Dr. Xu: A Chinese Medicine Novel

A long night’s practice leaves Evan with a few surprises.

There was no shortcut to becoming a doctor. Knowing medicine in theory and treating patients were two entirely different things. Any doctor who wanted to improve needed a great deal of clinical practice.

Acupuncture, tuina massage, and bone-setting demanded even more hands-on practice. In real life, though, there often weren’t enough opportunities.[1]

Evan Xu was different. He had not only the best teacher, but the best place to learn.

The training room the system had created was extraordinary. Its simulated patient was wonderfully useful: whatever illness was needed, he would have it, with matching pulse qualities, facial signs, and tongue findings. Even his responses to needling felt real.[2]

The patient could be male or female, old or young, fat or thin…

Evan had no idea how long he had spent there. He just kept practicing without sleep or rest: differentiating patterns, inserting needles, rotating, lifting, thrusting, and trying all the different techniques. He had even practiced Setting the Mountain on Fire and Heaven-Penetrating Coolness. But he had only begun to get the hang of those two; his success rate was under fifty percent.[3]

When he woke again, it was already daylight.

Still dazed and a little thirsty, Evan reached for the cup beside his bed. He gripped it with three fingers, lifted it, then instinctively pushed it down again and gave it a few turns. The cup tipped over, spilling the water.

“Oh!” Cold water splashed over his hand, jolting him fully awake. At last his head cleared.

He quickly shut his eyes and checked his stats.

Chinese Medicine Inheritance System

Inheritor: Evan Xu

Age: 28

Medical skill: Acupuncture — Accomplished Physician

Medical ethics: Excellent

Evan was delighted. A single visit to the acupuncture training room had made him as skilled as a city-level expert.[4]

He looked at his hands. He felt a little more hopeful about the future of Chinese medicine.

Checking the system again, he found several unread messages. He opened them and discovered a number of unclaimed acceleration packs. He claimed and used them.

Then he picked up his cup for a drink. How much time could he possibly have knocked off in one night?

Congratulations. Five years removed from the cooldown.

Second clinical mentorship module loaded.[5]

Special reward for the inheritor’s outstanding promotional work: a second visit to the acupuncture training room is now available.

Evan still had water in his mouth, too stunned to swallow.

Holy shit. What had happened last night?

What had he done?

Since when had he done such an outstanding job?

Not only had that damned ten-year cooldown finally been cleared, he had also earned another visit to the acupuncture training room.

One visit had made him as good as a city-level expert. After a second, he’d be off the charts.

What on earth had happened last night?

Still baffled, Evan asked the system. It ignored him completely.

He thought for a moment. Could something have happened on Weibo?

He hurriedly opened the app. His notifications were overflowing. Every count read 99+.

“Whoa. Did she pay to get me onto the trending-search list?” He could hardly believe it.[6]

He called Clara Zhang at once. “Clara, what… what happened last night?”

She sounded tired. “Nothing much. Just did a little marketing for you. It’s fine. Get to work early. I’ve got to go.”

Evan lowered the phone in amazement. Some jobs really were best left to the professionals. He had spent days on the account and got absolutely nowhere. He had only just handed it over to Clara, and look what she had achieved in a single night!

He was thrilled.

But that second visit to the acupuncture training room was tempting. He didn’t quite want to leave without using it.

“System, how much real-world time does one visit to the acupuncture training room take?”

By default, the length of one sleep period. This can be freely adjusted.

“Why didn’t you say so? Set it to one minute. Let’s go again!”

Evan gave a shout, his eyes rolled back, and he fell onto the bed. His consciousness was back in the training room.

Another stretch of relentless acupuncture practice followed.

When he woke this time, his acupuncture had reached Healer Serving the People, the level of a provincial expert. The next rank was Nationally Eminent Physician, the level of a national expert.

He had inherited Instructor Cheng’s acupuncture skills and learned two exceptional techniques, Setting the Mountain on Fire and Heaven-Penetrating Coolness. He could now pull them off more than seventy percent of the time. That was already an extraordinary achievement.

Elated, Evan hurriedly gathered his things and headed for Mingxin Hall Clinic.

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After arriving and greeting everyone, he asked Clara, “What happened last night? How did I suddenly get so many followers?”

Her expression was calm, with a hint of a smile. “Nothing much. Just a little publicity.”

Evan scratched his head in wonder. “Huh. The internet really is amazing!”

Clara smiled. “Let me handle the publicity and run your account from now on.”

He nodded. “With you helping, I can relax a lot more.”

She gave him a grin, then lowered her head and went back to her phone.

Clara let out a small, almost imperceptible sigh. There was still a little over a week until the end of the month, but they were twenty thousand yuan short. It wasn’t a huge sum, yet it was enough to leave their little clinic with no way out.

She just wanted things to get on track as soon as possible. If the clinic could operate sustainably, their immediate problem would hardly be a problem at all.

After all, it was only a little over twenty thousand. She could even turn some of her credit-card limit into cash to cover it. The issue wasn’t now. It was what came afterward. Borrowed money had to be repaid. Running the clinic would keep costing money, and so would her father’s treatment.

Without a workable way to earn a profit, the clinic was going to fail sooner or later.

Her family was already on the verge of bankruptcy. This was Mingxin Hall’s last chance. She couldn’t keep the clinic alive at the cost of her father’s life. If this attempt failed, there really would be no more Mingxin Hall.

That was why she had staked everything on this.

