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

The nights at the border are so cold they can crack stones.

In the middle of the night, a commotion suddenly broke out at the camp gate. A group of scouts who had gone out to investigate the barbarian situation stumbled back and were helped back by their comrades.

"Dr. Yang! Quickly save them! The scouts are freezing!"

Yang Hu's heart sank, and he quickly went out to meet them.

The scouts, numbering five or six, were all pale and bluish-purple, trembling like leaves. When they were brought in, their limbs were stiff, and they could barely speak. The squad leader, Li Shan, had his hands and feet frozen black and stiff, completely numb.

"We went out to scout the barbarian camp at night, but we encountered a blizzard and got stuck in an icy river on the way back," my comrade said anxiously. "We were frozen outside for most of the night and collapsed as soon as we reached the camp gate."

The accompanying doctors, who had been standing by, had already busied themselves bringing over braziers to warm the scouts' hands and feet over the fire.

"Don't warm yourself by the fire!" Yang Hu shouted, grabbing his arm to stop him. "Frozen hands and feet, suddenly placed near a fire, will have their blood vessels unable to withstand it and will instead die. If you do that, your hands and feet will be beyond saving!"

The army doctor was stunned, his face full of confusion. If they're freezing, how can they stay cold if they don't warm themselves by a fire?

The worst thing for frozen limbs is sudden exposure to high temperatures. The blood vessels are constricted by the cold, and a sudden heat shock can cause them to ulcerate and die, ultimately leading to amputation. To save them, they must be slowly warmed with lukewarm water, allowing the frozen blood vessels to gradually come back to life.

There is no room for hesitation.

"Quick! Boil a pot of lukewarm water, not too hot, just warm enough to feel when you put your hand in! Also prepare a few more clean cloths and some warm ginger soup!" Yang Hu ordered sternly.

Qin Ying, disguised as a medicine boy, had already efficiently prepared warm water, towels, and ginger soup, and then went forward to help take care of the scouts.

Yang Hu first immersed Li Shan's hands and feet, which were frozen black, into the basin of warm water.

"The water can't be too hot at first," he instructed in a deep voice as he tested the water temperature. "Frozen hands and feet have constricted blood vessels; if they're suddenly scalded, they won't be able to withstand it and will instead ulcerate. We have to use this warm water, adding it little by little, to allow the frozen blood vessels to slowly thaw."

He paused, then added another instruction.

"Also, never rub those frostbitten hands and feet. It may seem like rubbing them will warm them up, but actually, rubbing them will sever all the blood vessels that were already frozen and brittle, and the hands and feet will be beyond saving."

The warm water slowly seeped in, and Yang Hu then poured a bowl of warm ginger soup into Li Shan's mouth to warm him up from within.

"Warming the outside isn't enough; the inside also needs to be warmed up." He said in a deep voice as he fed the scouts ginger soup. "These men have been soaking in the icy river for most of the night, and the cold has long since seeped into their internal organs. This ginger soup will force that cold out from inside, so that the warm water outside can be brought in."

The five or six scouts then placed their hands and feet in warm water, and drank ginger soup, allowing their yang energy to return from both inside and out.

The method of rewarming seemed unassuming, but the accompanying physician shook his head, thinking the young doctor was incompetent. Instead of warming the frostbitten person by a fire, he was slowly soaking them in lukewarm water—what kind of treatment was that? However, because Yang Hu was now a medical assistant and had saved countless wounded soldiers, he didn't dare to stop him.

Time passed, little by little.

The basin of warm water was changed again and again, the temperature gradually increased. Li Shan's blackened and stiff hands and feet gradually regained some color, turning from black to red, from stiff to soft. Suddenly, his fingertips, which had been numb, began to throb with pain. Li Shan groaned and slowly awoke from his daze.

"Pain is normal," Yang Hu said in a deep voice. "Pain means your blood has come back to life. Your hands and feet are saved."

