Dr. Xu: A Chinese Medicine Novel

Clara has visitors to manage. Ben has a family argument to settle.

That left just the three of them again.

Clara had no idea what was going on with Ben, but she had worries of her own. What was she supposed to do about this family? She couldn’t just throw them out, could she?

Tell them the clinic was closing?

Or knock Evan out?

For the moment, she had no better ideas.

Evan studied Little Octopus thoughtfully. “Have you… come to me for treatment before?”

“Huh?” Little Octopus froze.

Clara nearly fainted. She jumped up and cried, “Yes! Yes! She was here just a few days ago!”

“You’re here for a follow-up, then? What’s your name? I’ll look up your record,” Evan said.

Little Octopus scowled. “Emily Zhang. Do you ever remember anything?”

“Oh.” Evan quickly found her record. Once he’d read it through carefully, he knew where things stood.

He looked at her face. “Are you feeling any better? Has your period started? Are you still in pain?”

Little Octopus pouted and gave a disgruntled snort. “A bit better. I’m not as tired during the day, and I have a little more energy. I’m sleeping better too. My period hasn’t come yet.”

“Anything else bothering you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Give me your hand. Let me check your pulse again.”

Evan examined her pulse and tongue again, then wrote a prescription.[1]

“It’s helping, so we’ll keep the same formula. I’ll prescribe another seven doses. Come back after you’ve finished them so I can see how you’re doing. If you feel unwell, come and see me at any time.”[2]

“Oh.” Little Octopus answered unhappily, then gave him an angry poke. “You! Can’t you make a better impression in front of my mom?”

“Huh?” Evan was completely baffled.

“Ahem!” Clara jumped up with a cough. “You have company!”

Little Octopus swallowed the words she had been about to say. She stamped her foot and snorted again, exasperated with him.

Evan was bewildered. Hadn’t he performed well enough? In all those years he’d spent in the system, he had been a renowned gynecologist in the capital! And now she was saying his performance wasn’t good enough!

If he hadn’t been so resilient, he might have started doubting his medical skills.

With someone else there, Little Octopus couldn’t say much more for now.

Clara wasn’t that stupid, of course. In their chats, she’d warned everyone over and over: nobody was to act intimate with Evan when they came to the clinic. Above all, none of them was to reveal their relationship with him there.

But she hadn’t expected the girl’s mother to turn up too—and to inspect a prospective son-in-law, at that. Was online romance this serious now?

Clara was going to lose her mind.

Meanwhile, Ben and the others had gone out and started talking in a shaded spot next door.

“You two… You… Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Ben was getting agitated.

“What’s all the fuss about?” his wife asked.

Ben scratched his disheveled hair. “All right, forget it. Come on, let’s go home. Leo, you should head back too. Sorry to take up more of your time.”

His wife wasn’t having it. “Go home? We haven’t even discussed what we came for.”

“What is there to discuss?” Ben demanded.

“We agreed, didn’t we? My brother comes to work at the clinic a few days every week, and we get rid of that young fellow. You said yes last night.”

“Oh, come on.” Ben was full of regret. “I was drunk. Enough of this. Let’s go home.”

“We’re not going anywhere. We’re settling this today. That little fraud who’s been taking advantage of you has to go!”

Ben was thoroughly fed up. “Evan knows what he’s doing. He’s a bright guy, a Nanzhongyi graduate. He hasn’t faked anything.”[3]

Now Leo spoke. “Nanzhongyi? Really? And after graduating, he came to a tiny clinic like yours? Are you sure he didn’t go to some junior college, or even a vocational college? Have you seen his diploma?”

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Ben hesitated. “Well, no.”

Leo sighed. “Ben, you’ve been taken in.”

“What?” Ben stared.

“Even if he did graduate from Nanzhongyi, can someone fresh out of school treat patients? Can he? Could he be better at it than a doctor like you, who’s been practicing for ten years?”

“Well…” Doubt began creeping into Ben’s mind too. It really didn’t make sense.

A confident smile appeared at the corner of Leo’s mouth. “I don’t blame you. You’re too trusting. You haven’t seen enough of the world. The boy has set the whole thing up. Those so-called patients are people he’s hired to play along. It’s… all fake!”

Ben found that hard to believe. “But… the man with the mouth ulcers was my patient. He came to make trouble for me, and Evan helped me out.”

Leo shook his head with a cold smile. “That’s how calculating he is. Unless I’m mistaken, he hired that patient too.”

“He sent the man to you for treatment. First he set you up, pushed you until you had nowhere to turn, then stepped in to help. Look how grateful you are now. You won’t even believe us, and you keep defending him.”

Ben was shocked. “Really? He’s… that calculating?”

Leo glanced back toward the clinic entrance. His voice grew grave. “Haven’t you heard the term?”

“What term?”

“Manipulation,” Leo said solemnly.[4]

Ben went blank.

