Dr. Xu: A Chinese Medicine Novel

Evan returns to familiar surroundings with his teacher’s words still in his mind.

Evan opened his eyes. His pillow was wet with tears.

Dr. Li had urged him several times to get out more, to use his skills to guide other practitioners toward genuine Chinese medicine and help put the profession right.

But Evan had only wanted to stay in the countryside. He had never agreed to leave Lingshi.

Eventually, Dr. Li had stopped bringing it up.

It wasn’t that Evan had been unwilling to do something for Chinese medicine. He didn’t belong to that time and place. He was only a projection there, unable to change any history.

However much he did, the profession would remain as it was.

However hard he tried to dissuade Dr. Li, his teacher would still fall ill at the same point in time. He would still die.

Medical skills and experience were all Evan could bring back with him. That was why he had spent all those years refusing to go to a big city. There were too many restrictions on practicing there. The countryside gave him more freedom.

Now he was finally back. He sat propped up in bed, feeling lost and empty.

“If no great physicians come forward, what are ordinary people to do?” he murmured. Only now did he seem to understand what the system had intended.

If he hadn’t insisted on saving that dying old man, he wouldn’t have been fired from the hospital. But the system wouldn’t have chosen him either. It had chosen him for one reason alone: his moral character as a physician.[1]

Those repeated journeys into the past were meant to teach him more than medicine. He was meant to learn the qualities he so valued in those senior physicians: concern for everyone, and a determination to save lives.

“If no great physicians come forward, what are ordinary people to do?” he said again.

Still melancholy, Evan leaned against the headboard and slowly breathed out. He turned to look out the window. His expression gradually firmed. He couldn’t change the past, but he could change the future.

He was Dr. Li’s disciple. It was for him to carry on the work his teacher had spent a lifetime pursuing and left unfinished.

He let out a forceful breath and felt his spirits lift.

Evan closed his eyes and opened the system. He wanted to see what level he had reached, but all he found was a message.

System upgrade and maintenance in progress…

Well, that was that. He couldn’t see anything.

He had no clear idea of his current abilities. He had spent all those years at the clinic without going out to exchange ideas with the experts elsewhere.

Dr. Li had said he was already far beyond the vast majority of Chinese medicine practitioners.

Evan still couldn’t judge for himself.

He shook his head, got up, and found the bathroom to wash up. He still wasn’t used to his young face in the mirror.

He meant to go to work at Mingxin Clinic. But once he was downstairs, he realized he no longer knew the way…

A little embarrassing.

He had spent too long in that other time. He looked left and right until he remembered, then found his way there.

“Morning, Evan,” Clara said.

“Morning.” Looking at her, he felt as though a lifetime had passed.

His continued staring made Clara uneasy. She glanced one way, then the other.

“I haven’t done anything wrong lately… have I?” she muttered.

Evan smiled. “No. It’s just been so long since I’ve seen you. I’m feeling a little… a little emotional.”

“Didn’t we see each other yesterday?” she asked suspiciously.

He smiled and shook his head, offering no explanation.

Clara immediately gave him a sidelong look. She had seen straight through this fraud.

“Aha, I’ve got it. Don’t think a little sweet talk will stop me from docking your pay!”

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“Hm?” Evan looked puzzled.

“Oh, please. Who’s that innocent face for? Are you going to pretend you’ve lost your memory? You went to help at the Chinese medicine hospital yesterday, didn’t you? Forgotten already?”

“Oh.” He nodded, still a little confused.

Ben was rubbing his sore hands with a woeful expression. Yesterday had worn him out.

Clara adopted a magnanimous tone.

“You said we could dock you two days’ pay. But yesterday you saved Lily’s boss’s father, and you got their WeChat public account to give us some publicity. That’s a major contribution. After discussion, Mingxin Clinic’s management has decided to waive your penalty!”[2]

She finished with a giggle.

“A public account…” Evan nodded slightly. “Let’s make our own. Two of them. One for ordinary people, with simple, practical advice on staying healthy. We can show them what Chinese medicine really is, so they don’t keep getting taken in.

“The other one can be for practitioners. We could share instructive case records and discuss some of the mistakes people in Chinese medicine often make today. Help put things right. Even if we only change young doctors’ ideas and attitudes a little, at least they won’t lose faith in the profession the moment they graduate and end up changing careers.”

