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

The sedan chair with the blue velvet trim from the prefectural magistrate's residence came by once, and then never again.

Yang Hu knew perfectly well that if he sent out kind words and was rejected, that hand would not let him go. But as long as he didn't make a move, he would still sit and see his patients as usual.

That afternoon, a young girl and her mother came to the clinic, looking timid.

The girl was in her early twenties, wearing a clean, starched cloth dress. As soon as she came in, she lowered her head and tightly covered her neck with her hands, as if she was afraid of being seen.

"Dr. Yang," the woman's voice trembled, "please take a look at my daughter. All the other doctors say they can't cure her!"

Yang Hu asked the girl to sit down.

"Put your hand down and let me see it."

The girl hesitated for a moment before finally letting go of her hand that was covering her neck.

Yang Hu could tell something from it at a glance.

Several hard lumps appeared on her neck, some as small as mung beans, others as large as dates, one after another, like a string of prayer beads. The top one had already ulcerated, with a crack leaking a thin, purulent fluid mixed with some rotten-looking stuff.

The girl's eyes were wet with tears.

"The doctor in town said it's rat sores... it's a curse, some kind of divine punishment for doing something bad in this life, and it's incurable," she said. "The embroidery shop dismissed me because they thought it was bad luck. The neighbors all avoid me, saying this disease can harm people..."

The woman was also wiping away tears.

"One doctor said that heating it with a red-hot iron would kill the Gu; another doctor said that cutting off the flesh with a knife would cure it," she cried. "Cutting off this one not only didn't cure it, it rotted even worse, and two more ulcers appeared..."

Yang Hu raised an eyebrow.

Roast, slice.

Applying heat or scald to this ailment is like adding fuel to the fire. The ailment isn't actually on the neck; if you insist on moving that piece of flesh, you'll damage your vital energy, and the festering wound won't close.

A neighbor who was getting medicine nearby glanced at the girl's neck and instinctively took a step back.

"These rat sores, the old folks say, are caused by contact with rat urine, like being poisoned by a rat. They've become so rotten, even a god couldn't save them!"

Upon hearing this, the girl burst into tears.

"This isn't a rat curse," Yang Hu said in a low voice, each word clear, "It's because the body is weak, a kind of consumption-related ailment has formed on the blood vessels in the neck. One by one, they've strung together. The oozing fluid is thick and festering, mixed with rotten wood—that's what this disease looks like!"

"Then, can it still be cured?" the woman asked, clutching Yang Hu's clothes tightly.

"Yes!" Yang Hu said. "Can it be cut?"

The woman was stunned.

"Isn't this incurable? How can it get better without surgery?"

Yang Hu's face fell: "This isn't the root of the problem. The root is in the body, not the neck. Even if you cut it off, the root is still there. In a few days, it will grow another one on its own."

Cut one, then another, and more and more. Look at that first incision, it left you like this!

The woman's face turned pale.

"We need to try a different approach," Yang Hu said. "For the one that was cut off, we'll clean out the rotten flesh, remove the toxins, and apply some tissue-regenerating ointment to help it heal slowly."

Also, for those that haven't ulcerated, you need to take medicine to gradually reduce the internal heat and let the lumps shrink little by little.

Yang Hu turned around and said, "Aji, help me pack my things and go brew another bowl of medicine to clear phlegm and dissipate nodules."

Aji went.

Not yet.

"However, this medicine can treat the lump on your neck, but it can't cure the root cause," Yang Hu said solemnly. "The root cause is inside your body!"

"On my body?"

"This illness first weakened your body, and then the tuberculosis worms crawled in!" Yang Hu said. "From now on, rest well. Eat whatever you want; sleep all you want. Don't do any physical labor, and don't stay up all night with bloodshot eyes. If your eyes blur again, your heart and lungs will immediately fail."

You need to slowly make up for what you've lost, little by little, first strengthening your foundation and replenishing it. Once your qi and blood are abundant, the tuberculosis will naturally be suppressed, and the nodules will gradually dissipate.

