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

The snow stopped early the next morning.

Yang Hu, carrying his medicine chest, was led into the city by the steward.

The gentleman's surname was He, and he was one of the most prominent salt merchants in the city. The salt trade was rife with connections to officials and merchants, and it was a very complex and murky business. Yang Hu had been aware of this all along the way. People like this might be treating illnesses within the family, but behind the scenes, there might be the shadow of the very line he was trying to climb.

The He residence was located on a wide street in the city, with a vermilion gate and a pair of stone lions in front of it. It was more imposing than the Zhou residence.

Upon entering, the steward led him through several courtyards. As Yang Hu walked, he subtly memorized the layout of the house and the people who came and went.

A butler came out from under the eaves, looked Yang Hu up and down, and his eyes showed an undisguised disdain.

"Is this the miracle doctor?" he drawled. "He looks quite young."

"Several old doctors in town have examined you," the steward said, glancing sideways, "but none of them can do anything. At your age..."

Yang Hu didn't reply, only saying calmly, "Let's see the patient first."

They arrived at a warm room in the inner courtyard. Lying on the bed was a plump old man around fifty years old, who was none other than Master He.

Old Master He's face was flushed, his lips were chapped, and he was gulping down water from a teapot. On the bedside table was a plate of barely touched digestible food, and a stack of precious medicinal herbs—ginseng, deer antler, and donkey-hide gelatin—piled up on almost half the table.

"The miracle doctor has arrived," the steward announced in a low voice.

Mr. He waved his hand weakly and took another big gulp of water.

"Sir, this is..." Yang Hu put down his medicine box and leaned closer to examine it.

"It's terrible," Old Master He said, his voice weak. "For the past six months, I've felt something was wrong. My mouth is dry all the time, and no matter how much water I drink, it doesn't quench my thirst. My appetite is even greater than before, but I'm getting thinner and thinner every day. In the last six months, I've lost more than twenty pounds. And I have to get up at night endlessly..."

"Several renowned doctors I consulted in the city said that it's because I'm getting old and my vital energy is depleted, so I need to take a lot of tonics." He pointed to the table of medicinal herbs, "I've been taking ginseng and deer antler for almost two months, but the more I take tonics... the thirstier I get, and the weaker I become."

Yang Hu reached out to take his pulse.

The pulse is thin and rapid. Upon closer inspection of the tongue coating, it is red with little saliva.

He asked a few more questions: his appetite, his water intake, and his urination. Finally, he asked a question that everyone around him found strange.

"Sir," Yang Hu looked at him, "does your urination attract ants?"

Everyone in the room was stunned.

Master He was taken aback. "How did you know? A few days ago, when I went to the toilet, the chamber pot had been sitting there for a while, and it attracted a ring of ants. I was wondering why it would attract those things..."

Yang Hu already had a plan in mind.

He can eat and drink well, but he is thin, urinates frequently with a sweet taste, and attracts ants. This is diabetes insipidus.

In his early years, the place where he practiced medicine had a more straightforward name for this disease: it was because the body's ability to digest sugary food had gone wrong, the sugar couldn't be excreted, it stagnated in the blood, and leaked out through urine, which is why the urine tasted sweet.

He couldn't say that, and it wouldn't make sense to say it.

“Sir, your illness is not a deficiency,” Yang Hu straightened up and said, word by word, “quite the opposite, it is a stagnation.”

"obstruct?"

"It's something that's accumulated in your body and won't dissipate," Yang Hu said. "The root of your illness isn't weakness, but this accumulation. Yet those doctors in the city are all treating it as a case of general weakness, stuffing it with ginseng and deer antler—that's just adding fuel to the fire."

The steward sneered, "All the famous doctors in the city say you need tonics, but you insist on purging? Young man, you shouldn't say things like that."

Yang Hu glanced at him, but his words were a bit harsher.

"After two months of supplements, is your thirst increasing, or has it cured you?"

This sentence left the butler speechless, his face turning red and then white.

Old Master He struggled to sit up slightly. "You mean... my illness is getting worse the more tonics I take?"

"That's right," Yang Hu said. "Your illness can't be rushed, and it certainly can't be treated with tonics."

"Then...how should it be treated?"

"Two things." Yang Hu held up two fingers. "First, stop taking all those ginseng and deer antler medicines. Replace them with medicines that clear heat and generate fluids, so that the accumulated dryness in your body can be released little by little."

"The second rule," he paused, his tone serious, "is also the most important one—keep your mouth shut."

"Keep your mouth shut?"

