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

Cui Ying pushed open the dormitory door and stood against the door for a while, her face still flushed.

The moonlight outside the window was bright, casting the shadows of the poplar leaves onto the curtains, swaying gently.

She took off her coat and hung it on the headboard. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared blankly for a while. She remembered Wang Tao's loud "Hello, Master's wife," and Li Fang's words, "When you have a child with Cui Ying in the future," and her ears started burning again.

She pulled the blanket up over her head, turned over in bed, but couldn't suppress the smile on her lips as she imagined what it would be like to live with Chen Ping.

The next morning, the canteen was bustling with activity. Aunt Li had cooked red date and millet porridge and steamed large buns filled with shredded radish.

As soon as Chen Ping pushed open the cafeteria door, he saw Wang Tao already standing by the table with two sets of bowls and chopsticks in front of him. The porridge was served, and the two largest and whitest steamed buns were placed on a plate. The chopsticks were arranged neatly.

Seeing Chen Ping enter, Wang Tao quickly pulled out a chair, his voice loud enough to be heard throughout the entire cafeteria: "Good morning, Master! The porridge is ready for you, and I picked out these steamed buns—these two have big fillings and thin skins, just cooked by Aunt Li!"

Chen Ping paused for a moment, glanced at the bowls and chopsticks on the table that were set out more elaborately than those for ancestral worship during the Lunar New Year, and then looked at Wang Tao's overly solicitous face. He sat down next to him, feeling both amused and exasperated.

Then he picked up the bowl of porridge and took a sip. "Alright, you eat yours. Stop just getting food for me. From now on, when you come in the morning, eat first. You don't have to wait for me."

"That won't do. If the master doesn't start eating, how can the disciple eat first? That's the rule. That's how it's always shown on TV."

Wang Tao sat back down in his seat, picked up a steamed bun, took a bite, and his cheeks bulged out.

When Cui Ying walked into the cafeteria, Wang Tao put down his steamed buns, stood up, and said, "Master..."

The moment the word "teacher" left his lips, Cui Ying glared at him, her eyes filled with a mixture of shame and annoyance.

Wang Tao swallowed the rest of his sentence back, managing to squeeze out, "Good morning, Sister Cui Ying! I've got your food ready, eat it while it's hot!"

Cui Ying sat down opposite Chen Ping, picked up her bowl of porridge, took a sip, and didn't say anything, but the tips of her ears were still red.

After breakfast, everyone dispersed and went to work.

Patients came one after another in the clinic. Chen Ping took their pulses and prescribed medicine, while Wang Tao handed him needles and pens, calling him "Master" with practiced ease and naturalness.

As an elderly woman was leaving the clinic, she smiled and said, "Dr. Chen, your apprentice is so filial."

Around nine o'clock in the morning, a black sedan stopped at the gate of the courtyard.

Chen Ping was giving acupuncture to a patient with back pain when Wang Tao glanced out the window and whispered, "Master, Old Song is here."

Chen Ping tightened the last needle, took off his gloves, and went out to greet them.

Old Song helped him a lot with Su Meng's matter, and Chen Ping should know how to be considerate of people.

Old Song was wearing a dark gray jacket today, and he was still as energetic as ever. As soon as he got out of the car, he shook hands with Chen Ping. His palm was thick and strong, and the feel was the same as last time. His tiger's mouth was covered with hard calluses.

However, this time Old Song didn't come alone.

Another middle-aged man got out of his car. He was in his forties, wearing a dark blue overall that was a bit worn. His skin was rough and red from the mountain wind, and he looked like someone who worked in the fields all year round.

The man carefully helped an old woman out of the car.

The old man was thin and small, wrapped in a thick dark blue cotton-padded coat. His back was hunched over badly, and he looked like a dried-up old tree root huddled inside the coat.

The wrinkles on her face were so deep they looked like they had been carved by a knife, her eyes were cloudy and yellowish, and she walked with a trembling gait.

Her legs seemed unable to support the weight of the thick cotton-padded coat; she swayed with every step and only managed to stay upright thanks to the man beside her supporting her arm.

Chen Ping quickly had someone help the old lady into the examination room.

Once inside the consultation room, the elderly woman was helped to sit down slowly.

He let out a long sigh the moment his buttocks touched the chair, a breath that seemed to come from a deep place, accompanied by a hissing sound like a bellows.

After she settled down, she raised her cloudy eyes and looked at Chen Ping, but didn't say anything; she just sat quietly.

Old Song bent down and adjusted the collar of the old lady's cotton-padded coat, then straightened up and introduced her to Chen Ping: "Dr. Chen, this is my third aunt. When she was young, she was the iron lady of our village. Back in the days of the collective, she led the women's team to carry manure and repair irrigation ditches. She was more capable than the men."

"It's not working now. I keep complaining of chest pain. It's been like this for decades. It started when I was young, and it's gotten worse as I've gotten older. I've been to every hospital and clinic, and the stack of test results is taller than chopsticks."

"But we just can't find the cause of the illness. Everyone has their own theories. Some say it's heart disease, some say it's stomach disease, some say it's intercostal neuralgia. I've been taking medicine my whole life without stopping, but I just don't get better."

"Take a good look at it and see what's wrong with it."

The middle-aged man bent down and opened the cloth bag that the old lady always carried with her. It was full of medical records and examination reports.

There were handwritten prescriptions, printed lab reports, CT scans, and electrocardiogram sheets, all neatly stacked with worn edges.

He took out the items one by one and placed them in front of Chen Ping, rubbing his hands together: "Dr. Chen, I am her son. My mother has been suffering from this illness for decades, and we have tried every possible method."

"Two years ago, I stayed in a large hospital in the provincial capital for more than half a month. They examined me from head to toe, but in the end they couldn't find out what was wrong. They prescribed some medicine and sent me home."

"The pain has gotten worse and worse over the past two years. I can't sleep well at night. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night in pain and just sit on the bed leaning against the wall to endure it. No matter how I try to persuade you, you refuse to go to the hospital anymore. I tell you it's no use going."

"If my older brother hadn't insisted, she wouldn't have come. He said you're a miracle doctor and you can definitely cure her."

The man raised his hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. His voice carried a hint of helplessness, heartache, and exhaustion from years of accompanying his mother to seek medical treatment.

"Don't say that. I'm not some kind of miracle doctor. Let me examine your mother first."

After Chen Ping finished speaking, he bent down to examine the old lady, his voice very soft: "Grandma, where does it hurt? Point it out to me."

The old woman slowly pulled her hand out of the sleeve of her cotton-padded jacket. Her hand was so thin that it was just a layer of skin covering the bones, with the veins on the back of her hand bulging out one by one, and her nails were yellow and thickened.

She pointed to a spot slightly to the left of the center of her chest with her other finger: "Right here, sometimes it creeps up my back, sometimes it creeps up my shoulder, it feels dull, like being pricked with needles, and it's worst at night."

"Young man, I'm already this old, I don't expect to be cured anymore, it's just that the pain at night is unbearable."

Chen Ping pulled her wrist and placed three fingers on it.

A deep, thready, and hesitant pulse indicates old age, physical weakness, and insufficient qi and blood, while a hesitant pulse suggests stagnation or blockage in the meridians.

Strangely, there was no obvious abnormality in the heart pulse area; there were no irregularities or rapid heartbeats, and although the heart rate was slow, the rhythm was regular.