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

As December arrived, this street in the city became more and more lively day by day.

New peachwood charms adorn every door, and the streets are lined with stalls selling New Year's goods: candied hawthorns, firecrackers, and red paper. The streets are crowded. A vendor carrying candied hawthorns walks back and forth, skewer after skewer, their bright red color almost blinding.

Yang's Clinic was quieter now. Nobody was sick before the New Year, and nobody wanted to go to the hospital—it was all for good luck.

Yang Hu, having finally found some free time, carefully reviewed the past year.

My first year in the city.

What started as a small inn has now transformed into a front-of-house and back-of-house kitchen, along with a large medicinal herb garden on the outskirts of the city. With a staff of over a dozen people, including assistants and apprentices, the business has grown to an unprecedented scale, something even the owner never imagined.

The 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month is the Little New Year.

All the helpers were called to the yard to discuss New Year's supplies and wages.

Widow Liu took a string of cash, two bolts of cloth, and half a hanging of cured meat. Her husband had died on the frontier, leaving behind two children. She was drying and sorting herbs in the herb garden, and finally she had some life left.

Holding the half-hanging cured meat tightly, his eyes instantly reddened.

"Dr. Yang," Liu's voice was hoarse, "we are an orphan and a widow, if it weren't for you giving us something to eat... this is the first time in years that we've been able to eat meat."

"It's what I'm supposed to earn from working," Yang Hu waved his hand. "The herb garden will be counting on you next year."

There was also an old soldier who had lost two fingers. He had come from the border region and had no way to make a living. Six months ago, he was taken in as a guard at the medicinal herb garden. He wasn't very good at speaking. After receiving the money and New Year's goods, he just kowtowed stupidly and, after a long while, managed to utter, "The master is kind and benevolent."

The few idlers and vagrants he recruited also received tips. At the end of the year, Yang Hu had a clear understanding of who had contributed how much effort, and he distributed the money accordingly.

At this time last year, some of these people were begging on the roadside, while others were fleeing famine southwards with their children. Now they finally have a place to go where they can spend the New Year in peace.

The courtyard suddenly became noisy.

Some people were already thinking on the spot: What should I buy when I get home? I'll get a piece of cloth for the child and a pound of meat for my grandmother.

Lu Rou stood in the corridor, meticulously writing down her notes in an account book.

"This money," she said to Yang Hu, closing her notebook. "New Year's goods, rewards, relief funds, it's almost all gone."

"You chose the right flowers."

"I know I chose the right flowers." Lu Rou grinned. "I remembered this for you. Spring is coming, the herb garden needs to be expanded, and we still need to save money."

A couple of days ago, she was checking the rice at a rice shop she knew for the New Year when the owner tried to cheat her by adding a little trick to the rice container. He was caught immediately and exposed on the spot, and the shopkeeper insisted on making up for the false amount of rice.

This young woman! After a year as an accountant, she's no longer the naive girl who only knew how to read people's faces. She handles every income and expense with remarkable clarity and organization.

Lu Yan was at the pharmacy, neatly arranging the winter medicines she had stockpiled throughout the year.

Winter brings many colds and coughs, so I prepared several large dishes of food in advance. They were arranged neatly according to type.

"It's winter!" she said to Yang Hu. "I made a few extra prescriptions for colds and flu. That way, if someone suddenly needs them during the New Year, we won't have to grab something haphazardly."

Yang Hu nodded.

She manages the medicinal herbs in the yard so meticulously, inside and out!

At this time last year, she was still sick and huddled in the prison van with a fever.

The color has returned to my face a lot this year, and I'm not too slow when it comes to organizing medicines.

Yang Hu felt a little more at ease.

Liu Ye went up the mountain once.

During the Spring Festival, goods in the mountains are cheap and easy to find. I carried back half a wild boar, two pheasant meats, and a bundle of frozen, rock-solid mountain mushrooms. I threw them in the kitchen and was overjoyed.

"It's Chinese New Year," she said, "you always have to eat something good."

She stood on the snow for half a wild boar meat for half a night. Staying in the city for too long made her wild nature uncomfortable. Only when she went into the mountains and stepped into the snowdrifts could she come back to life.

In the kitchen, the festive atmosphere grows stronger day by day, with steamed buns, fried meatballs, and sausages filling the air with enticing aromas.

Qin Ying spent her first peaceful year here.

Sitting on the porch, wiping the knives, my gaze fell on the plume of steam in the kitchen, and I paused for a moment.

Spending the Lunar New Year in the military.

