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

That piece of paper was effective for the first two days.

After one round of boulders was thrown, the people at the breach immediately retreated behind the wall; within the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the sandbag team went up to build the wall; when the next round of stones fell, there was no one at the breach.

Over the course of two days, the number of wounded soldiers carried into the eastern section of the camp dropped from forty-seven a day to eleven. For the first time, seven or eight door planks were left empty in the camp.

On the afternoon of the third day, Commandant Wang came to the wounded soldiers' camp to see him, his face beaming with barely suppressed laughter.

"Medical Officer Yang, this method works."

The knife wound on his left arm hadn't fully healed yet, and he instinctively tried to protect it while speaking, but the joy on his face was impossible to hide.

Yang Hu was bandaging a soldier with a severed finger when he heard this, and simply nodded.

"At this rate, the eastern section can hold out until autumn."

"I can't hold on."

Commandant Wang was taken aback: "What?"

"Barbarians can change."

Commander Wang smiled, clearly not taking it to heart. He had fought for twenty years and had seen countless barbarians who, when attacking a city, simply piled up men; they never bothered with any strategy or tactics.

Yang Hu didn't say anything more. He wasn't entirely at ease either. He couldn't say how the barbarians would change, he only knew they would definitely change.

He's spent half his life dealing with illness. Illness is inanimate: malaria attacks every three days, and it will always attack every three days; dysentery is transmitted by water, and it will always be transmitted by water. Even if you figure out how it works, it won't change just because you figure it out.

But the 30,000 people outside the city are not sick.

On the fourth day at Chenshi (7-9 AM), the stone was thrown as usual.

After the first round of attacks, the people at the gap withdrew.

One incense stick's time. The team of earthen bags went up and piled up three layers.

The second round ended, and the players withdrew.

One incense stick burned. The team of people carrying earth bags went up again.

In the third round, Yang Hu was counting in the wounded soldiers' camp when he suddenly stopped.

wrong.

The time between the second and third rounds was shorter.

It wasn't much, just a dozen or so counts. But those dozen or so counts happened just as the sandbag team climbed up the breach and hadn't had a chance to retreat.

He dropped what he was holding and ran outside.

When they reached the bottom of the eastern section of the horse trail, the third round of stones had already fallen.

The area was covered in dust. When the dust settled, of the seventeen earthen-bag soldiers who had been standing at the breach, only four remained.

"Withdraw! Withdraw completely!" Commander Wang's roar came down from the city wall.

But this time, the barbarian didn't wait for the next round.

The stone-throwing stopped.

Instead, bugles sounded.

Yang Hu looked up and saw a dark mass of people surging up from behind the three-layered, yet-to-be-compacted, earthen wall.

The barbarian assault team, nestled amidst the dust and smoke of the final volley of boulders, charged to the base of the wall.

This was the moment they had been waiting for: for the garrison to withdraw according to the new rules, for only the sandbag team to remain at the breach, and for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

Yang Hu's blood suddenly went cold.

The paper contained the numbers he had meticulously recorded over the past two months. But those numbers were static; the barbarian was dynamic.

He remembered the barbarian's rhythm, and the barbarian remembered his.

"Block it!" Captain Wang had already drawn his sword. "All troops on the eastern section, advance!"

That's too late.

The half-built wall of sandbags held out for less than a quarter of an hour. The barbarian soldiers climbed over and poured in from both sides of the breach.

The team guarding the breach had been supposed to retreat to the base of the wall to rest according to the new rules. Their knives were still hanging at their waists, their armor sashes were loose, and some were even sitting on the ground.

By the time they got up, the barbarians had already rushed up to them.

Yang Hu had never seen such a scene in his entire life.

He had seen blood, severed limbs, and people slowly dying under his care. But those were people carried off the plane, lying on their backs.

This time, they were standing. Living people poured in through the gap, knives slashing at flesh, people jostling and falling, those falling being trampled down by those behind before they even hit the ground.

He stood at the bottom of the horse track, unable to move.

"Medical Officer Yang!"

Someone was pulling him. It was Su Heng.

"Wounded soldiers' battalion! Retreat!"

