Su Ziyang

A cultivation world, another spacetime, after transmigration.

Note before reading: Everything in this story is fictional and created for the needs of the novel. It does not describe real events or impart factual knowledge. Please use your judgment and do not apply it to the real world!

The hour of the Rat on the winter solstice was when the first yang was born.

The year's yang energy began to rise from that moment.

Su Ziyang was born during the hour of the Rat on the winter solstice, so his father named him Su Ziyang.

Su Ziyang's father was an enthusiast of traditional culture.

Just like that, more than twenty years flew by.

Su Ziyang followed his father's arrangements, attending a university of traditional Chinese medicine and studying Chinese medicine.

Immersed in a rich cultural atmosphere from childhood, Su Ziyang came to love Chinese medicine as well.

After graduating with his bachelor's degree, Su Ziyang saw the grim job market and went on to pursue a master's.

The road was full of bumps, but he graduated.

During his three years of graduate study, Su Ziyang had practically lived at the hospital, and he didn't much like its working atmosphere. Determined to open a Chinese medicine clinic of his own, he turned down an opportunity to work at a fairly large hospital after graduation and resolutely found a job at a clinic instead.

This clinic was different from others. It belonged to a Daoist temple and was a Daoist Medicine Clinic.

Its physicians were mainly Daoists who had obtained licenses to practice Chinese medicine, along with a few lay practitioners who had faith and had formally taken refuge.

A Daoist friend had introduced Su Ziyang to the job.

The Daoist had been impressed by Su Ziyang's medical skills and qualifications, and after hearing what he wanted, introduced him to the Daoist Medicine Clinic.

The person in charge of the Daoist Medicine Clinic was a very old Daoist. Su Ziyang later heard that the old man was already a hundred years old. Seeing how nimble and sharp of hearing and sight he was, Su Ziyang couldn't help inwardly praising the Daoists' skill at preserving health.

The old Daoist was very amiable and warmly welcomed Su Ziyang's arrival. He made a point of calling all the staff together to introduce him.

Su Ziyang could be said to be the most unusual person at the clinic.

The first unusual thing was that he had the highest academic qualifications. Although everyone there had a proper physician's license, no one else had a master's degree.

The second was that Su Ziyang had no religious faith. Though he liked traditional culture, he didn't hold any such specific belief.

And so, after completing all the formalities, Su Ziyang began working at the Daoist Medicine Clinic.

The Daoist Medicine Clinic occupied a three-story building that wasn't particularly large. Each floor had eight consultation rooms.

Su Ziyang's consultation room was on the second floor.

It was room 203.

The room wasn't particularly large. There was a computer on the desk for writing prescriptions.

There was also a pulse pillow and a medical record book on the desk.

Behind him stood a medical cabinet containing several boxes of acupuncture needles and some alcohol-soaked cotton balls.

Su Ziyang opened the cabinet and looked inside. There was also a packet of moxa floss.

When he opened it, the fragrance of mugwort rushed to his nose. He rubbed a little between his fingers, and it felt like cotton fluff.

Moxa floss with this texture should have been processed at a ratio of over 1:20.

Moxa floss was made by repeatedly pounding and processing harvested mugwort, removing the impurities and coarse parts, and leaving the fine material behind. A ratio of 1:20 meant that twenty jin of mugwort yielded one jin of moxa floss.

The higher the ratio, the finer the moxa floss. But even then, the best moxa floss took only a little over thirty jin of mugwort to produce one jin.

A higher ratio would damage the mugwort's structure and cause it to lose its medicinal properties.

As Su Ziyang was thinking, a knock sounded at the door.

He turned and saw a young woman with her hair in a bun, dressed in hanfu, knocking at the door.

"Come in. Hello, are you here to see a doctor?"

Su Ziyang invited the young woman inside.

When Su Ziyang asked if she was there for treatment, she unexpectedly covered her mouth and laughed.

"No." A very gentle voice reached Su Ziyang's ears. It was lovely to hear.

