Dr. Xu: A Chinese Medicine Novel

Evan goes with Clara to see her father, but he can’t explain why the visit makes him nervous.

After work, Evan was going with Clara to her place to treat her father, Adam Zhang. He had heard that Adam had suffered a stroke, but had never been to see him.

Clara had told him that her father had spent some time receiving treatment elsewhere in the province, but hadn’t been cured. He hadn’t wanted treatment in the first place and had been very uncooperative. Eventually, he had come home to convalesce.

Since joining the clinic, Evan had never met the man who owned it.

For some reason, he felt nervous. It wasn’t the sort of nervousness that came from meeting a boss. People in authority never made him nervous.

“Should I buy some fruit or something?” he asked.

Clara looked taken aback too. “You’re going there to treat him, not… You don’t need to buy anything. Just come empty-handed.”

“Oh. All right.”

“Um, let’s get some groceries first. There’s nothing to cook at home tonight. Ben, tidy everything up, then close the clinic and lock up.”

“All right.” Ben looked miserable.

Sunshine Residential Community was an old development. A little over ten years ago, though, it had been the best in the county.

Not anymore. The best homes were now in the new town to the south.

But an old neighborhood had its advantages. It wasn’t luxurious, but everyday life was convenient. There was a large food market right inside the community and plenty of ground-floor shops around it. Residents could get everything they needed without leaving.

Clara took Evan around the market. They bought some groceries and went back to the residential buildings.

They went upstairs. Clara lived on the fourth floor.

She took out her key, opened the door, and told him, “Come in.”

Evan stayed in the doorway.

She looked back at him. “Come on in.”

“Ah. Right. Okay.” He hurried after her.

Clara put the groceries in the kitchen. “Sit on the sofa for a bit. I’ll get you some water.”

“Okay.” Evan sat down.

Clara came out of the kitchen and set a glass of water in front of him. “I’ll bring Dad out.”

Evan nodded. That strange nervousness came back for no reason he could explain.

Clara went into the bedroom and wheeled Adam out.

He looked much as before: slumped sideways in his wheelchair, his eyes and mouth skewed, his limbs stiff. His left hand resembled the Chinese sign for six, his right the sign for seven.[1] He looked utterly despondent, unable to take an interest in anything.

“Dad, this is Dr. Xu, the doctor I told you about. He’s come to see you.”

Adam didn’t even raise his eyes to Evan. He seemed to have given up on the world. Nothing else seemed to interest him.

Evan stood up to greet him, but when he opened his mouth, he suddenly couldn’t decide what to call Clara’s father. All he managed was, “H… hello.”

Adam ignored him, staring at the floor without a trace of interest.

“Don’t mind him,” Clara explained. “He’s like this now. He’s so down that he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

Evan nodded in understanding. “Then let me examine him first.”

“Oh, there’s no hurry. Let’s eat first. I can’t have you treating him on an empty stomach. If you’ve got nothing else to do, come and help me cook.”

She pushed Adam’s wheelchair in front of the television and switched it on. She put on Story of Yanxi Palace, the drama everyone was watching lately. He had already finished The Legend of Zhen Huan.[2]

Evan went into the kitchen to help her.

“Peel some garlic for me.”

“Okay.”

Adam, his head tilted as he watched Story of Yanxi Palace, slowly shifted his eyes toward Evan and Clara busy in the kitchen.

Clara did the cooking. Evan helped.

“Not bad,” she said. “You can even chop vegetables.”

“Just a little.”

“Do you cook for yourself these days?”

He nodded.

Clara tipped the vegetables into the pan and stirred them. “Cooking for one is such a nuisance. Make too much and you can’t finish it; make too little and it’s not enough. Why don’t you just come here for dinner after work from now on?”

“Wouldn’t that be too much trouble?” Evan asked, embarrassed.

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She turned the food with her spatula and smiled. “Why are you being so formal with me?”

At those words, the lifeless look in Adam’s eyes slowly sharpened.

“Pass me a plate.” Clara dished up the food. “After dinner, once you’ve examined Dad, help me check the article for our WeChat public account. There are some medical details I’m not sure about.”[3]

“Sure. No problem.” Evan readily agreed. “Do we have many followers now?”

Clara went to wash the pan. “Quite a few. But our writing’s fairly technical. We don’t exaggerate and make things up for attention like other accounts, so maybe that’s why it’s growing a bit slowly.”

Evan nodded.

“When I have time, I’ll write some short stories and work accurate information about Chinese medicine and case histories into them. That has to be more interesting than a load of dry medical information, doesn’t it? It’ll be a great way to get the word out. I’ll make you the main character.” She raised her eyebrows at him.

Evan smiled and pointed at the television behind them, making one of his rare jokes. “Like the emperor on TV? With all those women chasing after me?”

“In your dreams. Honestly!” Clara gave him a nudge with her hip, then rolled her eyes.

Watching them out of the corner of his eye, Adam saw the whole thing. His lifeless eyes suddenly opened so wide they looked ready to pop out.

