Chapter 709: Six Gentlemen Soup

Chapter 709: Chapter 709: Six Gentlemen Soup

"Thank you, Doctor Li."

Daoist Sun was overjoyed.

The live stream chat room grew even more lively:

"Wow, Doctor Li is so confident, he actually agreed to a live stream."

"That’s a man with a clear conscience. Not afraid of being questioned, not afraid of making a mistake. Awesome."

"...I’m starting to believe he can actually cure that rich lady’s emotional ailment..."

Daoist Sun watched the bullet comments as he waited in line.

At the very front of the line was a trembling old man.

The old man looked to be in his eighties, his body hunched over.

He walked very slowly. Each step was accompanied by heavy, labored breathing, like a worn-out bellows being pumped.

"Take your time, sir."

Li Xu quickly stood up and offered a steadying hand.

As the old man sat down, he suddenly burst into a violent coughing fit.

"COUGH, COUGH, COUGH... GAG..."

The old man was coughing terribly, and it was obvious he had phlegm in his throat.

"Sir, spit it out here."

Seeing this, Song Sisi quickly grabbed the nearby medical waste bin and held it up to the old man’s mouth.

The old man coughed a few more times and spat the phlegm into the bin.

Li Xu was standing right beside them and saw the contents of the bin.

What the old man spat out wasn’t thick phlegm, but a clear, thin, watery fluid with some white foam in it.

Moreover, it seemed he could never quite clear it all out. The old man had to spit several more times before he finally settled down a bit.

"Thank you... Thank you, young lady."

After spitting, the old man gasped for air.

Looking at the old man’s deeply lined face, Li Xu felt not a trace of disgust, but rather a surge of compassion.

Thanks to the system’s empowerment, as Li Xu’s medical skills advanced by leaps and bounds, he also gradually developed a kind of transcendent mindset.

It was precisely because of this superhuman confidence and transcendent perspective that when faced with patients suffering from illness, Li Xu could set aside the typical doctor’s airs and show greater tolerance.

To put it more concretely: many other doctors, after years of working in clinics, seeing countless patients, witnessing life and death, and dealing with unreasonable demands, eventually come to see their profession as just a job to support their families.

They might be skilled, but their hearts have gradually grown a little numb.

But for Li Xu, his approach was entirely different.

Others were mechanically "working," while Li Xu was solving the complex "exam questions" posed by the human body.

Therefore, he was full of patience when facing every problem, every patient.

"Sir, have some water first to soothe your throat."

Li Xu motioned for Song Sisi to get the old man a cup of warm water.

The old man held the paper cup with both hands, taking a few trembling sips, and his breathing eased slightly.

Only then did Li Xu ask gently, "Sir, what’s bothering you? Is it the cough, or are you having trouble breathing?"

"The cough... and my chest feels so tight..."

The old man’s voice was hoarse and weak. "If I walk a little faster, or go up a flight of stairs, I can’t catch my breath."

"Here, place your hand here. Let me take your pulse."

Li Xu slid a small, soft cushion toward the old man’s hand and gently placed three fingers on the man’s pulse point at his wrist.

After a moment, Li Xu continued his inquiry. "Sir, why did you come alone? You’re so ill, and you don’t have any family with you?"

"Sigh, it’s just me."

The old man shook his head with a bitter smile. "My children are all grown up with their own families. They live out of town and have their own difficulties and things to worry about. As for these old bones, I’m just getting by on my own, taking it one day at a time..."

Then, the old man said to Li Xu, a little embarrassed, "Doctor, I... I’m sorry to trouble you, but could you just prescribe me something to ease the cough? I don’t have much money. If I hadn’t been so congested these past two days that I couldn’t sleep at night, I wouldn’t have come to bother you."

Hearing the old man’s words, Li Xu sighed inwardly.

’How many elderly people in this world endure their suffering in such loneliness and silence?’

"Sir, is your cough worse during the day or at night?" Li Xu continued.

"It’s worse at night. As soon as I lie down, it feels like there’s water sloshing around in my chest. The coughing is unbearable, and I can’t sleep well all night."

The old man’s description was very vivid.

Li Xu had just seen the phlegm the old man coughed up with his own eyes, so he didn’t ask any further questions about it.

"Sir, do you usually drink alcohol?" Li Xu asked again.

"Alcohol?"

The old man nodded. "When I was young and did manual labor, I liked to drink a bit of white spirits. Especially in winter, if I caught a cold from the wind, I’d drink some strong spirits, sweat it out, and get better without any medicine. Now that I’m old and have so many ailments, I don’t dare to drink anymore."

"This illness of yours... the root of the problem might be left over from all that drinking back in the day."

Li Xu withdrew his hand and explained, "Although strong liquor is pungent and warming, and could indeed disperse wind-cold from the body’s surface at the time, its fundamental nature is that of damp-heat. When you drink too much, the damp-turbidity lingers in the body, injuring the spleen and stomach."

The old man nodded, only half-understanding, and didn’t seem to pay it much mind.

At his age, it was too late to talk about the cause of his illness. His request was simple: just prescribe some medicine to make him feel less miserable.

After checking his right wrist, Li Xu switched to the left, carefully examining the pulse in both.

’The Guan pulse in both wrists is deep and slow, and the Cun pulse in both is deficient.’

A clear diagnosis quickly formed in Li Xu’s mind.

A classic text of Chinese medicine says: "All diseases involving clear, cold fluid belong to the category of Cold."

The patient’s phlegm was clear, thin, and copious, with foam. This was a classic case of "Cold-Phlegm and Fluid Retention."

The pathogenesis was as follows: drinking in his youth damaged his spleen. The spleen and stomach’s function of transporting and transforming water and grain diminished, leading to an accumulation of water-dampness. Over time, this generated Yin-Cold Qi.

The spleen is the source of phlegm, and the lungs are the container for phlegm.

The pathogenic Cold-Fluid surges upward, oppressing the heart and lungs and obstructing the Yang Qi in the chest. This is why the old man feels chest fullness and tightness, coughs, has difficulty breathing, and is even unable to lie flat.

With the diagnosis made, the strategy for prescribing medicine became very clear.

To treat a disease, one must seek its root.

For this syndrome of Cold-Fluid retained in the lungs, Zhang Zhongjing had long ago provided an extremely classic treatment principle in the *Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet*: "For diseases of phlegm-fluid, one should harmonize them with warming herbs."

To resolve this Cold-Phlegm and Fluid Retention, one must use the "iron triangle" for "warming the lungs and transforming fluids": dried ginger, Xixin, and Schisandra.

Li Xu wrote out the prescription:

"To the base of ’Six Gentlemen Soup’ (Ginseng, Atractylodes, Poria Cocos, licorice, Dried Tangerine Peel, and Banxia), which strengthens the spleen and transforms phlegm, add 6g of dried ginger, 9g of Xixin, and 6g of Schisandra..."

Daoist Sun, who was next in line, wanted to show his viewers how the Divine Physician wrote his prescriptions. He deliberately adjusted his position, zooming the camera in a little to focus on Li Xu’s computer screen.

When he saw "9g of Xixin" written on the prescription, his eyes shot wide open.

As a streamer who had long been popularizing traditional culture and knew a little something about Chinese medicine, he had heard of Xixin.

’Nine grams?’

According to ancient weight conversions, one qian is about three grams.

Nine grams is about three qian.