This Doctor Is Too Wealthy

Du Heng felt helpless.

At the same time, he recalled where he had seen this patient’s condition before. He had seen something similar on his little nephew, Du Yi. When Du Yi played like crazy and didn’t bathe, his skin would get chapped, much like this patient’s. However, the patient’s skin was darker and harder.

Du Heng turned to the responsible nurse in the ward and said, ”Please, bring me some alcohol and cotton swabs.”

The nurse nodded and left the ward, a hint of confusion on her face.

Li Jianwei also looked at Du Heng, puzzled, and remarked thoughtfully, ”You want to use cotton swabs to wipe his body? You suspect it’s not a skin disease?”

”Yes.”

”That can’t be right. The patient had blood drawn before. They would have used alcohol swabs then too.”

Du Heng chuckled, reaching out to touch the keratinized area again. ”I’m afraid that a light wipe with alcohol wasn’t enough to make it lose color.”

Li Jianwei was taken aback.

Just as he was about to speak, the nurse returned with a tray. Du Heng then soaked a cotton swab with some alcohol and began to scrub the patient’s arm.

After scrubbing a couple of times, just as Du Heng had said, there was no change in color at all.

Li Jianwei thought Du Heng was finally going to be wrong this time. But Du Heng picked up the cotton swab, shifted to the patient’s abdomen, and began scrubbing there.

This time, Du Heng scrubbed for a considerably longer period.

Then, gradually, the skin on the patient’s stomach, originally dark and chapped, to their utter shock, revealed... flesh tones.

After seeing the color change, Du Heng tossed the cotton swab into the small basin on the tray. He looked at the patient’s family, utterly speechless, and said, ”See? This isn’t a skin disease. It’s just grime built up from not bathing for a long time.”

”Grime?”

The patient’s mother stared at Du Heng in disbelief. She couldn’t accept that they had spent two months and nearly ten thousand yuan, all because her son hadn’t bathed?

Seeing the disbelief in the mother’s eyes, Du Heng could only point to the now-cleaner patch of skin on the patient’s stomach again. ”Look for yourself. The truth is right before your eyes.”

The patient’s mother remained incredulous. The patient on the bed, however, still looked completely unconcerned, as if whether he was sick or not made no difference to him.

PFFT.

The nurse standing behind them couldn’t hold back a soft chuckle. She couldn’t fathom how, in modern society, someone could be so lazy as to let grime become keratinized on their body—and a university student at that!

Li Jianwei glared at the nurse and said softly, ”What are you laughing at? Get out.”

He was worried the nurse’s laughter would offend the family. If they filed a complaint, the young nurse would be in for a rough time.

However, Li Jianwei was clearly worrying too much.

The patient’s mother was in no state to notice the nurse’s laughter. Alternating between tears and furious cries, she lunged at her son, slapped him twice across the face, then collapsed by the bedside, wailing about what a ”worthless thing” her son was for doing such a ”worthless deed!”

Seeing the situation, Li Jianwei tugged Du Heng’s sleeve. Since there was no real illness, they should probably leave and let a doctor from a lower department handle the patient’s discharge procedures.

But Du Heng stood his ground, not moving an inch.

Li Jianwei glanced at Du Heng’s expression and asked with a slight frown, ”What is it? Is there something else?”

Du Heng nodded and whispered to Li Jianwei, ”There’s something not quite right about this young man. He’s lazy to an abnormal degree.”

Hearing Du Heng’s words, Li Jianwei immediately understood his implication.

Laziness is generally considered a pejorative term. In the eyes of a TCM practitioner, however, it can be a sign of illness.

If a person has been lazy since childhood, there are generally three possible explanations.

First, it could be congenital, part of their innate nature.

Second, it could be due to poor upbringing, an influence of their family environment.

The third possibility, however, is a physical problem. Conditions such as qi deficiency, blood deficiency, excessive dampness, or stagnation of liver qi can all lead to fatigue, lethargy, and an appearance of laziness.

The first two are self-explanatory—one congenital, the other acquired. But the third must be taken seriously. This is especially true if someone who was previously diligent suddenly becomes lazy; that warrants close attention.

