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

No matter how tightly the military report was hidden, the barbarian's blade tightened day by day.

At dawn that day, the barbarian tribes from beyond the pass came out in full force.

A massive, dark mass of cavalry and infantry surged forth from the open fields beyond the pass, like a flood bursting its banks, their drums and horns thundering as they hurtled towards the walls of Qing Shi Kou. This time, the barbarians were determined to raze this isolated city to the ground.

The border soldiers defending the city rushed to the top of the city wall in haste, and unleashed a barrage of arrows, logs, and stones.

An unprecedentedly fierce and bloody battle thus began.

Yang Hu stood guard in front of the wounded soldiers' camp, his eyes darkening as he watched the billowing smoke from the city walls.

This time, the barbarians are more ferocious than ever before. The sheepskin map that the scouts risked their lives to retrieve a few days ago marked the location of the barbarian army's gathering, and now they have indeed come out in full force, ready to flatten Qing Shi Kou in one fell swoop.

The barbarians attacked fiercely and urgently, but their main target was the eastern section of the city wall, the very section where the garrison had just changed shifts the night before and was the least familiar to the defenders. The barbarians knew exactly which troop had changed shifts and when, and which section of the wall was the weakest point, and they specifically targeted these shift changes to launch a full-scale attack.

"It's another inside-outside collusion," Yang Hu said in a low voice, his calm eyes filled with an unyielding coldness. "The barbarians even know exactly which section of the defenses was changed last night. The hand inside the city has revealed the true state of the city's defenses, along with the timing of the troop changes, to the barbarians."

On the eastern section of the city wall, the defending troops were forced into a rout by the sudden and fierce attack. One after another, the barbarians erected siege ladders atop the wall, their fierce soldiers swarming upwards like ants. Even rolling logs and stones couldn't quell the overwhelming onslaught. The centurion guarding the eastern section shouted commands at the top of his lungs, but the defending troops there, recently rotated and unfamiliar with the terrain, were thrown into disarray, and it seemed the barbarians were about to tear a breach in their lines.

Once the eastern section falls, the barbarians will pour into the city through that breach. There will be no natural defenses inside Qing Shi Kou, and all the soldiers and civilians in the city will be doomed. The life and death of the entire isolated city will now rest entirely on that crumbling eastern section of the city wall.

At the critical moment, Qin Ying, disguised as a medicine boy, could no longer restrain himself.

She was a veteran of this western camp, a daughter of a military family who had commanded troops and fought on the battlefield. She had patrolled this eastern section of the city wall countless times in the past; she knew by heart which brick was loose and which crenellation offered the best view. Seeing the city wall she had fought so hard for about to be breached, seeing the soldiers who had once served under her command fall one by one, her long-suppressed military courage could no longer be contained.

Yang Hu watched as she clenched her fists until her knuckles turned white, and knew he couldn't stop her. He only whispered a word of advice: "Go, protect yourself, and don't show your face."

"The eastern section can't hold on any longer; someone needs to step in and hold the line!"

She snatched a bow and arrow and charged out from the crowd. Without revealing her identity, she rushed up the eastern section of the city wall in the chaos, stood on the most dangerous crenellation, drew her bow, and shot every arrow with deadly accuracy, taking down several barbarians who had climbed the wall.

His archery skills, honed in the face of thousands of soldiers, and his calm and composed demeanor in the face of danger, instantly stabilized the crumbling morale of the eastern army. The retreating defenders, seeing that this "medicine boy" possessed such skill, and that even a callow youth dared to stand on the most dangerous battlements and fight the barbarians to the death, how could they, the veterans, possibly back down? They regrouped and, following the precise point where Qin Ying's arrows had landed, tenaciously defended the breach that had almost fallen.

The centurion guarding the eastern section was dumbfounded. He thought it was some hidden expert sent from the army camp, but he never expected that this "medicine boy" who usually followed Doctor Yang silently would have such a commanding presence.

Meanwhile, on Yang Hu's side, wounded soldiers who had fought their way down from the eastern section of the city wall poured into the wounded soldiers' camp one after another like a tidal wave. Those with severed arms, those with pierced chests, and those injured by rolling stones quickly filled half the tent, their cries of agony heart-wrenching.

"Listen to me!"

Yang Hu's sharp shout quelled the chaos in the camp. He immediately ordered a triage: those who could walk should wait on the sidelines, those bleeding profusely and wounded in vital areas should be treated first, and those who had stopped breathing should be moved aside. With his command, the chaotic wounded soldiers' camp was instantly brought into order.

He himself stood guard at the most dangerous spot, using a series of techniques—stopping bleeding, ligating wounds, cleaning wounds, and suturing—flowing smoothly from one location to another. He ligated severed blood vessels with a swift needle; he stitched and medicated pierced wounds; he removed arrowheads embedded in flesh. Qin Ying, disguised as a medicine boy who was supposed to be handing over weapons, went up to the city wall, and Yang Hu single-handedly took on the work of two men, his hands moving with perfect efficiency.

One after another, critically wounded soldiers on the verge of death were pulled back from the brink by his hands. The army doctor assisting him watched in astonishment, feeling that there was no injury that this young physician could not save.

"Saving one life means one more gun on the eastern section of the city wall," Yang Hu said in a deep voice as he stitched up the wound. These words spoke of the relationship between doctors and soldiers.

In this bloody battle where the city was desperately defended and nearly breached, every life he saved in the wounded camp was a real contribution to the eastern section of the city wall. Every additional spear and bow on the wall increased the chances of holding the breach that was almost torn open.

As the sun began to set, the barbarians' frenzied attacks were finally repelled time and again. The wave of barbarians who reached the eastern section of the city had piles of corpses at the base of the walls, a truly magnificent sight, while the rest retreated back into the wilderness.

The eastern section of the city wall held out after all. The soldiers on the city wall were slumped over, all wounded, but the tattered military flag was still firmly stuck in the crenellation.

Yang Hu straightened up, wiped the blood from his face, and looked towards the pass. On the open field, the barbarian army had not retreated far, but was merely resting temporarily, and could return at any moment.

Qin Ying, covered in dust and blood, came down from the eastern section of the city wall, her disguise as a medicine boy almost impossible to conceal. Her fierce battle on the city wall had stabilized the morale of the troops, but it had also nearly revealed her true identity as a daughter of a military family.

Yang Hu stepped forward, shielding her from the gaze of others, tidied her disheveled hair, and then smeared her face with a handful of stove ash. He whispered, "Don't rush. Now that you've shown this skill, you must hide it even better. That centurion guarding the eastern section has probably remembered you as the 'medicine apprentice.'"

Qin Ying looked at him, her clear, cold eyes swirling with lingering fear, determination, and a hint of barely suppressed warmth.

"That breach was created by that hand that took my brother's life." She gritted her teeth, her voice extremely low. "As long as it remains, the dangers in the eastern section will never be eliminated."

Yang Hu clenched his fist.

Although the barbarians outside the city have retreated today, they will return tomorrow. Meanwhile, the hand that has breached the city's defenses and even sold the shift change times to the barbarians is now hidden deep within the central command tent, coldly watching the corpses on the eastern section of the city wall.

Its treason had reached the point where the entire Qing Shi Kou and the lives of all the soldiers in the city had to be used to fill the gap. If Qin Ying hadn't risked his life to hold down the breach in the eastern section today, this city would probably have already changed hands.

The battle was won, but finding that hand is more urgent and more critical than ever. The roll of military reports hidden close to his body, and the two signatures that closely approximate its outline, are the only tools that can cut off that hand right now.