A Son Travels a Thousand Miles

Su Ziyang was very happy and surprised that Erhei and Tongtong recovered so completely from their illnesses.

This also proves that what I have learned over the past year is not in vain.

There was still no notice of reopening from the Daoist Medicine Clinic, and Su Ziyang stayed at home for almost another week.

"All you do is eat, sleep, play, and eat all day! What else can you do!" Su Ziyang's mother saw Su Ziyang lying in bed fast asleep with a book in his hand and slapped Su Ziyang bottom.

Su Ziyang woke up with a start, staring intently at his mother, and grinned, saying, "Mom, you don't love me anymore!"

"Get out of my way! I'd love you if you mopped the floor and washed your own socks! You're always carrying around those two tattered books, I don't even know if you've read them!" Su Ziyang's mother grabbed Su Ziyang's arm and yanked Su Ziyang off the bed.

"Hey, stop messing around. I'm thinking!" Su Ziyang was dragged out of bed by his mother and started dawdling.

"Go over there and think about it, I'm going to change the sheets!"

"Oh!"

When Su Ziyang's mother finished changing the sheets and came to the other bedroom, she found Su Ziyang lying on the bed in the exact same position as before. Seeing Su Ziyang lazy posture, Su Ziyang couldn't help but laugh in exasperation, "You... sigh! Really, I'm getting annoyed with you. Why aren't you at work yet!"

"Still waiting for news!" Su Ziyang muttered, covering his face with a book.

No sooner had he finished speaking than Su Ziyang's phone rang.

Su Ziyang lazily rolled over and came to the table, picking up his phone.

"Didn't you suddenly decide you wanted to learn bone setting and bone-setting? I've found you a teacher! Come and learn from me! I'll send you the address to your phone in a bit!"

Before Su Ziyang could speak, Mr. Mengfei, having finished his outburst, hung up the phone.

"I didn't provoke him, did I?" Su Ziyang muttered to himself, staring at the address sent to him via WeChat.

"Mom, that's enough. Stop bothering me. I'm leaving tomorrow!" Su Ziyang said, leaning against the doorframe and watching his mother's retreating figure as she mopped the floor.

As the saying goes, a mother worries when her son travels Qianli.

Su Ziyang's mother said that, but how could she really be annoyed by her own flesh and blood? Even if he had become taller and more educated than her, he was still her child.

"Where are you going? To work?" Su Ziyang's mother stopped what she was doing and asked, leaning on the mop handle.

"No, it's a place in Henan. The master I met at the Daoist Medicine Clinic introduced me to a bone-setting teacher, and I'm going to learn from him before the clinic opens!" Su Ziyang said.

"Sigh, alright then. Good luck, son!" Just a moment ago she was annoyed with Su Ziyang, but now that Su Ziyang was actually leaving, there was a hint of loneliness and melancholy in Su Ziyang's mother's tone.

"Hey, what are you doing? What's wrong? You're not happy that I went out? Aren't you annoyed with me? Hehehe!" Su Ziyang joked.

"How about I massage your back again?" Su Ziyang coaxed his mother to make her happy.

That would be wonderful!

Su Ziyang carefully massaged his mother from head to toe.

"Study hard and work hard while you're out there. Make more friends and don't cause trouble! Understand?" Su Ziyang's mother instructed with her eyes closed.

"Know!"

Su Ziyang nodded.

"Mom, I'm going out to buy some groceries. We can have a few drinks later tonight, okay?" This was the first time Su Ziyang had suggested drinking with his parents.

"What do you need to buy? Can't I just cook a few?" Su Ziyang's mother said.

"Mom, although I don't want to discourage you, I have to tell you the truth, your cooking is a little awful!" Su Ziyang said, then grabbed his clothes and ran off with a smile.

Then I heard my mother laughing and scolding behind me.

In a year, Su Ziyang hadn't saved much of his salary. Apart from the large red envelopes given by Mr. Mengfei and Daoist Jin, Su Ziyang only had 10,000 yuan in his salary card.

Upon arriving at the supermarket, Su Ziyang glanced at the bottles of liquor on the shelf, gritted his teeth, picked up a bottle costing over 500 yuan, and then went to the deli section to buy chicken feet, pork skin, pig trotters, pig ears, smoked and braised tofu strips, peanuts, broad beans, and a series of other cooked foods and dishes that could be enjoyed with the liquor.

When Su Ziyang's father came home that evening, he was surprised to see a table laden with dishes and asked, "What's the occasion today? So many dishes? Oh, and who bought such good wine?"

