Chapter 829: Other People’s Child

Chapter 829: Chapter 829: Other People’s Child

"Are you having a hard time accepting that someone younger and more outstanding than you suddenly popped up?" Song Luojun ruthlessly tore away the facade.

Ju Jiahong remained silent for a long time before slowly nodding.

He was a genius, and the hardest thing for a genius to endure wasn’t failure, but the realization that his so-called "ceiling" was merely someone else’s starting line.

"Then think about Liu Haixue, Liu Haohui, and the others," Song Luojun asked.

"Them?" Ju Jiahong was taken aback.

"They also come from a medical family, grew up studying medical classics, and have decent talent. Yet for all these years, you’ve always suppressed them in Feng City. Whenever people mention the number one young traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, the first person they think of is always you, Ju Jiahong, not the Liu brothers. Tell me, do you think they’ve felt frustrated all these years?"

Ju Jiahong opened his mouth but said nothing. He thought to himself that they were inherently a bit inferior to him anyway—that was just a fact.

"Do you think it’s only natural that they aren’t as good as you?" Song Luojun sneered. "Then how do you know it isn’t only natural that you aren’t as good as Li Xu?"

This sentence was like a steel needle, precisely piercing Ju Jiahong’s most prideful nerve.

"Li Xu is only thirty years old this year. If you’re feeling frustrated now, then look back—what were you doing at thirty?" Song Luojun stared at Ju Jiahong. "You were doing your Ph.D., following me around, and dealing with routine cases that already had established conclusions. But Li Xu, at thirty, can already dictate life and death with a single word and turn the tide with a single prescription at an exchange conference of this scale."

Song Luojun took a sip of warm water and continued, "Our country is too big. You’re in Feng City, and although it’s a medical hub, the circle you interact with ultimately has walls. There are still many people you haven’t met, and many monstrous talents who fought their way up through unorthodox paths that you don’t know about. There is always someone better, and mountains beyond mountains. This saying was never meant for the mediocre; it’s meant for you so-called ’geniuses’."

"Grandpa, I’m not jealous of him," Ju Jiahong explained. "I invited him to dinner today to genuinely apologize. I was just thinking, I’ve spent over thirty years enjoying every possible advantage in terms of timing, location, and human resources, yet I’m still not as good as someone who struggled his way up in a small clinic. Who have I been studying for all these years?"

Song Luojun put down his water cup, his expression turning serious. "This is why I came over tonight. Jiahong, failure is not terrifying. When I used to listen to storytellers, which of those great heroes didn’t suffer setbacks when challenging top experts? What’s terrifying is that you’ve let this one isolated defeat shake your faith in your own medical path. In truth, meeting Li Xu is the greatest fortune of your life."

"Fortune?" Ju Jiahong was somewhat puzzled.

"We thrive in adversity and perish in comfort. You’ve had it too smooth these past few years. At the Feng City Hospital, you are a key talent being cultivated; at home, I am your backing. Everyone accommodates you. Your reputation and status have grown, while voices of doubt have dwindled. Over time, your ears only hear praise, and your eyes only see rules. Haven’t you noticed? Your prescriptions over the past two years have become increasingly safe and steady. You’re acting more and more like those old-fashioned department directors, but you’ve completely lost the ’vitality’ that traditional Chinese medicine should have most."

Song Luojun’s words caused cold sweat to stream down Ju Jiahong’s face.

"Li Xu is different," Song Luojun sighed. "According to the information I found, Li Xu only graduated with a bachelor’s degree and stayed in a clinic right after graduation. He had no one to guide him, no famous masters by his side. Do you know what that means?"

Ju Jiahong shook his head. He only knew that Li Xu worked at the Feng City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine and seemed to have an ordinary background.

"It means that for every prescription he writes, he has to face the most direct consequences. If the prescription doesn’t work, the patient’s family might smash his signboard on the spot; if the dosage is wrong, he might not even live to see tomorrow’s sun. He’s been hovering on the true threshold of life and death, constantly learning through trial and error, realizing the truth with his very life on the line. That’s how he honed his acute sensitivity to vital energy today. While you were in a greenhouse watching the flowers bloom and wither, he is the alpha wolf who fought his way through the wilderness against tigers, leopards, and jackals."

Ju Jiahong’s mouth hung slightly open. He truly didn’t know this. He only knew that Li Xu was a Feng City local, but had no idea about his past. If what Song Luojun said was true, then Li Xu was incredibly formidable.

"You could say that your starting points were completely different." Song Luojun stared at his grandson as he spoke, paying close attention to Ju Jiahong’s expression. "To be honest, you’re actually more like a flower in a greenhouse, while Li Xu has braved the wind and rain outside," Song Luojun said with a smile.

"Please stop talking." Ju Jiahong felt even more depressed. "Let me process this for a moment."

For a moment, Ju Jiahong couldn’t quite figure it out: had his grandpa come to comfort him, or to deal him another blow?

As the saying goes, with age comes immense shrewdness. Song Luojun had actually already seen that his grandson wasn’t so fragile. Encountering Li Xu had indeed left Ju Jiahong feeling a bit down, but it wouldn’t cause him to collapse completely.

"Actually, there’s one thing Li Xu said that was absolutely correct," Song Luojun said solemnly. "Nowadays, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners are far too comfortable. Sitting in consultation rooms, the patients they encounter mostly have chronic or common illnesses. They rarely get to deal with acute and critical cases.

"Even you, at the Feng City People’s Hospital, occasionally participate in consultations for acute and critical cases. But because the Feng City People’s Hospital is so strong and there are other experts involved, traditional Chinese medicine is merely supplementary in most situations. You rarely face acute and critical patients alone. Since you don’t encounter them, you have no sense of urgency, no pressure.

"In terms of treatment, traditional Chinese medicine is often directed toward post-operative care or post-resuscitation recovery and conditioning. Over time, you yourself have begun to lose your courage and decisiveness when facing acute and critical patients."

Song Luojun said slowly, "Of course, having a skill level like yours is already enough for most doctors. But my expectations of you—and everyone else’s expectations of you, and even your own expectations of yourself—should go far beyond this."

It was just like how, for ordinary students, getting into a decent undergraduate program was enough to satisfy both them and their families; they would feel they’d done pretty well. But for top-tier academic achievers, even if they got into a generally prestigious university, they would still feel they had underperformed.

Ju Jiahong was thirty-eight years old this year, a chief physician in the traditional Chinese medicine department of the Feng City People’s Hospital. He was undoubtedly quite outstanding, having already reached a height that many doctors couldn’t achieve in their entire lifetimes.

However, as the previously undisputed number one figure among the younger generation, people like Song Luojun and Wang Chuyun had always viewed Ju Jiahong as the hope of traditional Chinese medicine, or rather, as its future leading figure.