A Visit (Continued)

Seeing the expressions on his mother's and Sister Ji's faces, Chu Chen asked, "Mom, what are you laughing about?"

Zhao Yunlin said with a smile, "You silly boy. Xiaoping should be pregnant. As a doctor, didn't you think of that?"

"I'm just lacking experience!" Chu Chen scratched his head and gave an embarrassed chuckle.

Zhao Yunlin smiled faintly. "But we can't be sure yet. Take Xiaoping's pulse in a while and see whether she's really pregnant."

Chu Chen nodded. "All right, I'll try later. But a pregnancy pulse can only be detected after a month. If it's been less than that, we can't be certain."

Traditional Chinese medicine believed that the circulation of the body's blood vessels was closely related to the organs and the flow of qi and blood. When a woman became pregnant, her circulating blood volume increased, and her pulse would beat more forcefully and lengthen. If a married woman had stopped menstruating and was vomiting, while her six pulses remained even or the chi pulses at both wrists were smooth and slippery, those were signs of pregnancy.

In addition, traditional Chinese medicine also had what was known as a slippery pulse. Its characteristic was that it felt smooth, round, and slippery under pressure, like pressing on rolling beads. It was more commonly seen in young and middle-aged people with abundant qi and blood. In pregnant women, a slippery pulse indicated vigorous qi and blood nourishing the fetus.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, a pregnancy pulse and a slippery pulse were easy to confuse. In reality, there were some differences between them. A slippery pulse was not necessarily a pregnancy pulse, and only an experienced doctor could determine the difference. That was why Chu Chen's tone had not been completely certain.

"Grandma, what does it mean to be