This Doctor Is Too Wealthy

Surely enough, Li Jianwei smiled bitterly. ”If you could think of it, others must have too. The young man not only had a check-up but also underwent a whole body check. Whether it’s his blood or other aspects, everything is fine; there’s no problem at all.”

”What about his pulse and other diagnoses?”

”His pulse is thin, deep, and weak, and he appeared fatigued, but there are no other symptoms.”

”Qi deficiency? Blood deficiency? That’s not right either. This shouldn’t manifest on the skin, let alone turn into keratinization.”

Li Jianwei agreed with Du Heng’s viewpoint. While explaining the patient’s situation, he clicked his tongue in amazement, ”Now, not only have the wrinkled areas under his armpits and on his wrists developed blackened keratinization, but keratinized skin has also appeared on his lower abdomen, below his ribs on both sides, and on his shins. It feels very hard and rough to the touch.”

Du Heng followed Li Jianwei into the hospital room and met this peculiar patient.

At first glance, the young man looked a bit listless, but it was hard to tell if he had any other problems.

Li Jianwei walked to the sick bed and began to explain each aspect to Du Heng. He also raised the patient’s sleeves and pant legs. As he had said, the exposed skin had indeed become keratinized.

Du Heng touched it; it felt quite grainy and rough, completely fitting the characteristics of keratinized skin. However, the locations where it appeared were quite unexpected.

Aside from the common wrinkled areas, keratinization had also begun to develop on his lower abdomen, below his ribs, and on his shins. Even the back of the young man’s hand felt completely different from his palm.

The pulse diagnosis and physical examination yielded the same result as Li Jianwei’s: a thin, deep, and weak pulse.

However, this had no connection to skin keratinization.

Du Heng furrowed his brows slightly and asked the patient, ”Do you feel any discomfort in these areas, like pain or itchiness?”

Resting comfortably on the sick bed and not appearing sick at all, the young man pondered for a moment before answering, ”I’ve never felt pain, but it does itch sometimes.”

”Is the itchiness severe?”

”No, it’s just a slight itch. A little scratch or rub, and it goes away.”

”After you scratch it, do you notice any changes? Like red spots or anything?”

”No red spots, just some white skin flakes, nothing else.”

White skin flakes? It eases after scratching? What the hell kind of result was this? Du Heng himself was a little confused.

From the pulse diagnosis, it didn’t seem to be caused by an imbalance in the five viscera. From the inquiry results, it didn’t seem to be the reaction characteristic of a fungal skin disease.

Seeing Du Heng’s furrowed brows, the patient’s mother, who had accompanied them, worriedly handed over a thick stack of examination reports.

She didn’t know why this older-looking doctor had brought along a younger one, but all she wanted was to find out what was wrong with her son. She didn’t care whether the doctor was young or not; as long as they could cure her son, she wouldn’t mind even if it were a primary school student.

Accepting the examination reports from the family member, Du Heng started to flip through them page by page.

Only then did Du Heng discover the extensive list of examination items, which even included genetic testing reports. It seemed the patient had turned to traditional Chinese medicine only after Western medicine failed to provide a diagnosis.

Therefore, the examination reports Du Heng held were useless; they undoubtedly indicated normal health, or it wouldn’t have been his turn to see the patient. Expecting to find something in these reports that other doctors had overlooked was unrealistic, and Du Heng could only offer a wry smile at the thought.

As he looked back at the patient and the keratinized skin, Du Heng had a strange feeling. He seemed to have seen this kind of keratinized skin somewhere before.

Where was it?

Du Heng touched his nose and asked, ”When did you first notice this?”

Not at all concerned, the young man casually replied, ”I didn’t notice it myself. My mom discovered it when I went home for the New Year.”

The young man’s mother quickly chimed in, ”When he returned home for the holidays, the New Year was just a few days away. I wanted him to change his clothes so I could wash them for the celebration.

”But as soon as he changed, I saw this black, hard skin. I immediately took him to the hospital for a check-up. Over these past two months, we’ve visited several hospitals and undergone numerous tests, but we still don’t have any results.”

Du Heng kept his eyes on the patient, his expression growing more perplexed the longer he looked. When the family member finished speaking, he asked, ”Did you always show the previous examination reports to the doctors you’ve seen?”

”Yes, they were all done at reputable hospitals, so I thought they’d be able to tell what was wrong.”

Du Heng sighed. It seemed this kind of thing had happened before.

Some doctors, without examining the patient first, would look at the examination results and reports from other physicians, leading to preconceived notions. If these doctors were confident in their own abilities, it might not be an issue. However, if they lacked self-confidence, or if a renowned specialist’s name appeared on the reports, making an independent judgment became difficult.

This was also why many doctors wouldn’t look at a patient’s previous test reports or disease records before examining them; it could be quite misleading.

Du Heng exhaled deeply and turned to the patient’s mother. ”Has the patient taken a bath during this period?”

The patient’s mother shook her head. ”He’s quite averse to taking baths, so I didn’t dare let him. I thought since it might be a skin disease, it would be better to avoid water.”