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

Alright, the next day, guards began to be stationed at Yang Hu's house.

Everyone in the city knows that the little miracle doctor who cured both Master Zhou and Master Sun lives in this three-courtyard house on the east side!

People lined up early in the morning, blocking the alley.

No!

Yang Hu vacated a room and set it up in front, with a table and a cabinet on it, where he would see patients every morning.

Lu Rou meticulously recorded the registration fees and medicine costs with a calligraphy brush and a notebook. She kept track of everything: when people arrived, who went first, and how much it cost—not a single detail was wrong.

This girl used to be just a nobody in the village, doing odd jobs like assisting Lu Yan, who was better off dead than alive. Nobody cared about her. But now she's become organized and more capable than anyone else. With more people coming to see the doctor, there are bound to be those who cut in line and refuse to pay. This girl just frowns and gets them all sorted out in three sentences. Nobody can get past her.

Lu Yan helped with getting the medicine and calculating the prescription, and she smiled as she watched her younger sister being so capable.

On the first day, people lined up as soon as it was light. Each member of the Yang and Hu families went to see a doctor for minor ailments such as headaches, fevers, food poisoning, and sprained backs.

Yang Hu took a pulse, asked a few questions, and with just a few words, he wrote a prescription and left.

An old man had half his face swollen up, covering his mouth and crying out in pain. He said that the doctors in the city had pulled out two of his teeth but it was no use. Yang Hu took a look, pricked the abscessed tooth root, added some medicine to clear the heat, and the old man immediately felt much better. He thanked Yang Hu profusely and left.

After seeing all the patients, they all praised him highly. This young doctor seemed unremarkable and didn't show off his skills, but he never made a mistake in treating anyone.

Just before lunchtime, a little girl and a woman arrived and squeezed to the front of the crowd.

The woman's face was ashen, her eyes bloodshot, and the boy in her arms looked to be about four or five years old, his face also sallow, clearly indicating that he had been ill for a long time.

"Dr. Yang, please save my child!" The woman almost fell to her knees with a thud.

Yang Hu pulled the woman back.

What's wrong with your child?

The woman wiped away her tears. The child had been coughing for over a month. At first, she thought it was from the wind, and a doctor in the city prescribed medicine for her. After drinking more than a dozen jars, it had no effect and the cough was getting worse every day.

"I haven't slept a wink for the past few days," the woman said, trembling. "I keep coughing, my face is turning blue, I can't breathe, and then I let out a long sigh like... you know..."

As they were talking, the child started coughing. When he coughed, he gasped for breath, his face turning red and then gradually turning blue. Finally, after coughing once, a long "hoarse" echoed from his throat, like he had just spat out a long phlegm with traces of blood in it.

The room full of people waiting in line shrank back a little.

"Get away! This guy's probably suffering from tuberculosis, he's incredibly strong!" someone shouted.

Yang Hu approached.

He carefully examined the child's coughing.

The coughing grew more and more intense, making the child curl up into a ball. At the very end of the coughing fit, a long, drawn-out sound escaped his throat. Most importantly, he glanced at the child's eyelids and tongue, and then checked his pulse.

Floating numbers, thin white.

He understood.

This isn't tuberculosis.

I've been having bouts of spasmodic coughing, with the cough trailing off very long, sometimes accompanied by blood, for over a month now – it's a persistent cough. The doctors in the city treated it like a common cough and cold, prescribing a whole basket of cough medicine. Of course, the wrong medicine won't work. No wonder the cough is getting worse.

"It's not tuberculosis!" Yang Hu said.

The woman looked up: "Is...is it really true?"

"Your child's cough is called a whooping cough!" Yang Hu said. "It's not the same as a regular cough or cold. A regular cough or cold is treated by stopping the cough and clearing phlegm. This whooping cough is caused by airway obstruction; the cough comes in spasms, and we need a different treatment method!"

He got the medicine. He gave it several medications together: cough suppressant, expectorant, and tranquilizer.

"This illness is serious!" he said. "From now on, don't let your child be crowded with other children. Also, this disease is very slow-acting and cannot be cured completely; it's a serious, urgent illness. It requires slow and careful care, and the herbal medicine cannot be stopped for even a day!"

