My Heart's Thumping

"Tell us, chef. If you don't tell us, how can we justify eating this dish?"

Han Jinkai smiled and said to Liuzi.

Liuzi looked at Han Jinkai and said, "I've noticed something. How old are you guys? All you can do is spout nonsense all day long."

Song Li waved his hand. "Hey! Don't talk nonsense. I'm not being sarcastic. But I think you should still say something, we can't touch this stuff with our chopsticks."

"Whispering sound!"

Liuzi scoffed and began introducing the dishes to the group.

"Mu Shu Pork, Four Happiness Meatballs, and Stir-fried Pork Kidney. These three need no introduction!"

Liuzi first introduced two dishes that Su Ziyang recognized. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"This dish is called 'Stir-fried Double Crispy'. It's made with duck gizzards and pork stomach."

"This is a green pepper piglet."

This is braised pork ribs.

"Four Shandong dishes and two southern dishes. The soup is salted pork and dried bamboo shoot soup. Originally, I wanted to make you sweet and sour carp or stir-fried sea cucumber with scallions. Doctor Su doesn't eat seafood, so I didn't."

Su Ziyang never expected that with just one sentence, the two gluttons next to him would lose their chance to eat.

"There's no need for that. I don't need to eat; I can eat something else. Haha, I'd feel so guilty if everyone couldn't eat because of me."

Su Ziyang said somewhat embarrassedly.

"No, you're the doctor we invited today, so we have to make sure you're well taken care of. Everyone, please eat."

After taking a bite of each dish, Su Ziyang felt like he hadn't eaten anything all along. No wonder Song Li had told him not to throw his chopsticks.

Moreover, these two people are now completely disregarding their image; they actually started fighting over a piece of pork kidney with their chopsticks on the plate.

Ignoring the two of them, Su Ziyang quickly began to swirl his chopsticks.

Liuzi, holding his small bowl, watched the others scrambling for the food, his eyes crinkling into slits with laughter.

"Son, why didn't you cook more food? Look, Xiao Kai is even fighting with others for it."

The old lady frowned as she watched the group laughing and joking. She said, "In the eyes of the older generation, you have to cook more food than you need. It's better to have leftovers than not enough, especially when there are guests."

"Mom, it's okay. Let them fight over it. Haha. Have some soup, it's not very salty, I made it deliberately very light."

Liuzi is an excellent cook, so he naturally knows that his mother has kidney disease and cannot eat too much salt.

The meal was a lively affair. Actually, the portions prepared by Liuzi were definitely generous, but the food was so delicious that we couldn't help but eat more, which is why we felt like we hadn't ordered enough dishes.

"Are you all full?"

Seeing that the others had oil all over their mouths from eating, Liuzi asked with a smile.

"I'm full. Liuzi, to be honest, I'd like to try braised sea cucumber with scallions next time. If you can't bear to part with your sea cucumber, I'll bring you some myself."

Song Li, thick-skinned as ever, waited until he was full before serving the food.

"Sure. Come over when you have time."

Liuzi smiled, pursing his lips.

"Then forget it. I'm only able to eat your cooking today thanks to Doctor Su. If it weren't for Doctor Su, I would have had to wait until the year of the monkey to get this opportunity."

Song Li picked his teeth with a toothpick, rubbed his stomach, and said...

"Good to know."

Liuzi showed no courtesy whatsoever to Song Li.

After dinner, the group chatted for a while. The old lady, despite being in good spirits, was still tired due to her illness and went back to her room to sleep.

Liuzi asked Su Ziyang some questions about his mother's care before letting the three of them leave.

On the way back, Su Ziyang couldn't contain his Eight Trigrams heart and asked, "Brother Han, can I ask you something? Why do you call this formidable woman 'Liuzi '? It sounds like a bandit's name."

Haha, you think so too?

Song Li, who was driving, burst into laughter. "Don't keep an eye on her, or she'll get upset."

"Hey, back in college, there were six of us in our dorm, and she was the youngest, so we were Lao Liu.' Later, the nickname 'Liuzi 'Liuzi stuck, and it's been like that for years."

Han Jinkai explained, and Su Ziyang understood. "So she's a chef? That's amazing!"

"No. She's a writer, a novelist. She also paints. Anyway, she's an artist, and cooking is her hobby. We figured out who she was by tasting everything."

"Sharp."

Indeed, artists are different; even their cooking is an art form.

Song Li of going out with Su Ziyang that evening, but Su Ziyang didn't want to go and took a taxi home by himself.

As soon as she entered, Fairy Li ran over barefoot. Suddenly, Fairy Li stopped and sniffed at Su Ziyang, her little nose twitching.

"It smells like cosmetics!!!"

Fairy Li pointed at Su Ziyang's chest and shouted.

Su Ziyang was now impressed by Fairy Li's nose, but Su Ziyang wasn't sure Fairy Li had figured it out by counting on her fingers or by actually smelling it.

