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

That was a prey that walked right into the trap.

Wu Yong had just crept into the secret archives room, his hands trembling, when he pulled out the fake northern front tent sealed with sealing wax from the corner. Just as he was about to light the tinderbox, Qin Ying kicked open the door to the secret archives room.

"Wu Yong, what were you planning to burn when you sneaked into the secret files in the dead of night?"

The clerk was so frightened that he dropped the tinderbox in his hand and collapsed into a limp heap, unable to utter a single coherent word.

The perpetrator was caught red-handed.

The fake account book on the northern front that he was about to destroy, along with his hasty and reckless infiltration, was irrefutable evidence of his treason.

Yang Hu and Su Heng slipped inside and took control of the terrified clerk, along with the rolled-up fake account book.

"Take him back and keep a close watch on him," Yang Hu said in a deep voice. "At daybreak, I'll pry open his mouth and find out the true identity of that hand."

Wu Yong is a coward who fears death. As long as we loosen his nerves and pry him open, we can follow that line to uncover the hiding place of his hand.

That night, the three men kept Wu Yong under tight guard in a secluded corner of the wounded soldiers' camp, waiting for the next morning to interrogate him.

But before dawn, something unexpected happened.

In the middle of the night, Qin Ying, the guard, suddenly noticed something was wrong. Wu Yong, who was tied up, began to convulse, foaming at the mouth, and black blood seeping from his seven orifices.

"not good!"

Yang Hu rushed over upon hearing the commotion, and his expression changed drastically when he took Wu Yong's pulse.

"It's poisoning."

But Wu Yong was tied up and held captive all night, without food or water. Where did the poison come from?

Without a second thought, Yang Hu immediately pried open Wu Yong's clenched teeth, administered acupuncture to induce vomiting, and then forced him to drink antidote herbs, hoping to snatch this survivor who could identify the hand from the brink of death. His hands, capable of pulling people out of piles of corpses, were now using every skill at his disposal.

However, it was too late.

The poison was exceptionally dangerous, its onset rapid and severe, having already traveled through the blood vessels and invaded the heart. Despite Yang Hu's best efforts, Wu Yong's life force gradually weakened. In less than the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, his body stiffened, his pupils dilated, and he breathed his last.

Yang Hu slowly withdrew his hand, his fingertips feeling icy cold.

The only survivor who could identify that hand was dead.

Although the living witnesses have been eliminated, the dead often hold more truth about how a person died than the living do.

Yang Hu silently bent down and, by the dim light, carefully examined Wu Yong's body inch by inch.

He first looked at the black blood seeping from the seven orifices, then examined the bluish-purple fingernails and stiff limbs, and then leaned closer to smell the faint bitter almond scent remaining between the mouth and nose.

Upon examination, his eyes, capable of discerning the root of the illness from the pulse, quickly discerned the clues from the corpse.

"He wasn't poisoned by someone." Yang Hu pointed to Wu Yong's jaw and said, word by word, "Look at his teeth. This back molar of his is hollow. There was originally a poison pill covered in wax embedded in it."

"Once the wax coating melts, the poison will take effect and cause death." Yang Hu's eyes were as cold as ice. "This is something only assassins possess. If their mission fails and they are captured, they will bite into the poison pill and commit suicide to silence themselves, leaving no survivors."

He pointed to the smell around the mouth and nose, and said in a deep voice, "This poison takes effect quickly and violently, oozing black blood from all seven orifices, and has a bitter almond smell from the mouth and nose. It's a highly potent poison that kills instantly upon contact with blood. How could an ordinary military clerk obtain such a thing? This poison pill was prepared for him personally by that person."

Su Heng and Qin Ying's expressions both darkened.

A mere quartermaster clerk had poison pills hidden in his mouth, something only a suicide soldier would possess. This meant that the other party had long regarded Wu Yong as a pawn that could be discarded at any time, yet would never turn against them.

"That hand even turned a clerk in charge of documents into a suicide soldier who could kill himself at any time." Yang Hu slowly stood up, looking towards the direction of the central command tent, his eyes filled with unyielding solemnity. "It guarded so deeply, so ruthlessly. It had long anticipated that this line would be exposed one day, so it prepared this poison pill to silence Wu Yong in advance."

It abandoned the document as a chess piece, once again cutting its own tail to survive.

From the lowly military clerk who committed suicide out of fear of punishment, to the assassin who poisoned food and drink to frame others, and then to the clerk who bit into a poison pill and committed suicide, every time that hand was driven to the brink of despair, it would unhesitatingly abandon a claw and retreat into its bottomless shell.

The only survivor was gone, and the fake account book from the northern front, though irrefutable evidence, could not identify the person who actually held the pen.

The thread, once again, broke at the point closest to that hand.

Inside the tent, the three remained silent for a long time, staring at the cold corpse.

"It's too ruthless, and too cautious." Su Heng's voice carried a hint of suppressed hatred. "We've been investigating for three years, and every time, it's the same. Anyone who can identify it will either die suddenly or be killed in battle within a few days."

"But the more eager it is to silence us," Yang Hu said slowly, a spark of fire rekindling in his calm eyes, "the more it shows that it is more afraid than we are."

He stared at the fake account book on the northern line, uttering each word clearly.

"It fears this account. It fears what this account might reveal. Tonight it destroyed Wu Yong and severed this thread, but it cannot sever our will to continue the pursuit."

"Wu Yong handled more than just this one ledger." Yang Hu's eyes were sharp as knives. "By examining all the military supply documents he handled over the years, one by one, we can eventually find the next loophole that his hand has revealed."

Hearing his words, Su Heng and Qin Ying's spirits, which had sunk to the bottom due to the loss of any survivors, were gradually lifted again.

Yes. For three years, Su Heng investigated alone, encountering obstacles at every turn. Every time she grasped a thread, it would be ruthlessly severed by that hand. But now, she has Yang Hu and Qin Ying by her side. One can read the truth from the dead, and the other has an encyclopedic understanding of the military's inner workings. With these three working together, it won't be so easy for that hand to cut off the thread and retract into its shell as before.

The poison pills of the assassins could kill Wu Yong, but they couldn't erase the evidence left in the files and on the corpses.

No matter how deeply it is hidden, that hand will eventually leave its mark on this world. As long as we follow these marks and investigate little by little, there will eventually be a day when we can tear it out of its shell and find it by the roots.

Yang Hu's hands could not only snatch lives from the brink of death, but also reveal the secrets that those hands had painstakingly planned and were unwilling to show to others from the cold corpses.

The dead cannot speak, but every sign on their bodies is a testimony. The black blood from their seven orifices, the smell of bitter almonds, the hollow back tooth—each silently points to one fact: Wu Yong did not die of a sudden illness; he was silenced. And the only person capable of providing a military clerk with poison pills meant for assassins was the hand hidden deep within the central command tent.

This is the irreplaceable role of a doctor in this deadly situation.

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

Yang Hu carefully put away the fake account book from the northern route. This account book was something Wu Yong was willing to burn at all costs, and naturally, it was also the thing that the other party most feared being seen.

Inside the tent, the deadly predicament of uncovering the mastermind, after the death of one survivor, not only did not end, but instead moved one step closer to a deeper and more dangerous place.