The Female Supporting Role Shows Out

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thornling15-19 minutes 16.10.2020

Translator: thornling | Editor: thornling

Lin Dan used her golden needle technique to save the woman’s life, then waved her hand and said: “You can lift her in now.”

“Oh, good! Thank you, doctor, thank you, doctor!” The strong man hurriedly carried his wife into Xing Lin Spring and placed her on a cot in the outer hall.

Lin Dan quickly wrote two prescriptions and ordered the servants to brew them.
She fed the woman each prescription two hours apart.
In the evening, the woman had greatly recovered.
She no longer had abdominal pain, no longer vomited blood, and regained control of her bowel movements.
Her several daughters and sister-in-laws brought in hot water and clean clothes and helped her clean herself up.
By the time she was lifted back out, she actually looked like a human again.

Some of the crowd had dispersed, while others remained outside craning their necks.
If Physician Lin couldn’t cure the illness either, the strong man would definitely start making a ruckus and then there will be another good show to watch.

Zheng Zhe sat at the entrance of Xuancao Hall, dazed, his eyes fixed on the opposite clinic.
When he saw the woman, who had made herself presentable, he suddenly stood up, as if he had seen a ghost.
Wu Xuancao, who had been silently waiting for the result as well, also showed an extremely astonished expression.
She couldn’t help but stagger forward two steps and step out of the shop door, but then was fixed at her present position and stopped moving.
This was the second time she had seen the wonders of traditional Chinese medicine through Lin Dan.

The crowd made a huge commotion, followed by a steady stream of admiring exclamations.
It had only been six or eight hours, but such a serious illness had already been cured? Although this Physician Lin was young, her medical skills were really not to be underestimated*!

*Wordplay here, the author used “xiao” (small) to say that Lin Dan was young, then “bu xiao” (not small) to describe her medical skills.

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However, Lin Dan ignored the reactions and opinions of bystanders.
She just held the woman’s wrist and focused on checking the pulse, unhurriedly saying: “There is no longer any emergency.
The external symptoms have been eliminated, but the internal symptoms are still there.
You will need to take medicine every day and properly take care of yourself.
Don’t eat too much spicy, greasy, or coarse foods.
Eat more light and soft foods.
I will start by prescribing medicine for you to drink.
Take it continuously for seven days, then return for further diagnosis.”

“Yes, thank you, doctor, thank you, doctor!” The strong man and his wife knelt down in gratitude.
Their children also knelt down in a big patch.

Lin Dan didn’t help them up.
She just turned sideways to avoid the bows.
Then, she unhurriedly wrote down the prescription.
Her manner was very flat; although she was saving people, she appeared to have a sense of detachment from the secular world, as if the life and death of other people were just a small plaything that she casually toyed with at her fingertips.

The strong man secretly glanced at her, his expression becoming more respectful, and even a sort of fear and trepidation arose.
The fellow villagers he brought also calmed down.
They became docile one-by-one, scared to even take too big a breath.

The shop was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop, but Lin Dan didn’t think anything of it.
She wrapped the seven portions of medicine in oil paper and said slowly, “All right.
You can go back now.”

The strong man reached out to pick up the paper package, thanking her repeatedly.
His wife, with the support of her children, bowed her knees deeply with an extremely grateful expression.

When she was misunderstood and even shoved aside by these people, Lin Dan was never angry.
Naturally, now that they revered her as an immortal, she would also not be proud of herself.
Her character was just like her name*.
Her every move was indifferent, making people unable to get close to her at all.
After dealing with this inconvenience, she picked up a medical text as usual and flipped through it seriously, exactly as she did in the past.

*The “dan” in her name means light, indifferent.

Passers-by pointed at her and discussed her spiritedly, but they couldn’t disturb her in the slightest.
No one knew when it started, but at some point, she had somehow become this current person who was not attached to material things and never felt sorry for herself, as tranquil as a deep pool of blue water.

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Xue Jiming, who had hurriedly rushed over to help Wu Xuancao out of trouble, had remained at Xuancao Hall, across the street, all along.
He thought: If Lin Dan couldn’t handle this matter either, he couldn’t not bring his guards to her clinic and support her.
But Lin Dan’s behavior greatly surprised him and finally made him confront the fact that she had changed.