"Then what is it?" Su Ziyang looked at the young woman, who looked very cute when she smiled, somewhat puzzled.

"I'm Daoist Zhang's disciple. You can call me Xiao Yang. Master said we should make an introduction sign for you, so he sent me to ask what illnesses you specialize in treating. Then I can go make it for you." Daoist Master Xiao Yang smiled as she explained why she had come.

Daoist Zhang was the person in charge of the Daoist Medicine Clinic.

The introduction sign was the sort displayed on the wall just inside the clinic entrance, with a photograph of a doctor and, beneath it, an introduction and the types of illnesses the doctor specialized in treating. Some also listed the doctor's consultation hours.

Su Ziyang looked at Daoist Master Xiao Yang and thought for a while.

"Just put that I treat all kinds of miscellaneous internal illnesses. I also studied acupuncture and tuina as an undergraduate, and I can do both. Can you put that down too?"

The question had stumped Su Ziyang. Although he had spent three or four years interning at a hospital, when asked what illnesses he specialized in treating, he couldn't think of an answer right away.

"That's all?" Daoist Master Xiao Yang was a little surprised by Su Ziyang's brief introduction.

"That's all!" Su Ziyang nodded.

Daoist Master Xiao Yang paused, pursing her lips as though considering something, then picked up the notebook in her hand and began to write.

For five or six minutes, Su Ziyang simply watched Daoist Master Xiao Yang write away on her own.

"Done! Take a look!" While Su Ziyang was lost in thought, Daoist Master Xiao Yang handed him the notebook.

Su Ziyang looked at it. To his surprise, Daoist Master Xiao Yang had written in clerical script.

The notebook read: "Physician Su Ziyang, graduate of... University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, holds a master's degree. Specializes in applying the principles, methods, formulas, and medicines of Chinese medicine to treat all manner of difficult and miscellaneous conditions in internal medicine, external medicine, gynecology, pediatrics, and more. Also specializes in using acupuncture and tuina to address various kinds of neck, shoulder, lower back, and leg pain, as well as pain conditions of all kinds."

The words in the notebook left Su Ziyang dumbfounded.

"This..." Su Ziyang looked at the notebook in his hand, then at Daoist Master Xiao Yang, who was watching him.

"Is this appropriate?" Su Ziyang wasn't quite sure what to say.

"Of course it is! Have a look, and if there's no problem, I'll go downstairs. I'll leave you to your work, Doctor Su!"

Daoist Master Xiao Yang's assurance left Su Ziyang apprehensive as he handed the notebook back to her. For a junior Chinese medicine physician who had only just started work, the introduction really was a little inflated.

Although Su Ziyang had prescribed formulas and cured some illnesses with acupuncture while he was in school,

suddenly sitting in a room and telling patients with a perfectly straight face that he could treat all kinds of illnesses still made him somewhat uneasy.

After thinking about it for a long while, Su Ziyang simply stopped.

Turning it over and over in his mind was no solution.

He was only scaring himself. Since Daoist Master Xiao Yang said it was fine, he should believe in himself. There shouldn't be a problem, right?

Su Ziyang smiled and shook his head, inwardly sighing at how much he was dwelling on it.

Perhaps he was a little nervous.

It was a little past seven in the morning, and patients were already arriving at the clinic one after another.

A middle-aged Daoist was seeing patients next door. Su Ziyang had heard that his surname seemed to be Jin.

There were already patients in Daoist Jin's consultation room, and the sounds of children playing could be heard from time to time.

Daoist Jin specialized in treating children's illnesses.

Pediatrics was called the "mute branch" in ancient times, and it was a difficult field to learn. Because children were young and immature, they often couldn't clearly express what was wrong with them, so doctors frequently had to rely entirely on their own diagnoses to determine their conditions.

Su Ziyang felt that he liked children.

But after interning for three months in the pediatrics department of his university's affiliated hospital, Su Ziyang no longer dared say he liked pediatrics.

Even now, recalling his internship in pediatrics, he could still hear the cries rising and falling around him.