Su Ziyang's mother was carefully slicing the Beijing duck that Erhei had brought with a small knife. Hearing her husband speak, she replied without turning her head, "Your son, of course. Who else could it be?"

"Why did he buy so much stuff? Didn't he eat enough for the New Year?" Su Ziyang's father smacked his lips, smashing the wine bottle in his hand. "That brat even bought such a good bottle of wine!"

"He didn't tell you!" Su Ziyang's mother continued slicing the duck meat.

"What are you saying!"

"Is he going out tomorrow? He's leaving. Your son wants to have a drink with you!" Su Ziyang's mother was clearly not in a good mood.

"Have their clinics reopened?" Su Ziyang's father asked again.

"No, he said his master introduced him to a bone-setting teacher in Henan, and he's leaving tomorrow." Su Ziyang's mother put the slices of meat she had cut into the plate into the microwave and started heating them.

"Why study that stuff? Isn't internal medicine a good profession? When he was taking the postgraduate entrance exam, why did he switch from acupuncture and massage to traditional Chinese medicine internal medicine? Wasn't it to avoid doing these things?" Su Ziyang's father was a little puzzled.

"Don't let his carefree attitude fool you, my son is actually more meticulous than anyone else. I think he started learning this mainly because someone's kid's arm ring fell off and he couldn't get it reattached! I noticed something was off about him then!"

No one knows a child better than their parents; Su Ziyang's mother's words succinctly captured the essence of the matter.

"What's wrong with this? You can't possibly do everything perfectly. What is he trying to do? Internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, and everything else?" Su Ziyang's father stared, even more puzzled.

"Get lost, and don't yell at me like that. Your son is packing his things inside. If you have a problem, ask him yourself. I'm annoyed!" Su Ziyang's mother took out the heated roast duck and put the lotus leaf buns in the steamer to heat them up.

Seeing that his wife was unhappy, Su Ziyang's father left the kitchen and went to Su Ziyang's bedroom.

Su Ziyang was folding clothes when he saw his father return. He stopped what he was doing and said, "You're back, Dad. Shall we have a drink together tonight?"

"You're leaving already? Not staying for more than a few days!" Su Ziyang's father's initial doubts turned into a simple greeting upon seeing his son.

"Yes, Dad. My master found me a bone-setting teacher, and I need to go and learn from him!" Su Ziyang sat on the bed, rolled up the washed socks into a ball, and stuffed them into the side pocket of his suitcase.

"Your mom's a little unhappy," Su Ziyang's father said casually.

"Yes, I can see that!" Su Ziyang nodded. "I've been studying away from home for so many years, boarding since the third grade of elementary school, and now I've even graduated with a master's degree. You two still haven't gotten used to it! Hahaha!"

Su Ziyang chuckled, but Su Ziyang father didn't laugh, "Used my ass! Finish cleaning up and let's eat. Your mother should cut up that roast duck Erhei brought!"

"Okay, I'm almost done packing!" Su Ziyang pulled the suitcase shut and put it away.

At the dinner table--

"Why did you buy such expensive wine? Just buy something that costs a few dozen yuan and make do!" Su Ziyang's father said this, but he still held the wine bottle with obvious affection.

"Sigh, after spending so many years, this is the first year I've made money. Buying a good bottle of wine is only right!" Su Ziyang said, crunching as he ate a piece of shredded pig's ear.

After saying that, he took the wine from his father, opened the bottle, poured a small cup for his parents, and then poured one for himself.

"Mom, don't be upset. I'm just going to study, what's the big deal? Haha. I work at a clinic, it's pretty flexible. If I were at a hospital, I might be on duty on New Year's Eve!"

Seeing that his mother was still a little down, Su Ziyang comforted her.

"Yes, son is right. Let's have a drink together as a family!" Su Ziyang's father picked up his glass and downed it in one gulp.

Su Ziyang's mother and Su Ziyang also drank it all in one gulp.

After finishing his drink, Su Ziyang quickly refilled his parents' glasses.

"Mom, you know what, even though your cooking isn't great, your knife skills are pretty good. The way you cut this duck is almost as good as the chef at Quanjude!" Su Ziyang rolled up a piece of duck meat, dipped it in sweet bean sauce, and stuffed it into his mouth.

"Yes, your mom's knife skills are amazing. I can't even cut potato shreds as finely as she can!" Su Ziyang's father chimed in.

"Go away, you two don't need to flatter me." Su Ziyang's mother finally laughed.