Yang Hu was pulled back by her, but after taking two steps, he suddenly stopped.

"We will not withdraw."

"The eastern section cannot be held!"

"We can hold out." Yang Hu's voice was terribly hoarse. "Commander Wang is up there. He still has four hundred men under his command."

"and you……"

"Move the wounded soldiers' camp forward." Yang Hu turned around, grabbed a soldier who could still run, and said, "Go, move those thirty door planks from the camp entrance to the horse crossing. The people who were carried down don't need to be sent to the back; they can be distributed right there at the horse crossing."

"Horse crossing? That's under a hail of arrows!"

"If we carry them to the back and then divide them, 30% of them will die on the way."

The soldier hesitated for a moment, then turned and ran.

Su Heng glanced at him, then turned and drew her sword, heading towards the horse path.

That night, the fighting in the eastern section of Qingshikou lasted from afternoon until midnight.

When the barbarians retreated, the breach was finally plugged. It was plugged by the four hundred men that Commandant Wang had led up, and the two hundred men who were later transferred from the southern section.

Six hundred people went up, but less than three hundred came down.

Yang Hu knelt between the thirty door panels at the crossroads from afternoon until dawn.

He couldn't remember how many he had saved. He only remembered one soldier with a broken leg who was still conscious when he was carried off the plane, clutching his sleeve and asking, "Sir, are we going to lose?"

Yang Hu said he could hold out.

The soldier smiled and said that was good, then closed his eyes and never opened them again.

Yang Hu knelt beside him for a while, then slowly pried open his hand, which was still clutching his sleeve, finger by finger.

The hand was still warm.

The gap in the eastern section was blocked three times and breached twice.

In the latter half of the night, Commandant Wang added his personal guards. These were forty of his old men, whom he had brought from the Western Camp and who had served him for seven years.

When they came down, there were eleven left.

When dawn broke, there wasn't a single empty space in the wounded soldiers' camp.

Physician Liu sat on the threshold, his hands trembling so badly he couldn't even hold the medicine bowl. Su Heng leaned against the tent pillar, her armor and face covered in dried blood, and remained silent.

Commander Wang was helped down from the city wall. He had been stabbed in the left arm, and blood had soaked half of his body.

He walked up to Yang Hu and stopped.

Yang Hu stood up.

The two people faced each other, neither of them speaking.

After a long pause, Yang Hu spoke.

"I should have gone up to the city wall yesterday afternoon," he said. "I counted that the round was a dozen or so numbers short, but I sat in the wounded soldiers' camp and didn't move. By the time I ran out, it was half an incense stick too late."

Commandant Wang looked at him.

"Those six hundred people were added by me in half an incense stick's time."

The first bugle call came from afar, followed by a second.

That's the signal the barbarians use to urge the enemy into battle.

It was already broad daylight.

The barbarians started throwing stones again.

Commandant Wang didn't offer any words of comfort. He simply raised his still-movable right hand, pressed it heavily on Yang Hu's shoulder, and then released it.

"Medical Officer Yang," he said in a hoarse voice, "are you still going to issue today's order?"

Yang Hu raised his head.

"hair."

"How do I send it?"

"Burn that paper," Yang Hu said. "From today onward, we'll stop counting and focus on the people. Each time the sandbag team climbs the wall, they'll take a different hour to climb; leave three people at the breach to keep watch on the barbarian's climbing team."

"Leave three people behind, what about those three..."

"Those three people will die," Yang Hu said steadily. "But if they die, the next six hundred will live."

Commandant Wang stared at him for a long time.

"I'll go up and choose the people," he said, turning and leaving.

Yang Hu stood still, watching his back as he slowly made his way up the horse path.

He didn't burn the paper. He folded it neatly and tucked it back into the innermost layer of his bosom.

The list of 116 wounded soldiers, meticulously recorded in the notebook, has grown to over 700 since last night.

For the past two months, he has believed that he is keeping a record of saving lives.

It wasn't until that night that I realized this was also a ledger capable of killing. If the person keeping the record didn't go to the city wall, the numbers in the ledger would only keep increasing.