The woman thanked them profusely and left with her child.

Among the waiting crowd, someone muttered: "A cough all winter long, several old doctors in the city said there was no hope, and he can cure it with just a few words? Can he really do it?"

Yang Hu ignored them.

This cough isn't something that can be cured with a shot or a sip of medicine; it can't be rushed.

Sure enough, a few days later the woman brought her child back to Yang Hu for a follow-up examination.

The child's complexion had improved considerably. The woman wept with joy, wiping away her tears. "Dr. Yang, my child's cough has lessened these past two days! He's been sleeping soundly through the night!"

Yang Hu watched for a while longer. The drawn-out crowing echo had become much softer. He then adjusted the prescription, reducing the amount of cough suppressant and adding some qi-tonifying ingredients.

"It will be completely cured after a few days of treatment," he said. "In the future, if your child has a weak constitution, take extra care to prevent them from catching a cold."

The woman readily agreed and thanked her profusely, handing over the consultation fee. Lu Rou took it and recorded it in the ledger as usual. These past few days, with patients visiting the side rooms, the ledger had been filled with densely packed entries in several notebooks.

The news quickly spread to the city.

The people in the teahouse were talking very confidently and methodically.

"That miracle doctor in the east of the city even cured the child's strange cough. The child had been coughing for over a month, and the old doctor said it was tuberculosis and he was going to die."

"The doctor could tell just by taking his pulse that it wasn't tuberculosis, but some kind of whooping cough. A few doses of medicine and he was fine!"

The old doctor, who had previously said the patient was going to die from tuberculosis, fell silent again.

So after a few days, Yang Hu had established himself in the city.

The more people seek medical help, the more money he earns in consultation fees and gifts pour into his pockets.

However, most of this money didn't end up in Yang Hu's pocket.

Yang Hu always replenished his stock of the best medicines. He also frequently helped beggars on the streets of the city and poor families who looked down on medical treatment.

"Oh dear, young master is ruthless!" Lu Rou complained as she kept the accounts. "He takes in fast, and he takes out even faster!"

Yang Hu laughed and said, "Money, you have to spend it where it's going to be spent."

The family gathered around the stove for dinner in the evening.

Lu Yan served Yang Hu a bowl of soup, and then she stewed a pot of wild game soup. Lu Yan picked the wild game and put it into the soup pot to simmer for an hour. The aroma was so enticing that it filled the whole house.

Qin Ying didn't say much, but in the past few days, she had become more familiar with Lu Yan and the other women, and occasionally exchanged a few words with them. When she heard that someone had been secretly glancing at her sisters in the side room, Qin Ying paused while wiping the kitchen knife and said, "If that guy surnamed Zhao from the west of the city comes to our house to cause trouble, I'd really like to teach him a lesson."

Lu Yan quickly pressed her down and said softly, "Don't do anything dangerous. Let the young master decide."

Qin Ying hummed in response and said nothing more, but the knife in her hand gleamed even brighter.

The room was filled with warmth.

But Yang Hu's heart was on edge.

During the day, he would see doctors from all walks of life, using the opportunity to inquire about the city. He was particularly interested in news from the Zhou family's grain store area—which grain store, which route, and which unfamiliar porters he could hear and remember.

While seeking medical treatment, his network of belongings in the city gradually unfolded.

That day, just before closing time, another patient came in.

He was a burly man, but he didn't look like someone who had come to see a doctor at all. He looked her over several times in the side room, and finally his eyes lingered on Lu Rou, glancing towards the backyard a couple of times.

"What's wrong?" Yang Hu asked.

The man grinned, revealing his yellow teeth.

"Nothing much, just wanted to ask... Dr. Yang, I heard there are a few beautiful old ladies here. And looking around today, wow, there really are!"

Then the man staggered away.

Yang Hu's eyes darkened.

The lead about Zhao Yanei in the west of the city is still not entirely reliable.

This man is looking for directions.

This guy came to scout things out, and once he figured out the situation, there wouldn't be just one person following him.