The True Test

It was just as Mr. Mengfei had said yesterday.

The coughing patient Su Ziyang had treated returned for her follow-up appointment as promised.

"Hello, doctor! The medicine you prescribed last time worked, and my cough has gotten better. But I'm still coughing. Do you think I should take some more medicine?" Liu Li's tone was still full of respect for Su Ziyang.

Mr. Mengfei's prediction had been right again.

Sure enough, the patient had not fully recovered.

"Where there's an external pathogen, drive it out; where there's internal disorder, treat it!" Recalling what Mr. Mengfei had said yesterday, Su Ziyang had gone back and checked his books.

Following Mr. Mengfei's advice, he prescribed a potent formula-the Minor Blue Dragon Decoction.

The Minor Blue Dragon Decoction was a cough remedy from the Treatise on Cold Damage.

In fact, Mr. Mengfei's assessment of Su Ziyang had been correct. Although Su Ziyang had read the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases several times, he did not quite dare use its formulas.

Classical formulas had a distinctive feature: large doses and few ingredients.

What was more, some of their ingredients had come to be regarded by later physicians as substances as fierce as tigers and wolves. They had consequently listed these medicines as prohibited and dared not use them lightly.

Ephedra, aconite, and asarum, for example.

All were poisonous and not to be used lightly. Of these, asarum even came with a saying: "Asarum must not exceed one qian; exceed one qian, and your life hangs by a thread!"

Su Ziyang clearly remembered his first class at university, when his teacher of basic traditional Chinese medicine theory had said that ephedra must not be used recklessly. It was poisonous and could kill.

Yet the Minor Blue Dragon Decoction Su Ziyang prescribed today contained not only ephedra, but asarum as well.

It was not that he had suddenly grown bolder. Mr. Mengfei had indicated yesterday that he could use them this way, and Su Ziyang now obeyed his every word.

Once again, the prescription was for three doses, and the medicine was still very cheap.

Liu Li thanked him and left.

Su Ziyang began another boring day.

At noon, precisely twelve o'clock.

Su Ziyang began slowly practicing the Midnight-Noon Heaven and Earth Art that Mr. Mengfei had taught him in the square in front of the Daoist temple.

His movements were slow and clumsy, nowhere near as natural and graceful as Mr. Mengfei's.

After three repetitions.

Su Ziyang felt nothing.

His noon practice was over.

That night, Su Ziyang deliberately set an alarm for eleven and practiced in his rented room.

The room was especially quiet at night.

Amid those slow, strange movements, Su Ziyang felt himself enter a subtle state.

As Su Ziyang began his third repetition, he suddenly felt a swelling sensation in his palms. Slowly, it began to travel up his arms.

As he continued the movements, Su Ziyang felt a cool sensation suddenly appear between his brows.

It felt as though he had applied cooling balm. The coolness then spread rapidly, soon covering his entire head.

Su Ziyang suddenly felt incomparably refreshed, and an inexplicable joy rose in his heart, as though something good had happened.

Having finished his practice, Su Ziyang began to bring it to a close.

Afterward.

The cool sensation in Su Ziyang's head did not fade. Surrounded by that strange feeling, he drifted off to sleep.

Early the next morning.

Su Ziyang got up and washed. In front of the mirror, he noticed that his face seemed much fairer and clearer than yesterday, and even the pimples on his chin from his earlier internal heat had disappeared.

"Is it that amazing?" Su Ziyang muttered to himself. "Could it be my imagination?"

After washing up, Su Ziyang had a simple breakfast downstairs and headed to the clinic.

Not long after work began, Daoist Master Xiao Yang came in.

When Daoist Master Xiao Yang entered and looked at Su Ziyang, her eyes widened in surprise.

Seeing Daoist Master Xiao Yang staring at him without speaking, Su Ziyang asked, "Daoist Master Xiao Yang, is something the matter? I don't have a grain of rice on my face, do I?"

At Su Ziyang's words, Daoist Master Xiao Yang came back to her senses. "Haha, it's nothing. I just suddenly thought you looked a little different. Your skin seems fairer!"

Su Ziyang was startled. Since someone else could see it too, it was probably the effect of the Midnight-Noon Heaven and Earth Art. But he had only practiced for one day! Wasn't this cultivation art a little too powerful?

Then another thought occurred to Su Ziyang. How many years must Mr. Mengfei have practiced? What realm had Mr. Mengfei reached? The mere thought was frightening!

Bang!

Daoist Master Xiao Yang took a book out of her small shoulder bag. It was thick, almost as thick as a Xinhua Dictionary.

"What's this?"

"It's a book Martial Uncle Mengfei left for you. He's gone. He asked me to pass this book on to you, and he said you have three months to finish it. After that, he'll come back and test you!"

Daoist Master Xiao Yang pushed the book in front of Su Ziyang.

"He's gone? Didn't he promise to teach me traditional Chinese medicine!?" Su Ziyang rose from his chair and called out, somewhat anxious.

Daoist Master Xiao Yang pursed her lips and put on a cute expression. "I don't know either. That's just what he told me! If you really want to learn, I think you'd better be good and listen to him! Finish the book! If there's nothing else, I'm leaving!"

With that, Daoist Master Xiao Yang turned and walked out without waiting for Su Ziyang to respond.

Su Ziyang looked at the book before him.

It had a brown paper cover with no writing on it.

He opened it to the first page. A line of small characters read: Written by Mr. Mengfei in the Yiyou year.

Su Ziyang turned another page, but the book had no title.

Next came a poem, or at least Su Ziyang thought it was a poem.

