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

By the time they arrived, the fire had already burned out.

Not a single intact tent could be found across the forty-mile-long grassland. Rows of burnt-out wooden frames stood, blackened, and ash fell with every gust of wind. The sheepfold fence had burned down to the middle, and the sheep inside were huddled together, all burned to death, their hides burned away, revealing the whitish things underneath.

The wind blew from north to south, covering their faces with dust.

There were unburnt items in the ashes: half a leather bag, a wooden comb, and a child's leather boot with a red thread sewn around the upper.

The scouts reported the news with smoke at dawn, and the medical team set out from camp at the beginning of the morning. They covered forty miles of grassland, running for two hours, and three horses died in the process.

It's too late.

Yang Hu reined in his horse.

"dismount."

One hundred and twenty men dismounted. What they brought were twenty pots, forty sacks of sourdough, six cartloads of cloth, two cartloads of calamine and sheep fat.

"Go upwind."

The living person is in that river branch in the southeast.

One hundred and forty-seven. Most of them were submerged in the water, with only their heads above the surface. They ran towards the water's edge, but once in the water, they dared not come up, because there were cavalrymen on the shore.

The cavalry left at the hour of Si (9-11 AM), and by the time they left, the fire had already reached one end of the river branch and stopped burning when it could no longer be burned.

Those in the water dared not come ashore, remaining submerged until the sun began to set. The water was still cold in May, and half of the people carried ashore were shivering.

Yang Hu took a walk along the water's edge.

"Let's divide them into three groups," he said. "One group where they can walk ashore on their own, one group where they can't walk and need to be carried, and one group where they can make sounds from their throats."

"Throat?" Su Heng asked.

"He choked on the smoke; his throat is swollen," Yang Hu said. "He can still breathe now, but he won't be able to in an hour. This is the most urgent situation; you personally guard it."

"How do you recognize it?"

"Three things," Yang Hu said. "Blackness under the nostrils, a hoarse voice so bad you can't speak a complete sentence, and the veins in your neck sink in when you inhale. If you have two of these, take them to that place."

Sixteen tents were erected upwind.

Those who were infected and those who were burned were separated by a distance of sixty paces.

"General, among these 147, there might be some who are sick," Cui Ting said.

"Yes," Yang Hu said, "that's why we need to separate. Separation is so that everyone can survive, not to abandon anyone."

For burns, first pour cool water on the affected area until it is no longer hot to the touch, then apply an ointment made of calamine lotion and mutton fat. Do not puncture blisters that have formed on the entire area of ​​skin. Cover blisters that have collapsed on their own with a clean cloth and change the cloth daily.

"Water," Cui Ting asked, "Is the water from this river branch drinkable?"

Yang Hu squatted down to look at the grass by the water.

The grass is soft and green, just like the grass in the south.

"Yes," he said. "Cook it and eat it."

Six people died in the first hour, all of them from the throat.

The second person to die was a teenage girl; the veins in her neck kept sinking in before she breathed her last. Su Heng knelt beside her, her hands trembling.

"Cut reeds by the river," Yang Hu said. "We need this year's new reeds, with straight stems, cut them into four-inch lengths, trim both ends flat, and boil them in hot water."

The reed pipe was delivered at 5 PM.

When someone else couldn't breathe, Yang Hu first pressed his finger under the person's Adam's apple, found a soft spot, made a half-inch cut, and inserted a reed tube. A spurt of blood gushed out, the person didn't move at first, then their chest rose and fell, and the sound of breathing came from the tube.

Seven were inserted that night, and five survived.

When Yang Hu stabbed the fourth one, he handed the knife to Su Heng. She hesitated for three times before daring to strike, and then she didn't stop.

Starting from the second hour, people began to speak as the tent was being carried in.

The translator asked questions as he went from one tent to another.

The question asks how many people are sick.

An old man lay on a straw mat, repeating the same sentence over and over. The translator listened for a long time before finally translating it.

He said, "We are not sick."

"Find out the details," Yang Hu said. "How many people are in these two departments in total, and how many are sick?"

The translator asked for the time it takes to burn an incense stick.

"Four hundred and seventeen people." The translator's voice changed. "He said that nine of them had blood in their excrement. All nine of them were lying in that tent to the north, which was far from the water source in the tribe and had been separated out in March."

"nine."

"nine."

The booklet in Cui Ting's hand fell to the ground.

"What about the other nine people?"

The translator went to ask again, and when he returned, his face was pale.

"He said that was the first one they ordered. None of the nine people came out."

"When they burned it, they set the outermost tent on fire first." The translator continued translating the old man's words, "People ran out, but were driven back before their horses. They were driven back twice. The third time, no one drove them back, because the fire extinguished itself."

Yang Hu stood there, waiting for the old man to finish speaking.

"What else did he say?"

He asked if their poles weren't planted high enough.

Yang Hu squatted down in front of the old man, took off his water bag and placed it beside him, then stood up and left.

He walked a dozen steps, then turned back and said something to Cui Ting.

"Bring the booklet."

He wrote two lines in the booklet: May 23, forty li north, two units, four hundred and seventeen people. The next line had only four words: nine infected.

By late afternoon that day, the fire had cooled down.

Yang Hu issued two orders.

First, two pits, excavate in sections, one pit for each section. If they are melted together and cannot be separated, do not forcibly break them apart; whatever they look like when lifted up is what they are.

Second, stand the wooden sign.

"General, what does the sign say?"

"name."

Thirty-one literate soldiers were selected and seated one by one in front of the living person. The translator asked for a name and wrote it down. Their names were long, and most of them translated into three or four characters.

Some people couldn't recall their wives' names, only knowing that she was the third daughter who had married into the tribe from the east. They wrote that down as well.

A woman sat in the dust, clutching a motionless child. Su Heng squatted beside her for half an hour, until finally the woman handed the child over herself. She called out the child's name twice, afraid the child might miswrite it.

By the time the lamps were lit, 341 names had been written down.

There are still seventy-six that I can't write.

"Why can't you write it?" Cui Ting asked.

"Anyone who can name him should be burned along with him," the translator said.

Yang Hu took a wooden plaque and wrote two characters on it.

nameless.

"Seventy-six pieces, all written like this," he said. "Stand them together, don't separate them from those with names."

It was already dark when the wooden signs were put up. Three hundred and forty-one signs were on the east side, and seventy-six were on the west side, leaving a path in the middle.

Those 147 people didn't leave. They stood in front of the wooden sign until the second watch of the night.

"General, they refuse to return to their tents."

"Set up the tents," Yang Hu said. "Set them up right here, so they can see the sign when they turn around. Cook the porridge, make it thick, half a bowl per person, one bowl per hour. Don't give a full bowl to someone who's been hungry for three days at once."

At 9:00 PM, Liu Ye led three people out from the crowd.

"General, these three don't belong to either of these two departments."

Which department?

"One to the west and two to the north," Liu Ye said. "It was the Khan's order, and each tribe sent someone to oversee the burning. These three are from their respective tribes, and they didn't leave after they finished."

"What about the others?"

"They went back as soon as the fire was out," Liu Ye said. "The three of them were lying on the back of that slope on the south side, from when they were chasing people until we set up our tents."

"Are you leaving?"

"We're leaving," Liu Ye said. "General, should we detain him or not?"

"Don't deduct it. Give them three days' worth of dry rations," Yang Hu said. "Tell them to leave at dawn. Let them see what's in this area before they leave."

The three men stood in front of the wooden sign all night.

At daybreak, they mounted their horses, and before leaving, each of them passed in front of the seventy-six signs.