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

On the morning of the fourth day, the last jar of wound medicine was empty.

Physician Liu turned the empty jar upside down, tapped it twice on the table, and extracted a small spoonful of grayish-white powder. He then scraped the rim of the jar with his finger.

"That's all," he said.

The jar was brought from the Western Camp. It had been bumpy for three hundred miles, and a piece of the jar's mouth was chipped off.

The wounded soldiers' camp fell silent instantly.

Sixty-three were brought in last night. More than half of those lying on the door panels right now haven't been treated yet.

"Chief Physician Yang," Physician Liu's voice trembled, "what should we do?"

Yang Hu did not answer immediately.

He walked to Yingkou, lifted the curtain, and looked at the large pot still steaming outside. Inside, Su Heng had gathered Artemisia argyi, Sanguisorba officinalis, and Bletilla striata the day before, and it had been simmering for a day and a night, becoming a thick, dark black liquid.

That's not a wound medicine. But there's no wound medicine available right now.

"Bring the pot in," he said.

The medical officer, Liu, stood there, stunned. Those three pots were for brewing medicine for the wounded soldiers to drink internally; only about a hundred bowls could be brewed a day, and the camp had to distribute them sparingly.

Physician Liu was stunned: "This...this medicinal soup can be used to treat wounds?"

"able."

"But this is a prescription for internal use."

"The prescription is fixed." Yang Hu rolled up his sleeves. "Sanguisorba officinalis stops bleeding, Bletilla striata promotes tissue regeneration, and Artemisia argyi removes putrefaction. Boil these three ingredients until concentrated, let them cool to lukewarm, soak gauze in the decoction, and apply it. This is more reliable than simply sprinkling powdered medicine on the wound. When powdered medicine is sprinkled on the wound, it forms a crust, preventing the pus underneath from draining out."

He paused.

"What's truly deadly is never whether or not there's a cure."

All the doctors in the camp were looking at him.

"It's dirty."

Upon hearing those two words, the faces of the old doctors all changed. They had practiced medicine for half their lives, discussing the principles of monarch, minister, assistant, and guide, as well as the concepts of cold, heat, deficiency, and excess. They had never heard anyone mention "dirt" as the most important thing.

Yang Hu didn't explain. He just kept assigning tasks one by one.

First, all water in the camp must be boiled before use. Not a single drop of tap water is allowed, whether for washing wounds, wiping hands, or soaking cloths.

Secondly, collect all the used cloths and boil them. Boil them in boiling water for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, then take them out, let them dry, and then use them again.

Thirdly, before using knives or needles, wash your hands with strong liquor, including the crevices under your fingernails.

Fourthly, from this day forward, doctors are forbidden from switching hands between two wounded soldiers without washing their hands first. Whoever has the blood of the previous person on their hands is not allowed to touch the wound of the next.

After he finished recounting these four points, no one in the camp responded.

"This..." An old doctor couldn't help but say, "Yang, the most urgent need right now is firewood. How much firewood do we burn every day to boil water and cloth? The brothers can't even get a hot meal."

"I'll go get the firewood."

"Can we get it?"

"If you can't come, then take down the tent," Yang Hu said. "If the tent collapses, people can still squeeze in; but if this pot isn't heated, twenty more people will have to be carried out of this camp tomorrow."

"But these methods are unheard of. Whether a wound festers or not is determined by fate, by the depth of the wound."

"no."

Yang Hu walked to the row of walls at the base.

There lay the eleven who couldn't be saved the night before. He lifted the cloth covering one of them, revealing a shallow cut on his calf. Greenish pus festered around the wound, which was swollen and shiny.

"This cut wasn't fatal, but it didn't break his bones. He shouldn't have died."

He closed the shroud.

"He died on this cloth. This cloth was used to wrap someone else's rotting leg yesterday, and it was replaced without being boiled."

The camp was so quiet you could hear the water boiling in the pot outside.

The old doctor opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a word.

"I know you don't believe me." Yang Hu straightened up. "Then let's do it for three days. After three days, when fewer people are being carried out, it's not too late for you to believe me."

The old doctor stared at the row of people at the base of the wall for a long time, then suddenly bent down and put his blood-stained hands into the basin of boiling water next to him.

