Chinese Medicine: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 524: Chapter 524: Nephritis

"..."

The air seemed to freeze for two seconds.

"Which one of you sons of bitches did this?!"

The old woman angrily slammed the photo on the ground and started cursing. "That immoral bastard! Tricking me with a worthless piece of paper! I almost threw out my back."

The old man next to her had been about to curse as well, but when he saw how furious she was, and then saw it was just a piece of paper, he burst out laughing.

"HAHAHA! Serves you right for being so grabby! You snatched a whole lot of nothing, didn’t you?"

The old man gloated, "Looks like even the cicadas know who’s got a rotten heart. They turned into paper just to piss you off."

"Shut up, you old geezer."

The old man didn’t argue with her, smugly carrying his stick to the next tree.

’Hmph. This is a job for my eagle eyes.’

He hadn’t taken more than a few steps before he spotted another one high up in a poplar tree.

’Hehe, this one has to be real... huh?’

After poking at it with his stick for what felt like an eternity, he finally managed to knock it down. He picked it up and took a look.

It was another photo.

This one was even more vicious. On the back, two tiny words were written: "So good."

"Fuck!!!"

The old man wasn’t laughing this time. He was so mad he snapped his stick in two. "Who did this? Which little bastard is responsible? Don’t let me catch you! If I do, I’ll make you eat this paper!"

And it wasn’t just them.

As time went on, a chorus of curses rose and fell throughout the woods.

"Dammit, another fake."

"Who the hell is bored enough to print out so many cicadas and stick them on trees?"

"I wore a hole in my pants climbing up here, and this is what I get?"

"What a psycho. With all this time on their hands, couldn’t they do something better?"

The entire grove was filled with seething resentment.

But the comical scene was impossible not to laugh at.

Hiding in the shadows, Li Xu and Song Sisi watched these "human tragedies" unfold, covering their mouths as they laughed until their stomachs hurt.

The thrill of a successful prank was even more satisfying than catching a hundred cicadas.

"Let’s go, let’s go. If we don’t leave now, we’ll be discovered."

Li Xu pulled Song Sisi along, and they quietly retreated under the cover of night.

The two of them jogged out of the woods, not daring to laugh out loud until they were a safe distance away.

"Hahahaha, the look on that old man’s face was priceless."

Song Sisi was laughing so hard that tears streamed down her face.

"And that old lady, she was so aggressive, only to end up with a piece of paper, hahaha."

Li Xu was in high spirits too. "This is what they call ’what goes around, comes around.’ Let this be a lesson to them for taking all our cicadas."

After they had their laugh, they walked home, hand in hand.

The moonlight was like water, and the evening breeze was gentle.

Although they still didn’t catch any cicadas tonight, the joy they felt was something money couldn’t buy.

"Li Xu," Song Sisi said, suddenly stopping to look at him.

"What’s wrong?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"Thank you for doing something so childish, so silly, but so incredibly fun with me."

Li Xu’s heart stirred. He gently tapped her on the nose. "Silly girl, our happiness is just beginning."

...

The next day, the clinic was as busy as ever.

As Li Xu and Song Sisi cleaned, they recalled the scene of the cicada hunters cursing at pieces of paper the night before and couldn’t help but exchange a smile.

"Li Xu, are we going to put up more this afternoon?"

Song Sisi blinked her big eyes, clearly not having had enough. "There were too few yesterday. I was thinking, if we could stick them all the way around the trees, the effect would be even more explosive."

Li Xu smiled and shook his head, lightly tapping her on the forehead. "You little troublemaker, are you getting addicted to mischief? We can’t go today."

"Why not?"

Song Sisi was a little disappointed.

"Those old folks are not to be trifled with. After what happened yesterday, someone is definitely going to be staking out the place this afternoon, hoping to catch the ’immoral bastard’ responsible."

Li Xu analyzed the situation. "If we go again, it won’t be a prank anymore. We’d be walking right into a trap. We could end up getting cornered and chewed out by a mob of old ladies."

"That’s true."

Song Sisi stuck out her tongue. "It’s not that I want to cause trouble, it’s just... it’s just that doing these silly things with you is really fun and a great way to de-stress."

Hearing this, Li Xu paused what he was doing, a warm feeling spreading through his heart.

Ever since they’d made their relationship official, they had spent every day together, but they were confined to this small clinic. The pattern of their lives was as monotonous as a pool of stagnant water.

Even on the rare occasions he went out, it was always by himself, venturing into the deep mountains and old forests to dig for herbs and explore.

"Sisi."

Li Xu turned around and looked at her seriously. "From now on, when I go out to gather herbs, I’ll take you with me."

"Really?" Song Sisi’s eyes instantly lit up. "You can’t take it back!"

Li Xu’s herb-gathering experiences—the snowy mountains of Qinling, the Hundred Thousand Mountains of Guangxi, and all those strange and wondrous herbs.

In her eyes, it wasn’t just gathering herbs; it was a journey filled with romance and adventure.

"I’ll never take it back."

Li Xu promised, "We’ll see the beautiful landscapes of our country together and search for the Divine Medicine that grows among the clouds."

"Yay! That’s amazing!"

Song Sisi’s smile was as radiant as a flower, her mind already picturing the two of them with backpacks, climbing a snowy mountain hand in hand.

Just then, a patient arrived.

A woman in her forties, sharply dressed but with a worried expression, walked in with a teenage boy.

The boy looked to be fifteen or sixteen. He wasn’t short, but he was a bit chubby and puffy. His eyes were especially noticeable; his eyelids were so swollen he looked like he had just been crying, which made his whole face seem bloated.

"Excuse me, are you Doctor Li?" the woman asked urgently.

"I am."

Li Xu gestured for them to sit. "What seems to be the problem?"

"This is my son, Zheng Hao. He’s a freshman in high school."

As she spoke, the woman pulled a thick stack of test reports from her bag. "Doctor Li, please take a look. My son has nephritis. He’s been treated at the City People’s Hospital for almost a month, but he’s not getting any better."

Li Xu took the medical records and began to look through them.

The medical history was recorded in detail. Three months ago, Zheng Hao had suffered from acute tonsillitis, with symptoms like a high fever and sore throat.

After treatment with Western antibiotics, his symptoms subsided. But not long after, he developed the typical symptoms of swollen eyelids and limbs, and his urine turned a deep red color like tea (gross hematuria).

The urinalysis from the City People’s Hospital showed: proteinuria (++), occult blood (+++), RBC 8-12/HPF, WBC 3-5/HPF, granular casts 0-3/LPF.

He was ultimately diagnosed with acute glomerulonephritis.

Although conventional Western treatments like diuretics, antihypertensives, and anti-infectives had reduced the boy’s swelling, his urinalysis results remained stubborn. The proteinuria and occult blood, in particular, just wouldn’t go down.

"The doctor said if he doesn’t get better soon, it might become chronic nephritis. He might even need dialysis later on..."

The woman’s voice choked with emotion. "He’s only a freshman. This is a critical time for his studies. If his health collapses, what will he do in the future?"

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