support also reveals more flaws than usual.

The opportunity to bring it down has arrived.

No matter how deeply that hand is hidden, as long as it wants to manipulate events and transmit military intelligence in this great battle, it will always have to reach out along some line. And the outstretched hand will leave a trace.

"During the most chaotic part of the fighting tonight," Liu Ye, disguised as a guard, whispered the news she had risked her life to gather during the day, "I saw the military clerk who delivers reports go to the wastewater ditch in the west of the city under the pretext of transporting wounded soldiers. When he came back, his hands were empty."

The wastewater canal in the west of the city is the same old route that the barbarians used to guide them and communicate with those outside the Great Wall that night in Xueling.

Yang Hu's fingertip made a heavy tap on the scrap paper filled with clues.

"He used the chaos of the great war as cover to stuff a communication device into that abandoned ditch and pass it to the barbarians who were waiting outside the pass." Yang Hu said each word with a cold expression, "This is yet another claw that hand has extended during the great war."

But he knew in his heart that this military document was still just a piece of a claw floating on the surface.

The true hand holding the reins, hidden deep within the central command tent, has yet to reveal its true form. Seizing the messenger won't sever the connection; it will only alert the enemy.

"Don't touch him yet." Yang Hu held down Liu Ye, who was about to make a move, his eyes cold. "It's easy to grab a clerk who delivers a message, but once that hand abandons this pawn and cuts off its tail to survive, it will shrink back into its shell and be safe and sound. What I want is not this claw, but to follow this claw and find the true form of that hand."

Having dealt with that hand for so long, he had long since learned to be patient. You can't strike a snake at its vital point; that will only frighten it and cause you harm.

"But the battle is raging," Qin Ying said in a deep voice, his cold eyes filled with unwavering seriousness. "Every time it tampers with the city's defenses, the pass becomes more vulnerable to being breached."

"So, we have to hurry." Yang Hu looked out the window at the dimly lit central command tent, a desperate fire burning in his eyes. "Take advantage of these few days when it has made its most frequent moves in the great battle and has the most weaknesses, and force it out of its shell."

He paused, mentally reviewing the clues he had gathered over the past few days: the leaked weapons, the poisoned arrows, the fire that burned the grain, the borrowed knife in the snowy mountains, and the message that was sent in the abandoned canal tonight—every single one of these clues pointed to the central command tent, the place where he could command documents, suppress military reports, and mobilize the city's defenses.

The person in that position is about to be revealed. Only one final piece of irrefutable evidence is needed to completely overthrow it.

The night wind howled through the tents, carrying with it the lingering stench of blood and gunpowder from the day.

In the distance, the lights of the central command tent remained burning all night.

The hand hidden deep within is using this war that threatens the entire nation to weave its own elaborate web of internal and external cooperation, aiming to subvert the border.

It could never have imagined that the young medical officer who saved Captain Chen's life and earned another military merit had already quietly reached its throat by following the claws it revealed in the chaos.

A decisive battle for the survival of the border has become intertwined with a life-or-death struggle hidden in the shadows to expose treacherous officials.

The barbarian cavalry outside the city, the sinister hand inside the city, and Yang Hu's sharp blade, ready to be drawn, all three fates were swept up in this same turbulent wave.

The real decisive battle, whether it be the clash of swords on the city walls or the lurking dangers in the shadows, is imminent.