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

The medicinal herb garden outside the city has begun to stir.

Several farmers were busy plowing the land and building sheds. Water was brought in and poured into the fields through newly dug ditches... The sheds were erected day by day and were starting to take shape.

Every two days, Yang Hu would bring Aji over to check on the seedlings and the irrigation.

The sun was so bright and strong at noon today!

On the grassy slope beside the garden, a farmer was bending over cutting grass to make room for seedlings.

Suddenly he screamed and fell to the ground, sickle and all.

"Snake! A snake bit my leg!"

Everyone crowded around.

The man's surname was Liu. He was in his thirties and came from a neighboring village. He had elderly people and children at home who depended on his handmade rice to make a living.

There were two thin teeth marks on his calf, from which blood was still oozing. The flesh next to it was swelling up, turning purplish and dark.

"It's a triangular-headed snake!" Someone saw the snake dart out of the grass and their face changed color. "This kind of snake is very venomous!"

The farmers watching all changed their expressions.

There are many venomous snakes in this area. If you get bitten by a Pyramid Head snake, at least eight out of ten people will lose half their legs, and in more severe cases, they may even die.

Liu Laoshi was in excruciating pain; his leg was getting thicker and thicker, turning purplish-black, and slowly climbing upwards.

An old man burst into the crowd. He was from a nearby village and was called Wang Langzhong. He had come over after hearing that Liu Laoshi had been caught with a snake.

He crouched down and took a look, then gasped in shock.

"The poisoning happened too quickly!" He shook his head. "Let's try cauterizing it with fire first, to draw out the blood. If that doesn't work, we'll have to saw off the area below the knee."

When the people nearby heard "saw off the leg," Liu Laoshi's wife burst into tears on the spot.

Doctor Wang then found a wood-chopping knife, put it over the fire to heat it, and shouted as he did so, about to brand the wound.

"Wait!"

Yang Hu pushed through the crowd and entered.

When Physician Wang looked up and saw a young man he had never seen before, he frowned.

"Who are you?" He looked you up and down. "This is a matter of life and death, don't joke around. You young man without a beard, do you even know what snake venom is?"

[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name: 20 ...

Yang Hu ignored him, squatted down, and first pressed down on Liu Laoshi's leg.

"Don't move!" he said. "If you don't move, the poison will travel much slower."

He rummaged through the medicine box and took out a strip of cloth, then gently wrapped it twice around the wound near his knee.

Not strangled, leaving a finger's width of looseness.

"What are you doing?" Doctor Wang stood to the side and sneered. "If you tighten it too loosely, how can you stop the poison? If you're going to tighten it, you have to tighten it completely, block the entire path of the leg, so that the poison can't come up."

"The blood supply is completely blocked, so this leg is really beyond saving." Yang Hu said without looking up, "Slow down, slow down the flow of the poison, don't force the leg to break down."

Aji watched for a while and couldn't help but ask, "Master, why not listen to Doctor Wang and use a branding iron?"

"If you brand him with fire, you'll scald a large piece of meat to death, but the poison will still be trapped inside," Yang Hu said. "We need to let him out, not lock him up inside!"

Take a small knife, heat it over a fire, and then pour strong liquor over it.

"Bear with it."

The tip of the knife gently sliced ​​along the two teeth marks.

Dark purple blood, mixed with pus, flowed out.

Doctor Wang shook his head, saying, "Bleeding, bleeding until the body is completely drained, it's still death."

Yang Hu didn't speak, but squeezed out the stagnant blood little by little, then rinsed it carefully with water.

It gradually changes from purple to black.

Rinse it clean, apply a layer of detoxifying and swelling-reducing medicine, wrap it loosely in a clean cloth strip and tie it securely.

"This strip of cloth," he pointed to the loosely bound fabric, "loosen it every now and then, then tighten it again. Don't keep it too tight!"

"And another thing," he said, looking at Liu Laoshi, "don't move your legs too much these next two days, and definitely don't walk around. Just lie down."

Despite the pain, when Liu Laoshi heard him speak with such conviction, his heart, which had been hanging in mid-air, felt much lighter, and he nodded repeatedly.

