Chapter 141: Snorting Over Porridge

Back from the hospital, Evan finally gets a chance to eat.

Evan went home. The patient's condition was stable now, and there was no need for him to keep watch. Someone just had to take charge of giving her the medicine.

Only when he came out through the hospital gates did he realize it was already evening. He rode his electric scooter slowly home. What a nerve-racking day it had been.

Mingxin Clinic was already closed when he arrived. He took out his phone and found a text from Clara.

He rode straight into the apartment complex, parked his scooter, and went upstairs to see her.

“You're back!” Clara looked delighted and surprised.

He nodded and smiled. “I'm back. How's your dad?”

“He's been taking the medicine for two days. He can move his hands and feet now. He got out of bed and walked a little earlier, but he's still not very steady. I wouldn't let him leave the bedroom.”

“Good. Keep giving him the medicine. Another dose tonight, then another day or two should do it.”

“Have you eaten? You must be hungry.”

Evan paused. Only then did he remember that he'd had nothing since breakfast. He hadn't noticed until she mentioned it. Now he was ravenous.

Clara made a face. “Ugh. That hospital's so stingy they didn't even feed you?”

He gave an embarrassed smile.

She pulled him inside. “Come on. We've made some porridge. Want some?”

“Sure.”

He went in and sat at the dining table.

Clara brought him the porridge, then a plate of plain boiled lamb.^[1]

Evan stared. “Isn't this your dad's meal?”

“It is.” She grinned. “But he can't eat that much. What a waste to throw it out. It's not as if we're in the countryside and keep pigs at home.”

“So you're feeding me like a pig?”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Well then, give me a nice little snort while you slurp your porridge.”

He couldn't help rolling his eyes. Irritated, he raised the bowl and took a slurp. But he was so hungry that he drank too quickly. The porridge caught in his throat, and when he coughed, he really did make a snorting noise.

“Pff—ha! Hahahaha!”

Clara shook with laughter until she could barely breathe.

Evan covered his forehead with his hand. How embarrassing…

She turned away, trying to hold back her laughter. “I'll pretend I didn't see that. Didn't see a thing.”

He hurried to catch his breath and swallow the porridge.

Evan shook his head. He wasn't going to argue with this woman. He'd just eat his porridge.

“So what happened?” Clara asked. “Difficult patient?”

He nodded. “A difficult case, but at least we've got her condition under control now. And I have you to thank.”

“Thank me?”

“By the way, what did you do today? Didn't you say their fans had overrun our account?”

At that, Clara lit up. “I was just going to tell you! It wasn't me. It was Lily's boss…”

Evan looked confused.

“Remember that patient you treated at the Chinese medicine hospital? The one whose appendix was in an unusual place? His daughter is Lily's boss.”

“Oh!”

He remembered at once. He'd even seen the Abbess a few days ago, when he went to the hospital with Professor He.

“She's really come through for you,” Clara said. “You cured her dad, and she turned right around and gave you a huge present. You should have seen that article of hers—all those polite little digs and hidden barbs!

“Go and have a look later. Their WeChat public account has so many female followers. They all went straight over to Dr. Cinnamon's Weibo and started tearing into him.^[2]

“They're women. They know how awful period pain is. And he insists on telling them it's fine to eat cold and cooling foods during their periods. They've lived through it. They're the ones in agony.^[3]

“You can quote this study and that study, but it won't do any good. They've experienced it themselves. So the whole situation turned around. You know how they say women hold up half the sky in the real world?

“Well, online, they hold up the whole sky! Even a big account with forty million followers couldn't stand up to them. He gave in and deleted his Weibo post. Charlie was stunned. He wanted to know why we hadn't told him we had such powerful backing.”^[4]

Evan was a little stunned too. So she was the one who'd helped him. Thanks to her, he'd completed the system mission, entered the Clinical Training Room, and improved his chances of saving the patient. Without her intervention, today's rescue might well have failed.

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For a moment, he didn't quite know what to feel.

“Evan, you really ought to thank her when you get the chance,” Clara said.

He nodded.

“Hey, do you know each other well?”

He shook his head. “No. I think she said she wanted to exchange contact details last time. She offered to help promote the clinic.”

Clara perked up immediately. “Really? She's huge online! What did you say?”

“I didn't exchange numbers with her. I said you were in charge of publicity and that I'd have you contact her.”

“Then why didn't you tell me when you got back?” she demanded.

He tilted his head, thinking. “I was in a hurry to treat the patient. It was a complicated case, and it took a long time. Then there were so many other things to deal with… I forgot.”

He raised the bowl for another mouthful.

Clara snatched it away from his lips. “You forgot something that important, and you've still got the nerve to sit here drinking porridge?”

Evan thought about it, then nodded. “You're right. I've got no business drinking porridge. I'd better eat the lamb instead.”

He reached for the lamb.

Clara rolled her eyes at him several times.

As he ate, he said, “I've got to go back to the hospital tomorrow morning to check on that patient. I don't know when I'll be back.”

“Got it.” She gave him another angry look. “One of these days I'll dock every last bit of your pay!”

He smiled.