"The river horse gives birth, the Luo turtle completes; diagrams and writings, circles and squares, mountains and marshes. Mountains overturned are like a dragon, thunder hidden, soaring; marsh winds are like a tiger, leaping, crouching in the depths."

Another sentence followed.

"Leave home to cultivate, enter the world to nurture virtue; heaven, earth, and humanity are the root, and Taiji and all things are one."

After reading the two lines of verse, which made no sense to him, Su Ziyang continued looking.

Su Ziyang was dumbfounded. The table of contents alone made his eyes swim.

"Opening section: yin and yang"

"Second: the five phases"

"Third: heavenly stems and earthly branches"

"Fourth: the calendar"

"Fifth: the sixty stem-branch combinations"

"Sixth: Yellow River Chart and Luo River Book"

"Seventh: on primordial qi"

"Eighth: on the boundless"

"Ninth: On Taiji"

"Tenth: On Taiji and the Changes"

"Eleventh: on the innate and the acquired"

"Eighty-first: discourse on the Changes"

A full eighty-one topics.

Under each major heading were ten to twenty or thirty different sections on the details.

Su Ziyang's head went numb just looking at the headings.

And he had not even finished reading them. Not only had he failed to finish them, he had not understood them either.

"What have I done to deserve this!"

Looking at the book in his hands, nearly as thick as a brick, and the densely packed small print inside, Su Ziyang fell apart.

Falling apart was one thing.

He still had to finish the assignment his teacher had left him. Since he had nothing else to do, he might as well take his time reading it!

Su Ziyang practically gritted his teeth as he turned to the first section.

As he slowly read on, Su Ziyang was once again awed by Mr. Mengfei's learning.

It covered nearly everything about the development of Yin and Yang Theory, as well as its functions, applications, and so on.

Being awed was one thing.

Not understanding it was another.

Su Ziyang suddenly realized that even though he had graduated from a postgraduate program, he could not make sense of this book.

He recognized every single character, but when they were strung together into a sentence, Su Ziyang could not understand it.

There were even a few individual characters in it that he did not recognize. He had to look them up online to find out what they meant.

When Su Ziyang recalled it later, the book and those three months had been like a nightmare to him.

But what Su Ziyang did not expect was that what he was about to face would not be just one nightmare, but two...

As the saying went, lust was the first hurdle for a young man. If he could not get past it, even the greatest talent would be of no help.

Su Ziyang did not have a girlfriend, but he was still capable of regularly destroying his own descendants by hand.

Ever since Su Ziyang had learned about such things, he had been struggling against it.

According to surveys, nearly all boys had given their first time to their own hands.

Later, people also said it was bad for the body, giving rise to movements for abstaining from lust. For example, the abstinence forum on a certain search site was quite famous.

Su Ziyang studied medicine and knew that, in moderation, it had no effect on the body. So naturally, he had also maintained the fine tradition.

But when Mr. Mengfei taught him the cultivation art, he had specifically instructed him not to harbor lustful thoughts for three months.

At the time, Su Ziyang had thought, Is that even a problem?

But three weeks later, Su Ziyang discovered that he had truly overestimated himself.

He did not know whether it was because of the cultivation art, but Su Ziyang found that Uncle Morning came to visit him almost every day.

As Su Ziyang gradually became able to sense qi, he was even more surprised to discover that his lower abdomen was constantly warm. That current of heat was like an aphrodisiac, stimulating his nerves every moment of the day.

Workdays were manageable. Su Ziyang could look at the patients outside and read to distract himself.

But at night, the quiet night was a lonely night. Countless times, Su Ziyang opened his browser and clicked on a bookmarked website. Then, struggling inwardly, he gripped his trembling right hand with his left and closed the website again.

Su Ziyang kept repeating silently to himself, This is an illusion, an illusion.

Finally, on the first day just over a month in, Su Ziyang broke down. He sat on his bed watching Black Cat Detective on his computer, staying awake all night.

Even though he had not slept all night, Su Ziyang found that his energy and spirits were somehow even better than when he woke up in the morning.

During this period, Su Ziyang also discovered that his memory had improved, and his comprehension seemed to be changing too. Passages in the book Mr. Mengfei had given him that once took three or four readings to understand now made sense almost immediately.

But as his memory improved and his body changed for the better, Su Ziyang found that the heat in his lower abdomen had grown even more excessive. As long as he paid it the slightest attention, his body would become sensitive.

Looking at the dim light of dawn, Su Ziyang put on his clothes and ran the first ten kilometers of his life along the road.

Sure enough, after wearing himself out, Su Ziyang found that his symptoms had eased somewhat.

But as soon as he practiced at the hour of the rabbit that morning, Su Ziyang found that his strength recovered rapidly. Not only that, his body began to grow even more sensitive.

"Phew-" Su Ziyang let out a breath, keeping his body relaxed.

Suddenly, a bold idea occurred to Su Ziyang. Since this art is so powerful, I'll take it up a notch!

In common parlance, Su Ziyang had a bit of a donkey's temper-what people called a stubborn streak.

Since he could not control the sensation of qi within him, Su Ziyang decided he might as well practice more and see just what would happen.

So Su Ziyang changed his usual three repetitions of the cultivation art to nine.

The nine repetitions took an hour, and sweat poured off Su Ziyang like rain.

Another week passed like this. One morning, Su Ziyang woke up, looked at his Uncle Morning, and smiled helplessly.

He was used to it now.

Su Ziyang suddenly realized that this might be the real test Mr. Mengfei had left him...