Eastern Han Dynasty, not the Three Kingdoms

The chill wind of late New Year swept across Micang Mountain, and the hanging lanterns of Hanzhong City swayed in the twilight. Zhang Lu leaned against the mottled vermilion columns of the Tianshi Temple, listening to the clamor of the people below as they prepared for the New Year. His palms were warmed by the tortoise shell inscriptions he had rubbed. The Yizhou military reports that had weighed on his mind for months had quietly vanished with the fragrance of the blooming wintersweet.

"My lord, a secret letter has arrived from the Yizhou front!" The guards' report startled the crows from the eaves. Zhang Lu unfolded a piece of silk stained with pine soot ink. The Yizhou army's offensive had slowed slightly, and Zhang Lu could clearly discern Liu Zhang's hesitation. He gazed at the serpentine defenses in the distance and suddenly chuckled. The Yizhou banners that had once kept the men of Hanzhong on the alert were, after all, reduced to a landscape painted on a folding screen as New Year's Eve approached.

Zhang Lu's speculation stemmed from information relayed by scouts from Chang'an. The Western Liang cavalry crushed the ice and snow of Longyou, and the allied forces of Liu Bei and Lü Bu were steadily retreating outside Tongguan. The smoke and dust had already dyed the Han banners atop the walls of Chang'an yellow. Zhang Lu stroked the Bagua pattern on his Taoist robe. He had previously collaborated with the Western Liang, but with Ma Chao's death, pressure from the imperial court had driven Yizhou against him. Now, the Western Liang were avenging Ma Chao with a massive offensive and seizing cities. Liu Zhang must have been tossing and turning, preoccupied with the locations of Hanzhong and Chang'an on the map. How could he dare, at this moment, to truly press his blade against the Tianshi Dao's throat?

"Send orders to all camps to remove 30% of their sentries and prepare sufficient wine and meat to reward the troops." Zhang Lu put the tortoise shell into his sleeve and looked at the newly formed icicles on the Taoist temple's eaves. "Let the brothers have a peaceful year—this peace is probably more precious than in previous years." As dusk deepened, sporadic firecrackers in the distance startled a flock of geese. He looked at the rising smoke from the north and suddenly felt that this end-of-year tranquility was more like a brief, tacit agreement between the various forces before making a move on the chessboard.

The bronze bells of the Tianshi Temple still rang softly in the wind as Zhang Lu's carriage rolled over the bluestone pavement and slowly entered the City Lord's Mansion. As the vermilion lacquered gate creaked shut behind him, a pink figure suddenly leaped out from behind the hanging flower gate. The wind from her skirt whipped up the remaining snow under the corridor, startling icicles from the eaves and causing them to fall.

"Father!" The velvet flowers on Zhang Fubao's temples trembled as she ran. Her red, frozen fingertips tightly grasped her father's black sleeve. She exhaled white mist as she looked up, but her eyes were bright with joy. "I heard that the city gates have been opened. Fubao wants to go to the South City to see the sugar figurines..."

Before he could finish his words, the tortoise shell hidden in Zhang Lu's sleeve jarred his wrist. How could he not know what his daughter was thinking? The medical books hidden at the bottom of her dressing table, the small change she secretly gave to refugees, all pointed to Hua Tuo's clinic outside the city. Since the war with Yizhou, he had confined his daughter to her house for safety reasons, yet he often saw the light of her window burning brightly late at night—she was annotating medical books or grinding herbs.

"Nonsense!" Zhang Lu's face darkened as he pulled back his sleeves. His wide, dark sleeves swept the red plum blossoms from the corridor, their petals stained with the remaining snow and scattered around his daughter's embroidered shoes. He looked at his daughter's bitten lip and reddened eyes, and suddenly remembered how she had spent these days alone in her boudoir. His heart ached like a tide.

"But the Yizhou army has withdrawn!" Zhang Fubao's eyes turned red with anxiety. When she stomped her feet, her embroidered shoes crushed the thin ice at her feet, and ice chips splashed on the hem of her skirt, leaving dark marks. "Ever since Dad went to the Tianshi Temple to supervise the battle, Fubao hasn't even left the house!" Her voice faded away, and she lowered her head to stare at the broken ice on the ground, not daring to look at her father again.