"I went to see a doctor today. The mother of Han Jinkai's classmate. This classmate is a woman, which is why it smells so bad."

Su Ziyang himself couldn't smell any cosmetics or anything like that, but since Fairy Li said there was, then it must be.

"But Zijun, let me tell you, Han Jinkai's classmate is an absolutely amazing cook! Incredibly delicious!"

Su Ziyang then proceeded to tell Fairy Li Fairy Li about what he had for lunch.

Logically speaking, if a man praises someone else's cooking in front of his wife, she would likely be somewhat unhappy.

However, Su Ziyang had already told Fairy Li what he wanted to say, and Fairy Li insisted on going with Su Ziyang to his next follow-up appointment to freeload a meal.

"Foodies are really scary."

Su Ziyang looked at Fairy Li's longing gaze and sighed helplessly.

"Let's have porridge for dinner. I'll make the main dish later. We'll have egg pancakes. I just learned how to make them."

Fairy Li is always busy eating, which makes Su Ziyang feel like he's gained some weight recently.

After dinner, I took my usual stroll, then came back to practice my exercises and go to sleep.

On Monday, as usual, Su Ziyang was seeing patients when an elderly woman, about sixty-five years old, came in.

His face was dark. He sat down next to the examination table, sighed first, and then began to speak, "Doctor, I feel a little uneasy."

"Tutu." An adjective meaning that the heart is beating very fast.

"Huh? Tutu? Now?"

Su Ziyang noticed that the old woman's expression wasn't very good, and then he nervously looked at her closely.

"Hmm. I feel a bit better now, but my heart is still hurting, like it's going to jump out of my throat. What should I do? What kind of medicine should I take?"

Every time the old lady spoke, she would first sigh, as if she were a little short of breath.

"Auntie, do you feel suffocated?"

As Su Ziyang watched her speak, he felt a little suffocated and uncomfortable inside.

"It's not that I'm holding my breath, it's just that I feel uncomfortable."

As the old woman spoke, she patted her chest again.

"Come, come, let me take your pulse quickly. Let me see."

Su Ziyang took the old woman's wrist and then began to take her pulse.

The old lady's pulse wasn't actually very fast, but it was a very noticeable pulse pattern.

Knotted veins.

The Pulse Classic states. "A knotted pulse is slow and intermittent, sometimes stopping and then starting again."

It means that the pulse beats intermittently, and then suddenly stops.

Western medicine usually refers to this as premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) or arrhythmia.

However, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, the classification is usually more detailed.

There are three types of pulses with similar characteristics: knotted pulse, intermittent pulse, and hurried pulse.

What they have in common is that their pulse will beat for a while, then suddenly stop, and then start beating again. However, there are also differences.

Knotted pulse: The pulse is slow and intermittent;

Intermittent pulse: The intermittent pulse is slow and has regular pauses, that is, it stops at a fixed number of beats, such as once every five beats; or once every three beats; or even once every two beats.

The rapid pulse is characterized by its rapid and irregular pauses; the intermittent pulse is characterized by its rapid and intermittent nature, while the regular pulse is characterized by its fast frequency and lack of pauses.

The old lady's description of a throbbing heart perfectly matches this pulse pattern.

"Auntie, let me give you some acupuncture first. This kind of jumping must be quite uncomfortable for you."

The old woman nodded quickly, Su Ziyang, having obtained her consent, took out the acupuncture needles.

Preparing to administer acupuncture, the acupoints this time are not complicated, so only two acupoints were selected: one needle at Neiguan (PC6) and one needle at Shenmen (HT7).

The Neiguan acupoint is located two inches above the wrist crease, between the palmaris longus tendon and the flexor carpi radialis tendon.

It is primarily used to treat wind-heat in the hands, loss of will, heart pain, red eyes, and fullness and contracture of the elbow.

The Shenmen acupoint is located at the ulnar end of the wrist crease, in the depression on the radial side of the flexor carpi ulnaris tendon. It can treat chest pain, frequent belching, palpitations, and shortness of breath.

Neiguan (PC6) is an acupoint on the pericardium meridian. Since the heart is not susceptible to pathogenic factors, the pericardium takes its place. Therefore, Su Ziyang first selected an acupoint on the pericardium meridian.

Shenmen is an acupoint on the Heart Meridian. Since the pulse has already shown a knotted pulse, it means that the pericardium can no longer fully withstand this pathogenic factor, and the heart itself has indeed encountered a problem.

Therefore, these two acupoints were selected.

Su Ziyang first inserted the needles using a tonifying technique. After tonifying, he lowered the needles under the skin, laid them flat along the meridian, and then inserted them further along the meridian.

This is Tonification and Sedation by Following and Opposing," and it is one of the tonification and sedation techniques in acupuncture.