In the army, the New Year is spent drinking from large bowls and eating coarse meat to fill one's stomach. It's about rough men who don't know where they'll die tomorrow gathering around a fire and shouting frontier folk songs at the top of their lungs.

Maybe there will be fewer of them tomorrow after a good night's sleep.

This is how we spent the New Year.

Steamed buns were being made in the kitchen, accounts were being kept under the eaves, and the whole courtyard was bustling with people waiting to stay up all night for the New Year.

She's grown up and has never celebrated Chinese New Year like this before.

"What are you spacing out for?" Yang Hu walked over.

Qin Ying snapped out of her daze and carefully put away the dagger.

"It's nothing," she said.

One pause after another: "It just feels like this year's holiday was spent like someone hiding from debt collectors."

She was the one hiding from debt collectors, a dead person who should have died at the border but was living in this courtyard.

Yang Hu smiled but didn't reply. He understood some things without needing to say anything.

That kid Aji was always following around, helping to put up couplets and hang lanterns, he was busy running around like crazy.

On the 27th day of the twelfth lunar month, everyone in the courtyard gathered together, some chopping, some kneading dough, preparing for the New Year's Eve dinner.

Yang Hu leaned against the doorway and watched.

Last year, he was a doctor with a bunch of strange skills, begging for a living in a small village in the border region. He even found talking too much of a burden. Now, the people in the courtyard and every single thing he has accomplished is something he has earned little by little in this chaotic world.

It's a home now.

These are peaceful days.

But beneath the surface of this apparent calm, two unresolved issues remain.

The pent-up resentment from the Zhao family in the west of the city hadn't dissipated.

They couldn't find the hidden head at the corner of the prefectural governor's mansion, so they covered it and didn't move.

Both matters have been settled.

Lying down doesn't mean it's over.

Yang Hu knew very well that the New Year would always come, and what was coming would eventually come.

However, he did not expect it to happen so quickly.

It was the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, around dusk.

The festive atmosphere is strong, and every family is busy preparing for the New Year's Eve dinner.

Suddenly, someone started banging on the gate of Yang's courtyard.

It wasn't knocking, it was swinging!

With each swing, the blow seemed to come faster and faster, as if it were trying to smash the door through.

Liu Ye used the small dagger to open the door.

As soon as the door opened, a man rushed in. Dressed in a silk robe, he looked like a steward. He was sweating profusely from running, and his official boots were full of snow, which he didn't even bother to step on. As soon as he entered, he knelt down in front of Yang Hu with a thud.

"Miracle doctor!" The voice was split in two! "Help! Help! Help the master!"

Yang Hu felt a chill in his heart.

"Who is this person? What illness do they have?"

"Our master!" The steward stammered, unable to speak clearly. "Our master, the patriarch of our household, is one of the most important figures in the entire city. Even the Prefect respectfully offers him a seat. During holidays, the Prefectural Magistrate's office always sends invitations. He was perfectly fine at noon today, but in the blink of an eye, he's writhing in pain on his bed, covered in sweat, and refusing to eat!"

"Have you called a doctor?"

"We called them! We called all the famous doctors in town!" The steward kowtowed heavily. "In the blink of an eye, they all ran away in fright! Some said it was intestinal colic, others said it was possession by a ghost. Nobody dared to prescribe anything. The master was in so much pain he almost died. If we had delayed another hour, then... then he would have died!"

The city's most renowned doctors dared not make the surgery, because they couldn't handle it. They didn't have the double scalpels; they didn't have the courage.

But Yang Hu had already imagined that kind of illness a million times over!

However, he also knew that in this era, the words "opening up a belly" meant either treating a patient or sending them to their death. If the doctor cured the patient, he was a miracle worker; if he failed, he was a doctor who opened up a living person. The word "demon" would weigh heavily on his mind, and even with a hundred mouths, he couldn't tell the difference.

"Get the first-aid kit ready," he said as he turned around.

Lu Yan had already brought him the medicine box.

Qin Ying picked up the short knife and tucked it into her waistband.

"Come with me."

Yang Hu slung his medicine box over his shoulder and stepped out of the courtyard.

Snowflakes were falling outside the door. The sedan chair carrying the messenger was parked in the alley, dark and waiting, like a gaping mouth.

Qin Ying wiped away the dust and whispered something close to him.

"The waters in this place are probably even deeper than those in the prefectural governor's mansion!"

Yang Hu, carrying his medicine box, stepped into the wind and snow.

He knew very well that with this one cut, either the Yang family's name would become infamous throughout the city, or his two hands, which had saved lives, would be forever branded with the stigma of "disemboweling and murdering," a label he could never clear.

But some illnesses can't wait, and this year is destined to be anything but peaceful.