This Doctor Is Too Wealthy

Du Heng finished washing his hands at the sink and walked over to the woman with a smile. He took a few pieces of paper from Xiao Ma’s table and handed them to her to wipe her mouth.

As the woman was wiping her mouth, lost in thought, Xiao Ma walked in. His expression was grim; he was clearly disturbed by the earlier incident with the trash can.

Xiao Ma looked at Du Heng, who seemed completely unaffected, and couldn’t help but marvel inwardly. Senior Brother is truly in a league of his own! To face that pile of filth, not only showing no reaction but even calmly rummaging through it—that’s something an ordinary person simply couldn’t do.

Du Heng observed the woman, now tidied up, and then glanced at Xiao Ma’s grim expression. He smiled cheerfully and then asked the patient, ”How do you feel now? Is there anything still crawling in your belly?”

The woman pressed her chest, then her abdomen, and said in pleasant surprise, ”It’s gone! I don’t feel anything anymore. Everything feels clear.”

Chuckling, Du Heng said, ”You’ve already vomited it out, so of course, there’s no problem now. For the next couple of days, eat soft, mushy foods, and your body will quickly adjust.”

The patient’s spirits were much improved; she no longer looked like she was on the verge of death. Hearing Du Heng’s words, she nodded decisively. But then, with a puzzled expression, she asked, ”Doctor, was that thing... really what was crawling in my chest?”

Du Heng nodded very seriously. ”Of course. Everything in that trash can is what you vomited. There’s no mistake.”

”But… but why does it look bigger than what I felt?”

Seeing the woman’s perplexed expression, Du Heng chuckled again. ”When it was inside your body, you couldn’t see it. Plus, it was constricted by your esophagus, so you perceived it as smaller. Now that you’ve vomited it out, there’s nothing constricting it, so naturally, it appears larger.”

The woman’s eyes lit up with understanding. ”Oh, I see! Thank you, Doctor.”

”You’re welcome; your recovery is the most important thing. After you go home, eat soft food for a few days and let your stomach recuperate slowly. Alright, go home now.”

”Thank you, Doctor! Thank you so much. Everyone else said I had a neurological disorder, that I was imagining my illness. Only you believed me and cured me. You’re a Divine Doctor!”

The couple thanked Du Heng profusely as they left the consultation room, both calling him a Divine Doctor. However, Du Heng could tell that what the man and the woman meant by ’Divine Doctor’ were two different things.

Once the pair had left the consultation room, Du Heng smiled at Xiao Ma. ”So, did you understand what happened?”

Xiao Ma nodded slowly. ”I understand now, Senior Brother. You chose to believe the patient. Then, through your questioning, you led her to trust you and accept your treatment. Then, you used emetics, along with the rubber spider toy Sister Li just bought, to make the patient believe she had vomited out the object. As a result, her psychological ailment—her heart disease—was cured without medicine.”

Du Heng chuckled. ”We’ve always said that heart diseases require heart medicine doctors. From the patient’s account, it was clear she was suffering from a heart disease, a psychological trauma. Once you identify the root cause, this kind of illness becomes very simple to treat. If you let this kind of heart disease go untreated, it will place a heavy psychological burden on the patient, eventually affecting the functioning of their five viscera. The illness will become truly difficult to resolve if the root cause isn’t addressed. If we had simply treated it as a ’delusional disorder,’ a patient who isn’t actually suffering from a mental illness could genuinely develop one.”

Xiao Ma sighed. ”Teacher often said that syndrome differentiation is all about identifying the pathogenesis. Only by finding the pathogenesis can you truly cure the root cause of the disease. Today, after witnessing your treatment process, Senior Brother, I finally understand the profound importance of pathogenesis. You used the simplest method to cure an illness that had left me completely helpless.”