She was no longer that little girl who orbited around him.
Suffering made people grow up.
After experiencing betrayal, the breaking of her engagement, separation, and accidentally harming others, she had already been reborn and achieved enlightenment.
She didn’t avoid her own mistakes, but shouldered all of the responsibility.
She took care of her eldest brother meticulously, and, in order to cure him, even studied medicine every day without slacking off.
In order to gain experience and temper her medical expertise, she started wandering remote villages.

What she had learned in a year was probably even more than what others had learned in a lifetime.
Looking at her tranquil profile, Xue Jiming’s heart was full of bitterness.

Zheng Zhe struggled for a while before finally standing up, walking to the door of Xing Lin Spring step by step, and bowing deeply: “May I venture to ask Physician Lin: those two times that I diagnosed and treated the patient, where did I go wrong?” If he didn’t figured this out, he would never be able to forget it for the rest of his life.

Lin Dan raised her head and looked askance at him, but she didn’t act pretentious, instead gently saying: “That woman was in extreme pain when she was brought, but there was not a single drop of cold sweat on her forehead.
Moreover, her face was flushed, there was a murmur in her chest, and her voice was hoarse.
These are symptoms that she was suffering a cold (windchill*) and that cold energy had entered her head.
Her gastric pain and vomiting were extremely severe, but her pulse was deep and tense, very distinctly so.
If you examined it very generally, you would naturally be drawn in by the internal symptoms and forget the external symptoms.
All illnesses should first be examined from the surface.
You ascertained the internal symptoms and became engrossed in giving her medicine, but neglected the external symptoms.
Without resolving the external symptoms or treating her cold, how could you prescribe Baohe Decoction? Baohe Decoction contains radish seeds, mongolian snakegourd, dried unripe citron, green tangerine peel, and so on, which have the effect of eliminating and directing.
But it aggravated her cold, causing her to have constant diarrhea and be unable to swallow food.
This greatly damaged her vital energy.
Without eating and drinking, her gastrointestinal symptoms would sharply worsen.
Within two days, she would naturally collapse.”

*Windchill is when windy and frigid energy enter the body.
These are both destructive energies.
It is also the Chinese understanding of how one catches a cold.
If you want to reconcile the perspective of TCM with that of western medicine, think of it like this: we think of the common cold as a result of germs, but in order for microorganisms to wreak havoc in our body, our immune system needs to have been compromised, and these two energies have the effect of weakening the body.
Also, the name “cold” insinuates that our ancestors noticed the same pattern: people catch a cold after they catch a chill.
Modern doctors, however, will disagree, even though the common cold is more common in winter.
But the ancients were stupid and we know best now, right?

Lin Dan put down her medical book and said succinctly: “In the Yellow Emperor’s Internal Canon*, there is a saying: Laborers grow sprouts, and the best medical practitioners treat the beginning stages**.
You are indeed able to cure serious illnesses, but you shouldn’t overlook minor aches and ailments.
It is by treating these minor aches and ailments that you accumulate knowledge and experience bit by bit.
Take that woman’s acute condition as an example: if you had noticed the symptoms of her cold and first counterintuitively treated the surface, making her to sweat it out, and then given her Baohe Decoction, treating her digestive system, that later situation would not have occurred.”

*This is a very real and very famous text, still used by TCM doctors today.

**There is a legend in Chinese medicine that one of the most well-known miracle doctors in Chinese history once claimed that he was the worst doctor out of all three of his brothers.
His eldest brother was the best because he treated illnesses before their symptoms even started; his second brother was second best because he treated illnesses when their symptoms had first begun; and he himself was the worst because he only treated illnesses when they were already at an advanced stage.
But his other two brothers were not well-known because people don’t understand how much more skill it takes to prevent illness and keep it from causing any damage to the body.

Zheng Zhe carefully chewed on her words and his slightly unreconciled expression was slowly replaced with shame.
He bowed deeply, his eyes suffused with red, and sighed: “Many thanks, Physician Lin, for your enlightenment.
I was the one who didn’t investigate the exterior and interior correctly and nearly harmed a human life! These past few days, I had made some breakthroughs in my medical skill, so I was too engrossed in scaling the summit and going down in history, but forgot that ‘One cannot travel a thousand miles without taking a single step’.
Physician Lin can see the minutest detail with the utmost clarity.
You are an expert on par with the Yellow Emperor*.
After hearing your words today, this old man has benefited a lot.
I am full of regret and shame!” After he finished speaking, he bowed deeply again, then staggered back into Xuancao Hall.

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*The author of the Yellow Emperor’s Internal Canon, known as an originator of many elements of Chinese culture, including TCM.

