Unblocking the Acupoints

What Su Ziyang said made sense, but to Liu Yanzhen, it felt as though a bone had lodged in his throat. He was uncomfortable and wanted to argue back, but he didn't know what to say.

Su Ziyang fell silent after making his point. Liu Yanzhen said nothing for a long while, then drained his glass. "I've learned something! Thank you!"

With that, he took Bao Mingya's hand and headed out. Stumbling along, Bao Mingya waved goodbye to Su Ziyang, and the two left.

Su Ziyang sat in his seat, looking at the considerable amount of food left on the table with a wry smile. He had spoken the truth, but afterward he regretted it, because the argument had been entirely unnecessary.

After Su Ziyang got home, his phone rang. He didn't have to guess; it had to be Bao Mingya.

Bao Mingya: "Xiao Su, your brother-in-law drank too much today. Don't take it to heart!"

Su Ziyang picked up his phone and replied that it was all right. They exchanged a few pleasantries back and forth, then left it at that. Feeling a little restless, Su Ziyang took a shower to wash the smell of smoke and alcohol off his body, threw on some loose clothes, and sat cross-legged to meditate.

With Mr. Mengfei's help, Su Ziyang had completed the grand heavenly circulation. Once he closed his eyes and settled down, a warm current of qi began circulating through his body on its own. Before long, Su Ziyang forgot his troubles, his body and mind entirely immersed in meditation.

By the time Su Ziyang came out of meditation, it was already ten at night. He got up and walked a couple of laps around the room, loosening his somewhat stiff limbs. The feeling of his qi and blood circulating made his whole body feel full.

Su Ziyang was something of a homebody. When no one asked him out on weekends, he stayed rooted at home, watching cartoons and cultivating.

Monday brought another workday. As the saying went, business was slow on Mondays.

For a greenhorn doctor like Su Ziyang, business wasn't just slow on Mondays; it was slow every day. If he saw five patients in a week, he could already thank Amitabha.

In the middle of the morning, a commotion suddenly broke out at the entrance. Amid a flurry of footsteps, Su Ziyang saw several people appear in the doorway.

Su Ziyang was no stranger to them. They were the thugs who had come to surround him and his three brothers while the four were drinking during his visit back to his university.

The first to enter was the bespectacled, scholarly-looking man who had led them last time, the man in Adidas sportswear. The other four slowly followed him inside, supporting one another.

The scholarly-looking man had quite the air of someone from the jianghu. He cupped his fists at Su Ziyang. "Hello, Doctor Su!"

Seeing the man cup his fists, Su Ziyang smiled. "Doesn't your back hurt, forcing yourself to stand straight like that?"

At Su Ziyang's words, the man trembled all over and could no longer keep it up. Clutching his lower back, he hurriedly shut the door to Su Ziyang's consultation room and cupped his fists at him again. "Doctor Su, please be magnanimous and overlook our offense. We didn't know what misunderstanding you had with that little pup Xing Zhiyu, and we rashly interfered. We offended you greatly, so please show mercy and let me and my four little brothers off!"

"What do you mean, show mercy?" Su Ziyang found the man rather amusing, so he pretended not to understand and answered with a riddle.

The scholarly man gave Su Ziyang a wry smile. "Doctor Su, please stop teasing us. To tell you the truth, I've trained too, under a proper master. My master examined us and said we'd offended an expert. He nearly beat me to death! Doctor Su, please don't make sport of us."

Watching a big man over 1.8 meters tall on the verge of tears, Su Ziyang felt an inexplicable urge to laugh, but held it in. "All right! Since you've put it that way. I never intended to do anything to you in the first place! Lie down on the massage table first!"

No sooner had Su Ziyang finished speaking than the scholarly man hurriedly lay face down on the massage table in the consultation room. Su Ziyang hadn't struck him hard; he had only tapped his Mingmen acupoint lightly at the time.

Now, the man simply couldn't channel qi or exert force through his lower back. If he did, he would feel a stabbing pain. Su Ziyang lifted the scholarly man's shirt and rubbed his hands together gently. With a circulation of qi from his dantian, his palms immediately grew scorching hot, and he placed his right hand over the man's Mingmen acupoint.

"Ow! Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot..." the scholarly man immediately cried out.

"Oh, bear with it!" Su Ziyang lifted his hand, then curled his palm into a claw and used true qi to make a grasping motion in the air over the man's lower back. The area immediately turned blue and purple, as though it had been treated with gua sha.

"All done!" Su Ziyang patted the man's lower back, signaling that he could get up.

The man felt his lower back loosen, and the sensation of a heavy scale weight hanging from it, which he had felt for some time, immediately disappeared. Excited, he rolled off the table and threw two punches into the air.

"Oh! It's really better!!!"

"Doctor Su! Doctor Su!"

Seeing that their big brother was better, the four good brothers the scholarly man had brought with him began wailing!

"One at a time! Don't rush! Don't rush!" Su Ziyang gestured for the four not to panic.

One of them was the most badly injured: the man Su Ziyang had struck in the Dabao acupoint between his ribs. Su Ziyang had acted instinctively at the time, and had also been wary of the man's physique, so naturally he had struck harder. What Su Ziyang didn't know was that if he had used a little more force, he would have broken the man's ribs outright.