Clara looked at him in surprise. “What’s got into you today?”

“What do you mean?”

“Usually I can hardly get you to help with this stuff. You act as though you’re being forced to do it. Why are you volunteering today? Has your conscience finally woken up?”

Evan felt rather ashamed. Before, he really hadn’t wanted to bother with any of it. He hadn’t wanted fame, or endless arguments with people who attacked Chinese medicine. He had only wanted to complete the system’s tasks.

Then he had discovered how good Clara was at this kind of thing, and left it all to her.

The publicity was all about him, yet he left everything to her. Sometimes, when she asked for his help, he even looked reluctant.

Evan lowered his head. He thought again of what Dr. Li had told him before he died.

“Actually… I could be doing a lot more.”

Clara and Ben exchanged a look. Only one night had passed. Why did Evan seem so different?

Before, he had been like a Daoist hermit hiding away to cultivate immortality, unwilling to have anything to do with the world. Now he seemed like that same hermit seeing the world in turmoil and deciding to come down the mountain, restore order, and save it.[3]

“You said it,” Clara told him. “Next time I ask you for case records or help finding things in the medical classics, don’t complain.”

“Don’t worry.”

Clara beamed. If Evan was willing to cooperate, that was all she could ask. The better known he became, the better business would be at Mingxin Clinic. She might be able to do more than preserve her mother’s life’s work. She might make the clinic flourish.

Evan sat down and opened the case records he had been keeping. He made a habit of recording his cases, even when he was only helping out at the Chinese medicine hospital.

He came to yesterday’s record of treating the Abbess’s father for appendicitis. His brow furrowed deeply. His prescribing had been painfully naive.

He had prescribed one batch of medicine. After taking it, the patient had passed stool, and his abdominal bloating and pain had eased considerably. Some discomfort had remained, so Evan had left him another two batches.

Other Chinese medicine practitioners would have been astonished at such speed. Evan was far from satisfied.

If he were prescribing now, he could have a patient with straightforward appendicitis like that out of the hospital in a few hours after just one dose. Even a severe case would take him only about ten hours.[4]

Evan put the records away and looked around. His old memories slowly came back.

It was a strange feeling…

Before he could make sense of it, his phone rang again.

Leo Cao. Again.

Reader Notes

Reader Notes

↩︎ The character of a physician. Yide, medical ethics or moral conduct, includes the compassion and sense of responsibility Evan has observed in his teachers. The ideal of the “great physician” joins skill to a commitment to relieving suffering. Sun Simiao’s classical essay on a physician’s skill and sincerity gives an influential expression of that ideal, calling for compassionate and impartial care. Dr. Li’s repeated question is translated as it appears in the novel; it is not presented as a verified quotation from Sun’s essay. Source: Beiji Qianjin Yaofang, volume 1 — “On the Great Physician’s Skill and Sincerity” (in Chinese).↩︎ WeChat public accounts. These are publishing accounts within the WeChat/Weixin ecosystem, through which individuals or organizations share content with followers. A public-account article is distinct from a private chat message. The hospital’s account has already publicized the clinic; Evan now proposes two accounts for different audiences. The division into general health education and professional case discussion is his plan, rather than a platform requirement. Neither new account has been launched in this scene. Source: Tencent — Weixin Official Accounts.↩︎ The hermit comes down the mountain. This comparison draws on Chinese stories of cultivation, in which people seek spiritual perfection or immortality through disciplined practice. Modern cultivation fantasy adapts ideas associated with Daoist traditions into fictional worlds and adventures. Here the image contrasts retreat from ordinary affairs with a decision to intervene in them. It is Clara and Ben’s impression of Evan’s changed manner, not a new religious identity or a literal journey to a mountain. Source: Zhange Ni — “Xiuzhen (Immortality Cultivation) Fantasy,” pp. 10–11, Virginia Tech archive.↩︎ Case records and treatment times. A case record here is Evan’s account of an individual patient’s treatment. Ji denotes a prescribed batch of medicine, rather than necessarily one swallow. His judgment of yesterday’s prescription and the much shorter recovery times he now imagines belong to the novel. They are not established by the clinical source linked here. NIDDK describes surgery as standard treatment for appendicitis and antibiotics alone as an option for some mild cases; that does not verify the herbal treatment or discharge times in this passage. Source: NIDDK — Treatment for Appendicitis, treatment and nonsurgical-care sections.