Crying and fussing for no apparent reason often left people scratching their heads.

In society today, families often had only one child, so when a child cried and fussed, the parents grew irritable too, which led to many problems.

And these problems were no longer merely medical ones.

In Daoist Jin's room next door, the sounds of children playing could be heard from time to time. Su Ziyang had never encountered anything like it during his pediatrics internship.

He couldn't help thinking to himself that these Daoists all had some skills.

Before he came, his friend had told Su Ziyang that the Daoist physicians here were highly skilled and urged him to quietly learn as much as he could. At the time, Su Ziyang had been inwardly displeased. He felt that while his skills might not be exceptional, he surely wouldn't be worse than people here, some of whom hadn't even attended university.

But after listening to Daoist Jin treat patients next door for more than an hour, Su Ziyang realized that he really ought to study hard.

Su Ziyang watched the crying children break into delighted smiles one after another under Daoist Jin's soothing care, and he had already begun to feel ashamed of his earlier thoughts.

Su Ziyang was new, and he had no patients all morning.

After listening to the sounds of treatment next door for a while, Su Ziyang returned to his seat, took a copy of Treatise on Cold Damage from his backpack, and began to read.

Treatise on Cold Damage was written by Zhang Zhongjing, whom later generations respectfully called the Medical Sage.

Together with Treatise on Cold Damage, there was another book called Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet. The two were collectively known as Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases. Because so much time had passed, much was lost in transcription by later generations, and additions may also have been made.

Thus, it was now generally divided into two volumes: Treatise on Cold Damage and Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet.

Treatise on Cold Damage dealt with illnesses such as externally contracted diseases, while Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet primarily dealt with miscellaneous internal illnesses.

The complete work contained 260 formulas. The formulas were refined and simple, and their effects clear and notable.

Later generations therefore called these formulas classical formulas. Physicians both ancient and modern held them in the highest esteem, and so it was also called the ancestor of formula books.

Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases, together with Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon, Classic of Difficulties, and Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica, was known as one of the four great classics of Chinese medicine. These four books laid the foundations of Chinese medicine.

Books praised through the ages were classics, naturally.

Su Ziyang had spent nearly all his time reading these books, especially Treatise on Cold Damage and Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet. Although he couldn't claim to know them backward, he was at least as familiar with them as could be.

With his head bent over his book, Su Ziyang listened to the patients outside.

He suddenly recalled the life he had once longed for: half the day treating patients, half the day reading.

This was also one of the methods highly regarded by the ancients.

The nature of Chinese medicine as a discipline meant that one had to learn for as long as one lived.

People were generally more energetic in the morning, so doctors saw patients then. In the afternoon and evening, they could properly review the cases they had seen that morning, read to identify their own shortcomings, and continually enrich their knowledge. If they had difficult cases, they could also consider the next steps in diagnosis and treatment.

As he was thinking,

The door was knocked on again. Su Ziyang thought a patient had arrived, but when he looked up, he saw Daoist Master Xiao Yang, who had just left.

"Doctor Su, Master just heard that you know how to give massages, so he had someone bring you a massage table. And here's your introduction." After Daoist Master Xiao Yang spoke, the two people behind her carried in a massage table and set it down by the door.

Then Daoist Master Xiao Yang placed a plastic introduction sign on Su Ziyang's desk.

It was like a picture frame and could stand on the desk. Inside were the words Daoist Master Xiao Yang had just written, along with his photograph.

Many doctors had things like this in their consultation rooms.

"Thank you!" Su Ziyang thanked Daoist Master Xiao Yang as he watched her bustling about.

Daoist Master Xiao Yang was still smiling. "You're welcome. Oh, right, I didn't tell you earlier: at noon, go out the back door, and the Daoist temple's dining hall is over there. You can eat for free. But it's all vegetarian food, so if you're not used to it, you can also go eat somewhere outside!"

"Oh. Okay, thank you."

Other than thanking her, Su Ziyang didn't know what else to say. Once Daoist Master Xiao Yang had finished speaking, she turned and left.