Merchant and doctor

Chapter 1935 Oily Ears
The old residential area consists entirely of six-story old-style buildings. The elevators were added later, and the dark blue tempered glass is fully enclosed, giving it a rather high-end feel and adding a touch of modern style to the entire community.

The landscaping in the community is very ordinary, with almost no flowers or grasses planted. It's mostly shrubs and small trees, and the rest of the open spaces are all green lawns. The roadside trees are all sycamores, interspersed with very new streetlights, which are undoubtedly newly installed new energy lighting systems.

It was quiet and the whole neighborhood didn't seem too tacky, suggesting that the residents were generally well-educated.

The old gentleman lived on the second floor. There were two apartments per floor, and the old man lived in the east apartment.

Bian Mu insisted on taking the stairs, remaining mostly silent throughout. The three of them quietly arrived at the old man's door. The doorbell was quite old, adorned with a tiger head made of copper, modeled after an unearthed artifact, suggesting that the owner still possessed some taste.

Bian Mu guessed that the bronze tiger head in front of him probably represented the old man's zodiac sign. The older female social worker was ringing the doorbell, while Bian Mu leaned over to the doorbell and carefully examined the tiger head decoration for a long time.

"If I were born in the Year of the Tiger... I should be 75 years old this year, or 76 by the traditional Chinese age reckoning... My spouse has been gone for five or six years?! I don't know if we hired a caregiver before, but we definitely don't now. Our own children all think I'm too old and have run away. If we had a caregiver, she would probably have run away by now!" Bian Mu stood there, rambling on and on for a long time.

After a while, the door opened.

"Oh! I've troubled you two to make this trip again. What brings you here today?!" The old man poked half his head out and spoke quite kindly.

“You can’t keep doing this! It’s our job! Sigh! We’ve invited another famous traditional Chinese medicine doctor for you, this time it’ll definitely work!” The older female social worker explained with a smile the reason for their visit.

As they were talking, the female social worker introduced the two of them to each other.

Bian Mu wasn't wearing a mask and casually sniffed the old man. He did have a bit of an old man's smell, which was quite strong, but it was definitely not foul-smelling and he was impossible to approach.

The body odor has been eliminated.

Both female social workers were wearing disposable dust masks. Fortunately, they didn't seem to have any disgust on their faces. It seems that these two usually do their community work quite diligently. At the very least, their kindness is commendable!
Chatting and laughing, the group entered the living room. With the old man's permission, Bian Mu went to the bathroom to check first. It was pretty much as he had imagined. The old man's apartment had a problem with backflow of water, which was unavoidable in an old building.

Next, Bian Mu went to the kitchen to check and found that the drain pipe was still backflowing, and the marks on the wall were obvious.

Bian Mu's father was a capable man. He could do plumbing, fitting, carpentry, and all sorts of jobs. When Bian Mu was in junior high school, he would often help his father with odd jobs such as plumbing and electrical work for relatives and friends for free. Through this exposure, he had some basic life skills.

Bian Mu noticed a black ceramic jar in the kitchen, clearly an old item that had been passed down through generations. He gently lifted the lid and glanced at it. It contained white fungus, jujubes, goji berries, dried tangerine peel, and hawthorn. It also smelled of some yellow rock sugar. Wow! The old gentleman usually pays quite a bit of attention to health.

In the corner were three large glass jars, slightly smaller than ordinary kimchi jars, containing tortoise shell, scorpion, seahorse... The old man had somehow found this secret recipe, and the combination looked rather strange.

Walking over to them, Bian Mu picked up each of the three glass jars and examined them carefully from multiple angles for a long time.

"Where did you get this prescription from, sir?" Bian Mu asked casually.

“A Taoist doctor from Yunfeng Temple gave it to me.”

"A Taoist doctor?! Do they have a medical license?" Bian Mu asked with surprise.

"Yes! It's hanging on the wall!" the old man replied casually.

How old are you?

"You must be in your early seventies! You should be over eighty now, a bit older than me!" "Excuse me, are you born in the Year of the Tiger?" Bian Mu asked with a smile.

"Yes! A tiger for 50 years! The most powerful tiger of our time!" The old man said this with great pride.

"Who made the tiger head ornament on the doorbell?" Bian Mu asked with a smile.

"A close friend of mine, about twenty years younger than me, an artist who loves to borrow all sorts of art manuscripts from the library. He's a professional, and it's been many years since we last met. Who knows where he is in the world now, sketching for art!" The old gentleman was quite eloquent and spoke with great logic.

"Really? I thought it was a birthday gift specially made for you by your children and grandchildren! It's wonderful! It turns out to be a work of art!" Bian Mu praised with a smile.

"They... are usually very busy, and besides, they need artistic talent." The old man's eyes dimmed considerably when he mentioned his children and grandchildren.

It's clear that the three generations of the old man's family don't get along very well.

"Is that Taoist doctor an old gentleman? Is he still practicing medicine near Yunfeng Temple?" Bian Mu inquired further.

"It's a man. I haven't seen him for years. Come to think of it, it was more than ten years ago. I guess he's traveling around somewhere else right now!" the old gentleman replied with a smile.

"Didn't he mention it to you at the time? This kind of medicinal wine needs to be changed every four months and cannot be taken at the same time. In addition, there are some contraindications to taking this kind of medicinal wine with goji berries and white fungus, especially white fungus, which is a big no-no!" Bian Mu replied with a serious expression.

"Oh! It's been quite a while, I really can't remember. In my memory... did he mention it?! I really can't recall. He said I'm a person who keeps things to myself, and that if I keep them bottled up, something bad will happen sooner or later. He told me to eat medicinal wine with my food, and I did feel much better after eating it. Gradually, it became a habit."

"Oh, is that so, sir! This kind of medicinal wine cannot be taken continuously for a long time. What's more, you're also taking health supplements at the same time. You should stop taking it immediately!" As she spoke, Bian Mu invited the old man to go back to the living room to have his pulse checked.

……

"I see you have quite a few flowers at home. If you water them with leftover oil and soup every day, will they survive?" Bian Mu asked with a smile after taking his pulse.

"Of course he won't survive! You mean... I made a mistake with my diet?!"

"It's more than just a mistake! In fact, the human body and the natural instincts of plants are interconnected. There's a limit to normal and appropriate absorption, metabolic compensation, and energy release. You've been a bit too obsessive about this. Plus, you've lived on the second floor for years, so there's been too much stale air accumulating. You inhale a lot of it through normal breathing. You're getting on in years, so you can't metabolize it all. By the way, you usually prefer to stay home and read books, and you don't go out much, right?"

"Pretty much! I've been busy proofreading comic book manuscripts lately, so I haven't had time to go out. Staying at home is just fine."

What do you usually eat?

"I mostly order takeout; it's convenient and inexpensive," the old man replied with a smile.

"I see... So... are your ears always wet? In traditional Chinese medicine, we usually call it 'oily ears,' am I right?"

"That's true! But... I don't quite remember exactly when, maybe it was the year I first started smoking. No matter how I tried to clean it with cotton swabs, it was always greasy and annoying. I went to many hospitals, but they couldn't cure it. So I just stopped paying attention to it!"

Hearing this, Bian Mu nodded slightly, having a general idea of ​​what was going on.