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

The felt was wrapped around three sides.

The fourth side faces west and is open.

"General, the wind is coming from the west." A guard was about to go and stop it.

"Don't block it. If you block it, there will be no light."

March 27th, early afternoon. The sun was setting and shining obliquely in from the open side, landing on Yue Chong's right chest.

Su Heng ran there. She stopped in front of the felt mat, saw the person on the ground, her face paled, and she squatted down.

"An arrow pierced his lung," Yang Hu said. "Air entered his chest cavity and pressed against his lung."

Su Heng touched Yue Chong's chest with her hand, and she could hear the soft sound under her fingers.

"General, I've never done this before."

"I know. Listen to me, I'll do it. Don't let your hands shake, or I'll have to start over."

Seventeen knives were handed over.

Yang Hu looked at them one by one and picked out three: one was a personal guard's wrist knife with a thin blade; one was a cook's bone-scraping knife with a sharp point; and the other was a willow-leaf shaped knife, short and double-edged.

"cook."

The pots for boiling water were carried over from the low-lying area; two were brought over and placed outside the felt mat. After the water boiled, three knives were boiled in it for the time it takes to burn an incense stick.

There were no needles. The few suture needles the military medical team had were left outside Xigou with the medicine cart.

Su Heng pulled a silver hairpin from her hair bun, broke it in two, and handed over the tip of the hairpin.

"Will this work?"

"Yes." Yang Hu tossed the broken hairpin tip into the pot as well. "Where's the thread?"

"Horse mane thread." Su Heng took out a small roll from her bosom. "It's for collecting horse blood. It's finely shredded and boiled three times."

"Cooking for the fourth time."

The tool that could support the ribs was Cui Ting's idea.

He drew two arrows, whittled the shafts into short sticks with grooves at both ends, and carved a slit in the middle with a knife. He then crossed the two sticks and braced them together to support the weight.

"How big can this hold?"

"One inch. Any bigger and it'll break."

"One inch is enough."

The sun moved half a step further west.

Yang Hu knelt to Yue Chong's right, and Su Heng knelt to his left. Four guards held down his limbs, while two others on either side held up two polished armor plates, refracting the slanting sunlight onto his wounds.

There is no anesthetic powder.

"General Yue," Yang Hu whispered in his ear, "this cut will hurt a lot. If you want to scream, just scream."

Yue Chong's eyes were half-open.

"……how long?"

"A stick of incense."

"What's outside?"

"General Shao is outside. Your flag is still flying."

Yue Chong made a gurgling sound in his throat, like laughter. He clenched his teeth.

Yang Hu picked up the thin-bladed wrist-cutting knife.

The first incision was not an open chest surgery.

The first cut was made an inch beside the arrow shaft, following the direction of the ribs to create a three-inch long incision. Blood gushed out, and Su Heng immediately pressed it down with a boiled cloth, holding it for two breaths, then releasing it, and pressing it down again.

"Don't crush them all," Yang Hu said. "If they're crushed, I won't be able to see them."

The second step is to separate the meat. Instead of cutting with the knife, use the back of the knife and your fingers to push along the muscle fibers to both sides. Push until the ribs are exposed, two white bones lying across the blood.

"support."

Cui Ting handed over the two sharpened arrow shafts. Yang Hu inserted them between his two ribs, crossing them in place.

A one-inch incision has been made.

In that instant, everyone inside the felt tent heard a sound.

It wasn't Yue Chong's voice, it was the sound of anger. The breath that had been trapped in his chest burst out from the opening, carrying blood and foam, spraying half of Yang Hu's sleeve.

Yue Chong gasped.

That breath was the fullest he had taken in the past half hour.

Su Heng's hand trembled slightly.

"General, the bluish color on his face has faded."

"The suppressed air has been released." Yang Hu wiped the blood foam from his sleeve onto his knee. "But this is only the beginning. The arrow is still inside."

He bent down and peered inside through that tiny opening.

The sunlight was just right, and the arrow's location was visible. A triangular cluster was stuck in a lung lobe, its tip piercing through, and a piece of lung was hanging from it by barbs.

Barrel hook.

It's the same type of cluster as the one in his box.

Yang Hu's hand paused for a moment.