A group of scouts who were on the verge of losing their hands and feet, or even freezing to death, were gradually brought back to life by this method of warming them with lukewarm water and reviving them with ginger soup. Their pale faces regained color, their purplish lips became rosy, and their stiff hands and feet were able to move one by one.

The army doctors who had been warming themselves by the fire earlier were stunned as they stared at the pairs of hands and feet that had turned from black to red and had been lost and then regained.

They practiced medicine their whole lives, sticking to the old method of warming the limbs by a fire when they were frostbitten. They had seen countless soldiers lose their hands and feet and die from the pain, considering it a last resort. Who would have thought that this method of warming the limbs would actually be fatal? Soaking them slowly in warm water or warming them with ginger soup was the right way to save their lives and preserve their limbs.

"Dr. Yang's technique is truly unheard of." The military doctor was stunned for a moment, then turned around and moved his tool, which he had used for twenty years, to the side.

Yang Hu did not answer. He had no way of explaining this method of warming frostbite to the people of this era. He only knew that this method could save people and preserve the hands and feet of these scouts.

What was saved was a team of scouts capable of venturing beyond the border to investigate the situation of the barbarians.

At this critical juncture of defending the isolated city, scouts are the eyes of the city. Every scout who survives adds another pair of eyes to the view beyond the pass. When the barbarians arrive, where they come from, and how many troops they have—all this depends on these scouts, risking their lives to scout back inch by inch from beyond the pass. If this scout team were to freeze to death at the camp gate, the city would be blinded, and might not even be able to foresee the barbarian army's imminent arrival.

In this border region, medicine is never just about saving lives. Saving a soldier means protecting a gun on the city wall; protecting a scout team means guarding the eyes of this isolated city that look out over the border.

That hand colluded with barbarians in the city, harming and silencing people. Yang Hu, in the wounded soldiers' camp, rescued his brothers, one by one, from the brink of death, who had suffered so much because of this battle and that hand.

Once Li Shan caught his breath, he looked at the young physician standing beside him and, weakly but solemnly, squeezed out a few words from his throat.

"Dr. Yang, it was you who saved my hands."

"Keep them healed," Yang Hu said calmly. "I've warmed your hands back from the ice. Rest assured and recover. When they're fully healed, come out of seclusion and scout out the barbarians' strengths and weaknesses for me a few more times."

Looking at his hands, which he had regained and were still burning hot, Li Shan's eyes welled up with tears, and he nodded heavily.

After everything was packed up, Yang Hu noticed something that Li Shan had been clutching tightly in his arms when he was carried back.

It was a roll of sheepskin soaked in ice water, which he had risked his life to protect in his arms.

Yang Hu carefully unfolded it, and when he looked at it by the light, his eyes suddenly narrowed.

The sheepskin was drawn with sketches of the recent movements of the barbarian army. Squads of soldiers were quietly gathering at several passes outside Qing Shi Kou.

The discipline in which the troops were deployed, and their thorough understanding of the defenses of Qing Shi Kou, were far beyond the capabilities of ordinary barbarians. They clearly marked on the map which pass was weakly defended, which section of the city wall had collapsed and not been repaired, and when each troop would be rotated. They knew this better than the ordinary soldiers in the city.

Clearly, someone leaked the details of Qing Shi Kou's city defenses to the barbarians outside the pass.

Yang Hu rolled up the sheepskin tightly and stuffed it into the innermost layer of his bosom.

The barbarians are about to launch a major invasion of Qingshikou.

And that hand that was hidden in the city, revealing the true state of the city's defenses to the barbarians, once again exposed its treacherous nature.

Saving lives on the brink of death and investigating people in the shadows—he never separated these two tasks for a single day.

The writing on the sheepskin was stained with blood at one corner, blurring into a small patch. He carefully dried that corner by the light of the lamp.

An even bigger storm is pressing down on Qing Shi Kou from both outside the pass and inside the city.