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

Not long after the incident of saving the tofu family's wife from childbirth, unrest broke out in the south of the city.

At first, there were very few people. In the low-lying area in the south of the city, next to the stinking ditch, there were porters and laborers. The houses were crammed together. When the heat was at its worst, people would vomit and have diarrhea on the ground, squatting against the wall and unable to get out.

And you're still laughing about it? Everyone gets diarrhea in the summer, right?

But within a few days, it was completed.

In a narrow alley, one family after another was vomiting and having diarrhea. The vomit was clear water, and the stool looked like dirty water from rinsing rice. They went to the toilet more than a dozen times a day, and their legs were sore from squatting.

Finally, the person becomes unrecognizable, with sunken eye sockets, cracked lips, and sagging skin that won't return to its original position even after pressing on it for a long time.

The first to die was a porter of the strong man, who could usually carry a 200-kilogram bag. He was all muscle and had walked around a few steps in the morning. After lunch, he lay down on the bed and wouldn't do anything. When he opened his eyes at night, he was dead. He left behind a widow and her one-year-old baby, who were crying so loudly that their cries could be heard halfway down the street, and everyone was filled with fear.

A day later, there were two more.

One was an old man around 70 years old, and the other was a teenager.

Chaos has broken out in the south of the city.

They said they had attracted a plague god.

A shaman, carrying a small basket and ringing a small copper bell, went from house to house. She had her hair disheveled and slicked back with red ink, and chanted some kind of incantation, saying that this was a plague caused by natural disaster, that the place was too foul and had offended the plague god, and that it needed to be driven away. She said that each household should close their doors, light candles, and buy pigs, geese, and chickens to offer as sacrifices. She would then ask her to perform a ritual to respectfully send the god away.

People who were panicked actually believed it.

Every household closed their doors, pasted up yellow talismans, and placed chickens and ducks in their courtyards, where smoke filled the air.

That sorceress collected a huge amount of incense money and made a fortune.

But this talisman couldn't ward off the illness.

If you need to go to the toilet and have diarrhea, you'll still have diarrhea; if you need to spit out air, you'll still spit out air.

Please consult a doctor.

It didn't work either.

Several doctors in the south of the city claimed the illness was caused by summer heat entering the stomach or by eating bad food leading to intestinal colic. The prescribed medicine seemed to sink without a trace, having no effect whatsoever. Eventually, these doctors all left one after another. Illnesses are contagious; even those who went to treat patients would fall ill themselves. Nobody dared to take on this potentially fatal mess.

The officials above them paid even less attention.

The ward chief reported the matter to the prefectural governor's office, which only approved four words: "Close the ward and wait." The officials who came then surrounded those alleys, blocked the entrances, and set up barricades to prevent people from leaving, hoping that the illness would disappear on its own.

It means to confine them inside the house and let them rot to death!

This afternoon, people were queuing up to see a doctor at the clinic when suddenly a commotion broke out outside.

A man carrying a child on his back hopped and skipped into the room and collapsed to the ground.

"Dr. Yang, please save my child!"

The child was about seven or eight years old. He lay limply on his father's back, his eyes were not visible, his lips were cracked in several places, his mouth was dry and sunken, his eyelids were not open, and his head was swaying and hanging on his father's back.

Yang Hu walked over and touched the child's skin.

The skin and flesh were shriveled, and the dent left by pressing with a finger took a long time to recover. Touching the pulse again, it was as thin as a nearly broken silk thread, rapid and labored, with the patient breathing alternating between shallow and shallow breaths.

He was dehydrated. Several days of vomiting and diarrhea had drained all the water from his body. If he didn't lose some more water, he would die.

"Have you been vomiting and having diarrhea for several days?"

"It's been three days!" the man sobbed. "There's a plague in the city, and they've locked up all the neighbors. I had to sneak up the city wall in the middle of the night to rescue him, Doctor Yang! All the doctors in the south of the city have run away, and the sorceresses only know how to ring their bells and collect incense money. If my child keeps vomiting like Erzhu next door..."