"For a patient like you, it's best to avoid rich, fatty, and sweet foods," Yang Hu said. "Eat as little oily, sweet, and refined rice and noodles as possible in the future. Eat more coarse and light foods. Don't eat until you're too full; stop when you're about 70% full."

Everyone in the room changed their expressions.

"Doctor, you must be joking!" the butler couldn't help but say. "My master is already so thin from his illness, and you're telling him to eat less? Aren't you just starving him to death?"

"He's thin, not because he's not eating enough," Yang Hu said. "It's because the food he eats can't be digested by his body, and it all leaks out in his urine. The more you make him eat rich, meaty foods to replenish his body, the more he leaks out."

"If you control your mouth, the leak will slow down, cutting off the source." He looked at Old Master He. "This illness can't be cured completely, but as long as you can control your mouth and suppress it, living to your seventies or eighties won't be a problem. If you can't control it—"

He didn't finish his sentence, but everyone in the room understood what he meant.

Master He stared blankly at the table full of precious medicinal herbs, then looked at his own plate of greasy, undigested food. After a long while, he sighed heavily.

"For the past six months, I've been eating ginseng like it's food every day, which is like pushing myself into a fire pit."

He looked up, and for the first time, a glimmer of light appeared in his eyes.

"None of those old doctors ever told me that he was a miracle doctor."

In the following days, Yang Hu prescribed a formula to clear heat and promote the production of body fluids, and ordered the chefs of the He family to remove all the greasy and refined dishes and replace them with coarse rice and plain vegetables.

For the first two days, Master He sighed with longing. But by the third day, his incessant thirst had actually lessened somewhat. He also got up less often at night. A few days later, although he was still thin, he had more energy, and the flush on his face had faded.

Master He held Yang Hu's hand, tears streaming down his face.

"Miracle doctor... you saved my life."

Within a few days, the news spread to the homes of respectable families in the city.

Someone in the teahouse gasped in astonishment. "Several famous doctors in the city diagnosed Master He's diabetes as a deficiency requiring heavy tonics, but the more they tonics he took, the worse it got. Then, the renowned doctor Yang from the east of the city took a look and told him to stop taking ginseng and deer antler and to watch what he ate. And this simple rule actually brought him back to life."

Someone chimed in, "That's right. That doctor said, 'Diseases of the wealthy aren't caused by supplements, they're caused by what you eat.'"

Yang Hu continued to see patients as usual. Master He rewarded him handsomely and promised: "In the salt merchants of the city, if you ever need anything from Yang Ji in the future, just ask."

This was another genuine favor, allowing him to climb into the city's respectable circles.

But Yang Hu knew in his heart that he had gained more than just this favor from the He family.

During the few days he spent treating Master He, he took the opportunity to observe the situation while entering and leaving the mansion. The He family were salt merchants, and salt merchants were inseparable from officials. He had heard the servants in the mansion mention the words "Prefectural Magistrate's Office" more than once, saying that Master He had frequent dealings with that official from the Prefectural Magistrate's Office, and that gifts were always exchanged during festivals.

Yang Hu held his teacup, remaining calm and composed.

County Cheng Mansion.

The hidden thread he was painstakingly unraveling, the hand that had concealed itself in the prefectural governor's mansion, removed the stakes, and silenced the witnesses, was somehow connected to this respectable salt merchant he had just cured, through a subtle, almost imperceptible, connection.

Whether the connection was deep or shallow, and whether Master He was a player in that web, or just a casual acquaintance exchanging gifts, he couldn't tell for the time being.

But the line moved an inch closer to him.

After closing the clinic that night, Yang Hu told Qin Ying about it.

Qin Ying was applying oil to the knife when she paused for a moment.

"It's normal for salt merchants to have dealings with the prefectural magistrate's office," she pondered. "But now that you've cured him, you'll have a pretext for future interactions. What's hidden under that net might just be revealed through a crack in this Master He's door."

"That's what I think too," Yang Hu said. "Treating the illness is the overt, but using this door to move around is the covert."

As night fell, the room was filled with the bitter aroma of medicinal herbs.

Yang Hu gazed out the window. The sky after the snow was exceptionally clear and cold.

From a wandering doctor begging for food in a thatched village to a legendary physician whom even wealthy salt merchants in the city humbly beg for, the people he cured along the way, from a poor embroiderer to Master He, all became a source of support for him in the future.

Now, another hand has reached out to the He family. And the He family and the Prefectural Magistrate's residence are connected by a subtle, albeit imperceptible, connection.

He couldn't quite tell whether the relationship between Master He and the Prefectural Magistrate's Mansion was deep or shallow. But by using the pretext of providing follow-up medical services for the He family, he could legitimately delve deeper into this matter.