"General?" Su Heng called out softly.

"It's nothing."

He suppressed that half-breath. We'll find out whose warehouse this cluster came from when we get back to Black Stone Beam.

There are two ways to remove the arrow. Pulling it outwards will tear off a piece of lung with the barbs; pushing it inwards will pierce through and remove it from behind, but this spot is behind the shoulder blade.

He chose the third one.

"Boning knife".

The sharp knife was handed to him. He inserted the tip of the knife along the arrow shaft, and following the direction of the barb, slowly peeled away the piece of lung tissue hanging on the hook.

This step took a long time.

The drums outside kept beating. At one point, the sound was so close that something bumped against the felt, causing it to tremble. A guard turned to look, but Su Heng stopped him with a single sentence.

"Hold it down!"

The guard turned his head back and pressed down hard on Yue Chong's arm with both hands.

When you peel it down to the last spot, the hook comes loose.

"Outwards."

Su Heng pulled out the arrow. Yang Hu's hands were both inside, unable to free themselves. Following his instructions, she steadily pulled it out inch by inch.

When it was pulled out, a small piece of flesh was hanging from the arrowhead.

Blood rushed up immediately.

"cloth."

The third step is to suture the lungs.

Lungs cannot be stitched up like skin and flesh. Yang Hu used the tip of the silver hairpin to thread the horsehair and made five stitches along the edge of the tear, each stitch extremely shallow, only covering the surface layer.

"Why isn't it deep?" Su Heng stared at it.

"If it's too deep, it leaks air," Yang Hu said. "The shallower layer grows the fastest."

After five stitches, the wound stopped bubbling.

The fourth step is to exhaust the gas.

"Bring me that empty arrow shaft."

Cui Ting handed over an arrow shaft with the tassel removed. Yang Hu inserted it into the incision, leaving an inch of shaft sticking out. He tied the outer end with a small piece of softened, boiled horsehide and then made a thin cut in the horsehide.

"What are you doing?"

"The air pushes outwards, opening this passage; the outside air tries to get in, but the horsehide sticks to it." Yang Hu fixed the arrow shaft, "It can only go out, not in."

Su Heng looked at the horsehide that was bulging and deflated, and suddenly understood something; her eyes reddened.

Finally, the mouth is closed.

The two arrow shafts that had been stretched open were removed, the ribs were closed, and the muscles were stitched back together layer by layer. Two rolls of horsehair thread were used, and Su Heng sewed the last few stitches while Yang Hu watched from the side.

"Make the angle a little flatter. Make the stitches denser; this layer is the most important."

"Yes."

By the time the sewing was finished, the sun had already set behind the felt.

From the first incision to the last needle, half an incense stick has burned.

Yang Hu straightened up, his legs too numb to stand, and leaned on Cui Ting's arm for a while to catch his breath. The blood on his hands had dried, stretching across the skin, and cracked with the slightest movement.

Yue Chong's lips were gray, no longer blue. His chest rose and fell like a normal person's.

"General," Cui Ting's voice trembled, "he..."

"Live," Yang Hu said. "If we can get through tonight, we'll survive."

He then remembered that he was outside.

"How's it going outside?"

Only then did Cui Ting remember to report, and a little color returned to his face.

"General Shao led a thousand men from the left and front battalions to reinforce them. Colonel Pang's 1,100 cavalry circled around to the east, only running and not fighting, making two round trips." He swallowed hard. "The barbarians' third charge retreated halfway through."

Why did you withdraw?

"I don't know," Cui Ting said. "They retreated very neatly, not like a rout. It's like... someone told them to retreat."

Yang Hu washed the blood off his hands in the basin.

He stopped halfway through washing.

"Did Commandant Pang's 1,100 cavalrymen head east?"

"Yes."

"Thirty li to the south of the east is the road we used to drive our horses across."

Cui Ting opened his mouth.

Yang Hu pulled his hand out of the water.

"They weren't scared off," he said. "They saw cavalry to the east and were afraid we would cut off their route back south."

"General, are they heading south?"

"Their horses are to the south." Yang Hu threw the cloth into the basin. "They're not here to fight to the death. They're here to entangle us so that another group can go around and drive the horses back."