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

The fire that night went out.

But the murderous aura at Qing Shi Kou grew stronger day by day.

The barbarian army pressed in, launching probing attacks on the city one after another. With each battle, dozens more groans were added to the wounded soldiers' camp.

Yang Hu's knife became increasingly steady. With Su Heng by his side, his investigation of that hand was no longer a solitary endeavor.

That afternoon, another fierce battle raged on the city walls. Wounded soldiers were carried into the rear camp like a tidal wave.

Yang Hu was busy stopping the bleeding of a wounded soldier with a severed arm, sweat streaming down his face, when he suddenly heard hurried footsteps outside the tent.

"Physician Yang! Physician Yang, save me!"

The shout carried a terrifying panic.

Two guards dragged in a blood-soaked captain. He was a squad leader in the eastern garrison who had been supervising the battle from the city walls when a barbarian spear, sent flying over the ramparts, pierced his chest. His comrades had fought desperately to pull him from the ground, and in their haste, they had hastily pulled out the broken spear; blood was still gushing from the wound.

But what's truly deadly isn't the blood.

Yang Hu's heart sank the moment he made contact.

The captain's face was a frightening bluish-purple, his chest bulging high, rising and falling rapidly like a bellows, yet he couldn't catch his breath evenly. Veins bulged on his neck, his eyes were wide open, and his throat was making hoarse noises, clearly indicating that he was about to suffocate.

"He's been pierced through the chest by that spear and is now suffocating." Yang Hu's hand swiftly tapped the captain's swollen chest.

The sound of the knocking wasn't a normal, solid sound, but a hollow, muffled thud, like striking a drumhead. He pressed his ear closer to listen, and found that the chest on that side was deathly silent, without the slightest sound of breath in or out. Looking down at the captain's neck, he saw the veins on both sides bulging high, and his Adam's apple was forced to one side.

Yang Hu's expression suddenly changed.

"The air leaked into my chest and couldn't get out, it just kept piling up, squeezing my heart and lungs out of alignment!" He said each word with an undeniable urgency. "This breath is trapped inside, it's making my chest feel like it's going to explode. If I don't let it out soon, it'll suffocate me to death!"

The military doctors in the tent gathered around and took a look, and they all gasped in shock.

"His chest is pierced through; even a god couldn't save him." An old doctor shook his head repeatedly. "For injuries like this, we can only leave it to fate."

"Leave it to fate?" Yang Hu's eyes turned cold. "It's because you don't know how to save them!"

Ordinary wound medicines and hemostatic bandages are of no use for this kind of leaky chest injury. The air gets stuck in the chest, squeezing the heart and lungs inch by inch, and the person suffocates to death in their own swollen chest.

When air accumulates in the chest cavity, the fatal thing is not the wound itself, but the air that cannot escape from the chest cavity.

There is no room for hesitation.

"Take my syringe! The thickest one! Soak it in strong liquor!" Yang Hu ordered sharply, his fingers already precisely pressed on the captain's chest, below his collarbone and between his ribs.

That's where you release the trapped air from your chest without harming your heart and lungs. You can't afford to make the slightest mistake.

Su Heng had arrived in the tent at some point. Upon seeing this, she took out a small pouch of strong liquor from her sleeve without saying a word and handed it over. Her sharp eyes were fixed on Yang Hu's hand.

Yang Hu held his breath, his wrist as steady as a rock, and decisively pierced the thick needle, which had been soaked in strong liquor, into the gap between his ribs.

With a soft click, the needle pierced the pleura.

A burst of air, which had been held back, suddenly gushed out from the hollow syringe, emitting a long, whistling sound like air leaking out.

The captain's previously swollen, bluish-purple chest visibly deflated.

His face, which had been turning purple from holding his breath, miraculously calmed down. His rapid breathing gradually subsided. His wide-open eyes slowly shrank back into place.

The deadly breath that had been stuck in his chest was released by Yang Hu's needle.

Inside the tent, there was a deathly silence.

The army doctors who had previously said "even a god couldn't save him" were all gaping in astonishment, unable to close their mouths for a long time. In their decades of medical practice, they had never seen anyone pull a person back from the brink of death with just a needle, a needle piercing their chest and seemingly about to suffocate.

"Amazing, truly amazing," the old doctor murmured, his face alternating between pale and flushed.

Another person sentenced to death was pulled back from the jaws of death by this young military doctor.

Among the doctors, one couldn't help but step forward, staring incredulously at the syringe still escaping from the captain's chest: "How can the air in his chest be released like this? Physician Yang, where did you learn this skill from?"

Yang Hu did not answer. He could not explain, nor did he need to explain, the method of inserting needles into the ribs below the collarbone to release the accumulated air in the chest cavity.

Amidst the gasps of amazement, he knew perfectly well what was going on in his heart.

This was a captain who could stand alone on the city wall. Saving one more man like him, capable of carrying a sword, meant protecting one more section of the crumbling city wall. In every battle at Qing Shi Kou, the scales of victory and defeat were firmly tipped with the weight of his hands.

Here, medicine is never just about saving lives. Saving one soldier means maintaining a fighting force; maintaining a fighting force means holding out this isolated city for just one more moment.

"Thank you, Physician Yang, for saving my life." The captain, having caught his breath, struggled to get up to express his gratitude, but was held down by Yang Hu.

"Lie down," Yang Hu said calmly. "Your life is meant to be used to get to the top of the city wall."

Su Heng, standing to the side, put away her wine pouch, a subtle, unusual glint flashing in her sharp eyes.

She bent down and, under the pretense of handing Yang Hu a bandage, lowered her voice: "I've found something. Sun, the military advisor who was in charge of the grain and fodder documents in the central command tent, suddenly died a few days ago. The military report said 'sudden death from acute illness.' But I checked, and in the days before he died, he was checking the accounts of a batch of military equipment being transferred to the northern passes."

Yang Hu's hand paused slightly.

They were transferring military equipment to the northern pass, the very place where Su Heng's father had been stationed three years ago and had been murdered by that hand that colluded with the enemy.

A soldier who was checking the accounts of military equipment on the northern front suddenly died of an acute illness.

There's no such thing as a coincidence in this world.

"That hand has silenced another mouth." Yang Hu's voice deepened. "It's in the central army, killing and silencing people as easily as crushing an ant."

"Hmm." Su Heng nodded, her eyes filled with an unyielding coldness. "The ledger of northern front munitions that we're looking to investigate is probably also being targeted by them."

Yang Hu's brows furrowed deeply.

That hand had been operating within the central army for many years, its roots running deep. Whenever someone was about to touch its sore spot, it would not hesitate to crush one or two of its accomplices who knew the truth, cutting off its own tail to save its own life. This was true of the junior military officer who had previously committed suicide out of fear of punishment, and it was also true of this "suddenly dead" Military Advisor Sun.

"It's trying to silence us," Yang Hu said in a deep voice. "But the more eager it is to silence us, the more it shows that there's something deadly hidden in that account of the northern front."

Su Heng nodded heavily, her usually calm eyes now churning with hatred that had been suppressed for three years.

"I have a way to find that ledger," she said, enunciating each word clearly. "Give me two days."

Outside the tent, the barbarian horns sounded once again, mournfully.

Inside the tent, the hand hidden deep within was silently erasing the traces of its treason.

Yang Hu slung his medicine box over his shoulder, but didn't move his feet immediately.

That ledger, that hand, that three-year-old case—it's time to follow this thread and delve into its deepest parts.