The so-called Ying means to go against it, and Sui means to go along with it.

The technique of inserting the needle along the direction of the meridian during acupuncture is called "following," which is also known as the tonifying method.

When performing acupuncture, the needle tip is inserted against the direction of the meridian's flow, which is called "receiving" or "reducing".

Let me explain the direction of the meridians again:

The three Yin meridians of the hand run from the chest to the hand.

The three Yang meridians of the hand run from the hand to the head.

The three Yang meridians of the foot run from the head to the feet.

The three Yin meridians of the foot run from the foot to the chest.

There is a verse that says:

The three Yin meridians of the hand, inside the chest.

The outer side of the hand's three Yang meridians

The three Yin meridians of the foot, on the inner abdomen of the foot,

The three yang meridians of the foot are located on the head and outer side of the foot.

This verse describes the direction and location of the body's meridians.

About three to five minutes after the tonic was performed, the old lady said she felt much better and no longer had the severe shortness of breath and the feeling of her heart being suspended in mid-air.

"Auntie, for your illness, acupuncture alone isn't very effective. You'd better take some herbal medicine. Do you want to take it?"

No matter the occasion, Su Ziyang always seeks the patient's opinion.

The acupuncture was very effective, and the old lady was in real pain, so she nodded and asked Su Ziyang to prescribe medicine as soon as possible.

This medicine is easy to prescribe; Su Ziyang used a pre-existing formula.

The Honey-Fried Licorice Decoction, also known as the Pulse-Restoring Decoction.

It is a prescription from the book "Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases" by Zhang Zhongjing, the Sage of Medicine.

The original text states. "For typhoid fever, with intermittent pulse and palpitations, the Honey-Fried Licorice Decoction is the main treatment."

Licorice root (processed, 20g)

Ginger (15g)

Ginseng (10g)

Raw Rehmannia glutinosa (26g)

Cinnamon twigs (15g)

Donkey-hide gelatin (10g)

Ophiopogon japonicus (14g)

Hemp seeds (14)

Ten jujubes, broken in half.

7 pay.

"Auntie, this medicine contains donkey-hide gelatin. Our prescription says to grind it into powder for you. After you decoct the medicine, just pour the hot broth over the gelatin and it will dissolve in your bowl."

After writing out the prescription, Su Ziyang began instructing the old woman on how to decoct and take it.

"Okay, I got it."

The old lady, while receiving acupuncture, had stopped panting and her breathing had become steady. She nodded repeatedly, saying she remembered, she remembered.

"Also, this medicine needs a medicinal guide. Do you have any white wine at home, Auntie?"

Su Ziyang asked.

"Yes, we have both 62-proof and 70-proof liquor. We brew our own."

The old woman's two sentences left Su Ziyang completely bewildered. Su Ziyang, both amused and exasperated, said, "Auntie, we don't need such a high concentration. A low one will do."

"Huh? Low degree. How about 55 degrees?"

The old woman thought about it very seriously for a while, and then suggested a liquor with the lowest alcohol content that she had considered for a long time...

"38 degrees is fine, ma'am."

If he hadn't received professional training, Su Ziyang would have almost burst out laughing.

Upon hearing that it was 38-proof liquor, a hint of disappointment flashed in the old woman's eyes. She then muttered, "38 proof is considered liquor? I don't have any at home. I'll have to go out and buy some."

"Ah, just one bottle is fine. It doesn't need to be too strong. Ma'am, you like to have a little bit now and then, don't you?"

Before the needle was ready, Su Ziyang chatted with the old lady who liked strong liquor for a couple of minutes.

"That old lady is quite fond of alcohol. But she has a heart condition, and her children won't let her drink. I've been craving it so much. I thought you'd be a good way to help her with her medicine so she could have a couple of sips."

The old woman frowned and thought for a moment, then looked at Su Ziyang with a happy expression and said, "Young doctor, what do you say? I won't mix the wine with the medicine. I'll drink the medicine first, then drink the wine. Anyway, it'll just mix in my stomach. Is that alright?"

"What if my son complains later? I'll just say the doctor told me this is a medicinal ingredient..."

Su Ziyang realized that the old woman's claim of loving wine was genuine; she wasn't pretending.

He doesn't just love drinking it, he loves it an extraordinary amount.

"No, it has to be mixed into the herbal medicine. Also, don't drink any of that strong liquor you have at home. Drinking too much alcohol is bad for your health. Do you hear me?"

The old lady was just feeling smug about her brilliant idea, but Su Ziyang's cold water extinguished her hopes, leaving her quite dejected.

As the saying goes, "Old people are like children," this must be what they're talking about.

Su Ziyang truly witnessed this firsthand.

"Doctor? Are you really not going to drink it anymore?"

The old woman sat there for a moment, lost in thought, then suddenly looked up and asked a question.

"Real."

"Well..."