When the scholarly man had taken the others home, this man had coughed up blood. Only after taking medicine for traumatic injuries given to him by the scholarly man's master had the bleeding stopped.

Su Ziyang also knew whom he had hit hardest, so he hurriedly had the man lie on his back on the table. After exposing the man's back, Su Ziyang said softly, "This might hurt a little. Bear with it!"

With that, he immediately circulated his qi to stimulate the meridian he had struck in the man's body. The man really was tough. Su Ziyang had experienced what it felt like to have someone grasp his meridians from a distance with true qi: you could hear your own bones creaking, and the pain sank into the marrow!

The man clenched his teeth and, astonishingly, didn't make a sound throughout the entire process of unblocking the acupoint. His perseverance made Su Ziyang secretly raise a thumb in admiration. When Su Ziyang finished unblocking the acupoint, he patted the man on the back, and the man spat out a mouthful of black blood.

That move gave the others a terrible fright.

"Holy shit! Nothing can go wrong! Doctor Su, I've only ever fucking seen this kind of thing on TV!" the scholarly man asked in surprise.

"Congested blood. He'll be fine once he spits it out!" Su Ziyang waved a hand.

"Phew!" The man took a deep breath and felt the exhaustion in his body vanish in an instant. A relieved expression appeared on his face.

Seeing that he really was all right, the others relaxed too. Su Ziyang unblocked their acupoints one by one. When he finished, he discovered that the clinic door had opened at some point.

The noise in the room had been so loud that it had attracted a crowd of onlookers.

"Hmph-crooked tricks and heresy!"

The one who had scolded him was Daoist Jin, who saw patients next door to Su Ziyang and specialized in pediatrics.

"What did you say, old man?" The scholarly man only looked scholarly; there was nothing refined about his behavior. Hearing the daoist's unpleasant words, he pointed at his nose and cursed.

Ignoring Daoist Jin's abuse, Su Ziyang hurriedly grabbed the scholarly man's wrist. "Hey, what are you doing? If you've got that much energy, mop the floor!"

The scholarly man greatly admired capable people, and Su Ziyang's skills had won him over completely. Naturally, he didn't talk back to Su Ziyang. He picked up the mop in the room and started cleaning. Seeing their big brother get to work, his little brothers hurriedly scrambled to wipe up the blood spat on the floor.

Su Ziyang paid them no mind and let them clean the room. Once they were done, they stood ramrod straight in the room like security guards, with no sign of leaving.

"You can go home now. What are you standing here for?" Su Ziyang said, seeing them standing motionless like javelins.

Grinning from ear to ear, the scholarly man said, "Brother Su, we'd like to treat you to a simple meal. Just a simple meal!"

Su Ziyang was speechless. How had a fight ended with these guys sticking around and refusing to leave? "We hardly know each other, so forget the meal. Just go back where you came from! Stop standing around in here. This is my consultation room, and you guys are standing there like javelins, scaring people away from coming to see me!"

"If you don't agree, we won't leave!" The scholarly man grinned, looking every bit a rascal.

"..." Su Ziyang was speechless. "I'm not even charging you. Aren't you just pestering me now? Fine, fine, fine, I agree! Hurry up and get out! Out!"

As soon as they heard Su Ziyang agree, their faces lit up with joy, and they left laughing and joking.

They had only just gone when an old lady poked her head through the door and came in. "Young doctor, let me ask you! What were you doing just now? What illness were you treating?"

Since someone had asked, Su Ziyang casually replied, "Giving a massage, ma'am. Treating pain in the back and legs!"

"Oh my goodness, that's something else! A massage? You massaged someone until he spat blood? How frightening!!!" the old lady said.

"Haha, that was the illness. He'll be fine now that he's spat it out, ma'am!" Su Ziyang explained patiently.

"Oh, what perfect timing! My back and legs hurt a little too. Why don't you give me a massage as well?" With that, the old lady took off her coat and lay down on the table.

"Ma'am, if you want a massage, go downstairs and register for a massage appointment. Then pay at the counter next to it. Bring me the receipt afterward, and I can give you the massage!" Su Ziyang said softly.

As soon as she heard him, the old lady shot up from the table. Watching her move, Su Ziyang thought she was even more agile than the bespectacled fellow just now.

"Eh... young doctor, you're not being honest. Why are you charging money? If it costs money, I'm not getting a massage. Besides, I heard you plain and clear just now: you didn't charge those people! I heard it all!"

Su Ziyang was speechless. What was with these people? But he couldn't very well say anything, so he could only explain, "Ma'am, those people just now were my classmates. We're all classmates, so I didn't charge them. I hope you understand. If you want a massage, go downstairs and register!"

After listening to Su Ziyang, the old lady rolled her eyes at him, then wandered off, peering around as she went.

Su Ziyang watched her departing figure, feeling ten thousand grievances he couldn't put into words. He thought back on his run of bad luck lately: he had argued with someone at a class reunion, gotten into a fight while eating skewers, argued with his senior sister's husband over a meal, inexplicably been accused of using crooked tricks and heresy, and then been criticized by an old lady...

Alas, that's life. Su Ziyang felt helpless!!!