Sent to the countryside, I turned the health center into a top-tier hospital.

"Is that all the medicine you have?" Chen Ping asked, somewhat surprised.

That's all.

Zhao Guosheng sighed, "The higher-ups aren't allocating funds, and the health center has to be responsible for its own profits and losses. We can't even see a few patients a month, so where are we going to get the money to buy medicine?"

When ordinary people get sick, like with a headache or fever, they come here for some medicine. But if it's a serious illness, they go straight to the city. Who would come here then?

"It takes more than four hours to get to the city, right?" Chen Ping asked.

"That's right," Li Fang interjected. "So ordinary people usually endure minor illnesses until they can't take it anymore before seeking medical attention. Sometimes, while enduring them, they just..."

She didn't finish speaking, but Chen Ping understood.

Then they went to the ward at the back.

There were three empty rooms, each containing two iron beds with thin mattresses on them.

A large patch of white paint had peeled off the wall, revealing the red brick underneath.

A piece of window glass was broken and covered with plastic sheeting.

"Six patients were admitted last year."

Zhao Guosheng said, "They're all too tired to walk. They'll stay here for a couple of days on IV fluids, and then they'll go back once they feel better."

Chen Ping stood at the door of the ward without saying a word.

He thought of Tianhai People's Hospital.

A single ventilator in the ICU there costs over a million dollars, and the operating room's shadowless lamps are imported from Germany.

Look at this, there isn't even a decent operating table.

"Let's go, let's take another look at the injection room." Zhao Guosheng turned and walked forward.

The injection room is next to the pharmacy. It's a small room with a treatment table, several sterilization trays, and a hemostat.

There was an ultraviolet lamp hanging on the wall, but the bulb was blackened, so it probably hadn't been turned on in a long time.

"Is this injection room still usable?"

Chen Ping frowned.

"It works."

Liu Wei said from the side, "The needles have to be reused repeatedly, and the sterilizer is the old-fashioned kind, with high-pressure steam, which takes forty minutes each time."

Chen Ping nodded without saying anything.

The group returned to the front yard. Just as Zhao Guosheng was about to say something, a rapid roar of a tricycle engine suddenly came from outside the yard, followed by a man shouting, "Dean Zhao! Is Dean Zhao here?!"

Everyone turned to look.

A dilapidated tricycle rushed straight into the gate of the health center. The man driving looked anxious, and in the back of the vehicle lay an elderly farmer in his sixties, his face pale, his lips purple, and his forehead covered in sweat.

His left arm was swollen to the size of his thigh, and his entire arm was a dark purple and shiny color, with two small teeth marks on it, still oozing blood.

"Old Zhang? What's wrong?"

Wang Jianguo recognized the person and quickly stepped forward.

"I was chopping wood in the mountains when I got bitten by a five-step snake!" The driver's voice trembled. "It's been there for almost an hour. I tied a rope around my arm and sucked the blood, but the swelling keeps going up!"

Zhao Guosheng leaned closer for a look, and his expression changed drastically: "This is a five-step snake! Its venom is extremely potent; we need antivenom!"

"Serve?" Wang Jianguo exclaimed anxiously. "We don't have any serum! The serum the city gave us last time expired two years ago; we threw it away a long time ago!"

"What should we do then?" Liu Wei chimed in. "Send it to the city quickly?"

"Yes, yes, send them to the Municipal People's Hospital!"

Zhao Guosheng turned to the man and said, "You need to get him to the city quickly; we don't have the facilities to treat him here!"

"To the city?" Tears streamed down the man's face. "Dean Zhao, it takes more than four hours to get to the city! Can my dad make it? Look at his arm, it's swollen all the way up to his shoulder!"

Chen Ping squatted down and carefully examined the old farmer's arm.

The swelling had spread to the collarbone area. The old farmer was breathing rapidly, his consciousness was beginning to blur, and he was mumbling incoherently.

He reached out and pressed down on the old farmer's swollen arm.

In that instant, the information that had just flooded into my mind seemed to be activated, automatically surging forth.

He can "see" now.

It's not about seeing with your eyes, it's about "seeing" with your hands.

In his perception, the toxins were like black threads, climbing up his blood vessels and lymphatic vessels, past his elbows, to his shoulders, and then to his heart.

The venom of the five-step snake is a hemotoxic venom that damages blood vessel walls, dissolves tissue, and causes internal bleeding.

Once it enters the heart, even a god can't save it.

However, the spread of toxins follows a pattern.

Lymphatic vessels have a lymph node at intervals, like sluice gates on a river.

If we can intercept the toxins at these gates, we can buy time.

A diagram of the human body's meridians appeared in Chen Ping's mind, marked with a dense array of acupoints.

Chize, Quze, Tianquan, Jiquan... A clear path extends from the wrist to the shoulder, with each acupoint marked with the needling technique, depth, angle, and force.

"Do you have silver needles?" Chen Ping suddenly asked.

Everyone was stunned.

"What?" Zhao Guosheng thought he had misheard.

"Silver needles, acupuncture needles." Chen Ping stood up, looking at Zhao Guosheng. "Do you have any?"

"Yes, there is..." Wang Jianguo said hesitantly, "Wang Tao bought a pack a few days ago, saying he wanted to learn how to use it, but it hasn't been opened yet. But can that stuff cure snake venom? Dr. Chen, this is no joke, snake venom requires antivenom, acupuncture..."

Wang Jianguo was worried that Chen Ping was too young and didn't understand hospital rules.

If a patient is too ill, the hospital may refuse to admit them; this has nothing to do with the hospital.

But once they start treating patients, they take on responsibility. If anything happens to the patient, the hospital will be held accountable.

They may even be held accountable for medical malpractice by the family members.

Their health center currently lacks antivenom and the ability to treat snake venom.

"It's too late," Chen Ping interrupted him. "It's a four-hour drive from here to the city. He won't make it. Look at his lips and nails; they're already turning cyanotic. The poison will reach his heart in at most another hour."

Zhao Guosheng glanced at the old farmer's face, then at Chen Ping, and his lips trembled slightly.

"Dr. Chen, are you...are you sure you can do it?"

"No," Chen Ping said truthfully, "but if we don't try, he's doomed."

The courtyard was silent for a second.

"Wang Tao! Go get the needle!" Zhao Guosheng stamped his foot. "Quickly!"

Wang Tao responded and ran off.

He rushed back in less than a minute, holding a pack of disposable acupuncture needles that was still unopened.

Chen Ping took the needle, tore open the packaging, and pulled out one.

The silver needles were very thin and gleamed in the sunlight.

He squatted down, rolled up the old farmer's sleeves, revealing his swollen and purple arm.

Those "black threads" became clearer in his eyes, climbing upwards little by little.

The first needle was inserted into the Lieque acupoint on the inside of the wrist.

The moment the needle pierced his skin, Chen Ping's fingers trembled slightly.

It wasn't fear, but a strange feeling. He could almost "feel" the needle tip moving through the subcutaneous tissue, avoiding blood vessels and nerves, stopping precisely where it was supposed to stop.

The information in his mind was running automatically, telling him: three-tenths of an inch deep, fifteen degrees at an angle, twist and turn after obtaining the Qi, and use the purging method.