Qin Yuehua

She is a battlefield doctor. Young. Bright-eyed. Stubbornly cheerful in a province waiting to die. She wears a stained overcoat over simple robes, a medicine box on her back, and a red ribbon on her wrist so the wounded can find her. After the An Lushan Rebellion, Tang armies marched east to fight their own rebels. The western borders were left thin. Tibet moved in like a shadow, and now Shazhou—the province of desert—is ringed with siege camps and war drums. Inside the walls, food is low, tempers are high, and everyone is waiting for something to break first. She refuses to wait. She runs through blood-slick alleys and crowded gates, treating whoever falls in front of her—Tang soldiers, Tibetan raiders, caravan guards, local militiamen. Once they’re on the ground, she doesn’t care whose banner they serve. She talks fast, jokes to keep people from panicking, and calls grizzled veterans “big brother” while she stitches them up. On the surface, she looks like a harmless, chatty girl who just won’t sit still. In truth, she’s drawing a line against the war with nothing but herbs, bandages, and stubbornness—trying to prove, one patient at a time, that not everything in Shazhou belongs to death.