Back at the Chinese medicine hospital, David Du was seeing Director Guo out.

The two men walked toward the exit.

Guo had checked on his wife again earlier. She was much better. He'd looked at her tongue coating too. The yellow coating that had covered her whole tongue was completely gone.

He knew little about Chinese medicine, but everything had happened exactly as Evan predicted. After the first batch of medicine, the false heat in his wife's upper burner had disappeared.^[5]

She was no longer in pain, either, and she'd eaten a little that evening. Evan had prescribed four batches of medicine. She hadn't finished them yet, but Guo felt certain the rest would cure her.

He had mixed feelings. He sighed.

Du studied his expression. “Is something troubling you, Director?”

Guo shook his head. “No. It's just given me a lot to think about.”

“Because of Dr. Xu?”

Guo nodded slightly. “Yes. But because of you too.”

Du was taken aback.

Guo turned to him. “Actually… you were right.”

Du looked surprised.

“We keep saying Chinese medicine should play a bigger part,” Guo said. “But too often it's just a slogan. We do very little about it, and we put all sorts of obstacles in its way.

“Chinese medicine isn't really serving the public as it should. People want to find a good Chinese medicine doctor who can treat their illness, but they don't know where to look.

“And plenty of Chinese medicine doctors are content to offer only slow, gradual treatment, content just to help people maintain their health. They don't think about treating illness. They don't dare.

“But Dr. Xu has given me a very different impression. He's been a tremendous surprise. He's let me see the strengths Chinese medicine has in treating illness. We failed to recognize and develop those strengths before. That's our responsibility.

“I used to suspect that the case records and information you gave me were exaggerated. When I saw how boldly he prescribed, I kept thinking he was reckless and the risks were enormous. Today I finally understood what it means to have the courage that comes from skill.

“Perhaps he really can train a group of Chinese medicine doctors who know how to treat illness and dare to do it, doctors who can make full use of its strengths. That would be a blessing for our county and for the people who live here.

“What we need to do is give them as much protection and support as we can. We can't let them put all that effort into saving lives and still leave them to bear the risks themselves. We'll have to feel for the stones as we cross the river. Perhaps this approach of ours will work.

“Maybe other hospitals, other counties and cities, will follow our example one day. I really do hope our hospital can produce a group of true Chinese medicine doctors who can put its strengths to work treating illness. Only then will Chinese and Western medicine really be playing to their strengths and making up for each other's weaknesses.

“We mustn't leave people who want Chinese medicine treatment with no idea where to go. People don't even trust the Chinese medicine doctors in a Chinese medicine hospital anymore. That's our responsibility!”

Guo sighed again. Raising his head slightly, he looked into the distance and remembered Evan's words:

“Chinese medicine can take the lead—and it should!”

Du smiled again.

Reader Notes

Reader Notes

1. ↩︎ Lamb eaten by hand. The dish is shouzhua yangrou, whose name refers to taking the meat in one's hands to eat it. It is commonly prepared as pieces of lamb, often on the bone. Here the novel specifies plain boiling; it gives no regional origin, seasoning, or special recipe. The name describes how the dish is eaten, rather than shredded meat. This also explains Evan's later decision to reach for the lamb. Source: China Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum — Ningxia hand-eaten lamb (in Chinese).
2. ↩︎ Public accounts and an audience crossing platforms. A WeChat public account publishes articles to readers who follow it; it is distinct from a personal message or group chat. Here Clara describes an audience moving from one company's articles to the comments on a separate Weibo account. The forty-million follower count and the response to the article belong to the fictional episode. They are not platform limits or independently measured figures. Source: Tencent — Weixin Official Accounts.
3. ↩︎ Cold and cooling foods. Chinese medicine classifies foods by an attributed cold, cool, warm, or hot nature, as well as discussing their serving temperature. Those meanings are related in the earlier argument but are not interchangeable. Clara appeals to the readers' experience of menstrual pain. Modern gynecology describes uterine contractions and prostaglandins among the mechanisms of period pain, with some pain arising from underlying conditions. These sources explain the two frameworks; neither establishes Clara's broad dietary claim for everyone who menstruates. Sources: Hong Kong Department of Health — The natures of food; ACOG — Painful Periods.
4. ↩︎ “Half the sky.” The familiar Chinese expression says that women “hold up half the sky,” recognizing their importance and contribution to society. Clara expands half into the whole sky as a joke about the force of the women commenting in this particular online dispute. It is her exuberant account of what happened, rather than a claim about the gender balance of the internet. Source: United Nations in China — International Women's Day remarks, 8 March 2022.
5. ↩︎ False heat in the upper burner. The upper burner, or upper jiao, is the upper of three functional regions in Chinese medicine, broadly associated with the chest. “False heat” names heat-like signs interpreted as arising from an underlying cold pattern; it does not mean the symptoms are invented. Guo recalls the yellow tongue coating and the explanation given earlier. Its disappearance and his wife's reduced pain are the story's observations. His confidence that the remaining medicine will cure her is still an expectation. Source: WHO — TCM terminology, entries 207–208, 409, 411, 634 and 673.