Zhang Lu stared at his daughter, silent for a long moment. A chill wind howled outside the mansion, yet he could hear his own pounding heartbeat. Finally, he sighed softly and reached out to gently brush the snowflakes from his daughter's hair. "Never mind, leave early and return early." He studiously ignored the flash of surprise in his daughter's eyes. As he turned, the eight trigrams on his Taoist robe shimmered in the twilight, concealing a heart full of worry and reluctance.

Hearing his father's consent to let him go out, Zhang Fubao's eyes lit up instantly. The light was so bright and dazzling that it seemed to hide thousands of stars. The corners of his mouth raised high, revealing an extremely brilliant smile. Then he turned lightly and strode towards his room.

As soon as she stepped into the room, she immediately raised her voice and ordered in an orderly manner: "Carry out the big box containing the medicinal materials, and put in more of each of the best angelica, astragalus, and poria! And take out five hundred taels of silver and wrap it carefully in a bundle!" While speaking, she was not idle either. She neatly opened the carved wardrobe and took out the thick and warm fox fur coat, which was a must-have item for her when going out in winter.

Soon, several guards entered, carrying heavy boxes, while a maid stood waiting nearby, holding a bundle filled with silver. Zhang Fubao glanced at them with satisfaction and waved her hand, "Come on, follow me to the clinic!" With that, she walked out of the room with her head held high and chest puffed out, striding forward with firm, powerful steps. She exuded the air of a general about to rush off to the battlefield, radiating unquestionable courage and confidence.

Meanwhile, Hua Tuo's clinic was bustling with activity. The door creaked as people came and went, and the room was filled with the strong smell of medicine, a mixture of various herbs, the pungent smell.

In the lobby, several long tables were pushed together, filled with wounded and sick patients. Some groaned in pain, others were pale, their eyes tightly closed. Hua Tuo was moving among the crowd, beads of sweat on his forehead. His hands were never still, sometimes examining the wounds of the injured, sometimes writing prescriptions, and constantly instructing his apprentices, "This medicine needs to be boiled for half an hour, and then add three grams of licorice..."

Even as the wailing continued incessantly from within the clinic, Hua Tuo would still find time to enter the west wing each day. The hot water in the copper basin had long since cooled. Zhen Mi knelt before the couch, wiping the young general's sunken cheekbones with a handkerchief soaked in medicinal juice. His pale lips, long dehydrated, were so dry and cracked they oozed blood.

"Change this medicine." The old doctor pushed the freshly brewed medicine bowl over, the bowl clattering against the wooden table. The yellowed prescription was densely packed with warming and tonic herbs like codonopsis and wolfberry. It should have been a life-saving remedy, but now it seemed so weak and powerless. He stared at the young general's faded bandages—the thick scab had long since fallen off the wound, revealing tender new flesh, but his sleepy face looked as if its soul had been drawn out.

Hua Tuo gently placed the medicine bowl on the mottled wooden table. The copper bowl's bottom made a dull thud as it touched the surface. He lowered his eyes to gaze at the few slices of Codonopsis pilosula floating on the surface of the broth. Suddenly, he said, "Young lady, these warming and tonic herbs will only keep you alive for now." As he finished speaking, the room fell into a brief silence, broken only by the intermittent moans coming from the distant clinic lobby.

Zhen Mi's fingertips, clutching the medicine bowl, turned slightly pale. Her coarse sleeves couldn't conceal her natural beauty. She sighed inwardly—when she first arrived at the clinic, she'd claimed to be an ordinary village woman, but how could a village woman have such beauty? Moreover, these days, someone mysteriously delivered rare medicinal herbs every now and then.

The old doctor's wrinkled fingers unconsciously stroked the edge of the medicine box, and the images of those precious herbs flashed through his mind one by one. If it weren't for these life-saving drugs that were continuously delivered, the young general on the bed would have died long ago.