Wu Xuancao wanted to help support him, but he waved his hand and declined.
A person who had originally been in good spirits, hale and hearty, seemed to have aged a dozen years overnight.

Xue Jiming looked at the renowned Physician Zheng, then looked at Lin Dan with her tranquil expression, and his eyes were also suffused with remorse.
Witnessing Lin Dan’s methods of saving the dying and healing the wounded and listening to her various insights on the medical arts, it was not difficult for Xue Jiming to realize that her medical skills were already exquisite.
Of course Wu Xuancao couldn’t even be compared with her, but even Zheng Zhe might be slightly inferior.

The illness that she could see through at a glance, Zheng Zhe couldn’t understand even after serious investigation, to the point where he even nearly harmed a human life.
It turned out that when she stayed in Xiaofeng Pavilion all day reading medical books, she wasn’t putting on an act, nor trying to hang onto Xue Manor – she was really, truly studying.
However, he himself said to her face that he would give her medical books to Wu Xuancao and Zheng Zhe, and even declared with certainty that these things were useless in her hands.

And now, reality had clearly shown him who the truly useless one was.
Thinking of this, Xue Jiming rubbed his face, feeling ashamed and unable to show his face.

Just at this moment, Lin Dan glanced in the direction of Xuancao Hall.
Without thinking, he dodged behind a pillar for fear of being seen by her.

Wu Xuancao’s heart was full of shock, but she also noticed his unusual behavior and asked with pinched brows, “What are you doing?”

“I, I have no face to appear in front of people.” Xue Jiming accidentally blurted out the truth.

Wu Xuancao was slightly stunned, then looked toward Lin Dan, her gaze becoming very complicated.
If she had obtained those medical books, the one who revived the dead and put flesh on bones would now have been herself.

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The confrontation between Lin Dan and Zheng Zhe quickly got around the capital.
One was a little girl in her youth; the other was a prestigious, venerable doctor.
Who would win and who would lose, who was high and who was low, should have been obvious at a glance.
But in the end, that unknown little Physician Lin actually forcibly saved the person whom Miracle Doctor Zheng almost killed.
And her dialogue with Miracle Doctor Zheng in front of the door to Xing Lin Spring also spread to the ears of various doctors.

Doctors who originally thought the rumors were wrong immediately started praising little Physician Lin in every possible way.
Resolve the surface and treat the root – these words were easy to say, but extremely difficult to do.
Even if those venerable doctors who had practiced medicine for decades kept these four words in their hearts at all times, they would still make mistakes from time to time, causing illnesses that were initially not so serious to become extremely severe and endangering lives. 

It was easy to treat people to death, but too difficult to bring them back to life.
This incident was tantamount to a wake-up call, ringing in the ears of every doctor.
Meanwhile, the previously deserted Xing Lin Spring became as busy as a marketplace overnight, bustling with much noise and excitement.

Seven days later, the strong man brought his wife to Xing Lin Spring for a follow-up consultation, attracting everyone’s attention again.
That woman was now ruddy, plump, and looked to be very healthy.
It was hard to imagine her appearance seven days ago, when she was so thin she was unrecognizable and had almost died.

The two of them thanked her many times and knelt down and kowtowed.
When they walked out of Xing Lin Spring and looked at Xuancao Hall across the street, they immediately showed a vicious expression.
But Zheng Zhe came out at this moment, offered them one hundred taels of silver to make amends, then picked up his medicine box and prepared to leave the capital.

Wu Xuancao’ surgical techniques inspired him, but many of her treatments were a fantasy story to him, extremely unrealistic.
He had already made some breakthroughs, but he almost forgot the true heart of a doctor.
If he didn’t go out to gain experience at this time, but continued to work in isolation, perhaps he would cause even bigger trouble.
The best medical practitioners treated the beginning stages – he would forever remember this sentence.

When he left, he left behind a medical book authored by himself on acupuncture and moxibustion techniques.
He thought that it would be of help to Wu Xuancao and also considered it the conclusion of their master-disciple relationship.
He strode to the front door of Xing Lin Spring and saw that Lin Dan was taking a pulse, so he didn’t go forward to disturb her, but instead bowed respectfully and then boarded an ox cart to leave.

Lin Dan glanced at him and nodded slightly.
It could have been considered a goodbye.

Wu Xuancao couldn’t make Zheng Zhe stay and could only watch the ox cart disappear around the corner of the street.
Her expression gradually transformed from resentment and loathing to distress and bitterness.