If such a condition is left to develop unchecked, it typically leads to one of two serious outcomes: either a complete imbalance of the five viscera, severe depletion of the body, and premature death; or, it will affect the mind, eventually leading to mental illness.

A classic example is Wang Shizhen’s daughter-in-law. She suffered from severe qi and blood deficiency, and when she had a critical episode she couldn’t overcome, she developed dementia and mental illness.

After taking the young man’s pulse and examining his tongue coating, Du Heng realized he was also heading down this path, and his condition was already quite serious.

Once the patient’s mother had vented her emotions, she finally remembered Li Jianwei and Du Heng were still standing beside her. She quickly got up to thank them.

Du Heng waved his hand and said gently, ”Don’t thank me just yet. I still have a few questions for your son.”

”Please ask, Doctor, go ahead.”

Du Heng nodded, walked over to the apathetic-looking patient, and said, ”I’m going to ask you a few questions. Can you answer them honestly?”

The young man glanced at Du Heng, still with that indifferent air. ”Go ahead.”

”Do you often feel dazed or absent-minded?”

”Yes.”

”And you don’t feel like talking much?”

”Yes. I feel like talking to people is pointless.”

Du Heng nodded lightly and continued to ask softly, ”When you’re alone and don’t feel like talking, do you find yourself feeling anxious and overthinking things? Do you find your mind racing with random thoughts?”

The young man looked up at Du Heng. ”Yes.”

The patient’s mother was starting to get confused. Wasn’t her son fine? But the doctor’s questions were making her increasingly uneasy.

”Doctor, my son...””Ma’am, please don’t interrupt. We’re not finished yet,” Du Heng said, cutting her off. He continued asking the young man, ”Do you constantly feel fatigued, like you can’t muster any energy, and do your limbs always feel heavy?”

”You’re right. Lately, I’ve felt weaker and weaker. Sometimes I don’t even want to eat, let alone bathe.”

Hearing this, Du Heng paused for a moment, then suddenly asked, ”Did you break up with your girlfriend?”

The young man looked at Du Heng, a flicker of light in his eyes for the first time. ”How did you know?”

”Taking all your issues together,” Du Heng explained, ”it suggests excessive contemplation and worry. This has exhausted your mind and spirit, leading to a deficiency of heart-blood, resulting in your current state of blood deficiency and heart timidity.

As a university student, the things one typically dedicates so much mental effort to are either romantic relationships or studies.

But studying can be mentally taxing; it doesn’t harm the spirit in this way.”

Du Heng looked at the young man intently. ”How long has it been like this?”

The light in the young man’s eyes, which had briefly flickered, dimmed again. ”Almost a year and a half.” He then reverted to his previous apathy.

The patient’s mother, however, was thoroughly panicked now. Seeing Du Heng pause his questioning, she hurriedly asked, ”Doctor, what exactly is wrong with my son?”

Du Heng looked at the mother and son, pondered for a moment, then said, ”Your son has been overthinking to an excessive degree. This has put immense pressure on his mind, and that pressure is, in turn, manifesting physically.”

The patient’s mother was taken aback. After mulling over Du Heng’s words, she asked, ”Doctor, are you saying... my son has a mental illness?”

Mental illness—that was a term that could place an immense burden on anyone.

Truthfully, if classified according to modern medicine, the young man’s condition could indeed fall under the umbrella of mental illness.

However, seeing the mother’s anxiety and the young man’s sudden tension, Du Heng decided to explain it from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine.

”We don’t use that term in traditional Chinese medicine. Your son’s condition is what we call ’heart timidity,’ a disorder arising from blood deficiency.”

Seeing both mother and son visibly relax, Du Heng continued, ”In traditional Chinese medicine, we believe our consciousness resides in the heart and is nourished by the heart’s blood.

When the heart’s blood is depleted, the consciousness is deprived of nourishment. This can lead to a state of being dazed and muddled.

Furthermore, the consciousness should be tranquil, not agitated. Agitation of the consciousness further disturbs the heart. A disturbed heart, in turn, exacerbates the blood deficiency. This blood deficiency then further destabilizes the consciousness, creating a vicious cycle that causes the patient’s condition to progressively worsen.”

Du Heng paused there, choosing not to state the ultimate consequences.

And now that he had identified the root cause, he was determined not to let this patient reach that dire, unacceptable end.