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

The siege on the fifth day was even fiercer than the one on the previous day.

The accident occurred in the eastern section.

The inner wall that Commandant Wang built overnight was only half a person high; the team that Commandant Ma led out of the city to burn the catapults ran into the barbarians' sentries before dawn, losing more than thirty people, and not a single catapult was burned.

Both ends failed.

Just after Chen Shi (7-9 AM), the barbarians hurled stones at the eastern section again. The inner wall, which was half a person's height, collapsed under their weight.

"Send men!" Commander Wang roared from the city wall. "Send two hundred men from the southern section!"

"Don't pull it!" Captain Ma roared back from across the horse path. "If the southern section is emptied, the barbarians will come from the south. Who's going to stop them?"

"The eastern section is about to break through!"

"Even if the eastern section is breached, there's still the inner wall; if the southern section is breached, it's just the city gate!"

The two men were shouting at each other from the city wall, but neither could move the other's troops.

The soldiers below, half looking at Commander Wang and half at Commander Ma, dared not move first on either command. The gap remained empty for that half hour.

The wounded soldiers were carried down in droves during this half hour.

Yang Hu received them one by one in the camp.

When he received the fortieth or so call, he suddenly stopped.

More than twenty of these wounded soldiers were carried down from the eastern section, but most of their back and leg wounds were from arrows they were hit while running backward.

It wasn't a rout. It was that no one ordered them to retreat, nor did anyone order them to hold their ground.

To defend is to stand on the collapsed breach and be hit by stones; to retreat is to retreat without orders, which will be punished according to military law afterwards.

So they dared neither defend nor retreat, and just waited in the open space behind the breach, waiting for an order that would never come, until the barbarian arrows fell from above.

He wiped the blood from his hands on the hem of his robe and stood up.

"Medical Officer Liu, I'm leaving this to you."

"Medical Officer Yang, where are you going?"

Yang Hu did not answer.

He walked to the bedside. Captain Chen was awake, his eyes fixed on the top of the tent, listening to the chaotic shouts and cries of battle outside.

"Did you hear that?" Yang Hu asked.

Captain Chen's lips moved slightly.

"Both of them," he said hoarsely, "wouldn't give up either of them."

"Forty-seven were carried down from the eastern section," Yang Hu said, "and half of them were shot in the back with arrows."

Captain Chen suddenly closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, he reached under his pillow and pulled something out.

It was a bronze talisman about half the size of a palm, its edges polished to a shine, with the three characters "Qingshikou" engraved on the front.

Yang Hu recognized it. In the past two months, he had seen it three times from the city wall, each time when all three battalions of soldiers moved at the same time.

"You saved my life." Captain Chen pressed the bronze talisman into his hand. "But what I'm giving you now isn't a thank you."

Yang Hu held the bronze talisman without moving.

In his two lives, he had wielded knives, needles, and pens for writing prescriptions. This was the first time he had ever held something that could propel thousands forward or cause thousands to die.

"As long as I cannot climb the city wall, this talisman will remain in your hands." Captain Chen's voice was slow, but each word was enunciated very clearly. "The soldiers of the three battalions—East, South, and North—will see me as soon as they see this talisman."

"Captain Chen, I am not a commander."

"I know."

"I don't even know how to deploy troops."

"I know that too," Captain Chen stared at him, "but you have one thing that others don't. You know how many men in this city are still able to stand up, how many will be able to return to the city walls tomorrow. In this battle, everything else is just fluff, this is the only real thing."

Yang Hu clenched the bronze talisman tightly in his hand.

The copper was cool, and the polished edge was rough against my palm.

"The Military Law Department," he suddenly said, "Warden Du just came to check on me yesterday. If I have this token, the first thing they'll do is accuse me of overstepping my authority."

"That Du, the prison warden from the Military Law Department, was apprehended by me yesterday," Captain Chen said, catching his breath. "If he wants to arrest you, he'll have to take this talisman from me first. He wouldn't dare."

Yang Hu looked at him.