“Mmph… mm… mm!” Something unintelligible came out of his mouth. The man who had looked so dejected was suddenly agitated.

Evan glanced back at him, puzzled. “Your dad seems to be trying to say something.”

Clara was stir-frying. Without looking around, she said, “Wei Yingluo must have hit someone again. He likes these palace dramas. He always gets excited when someone gets put in their place.”

“Mmph! Mm…” Adam called out indistinctly again. The more agitated he grew, the less clearly he could speak.

“Or maybe Erqing’s come on,” Clara went on. “That gets him worked up.”

“Oh.” Evan nodded.

Dinner was ready. The three of them sat down to eat.

Clara kept putting food in Evan’s bowl. “Try this. I remember you like sweet-and-sour ribs. You like lotus-root slices too, don’t you? Let me get you some soup. It’s mushroom and shredded chicken.”

Adam looked at the empty bowl in front of him. His breathing grew heavy. He eyed Evan sideways. Everything about the man annoyed him.

“Here, Dad. Time to eat.” Clara finally remembered her father and picked up his bowl.

Adam turned his head away.

He was angry!

Clara was puzzled. Why had her father suddenly gotten angry again?

After dinner, Evan began examining Adam by feeling his pulse.[4]

Clara watched from beside them.

The moment Evan began examining a patient, his mind became perfectly calm again. He gave the examination his full attention.

Adam kept giving him sidelong looks.

After a while, Evan finished feeling his pulse. “Stick out your tongue. Let me have a look.”

Adam eyed him sideways, his mouth crooked, and didn’t move.

“I’ll help,” Clara said, and pulled her father’s mouth open.

Adam looked both wounded and furious.

Evan examined his tongue.

When he finished, Adam was still looking indignant.

Clara looked at her father, puzzled too. Ever since his stroke, he had seemed to have no interest in anything. How had he suddenly become so expressive today?

Evan also read the previous doctor’s treatment records and asked some questions. Then he had a clear idea of the case.

“Well?” Clara asked. “Can you treat him?”

Evan nodded. “I can’t promise a complete cure.”

“Really?” Hearing him say that, she knew he must be confident.

He nodded slightly. “Do you have a sealed room?”

“A sealed room?” Clara was taken aback.

“Yes. An airtight room. He needs to take his medicine and be treated in there.”

Clara thought for a moment. “There’s a little storage room on the ground floor. It came with the apartment, and it doesn’t have any windows. Would that do?”

Adam’s eyes widened.

“Why don’t we put him in the storage room, then? The two of us can stay upstairs, cook, decoct his herbs, and take everything down to him.”

Adam immediately grew agitated. He cried out indistinctly, his left hand—the one shaped like a six—lifting a little and trembling without stopping.

Evan couldn’t make sense of it. “What’s he trying to say?”

Clara glanced back at her father’s shaking left hand. “Oh, maybe he’s saying ‘six-six-six’—you’re pretty impressive.”[5]

Reader Notes

Reader Notes

↩︎ The hand signs for six and seven. In a common Chinese system, one hand can represent numbers above five. Six has the thumb and little finger extended, with the middle three fingers folded in; seven brings the thumb and fingertips together. Adam’s stiff hands resemble those shapes. The description concerns their appearance, rather than deliberate counting or a gesture he has chosen to make. Source: The Open University — Basic numbers, “Culture note: hand gestures,” Figure 6.↩︎ Palace dramas.Story of Yanxi Palace and The Legend of Zhen Huan are Chinese television dramas set in the Qing imperial court. Rivalries within the palace and the emperor’s relationships with its women supply their setting. That is the background to the television references here. These are shows being watched in the characters’ modern home; the titles do not mark a change to the novel’s historical timeline. Sources: iQIYI — Story of Yanxi Palace; CCTV — Zhen Huan Zhuan, series page (in Chinese).↩︎ The clinic’s public account. A WeChat public account is a channel for publishing articles to followers, distinct from a private chat. Clara is preparing material for readers who follow the clinic’s account. Her comments about technical writing and attention-seeking articles concern its editorial approach and audience growth. Source: Tencent — Weixin Official Accounts.↩︎ Pulse and tongue examination. Chinese medicine traditionally combines inspection, listening and smelling, questioning, and palpation. Feeling the pulse belongs to palpation; observing the tongue belongs to inspection. These are parts of an assessment considered together with the patient’s history and other observations. Simply saying that a doctor feels a pulse or looks at a tongue does not specify what was found, such as a particular pulse quality, tongue color, or coating. Source: Hong Kong Department of Health — Diagnostic Methods and Features of Chinese Medicine Practitioners.↩︎ “Six-six-six.” In Chinese internet slang, 666, spoken as three separate sixes, can praise someone as skillful or impressive. The sound of liu, “six,” plays on liu in the sense of doing something smoothly or well. Clara interprets her father’s trembling six-shaped hand as this compliment. The hand shape, his agitation, and her explanation form the joke; she is offering her own reading of what he means. Source: Xiamen University’s cultural case library — “A misunderstanding over 666,” case 8867 (in Chinese).