The water was scalding hot. He didn't pull his hand away.

"These hands of mine," he said hoarsely, "have been my tools of medicine for forty years. If half of those forty years have died because of these hands..."

He didn't continue speaking, but just rubbed his hands in the water again and again until they were bright red.

It was Su Heng who went to ask for the firewood.

She took the note written by Yang Hu to the storeroom. When the storeroom clerk saw that so much firewood was needed, he shrugged and said: "The entire camp only has enough firewood for three days' meals. No one dares to approve it."

Su Heng didn't argue with him, and turned to go to the city wall.

Half an hour later, about twenty veterans who had recovered from their injuries returned to their unit, carrying wooden frames and planks that they had taken down from their own tents, and made trip after trip to the wounded soldiers' camp.

"The tents are taken down, where are we going to sleep?" the storehouse clerk shouted from behind.

"Sleep on the ground." The old soldier at the head of the group didn't even turn his head. "A tent can be rebuilt if it collapses. But a person who rots can never be brought back to life."

By the afternoon, the fire under the pot had never stopped burning.

That same afternoon, the military law officers arrived.

The prison warden who arrived was surnamed Du, accompanied by four soldiers with swords. He went straight into the wounded soldiers' camp.

"Yang, the medical officer," Du, the prison warden, slammed a document on the table, "someone has filed a complaint alleging that you hoarded military supplies and withheld medicine for wounded soldiers, resulting in the deaths of a large number of wounded soldiers last night. The Military Law Department has been ordered to investigate."

Physician Liu's face turned pale instantly.

Yang Hu put down the medicine in his hand and wiped his hands with a cloth.

"Check," he said. "Everything in my camp, from medicine to firewood to cloth, is here. If you want to check, I'll go with you."

Du Siyu was clearly surprised by his quick response and couldn't retaliate immediately. He simply waved his hand, and four soldiers went in to search the place.

The four soldiers overturned the medicine cabinet, searched the straw mat, and even shoveled away the ashes under the three pots.

After searching for half an hour, they found nothing.

There wasn't a single medicine that had been secretly kept in the wounded soldiers' camp. Even the three pots used for boiling mugwort were made by burning firewood from dismantled tent frames.

Du Siyu's face turned pale and then flushed.

Yang Hu then slowly began to speak.

"Prisoner Du, I have a question I'd like to ask you."

"speak."

"Sixty-three were brought in last night. If there really is some privately hoarded medicine in this camp, why should I watch them die?"

Du Siyu did not answer.

"Let me ask you another question." Yang Hu looked at him. "I've counted all the people the Military Law Department has arrested, taken away, and removed these past few days: the ordnance officer who identified the source of the poisoned arrow was removed the day before yesterday; the clerk who was checking old accounts in the archives was removed yesterday. They were all checking people from that ordnance line."

He paused.

"Was the person who first accused me also surnamed Zhou?"

Du Siyu's pupils suddenly contracted.

It was a fleeting moment. He immediately frowned, but that slight retraction was enough.

Yang Hu's lingering doubts were now confirmed. The people the Military Law Department had taken away these past few days weren't just randomly arrested; they were arrested according to a list. And of all the people on that list, he was the only one still standing.

Yang Hu saw that expression clearly.

"Guards!" Du Siyu's voice suddenly rose. "Take this person away..."

Before he could finish speaking, a bugle call suddenly sounded outside.

One sound, two sounds, three sounds.

That was the signal for a city-wide alert.

Du Siyu's words were stuck in his throat. He glanced back at the city gate, his expression changed, and he didn't bother to retaliate anymore, hurriedly leading his men away.

Yang Hu walked out of the tent.

The flags on the city walls were being taken down. The defending troops surged onto the walls like a tide. On the distant horizon, a line of dust rolled in along the ground, growing wider and higher.

The barbarians' all-out attack has begun.

In Yingkou, the row of pots simmering mugwort soup were still bubbling away. Two wounded soldiers, recently relieved from their duty at the city wall, squatted beside the pots, each holding a chipped, rough bowl, waiting for the soup to cool until it was edible. Yang Hu glanced at the pots, turned and went back to his tent, rolling up his sleeves even more.

"Get all the door panels out," he said. "We'll probably have to carry down twice as many as we did yesterday."