Why she had made such a drastic move and pinned all her hopes on Evan.

He was her last hope. This was the clinic’s last chance.

Eleven patients came that day, a few more than usual. Some had gynecological conditions; others had different illnesses. All had come to see Evan, and some had sought him out after seeing him on Weibo.

He examined and treated them one by one. His foundations had always been solid, and a year of training at Xiyuan Hospital had improved his clinical skills across the board. Now he also had the acupuncture skills of a provincial expert. It was an enormous advantage.

Acupuncture’s greatest strength was how quickly it worked. It brought Chinese medicine’s four qualities—simplicity, convenience, low cost, and effectiveness—to their fullest expression. The patients all responded well to treatment, had a good experience, and were satisfied.[7]

Clara felt much more at ease. Evan had lived up to her hopes after all.

As she counted the money, she smiled so broadly that her eyes almost disappeared.

Ben Song watched from the back, his mouth dry and a hollow feeling inside. It looked as though he really couldn’t hold on to his place as Mingxin Hall’s leading doctor.

When work ended, he went home dejected.

Evan returned to his rented room too. He lay on the bed, closed his eyes, and activated his second clinical mentorship.

A bright light flashed. The system announced that the year was 1979.

Evan opened his eyes and found himself lying on a small bed. He looked around, delighted.

He took a deep breath of the air of 1979.

Ah…

Whose damn socks stank this badly?

“Evan, get up! Aaaah—we overslept! Get out of bed!

“We’re going to be late! Do you still want to become Dr. Qian’s disciple or not?” Oliver Liu shouted, frantically waving his smelly socks at Evan.

“What? Dr. Qian’s taking a disciple?” Evan was startled.

Reader Notes

↩︎ Hands-on therapies. Tuina is Chinese therapeutic massage, using hands-on treatment techniques. Bone-setting concerns manipulating injured bones and joints; it is distinct from massage and from acupuncture, which uses needles. The passage groups these practices because they require physical skill as well as theory. It does not say that Evan practices all three in this room: the training described here is acupuncture. Source: Hong Kong Health Bureau — Chinese Medicine Clinical Services, “Tui-na and bone-setting”.↩︎ Patterns and diagnostic findings. Chinese medicine brings together inspection, listening and smelling, questioning, and palpation. Facial appearance and tongue findings belong to inspection; pulse qualities are assessed by palpation. Pattern differentiation means interpreting these findings as a related clinical pattern, rather than merely identifying a disease name. The room’s ability to reproduce matching findings is part of the novel’s supernatural system. The passage does not describe a real medical simulator or establish diagnostic accuracy. Sources: Hong Kong Polytechnic University — Four Diagnostic Methods; Hong Kong Department of Health — Diagnostic Methods and Features of Chinese Medicine Practitioners.↩︎ The two compound needle techniques. Introduced earlier, shaoshanhuo, rendered here as Setting the Mountain on Fire, is a traditional compound reinforcing technique associated with warmth. Toutianliang, Heaven-Penetrating Coolness, is its cooling, reducing counterpart. The names describe intended sensations and traditional treatment principles, rather than literal fire or supernatural cold. Rotating and lifting–thrusting are needle manipulations. Evan’s success percentages belong to his fictional training; they are not clinical cure rates. Source: WHO — Chinese medicine terminology, entries 3045 and 3053–3054, printed pp. 411–412.↩︎ The system’s skill ranks. Accomplished Physician, Healer Serving the People, and Nationally Eminent Physician are ability levels in the novel’s system. The city, provincial, and national comparisons describe their fictional scale; the system does not confer a license, a hospital post, or an official honor. Two Chinese rank names borrow traditional praise for physicians: xinglin, the “apricot grove,” and xuanhu jishi, serving others through healing. Their fuller background appeared in Chapter 8. Sources: Henan University of Chinese Medicine — The apricot-grove allusion (in Chinese); the university’s account of xuanhu jishi (in Chinese).↩︎ Clinical mentorship. Gen shi means learning by following an experienced physician in clinical work. It can involve observing consultations, discussing cases, and learning practical methods. Becoming someone’s disciple emphasizes a recognized teacher–student relationship, rather than a university degree alone. The system’s mentorship modules are fictional. Modern descriptions of this educational tradition help explain the wording, but do not establish the exact rules of the novel’s training arrangements. Source: National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine — Measures for professional mentorship education, articles 3 and 15–16 (in Chinese).↩︎ Weibo’s trending searches. Weibo is a Chinese platform for public posts, comments, and reposts. Its hot-search list makes highly searched topics especially visible; promotion can also bring an account attention. Evan is guessing that someone paid to get him onto that list. His question does not establish how his notifications increased or identify a particular advertising purchase. Clara calls it marketing, without giving him the details here. Source: Weibo Corporation — 2017 annual report, “Search,” “Trends,” and “Promoted Trends”.↩︎ The four qualities and the day’s results. Jian, bian, lian, yan is a familiar description of Chinese medicine as simple, convenient, inexpensive, and effective. Official discussions of acupuncture use the same expression; it is a statement of its perceived strengths, rather than a promise that every treatment works quickly. The novel’s broad claim about speed and its account of satisfied patients are retained as narration. Research findings depend on the condition and outcome studied; these eleven fictional consultations do not establish universal effectiveness. Sources: China’s Ministry of Education — Reply discussing acupuncture’s four qualities (in Chinese); NCCIH — Acupuncture: Effectiveness and Safety.