"To be honest," Hua Tuo slowly raised his eyes, his gaze landing on the hem of Zhen Mi's deliberately roughened skirt, still stained with mud from her morning herb-picking days. "I know the market conditions best. Thousand-year-old ginseng is in short supply, and ordinary merchants can't even get it." His voice was unhurried, yet like a silver needle, it accurately pierced some secrets. "Young lady, you are so disregarding money and going through so much trouble..."

Zhen Mi's eyelashes trembled violently, and the medicine in the bowl rippled slightly. She forced herself to remain calm, lowering her head and whispering, "I only ask that you do your best, sir." But her falling hair couldn't hide the reddening of her ears.

Hua Tuo's bony fingers stroked the young general's sunken cheeks. He suddenly sighed deeply, a glimmer of light in his cloudy eyes. "Miss, the prescription is correct, but these common herbs are ultimately not potent enough." He looked at the medicine bowls stacked beside the bed, the dregs gleaming dark red in the candlelight. "Look, although he's getting weaker, his will to live seems to be getting stronger. If only we could find some thousand-year-old ginseng..."

Zhen Mi stared at the young general's dry lips, a bitter taste rising in her throat. Beneath her coarse cloth skirt, she clenched the silver ingot she had bought with the sale of her last jade hairpin, her fingertips aching from the pain. These days, she dismissed all the caravan staff and ordered them to disperse to the local medicine markets, buying any herbs they could find and snatching any ginseng they could find, regardless of the price. But the more anxious she was, the more powerless she felt. Yesterday, the staff, covered in frost, rushed back overnight, and the news they brought made her heart sink to the bottom. The old shopkeeper was struggling in the medicine market, and received a message saying that due to the war between Yizhou and Hanzhong, medicinal herbs have become scarce. The stocks of all the medicine shops, big and small, had long been requisitioned by the various armies and the city lord's mansion in the name of war preparation. Nowadays, even common angelica and astragalus are hard to find on the market, let alone rare herbs like thousand-year-old ginseng.

"That being said, young lady, there's no need to worry too much." Hua Tuo's soothing voice echoed in her ears, yet it was as hazy as a thin layer of mist. Zhen Mi's eyes suddenly burned as she watched the young general's increasingly emaciated figure. She knew that a miracle cure was hard to find. But as long as he was still breathing, how could she give up so easily, even if it meant losing everything she had?

Hua Tuo looked at the unconscious young general on the couch, then at Zhen Mi's bloodshot eyes. His throat churned, but he couldn't utter another word of comfort. He left the room, a chill wind whipping fine snow against his face, blowing away the scent of medicine from his sleeves. The old doctor, rubbing his aching back, was about to head to the hall when he saw a crowd of people suddenly rushing into the front courtyard.

In the halo of lantern light, Zhang Fubao was dressed like a man in a gilded cloak. Behind her, guards carried boxes and sacks. The uniquely bitter aroma of medicinal herbs, mixed with snowflakes, wafted across her face. "Mr. Hua!" The girl stepped forward with a delighted look on her face, her brocade boots breaking the thin ice. "It's been a while. How are you doing?"

Hua Tuo lifted the thick cotton curtain of the clinic. The medicine hoe in his hand was still stained with fresh medicinal mud. When he saw Zhang Fubao, he couldn't help but widen his cloudy eyes and said: "Oh, my friend! It's been a long time since we last met. How come you have time to come here today?"

Zhang Fubao took off her dark cloak, revealing her neat navy blue outfit. Her hair-binding jade crown shone coldly under the lantern. "It's my father! He said there was a war going on outside and he kept me locked up at home." She flicked her sleeves and pointed at the pile of wooden boxes outside the door. "Finally, when the war eased a bit and it was the end of the year, my father finally let me go! Look, I brought you twenty carts of medicinal herbs!"

The old doctor looked at the codonopsis and astragalus tumbling out of the box, and then glanced at the guards carrying sacks full of medicinal herbs. He was so excited that his beard trembled: "Good boy, good boy!" He shook the boy's hand tremblingly, "The war has been intense recently, the number of wounded and sick has increased sharply, and the medicinal herbs have been requisitioned by all parties. You are really a timely help!"