Chapter 735: Fence-Sitter

Li Xu stepped forward and carefully observed Uncle Guo's complexion.

His face was rosy, no longer the suffocated, purplish-blue hue he had when he was first admitted. Feeling his pulse again, Li Xu noted it was calm and strong. The previous floating and tense condition had completely faded away.

"Good," Li Xu nodded. "You've recovered very well. However, this illness was caused by damp-heat pathogenic factors, and dampness is the most stubborn and lingering of them all. Besides taking medicine, you need to keep moving. Moderate exercise can stimulate Yang Qi and help expel the dampness through sweat."

Hearing this, Uncle Guo eagerly replied, "I know, Dean Li. I practice the Eight Brocades every day now. Director Lin specifically taught me during his rounds on the first day. At first, my body was weak, and I could only do it once. Now that I feel stronger, I do it twice a day, morning and night. After practicing, my whole body feels warm and extremely comfortable."

Li Xu nodded and conducted another detailed follow-up examination. After listening to his heart and lungs and confirming there were no rales, he turned to Lin Guorui behind him. "Director Lin, let's observe him for one more day. Do a routine check-up tomorrow morning. If his blood work and lung imaging are mostly fine, process the paperwork and let the old man be discharged with his medications."

"I can be discharged?"

Uncle Guo was overjoyed. During a time when the virus was running rampant and a hospital bed was hard to come by, walking out of the hospital safe and healthy was even more thrilling than winning the lottery.

Li Xu said, "Yes, if there are no issues, you can leave tomorrow. But after you go home, you still need to take your medicine on time and keep warm. If you feel unwell, come back to the hospital for a check-up immediately. Also, don't drop the habit of practicing the Eight Brocades. Remember to do it every day; it's great for strengthening your body."

After giving his medical advice, Li Xu headed straight for the next ward. He had too many patients to see and time was of the essence.

Tremendously excited, Uncle Guo shouted after them, "Thank you, Dean Li! Thank you, Director Lin! Thank you..."

Lin Guorui turned back and smiled. "You're welcome, Uncle. It's our duty. Get some good rest."

Uncle Guo's excitement was beyond words. Unable to sit still on his bed, he stood up and began practicing the Eight Brocades again in the aisle between the beds. Now, he could do it without looking at the instructional poster on the wall. He had mastered every stance and movement, ingraining them into his muscle memory so deeply that he couldn't forget them.

"Two Hands Hold up the Heavens to Regulate the Triple Burner..."

Uncle Guo muttered the chant while stretching his arms.

Inside the ward, the fiery-tempered middle-aged woman who stubbornly refused to take Chinese medicine was half-leaning against her raised bed, watching Uncle Guo vigorously "regulating his triple burner."

She suddenly felt an itch in her throat. "COUGH, COUGH, COUGH..." Unable to hold back, she coughed a few times, the force of it making her chest ache.

Another woman, who had previously been whispering with her about Traditional Chinese Medicine "conspiracy theories," couldn't hold back anymore. She leaned over and asked in a low voice, "Hey, sis, didn't you tell me a few days ago that Chinese medicine is just a placebo used to trick people and doesn't cure illnesses at all? How did Uncle Guo recover so fast? He's about to be discharged."

The fiery woman's face stiffened. Forcing herself to save face, she explained, "What's... what's so strange about that? Haven't you seen him getting IV drips every day, too? Western medicine treated him as well. That black water prescribed by the TCM doctors is just there to make up the numbers. It's like air, or the bottled water we drink. Sure, everyone needs it, and drinking it won't kill you."

"But..." She raised her voice, trying to sound more convincing. "We have pneumonia, a life-threatening disease! Can drinking air or bottled water cure that? That doesn't make any sense. So, don't believe them. What really cured him were those Western antibiotics, definitely not some Chinese medicine! COUGH, COUGH, COUGH..."

In her agitation, she coughed several more times in a row.

The other woman, named Xu Huimin, was someone with very little mind of her own. Hearing this barrage of arguments, she felt it somewhat made sense and nodded blankly. "Oh... But..."

Xu Huimin lowered her voice. "But I remember on the day we were admitted, I saw that when he first arrived, his face was completely purple and blue from suffocating, and he couldn't even catch his breath. Later, an acupuncture expert of theirs came over. He didn't give him any pills or injections, just used silver needles on him for half an hour. Uncle Guo immediately caught his breath and felt comfortable. Many of us in the ward were stunned. We thought it was miraculous."

"Huh?"

The fiery woman had been kept in the dark. Having been admitted half a day later, she truly didn't know about this. Taken aback, she could only force another excuse. "Well... was Uncle Guo on oxygen at the time?"

"He was. He was wearing an oxygen mask the whole time," Xu Huimin nodded honestly.

"There you go!" The fiery woman slapped her thigh. "Exactly! He inhaled high-concentration pure oxygen, so of course he felt better immediately. That was the oxygen's doing; what did it have to do with acupuncture? Look, aren't we also on oxygen every day?"

Xu Huimin nodded along again, but her brain quickly caught up, and she spotted a glaring hole in the logic. "That's not right either, sis. You're on oxygen every day too, but I don't see you feeling comfortable. You've had a fever for nearly a week. Yesterday it even hit 39.2 degrees, and you're coughing half to death every day."

"Uh, well..."

The fiery woman choked on her words. Tongue-tied, she actually found herself unable to retort!

She wondered why, if oxygen alone could cure it, she had been breathing it for so many days and taking so many Western antiviral drugs, only to find her condition worsening instead of improving.

"Bed 3, Xu Huimin. Time for your medicine."

Just as the atmosphere turned awkward, Nurse Xiaozhou pushed her treatment cart over, holding a bag of liquid Chinese medicine.

"Okay, coming, coming."

The impressionable Xu Huimin felt as if she had been granted a pardon and immediately sat up in bed.

"What's your name? Let me check your wristband," Nurse Xiaozhou confirmed routinely.

"Xu Huimin."

Xiaozhou nodded, snipped an opening in the medicine bag, inserted a straw, and handed it to Xu Huimin. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Xu Huimin pinched her nose and began to gulp down the medicine: GLUG, GLUG, GLUG.

The fiery woman lay on her own bed, watching her helplessly.

She really looked down on this Xu Huimin. On the day of her admission, after hearing her analysis of the "TCM conspiracy theory" and "placebos," Xu Huimin had been too scared to trust Chinese medicine and had clamored about not wanting to take it either. But who would have thought that when Uncle Guo was about to be discharged and offered a few words of persuasion, the woman would immediately waver. Later, when the nurses brought the Chinese medicine, she had obediently taken it despite fearing the bitterness, proving to be quite cooperative with the treatment.

At the time, she had secretly cursed the woman in her heart for being a fence-sitter without an ounce of personal conviction.

Then again... after staying here for the past few days, she slowly realized that in the entire General Internal Medicine ward—perhaps even the entire Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine—she was the only one stubborn enough to refuse any Chinese medical intervention.