Erzhuzi must be the dead, half-grown boy.

Yang Hu's heart had turned cold.

Vomiting and diarrhea, like swill, it falls in pieces, specifically targeting those squatting in low places near stinking ditches. It is especially prevalent in the hot summer. In the past, in his line of work, this was called an epidemic; nowadays, people are not so particular. In the countryside, there is only one word—plague.

Every plague has its source. If you find the source, you can cut off or block it, but then you can't stop it anymore.

"Your child can be saved." Yang Hu first calmed the man down, then turned around and instructed, "Yan'er, bring a bowl of clean, cool boiled water, add some salt and sugar and dissolve it, and Rou'er, go to the backyard and prepare several kinds of medicine to stop diarrhea and regulate the middle jiao, and boil the medicine over a high flame."

Lu Yan agreed and went to get busy.

The child sat up halfway and ate the salty sugar water spoonful by spoonful, and also took a few mouthfuls of medicine.

Yang Hu stood aside, observing his complexion. After a full half hour, the withered, sallow little face gradually regained some moisture, and his sunken eyes began to fill out. The child opened his mouth and weakly called out, "Father."

Upon hearing this, tears streamed down the man's face, and he began kowtowing repeatedly.

Yang Hu helped him up, sighing inwardly but feeling no joy.

Saving one child is easy, but in that alley in the south of the city, there are dozens, even hundreds, of others vomiting and having diarrhea, all dehydrated and waiting to die. Once the gates are closed, all the doctors run away, and the sorceresses ring their bells; there's just a coffin containing living people.

"Regarding the illness in the south of the city," Yang Hu said in a deep voice, "are the gates of the ward really locked?"

"It's sealed off." The man wiped away tears. "They've even put up barricades. They said they'd wait for the plague to pass by itself... but if we keep going like this, everyone in the alley will die!"

Aji, who was listening nearby, turned pale.

"Master, that disease...is it contagious? If we go, will we get infected?"

"Yes," Yang Hu didn't lie to him. "You can get infected by being near sick people, touching filth, or drinking dirty things."

The room fell silent.

Those infected with the plague were certain to die if they ventured inside. All the doctors in the city fled, and the government preferred to block the gates and wait for people to die rather than risk their lives being used to fill the cauldron.

But Yang Hu had already turned around and started rummaging through his medicine box.

"Prepare the medicine," he said. "More antidiarrheal and traditional Chinese medicine, more rehydrating salt and sugar. Also, get a few large basins and put some quicklime in them."

Everyone in the room fell silent.

If you're infected with the plague, going in is like risking your life.

All the doctors in the city fled without a trace, and the government officials would rather wait to die than open their clinics, because they valued their own lives and wouldn't use them to fill the water and fire pits.

Yang Hu had already turned around.

Go and rummage through his own medicine box.

"Prepare the medicine," he said. "More medicine to stop diarrhea and regulate the body, salt and sugar to nourish the body, and get a few large basins filled with quicklime."

Lu Yan paused for a moment.

"Young master, are you going to the south of the city yourself?"

"The people there are being worn down day by day by that sorceress's bells and the officials' barricades." Yang Hu's words were calm. "I know this disease, I know its origin. If I don't go, that place will really become a graveyard."

Qin Ying stood at the door the whole time.

Upon hearing this, she put down the short knife she had been wiping repeatedly.

stand up.

"I'll go with you."

"That place is tainted." Yang Hu looked at her.

"You go too." Qin Ying wrapped himself up like a medicine boy, his eyes cold. "A plague besieging a city is faster than a knife killing people. I've seen this kind of thing too many times. The more chaotic things get, the more we need a calm person to keep things under control. You treat the patients, and I'll guard the city."

Yang Hu glanced at her but didn't stop her.

He picked up his medicine box and walked outside.

That sealed-off alley in the south of the city.

Beside the stinking ditch, countless people lay with parched eyes, waiting for a sip of water that could save their lives.

That place, which even the government officials dared not touch and where doctors fled one by one, was a living graveyard. Today, he was going to charge right in.