Leo turned and patted his shoulder with a sigh. “Ben! That boy’s been manipulating you!”

His wife’s eyes reddened with indignation. “You have to stand up for Ben!” she told her brother.

“Don’t worry. We’re family. Ben is my own sister’s husband. How could I let anyone bully him like this?”

Ben’s head was still spinning.

Leo narrowed his eyes, a gleam of wisdom in them. “Step by step, he builds himself an image as a miracle doctor. Hires one fake patient, then another. Brings the media in to film it. A challenge, then proof that he can do it…”

“And he manipulates Ben on top of it. Heh. This boy knows a thing or two. He certainly understands publicity. If Faye hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known you had such a serious problem here. He doesn’t just want to force you out of your job. He wants to control your mind.”

“Too bad for him! He can’t fool me!” Leo shook his head slightly. “A fake is a fake. There’s no room for the slightest dishonesty in medicine. Stay out of this. I’ll stand up for you.”

Ben’s wife clenched her teeth in anger. “Trying to manipulate my husband? He hasn’t heard the last of me!”

“It’s people like him, with all their fraud, who have brought Chinese medicine so low,” Leo said calmly. “Today, I’m going to cut this cancer out!”

Ben stared at his brother-in-law in astonishment. He could almost see the light of righteousness shining down on him.

The three of them went back into Mingxin Clinic.

Ben trailed behind, dazed. He was even more confused than he’d been after drinking too much last night!

His wife was much more forceful this time. She glared angrily at Evan, then said to Clara, “Clara, I think we need to have a proper talk.”

“What’s wrong?” Clara had no idea what they were charging in to do.

Ben’s wife pointed to Leo beside her, with a touch of pride. “Let me introduce him properly. This is Dr. Leo Cao, deputy head of obstetrics and gynecology at the county hospital of Chinese medicine. He’s a specialist in Chinese medical gynecology, and a disciple of the world-renowned Professor Oliver Liu.”[5]

Leo looked pleased with himself, though he tried to keep it in check. His gaze grew a little haughtier.

Even Ben felt a little awkward hearing that.

Evan, however, put down his medical book and turned at once, delighted. “You’re Oliver Liu’s disciple?”

Seeing even this master manipulator lose his composure, Leo felt prouder still.

Reader Notes

↩︎ Pulse and tongue examination. Chinese medicine traditionally groups clinical assessment into four methods: inspection, listening and smelling, questioning, and palpation. Looking at the tongue falls under inspection; examining the wrist pulse falls under palpation. Together with the patient’s account, these observations inform the practitioner’s assessment. Here, Evan repeats the examinations at a follow-up visit. The passage gives no particular pulse quality, tongue finding, or new diagnosis, so none is supplied in the translation. Source: Hong Kong Polytechnic University — Four Diagnostic Methods.↩︎ Keeping a formula that is helping. Evan invokes xiao bu geng fang, a Chinese medical maxim about continuing a prescription when it is producing a response and the underlying traditional pattern remains substantially the same. It concerns continuity of treatment, with reassessment as needed. The seven “doses” here are seven prescribed preparations, not seven swallows; no daily schedule is stated. Evan asks her to return after finishing them, or sooner if she feels unwell. The passage gives neither the formula’s ingredients nor a return of menstruation. Source: Hubei University of Chinese Medicine — A case illustrating “xiao bu geng fang,” explanatory paragraph (in Chinese).↩︎ Nanzhongyi and college credentials. Nanzhongyi is the Chinese short name for Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, introduced earlier in the story. Leo contrasts it with junior-college and vocational-college credentials. These are Chinese educational categories; vocational and junior-college education can overlap, rather than forming the simple hierarchy his sneer suggests. His doubts about Evan’s diploma are part of the conversation, not evidence of a forged qualification. Sources: Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine — University charter, article 2 (in Chinese); Ministry of Education — Reply on vocational-college and undergraduate education (in Chinese).↩︎ “PUA” in the Chinese dialogue. Originally an English abbreviation for “pick-up artist,” PUA has acquired a broader Chinese slang use for psychological or emotional manipulation, including in workplaces. The dialogue uses that broader sense. “Manipulation” preserves Leo’s accusation without suggesting that he is accusing Evan of seducing Ben. What Leo claims about hired patients, staged rescues, and control remains his interpretation of events. The term is not a clinical diagnosis. Source: Victor Mair, Language Log — PUA, part 2.↩︎ A medical disciple. In Chinese medicine, learning directly under an experienced practitioner can involve clinical observation, practical instruction, and the transmission of that teacher’s methods and experience. Calling someone a disciple therefore conveys a personal teaching relationship, beyond simply having attended a university. Here, Ben’s wife invokes Leo’s connection to Professor Liu as a credential. This note explains that form of training; it does not establish any further relationship or rank among the people present. Source: National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine — Master–disciple education regulations, articles 3 and 6 (in Chinese).