Wang Langzhong stood aside, pursing his lips, waiting to see the joke.

The bindings are loosened every half hour.

After an hour, the swelling in that leg stopped rising.

That evening, the purplish-black discoloration on her leg had faded somewhat. Liu Laoshi's wife suddenly knelt on the ground and kowtowed.

"A living Buddha!"

The physician's face first turned red, then turned white.

Having practiced traditional Chinese medicine for several years, he treated snake bites by either pricking or cutting, but very few survived; many were left disabled. Today, he watched as this young doctor, with a few cuts and a strip of cloth, miraculously saved a leg that was about to be amputated.

He opened his mouth several times, but ultimately dared not say anything, and slunk away.

The farmers who had gathered there to watch erupted in a huge uproar:

"It's that Doctor Yang from the east of the city!"

"That's right! The scalded child that Doctor Liu from the west side of the city said couldn't be saved—his shoulder and chest were badly burned—had new flesh grow back in just a few days after he went to Doctor Yang!"

"And then there's the old manager of Sun's Jishetang Pharmacy. His chest ailment was treated by three famous doctors in the city for three whole months, but it only got worse. But when he went to Doctor Yang, a few acupuncture needles and he was cured in no time!"

"That clean-shaven kid really has such amazing skills. No wonder everyone calls him a miracle doctor!"

Ignoring their comments, Yang Hu simply lowered his head and packed his medicine box.

Liu Laoshi's wife took out a few crumpled copper coins and tried to put them in his hand.

Yang Hu glanced at her clothes, which were full of holes and patches, and shook his hand.

"No, I don't want the money!" he said. "Just take some medicine and rest properly. My leg needs to heal so I can go back to the fields."

Liu Laoshi lay on the bed and tears streamed down his face.

When he returned, Aji was still thinking about it.

"Master! That Physician Wang said he was going to saw off my leg, so you cut it off piece by piece, didn't you?" He scratched his head. "Snake venom, what happened?"

"Snake venom follows the blood," Yang Hu said. "When the leg moves, the blood follows quickly, and the venom travels fast too, reaching the heart in the blink of an eye. Tying it with a rope slows it down, cutting the skin forces it out, and then using medicine to remove it completely. It's that simple."

He paused again.

"That Dr. Wang wasn't ignorant of what to do; he just treated it wrong. Burning it with fire and strangling it only forced it to burrow deeper."

Aji nodded repeatedly, seemingly understanding, and memorized those few sentences.

It was already very late when I got home.

Yang Hu told Lu Yan and the others about the medicinal herb garden and about being bitten by a snake.

Lu Yan made him a cup of tea.

"Young master, your visit to the herb garden this time can be considered a house call," she said with a smile.

Qin Ying sat listening the whole time, and raised an eyebrow when she heard the words "medicine garden".

"That medicinal herb garden is over there at the rocky hill," she said. "If you keep going there, the people in that den will see through you sooner or later."

"See, see!" Yang Hu took a sip of tea. "I'm a doctor who prescribes medicine for patients, so going to the herb garden is just a side trip for me. The more they protect something, the more careful they are to let others discover their secrets."

She looked at him.

Under the light, his expression was calm, as if he were talking about something perfectly normal.

She hesitated to bring the knife down.

"You!" she murmured, "You've cut your leg so badly from the snake bite that it could reach their den."

Yang Hu smiled, which did not mean to deny it.

Snake venom must be released as soon as possible; if it's left to rot inside the flesh, it will only rot your leg. The longer the scourge sent out by that path lingers, the more it will rot the entire border. These two things have long been intertwined in his mind.

She stopped talking, but her lowered eyes softened a little.

After a sleepless night, the family members went to bed to rest.

Yang Hu wasn't sleepy at all. The leg he had just saved was a small matter; he still had a big problem on his mind that hadn't been resolved yet.

The Luanshigang gang, which had been operating along the northern route, was now keeping a private army and feeding off the people outside the Great Wall. He reviewed the events of the past few days and realized that the truth was about to be revealed, but he still needed to wait for the right opportunity.

He wasn't in a hurry. The robbery at Luanshigang had already exposed him. What he was waiting for was when something happened that would turn the hand that was helping him upside down.