"Go," Captain Chen said, closing his eyes. "The sky won't fall. If it does, I'll take the blame."

When Yang Hu walked onto the eastern section of the city wall, Commandant Wang and Commandant Ma were arguing for the seventh time.

The two of them were stunned when they saw him.

"Medical Officer Yang," Commandant Wang frowned, "this is the city wall, not the wounded soldiers' camp."

Yang Hu didn't explain to him, but simply held up the bronze talisman.

The city walls fell silent instantly.

The bronze tally gleamed with a dull yellow light under the sun. The expressions of the two captains changed several times.

"This is Commandant Chen's order," Yang Hu said. "The three battalions are to treat Fu as if he were in person."

Captain Wang's Adam's apple bobbed: "Captain Chen, he..."

"He's still alive." Yang Hu put the talisman into his pocket. "He won't be able to get to the city wall for three months."

Commandant Ma spoke first, his voice laced with anger: "Then who will defend this city? A mere physician?"

"I will not defend the city," Yang Hu said.

Captain Ma was taken aback.

"Defending the city is your business. I'll only say three sentences." Yang Hu looked at him. "If you're still not satisfied after I've said those three sentences, take the talisman back to Commandant Chen. I won't keep you any longer."

Captain Ma sneered, "You speak."

"First sentence," Yang Hu pointed to the collapsed gap in the eastern section, "There's no need to send men to the southern section. What the eastern section lacks isn't soldiers, it's walls. Sending two hundred men up will just mean two hundred men standing at the gap waiting to be hit by stones."

Commander Wang's face darkened.

"Second sentence," Yang Hu turned to Commandant Ma, "You are not allowed to leave the city tonight. You lost more than thirty men last night, and not a single catapult caught fire. The barbarians have already set up sentries in that area. If you go again, you'll just be throwing people into the city."

Captain Ma's face also darkened.

"Then what do you suggest we do!" Commander Wang couldn't hold back any longer. "The breach in the eastern section is right there, and the barbarians will attack from there again tomorrow!"

"The third sentence."

Yang Hu pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. It contained notes he had taken over the past two days in the wounded soldiers' camp.

"One hundred and sixteen people have been carried down from the eastern section in the past two days. Sixty-eight of them suffered injuries from being crushed or broken, not from swords or arrows." He raised his eyes. "In other words, the people who killed you were not barbarian soldiers, but barbarian stones."

No one spoke from the city wall.

"I don't know anything about formations," Yang Hu said, handing over the paper. "But I know how these 116 people were injured, where they were injured, and when they were injured. This paper shows the interval between each round of the barbarians' stone-throwing."

Commandant Wang took the paper from him.

There wasn't a single military phrase on the paper. It simply stated: "On a certain day and time, several men were carried down from the eastern section, several were injured by falling objects, and several were wounded by arrows; on another day and time, several more men were carried down." The notes were densely packed, dating back two months to noon today.

He stared at it for a long time.

When he looked up again, the way he looked at Yang Hu was different from before.

"...It's like an incense stick's worth of time separating us," he murmured. "No wonder. Every time we just put people in, the stones come down."

"Not every time," Yang Hu said. "It's just that every time you fill in the slots, the timing happens to coincide with their turn."

"One incense stick's time," Yang Hu said, "enough to evacuate the people from the breach, and enough to pile up the sandbags before the next round."

The city walls were deathly silent.

In the distance, behind the dozens of catapults set up by the barbarians, people were carrying stones up again.

After a long pause, Commandant Wang carefully folded the paper, tucked it into his robes, turned around, and shouted at the top of his lungs towards the chaotic garrison in the eastern section:

"Listen to Physician Yang!"

The shout silenced the chaotic garrison in the eastern section for a moment.

Immediately, people began to move. First, three or five people, then a dozen or so, and then everyone on the entire section of the city wall started to move. Some carried sacks of earth, others carried wounded soldiers, and everyone returned to their respective positions.

Commander Ma stood there, watching this scene, and remained silent for a long time.