"There's another way," he added. "This isn't like a cold, which gets better in a day or two. It's a chronic illness; you have to take care of it, endure it, and wait patiently. Sometimes it takes a month or two, sometimes up to half a year. You have to be patient, don't rush, and don't go to believe in those unorthodox methods like cutting or burning just because you're not getting better."

The woman cried.

None of the doctors who had previously told her she had a terminal illness had said that to her.

After a few days, the girl came to change her dressing every two or three days.

At first, the mother and daughter looked incredulous. But when they came back for the third time, the festering wound had indeed stopped oozing pus and was gradually closing up. The mother and daughter's furrowed brows relaxed.

After some time, the few hard cores that hadn't collapsed also began to soften and shrink.

The woman's complexion gradually improved.

"Much better," Yang Hu said, looking at the ulcer that had begun to close. "The ulcer has closed, and the crusts are healing. If this continues, it won't recur."

The woman looked at him, bowed deeply, her eyes filled with glistening tears.

The news quickly spread throughout the city:

The people in the teahouse smacked their lips.

"The embroiderer in the south of the city had so many blisters that they had to be stitched up to make a hole. The doctors in the city tried burning and cutting, but nothing worked. But when she went to Doctor Yang in the east of the city, he actually cured her..."

The woman chanted scriptures repeatedly.

"That embroiderer was fired from the embroidery shop, and the neighbors couldn't avoid her. It seemed like her life was going to be ruined... But this doctor even saved her life..."

Yang Hu listened but remained seated as if he hadn't heard anything.

The embroiderer's family was already poor, and after being laid off from the embroidery shop, she had no money to earn. Yang Hu only charged the cost of the medicine for a few people, and paid the full consultation fee. In the end, he also told the mother to stew more meat and bone broth for her daughter to nourish her body.

"Health is the foundation of embroidery," Yang Hu said. "If you take good care of your health first, you'll have plenty of embroidery work to do later."

After closing up and getting ready for the evening, the whole family gathered together for dinner.

On the table, Lu Rou was busy calculating on the abacus, noting down another waived consultation fee, and finally sighed:

"Young master, with each patient you treat, you lose money, so the profits don't seem to increase."

"An embroiderer, fired from the embroidery workshop, and sick for so long," Yang Hu laughed, "the few dollars we take from her are less useful than letting them save it to improve their health."

Lu Yan helped him organize the medicinal herbs, and then said:

"The money is less, but the three sentences 'Dr. Yang' are being shouted even louder in the city."

As Aji tidied up the medicine grinder, he thought about what happened during the day. He had a sore on his neck, so why didn't his master cut it off?

"The root of her sores isn't on her neck, it's on her body," Yang Hu noticed his doubt. "Even after cutting off the root, it's not completely gone. A few days later, the sores reappear. Cutting off one sore causes two more to appear. Dissolving phlegm and nodules will disperse the root, and then restoring her weakened body will heal it on its own once the root of the tuberculosis is removed." He paused, then continued, "Treating scrofula is like pulling weeds. Pulling off the outer leaves doesn't work; you have to pull out the root buried in the soil."

Aji smacked his lips and swallowed the truth whole.

Qin Ying sat by the window, the knife in her hand resting on her knee, not daring to touch it. Hearing him say he'd brought the embroiderer back from the brink of death, she glanced up.

"Several doctors said they couldn't cure it, so they took a knife and used it to burn her, and you slowly pieced it back together," she said. "Cutting is quick, but if you do it badly, you'll ruin a girl's life."

Aji pursed his lips, feeling that what she said was wrong.

Half a day later, he whispered "Hmm," it was unclear whether it was an expression of approval or some other attitude.

Yang Hu's clinic often charged the poor less for treating their illnesses, which seemed to reduce its income considerably, but the clinic's influence in the city continued to grow.

A big tree catches the wind and rain.

Some of his colleagues in the city had already started cursing through gritted teeth, and some were already saying behind his back that the doctor in the east of the city was losing money on every patient he saved and would eventually die!

What they didn't know was that the one who really wanted to snatch the signboard wasn't these competitors, but that old guy hiding in the big courtyard in the west of the city, waiting for the opportunity to kill his enemy in one fell swoop!