"That's not flattery, it's the truth!" Su Ziyang said, praising his mother again.

Haha~

The family of three enjoyed a delicious and harmonious meal.

The saying goes, "It's not the wine that intoxicates, but the person themselves."

Su Ziyang's mother drank less than two ounces of liquor and felt a little dizzy. She ate cooked food on the side without saying a word.

Su Ziyang's father usually has a good alcohol tolerance, but after drinking two ounces of liquor, his face turned bright red, and Su Ziyang couldn't control himself either, feeling dizzy.

"Son, Dad knows you've become very capable. These past few years of learning haven't been in vain. You cured Erhei and Tongtong's illnesses so easily, that's really great! You're Dad's pride!"

If he hadn't been drinking, Su Ziyang believed his father would never have said such cheesy things. In China families, the way feelings are expressed is subtle, hidden in everything they do in life, unlike in the West where people say "I love you" endlessly.

"Dad, to be honest, I studied hard for the past eight years, but I haven't learned as much as I have in this past year! Society today values practicality. Two years ago, I wouldn't say we were helpless with Aunt Tong and Uncle Erhei's illness, but it certainly wouldn't have been as easy to solve as it is now!"

Su Ziyang poured out his heart to his parents without reservation.

"In school, memorization is the top priority. Much of what you learn is practically useless in clinical practice. If you can't even take a pulse, forget about treating patients. To be honest, no doctor can completely fail at treating every illness, because some illnesses can heal on their own, even without treatment. To put it bluntly, you can't expect ten patients to die!"

Su Ziyang's father drank another glass of wine, squinting as he listened to his son's emotional outpouring. "Yes, you're right! That makes sense."

"That's why some famous doctors in ancient times said that the value of medicine is not in curing diseases, but in curing difficult diseases. For example, if you don't treat a fever or a cold, drinking more water will make it better on its own!" Su Ziyang drank another cup of wine, and with the wine going down, he talked even more.

"Dad, you said you'd take my pulse. Did I fool Erhei? Otherwise, would someone as slick as Erhei trust us so easily and take our medicine? Those people who work in government are much more cunning than us!"

"Actually, I'm truly grateful to this master over the past year. His views on the world and on certain illnesses have really inspired me a lot! Dad! By the way, he also taught me Qigong, you've seen that, haven't you!"

Su Ziyang's father nodded, listening to his son talk on and on. His mother also listened attentively to her son's rambling without saying a word.

"There are some diseases that we've never even heard of, but these people can cure them, and cure them very well. Later, I met another doctor in our clinic by chance, and he was also very skilled. Take leukemia, for example. I was in the hospital watching a child who was about to die, and this old Daoist priest was giving the child pediatric massage while simultaneously administering medication, and the child woke up! Dad, you have no idea how shocked I was to see something like that! It's really hard to describe the emotions I felt."

"Even leukemia can be cured!" Su Ziyang's mother exclaimed in surprise.

"Really, Mom! Really! I'm not lying, I saw it with my own eyes. That child was dying in the hospital, but the old Daoist priest just miraculously cured him!" As he spoke, Su Ziyang showed his mother the photos he had taken at the time.

"And look at this! Dad! This illness, this sore, he can still eat. It's so strange. I didn't know how to treat it at the time, so I called my master. He mentioned one medicine on the phone—fringe root! It worked! You can't argue with that! Even the teachers at the school and hospital were completely baffled when they saw this disease!"

Su Ziyang kept rambling on and on, until finally he himself didn't know what he was saying anymore.

After that, Su Ziyang stopped talking and kept shoveling peanuts into his mouth.

"Son, let me tell you a few words!" Seeing that his son didn't speak, Su Ziyang's father continued speaking regardless of whether Su Ziyang was listening or not.

"You're all grown up now, and you're earning money too. First, spend what you need to spend, but still be frugal and save some money for your future wife! Second, learning skills isn't important, but learn skills you can actually use. Having too many skills doesn't guarantee success. Don't learn a bunch of useless things; it'll just be a waste of your energy and time, and in the end, you might as well take a break and relax!"

Su Ziyang's father patted his son's shoulder, drunkenly saying, "Also, son, I won't advise you to master everything to the highest degree! Use only three-tenths of your strength, and leave seven-tenths for your descendants. You might not understand this for many years! I've said everything I needed to say, so I won't say any more!"

In the end, Su Ziyang didn't know how he got back to his room; he just woke up at seven o'clock the next morning.

My father's words, "Use only three-tenths of your strength, and leave seven-tenths for your descendants," still echo in my ears!