Chinese Medicine: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 635: Chapter 635: Key Point

Li Xu continued, "If it were a case of ’excess fire,’ it would usually mean your stomach fire is flaring up. But that’s not your problem."

"Because if it were really just a simple case of excessive stomach fire, why didn’t you see any results from all the Huang Lian Shangqing Tablets, chrysanthemum tea, and other cooling, fire-purging medicines you took? In fact, why did you feel even worse the more you took them?"

"That right there is the key."

"It’s because you were overworking your mind and body during that period. In Chinese medicine, we say ’overtaxing the mind depletes the blood.’ This depleted your heart-yin, causing a deficient fire to be generated internally. On top of that, you were going out for business, drinking a lot of alcohol, and eating rich, greasy foods. Alcohol creates damp-heat, and rich meats create phlegm. When you overindulge, you’re bound to accumulate damp-heat and phlegm-turbidity in your body."

"When this internally generated deficient fire met the externally introduced damp-heat, they combined and steamed upward, rushing straight to your head and face. That’s when your tooth started to ache."

"Our teeth are considered the surplus qi of the bones, governed by the kidneys. But our gums are different. The upper gum belongs to the Stomach Meridian of Foot-Yangming, and the lower gum belongs to the Large Intestine Meridian of Hand-Yangming."

"When I took your pulse just now, your left side was mostly normal, but your right side had a wiry and long pulse. This pulse indicates that the problem is located in the lower and middle jiao, and it’s often caused by phlegm-damp stagnation. This tells me your stomach qi isn’t descending, which means the qi in your intestines isn’t descending either."

"Normally, stomach qi is supposed to descend, pushing the food you eat downward. But right now, your stomach qi is rising instead of descending. It’s like the vent on a pressure cooker is blocked, and the pressure can only force its way up. When it does, the fire rises with the qi, getting trapped in your gums. Of course your gums are swollen and painful."

"At this point, simply clearing heat is useless. The flow of qi is in disarray. You clear a little bit of fire, and more qi from below just pushes more fire right back up, endlessly. It’s like trying to stop a pot from boiling by scooping out the hot water; it’s better to remove the firewood from under the pot."

"That’s also why the heat-clearing medicine you took before didn’t work. The key to treatment is to first make the stomach qi descend! We need to redirect this rebellious upward-flowing qi and guide it downward. Once the qi flows smoothly, the fire will naturally follow it down. Then we can follow up with some herbs to clear heat and resolve dampness to clean up the battlefield, and you should see results."

Liu Shaohua was completely stunned. Although he didn’t quite understand the technical jargon, it all sounded very logical. "Oh... so that’s how it is. In that case, Dr. Li, please prescribe me something to help the qi descend."

Hu Qiming, listening on the side, was dumbfounded. He silently crossed out "blazing stomach fire" in his notebook and wrote "stomach qi failing to descend, damp-heat steaming upward" instead.

’My skills are still so far behind Li Xu’s.’

’This is the ability to see the essence of a problem through its superficial symptoms.’

Li Xu finished writing the prescription. It was primarily a modified Banxia Xiexin Tang, with a heavy dose of Banxia and Magnolia Bark to counter the qi’s rebellious ascent, complemented by Huang Lian and Huang Qin to clear heat and dry dampness.

"Go over there to get your medicine."

Liu Shaohua took the prescription and walked over to the medicine cabinet.

Song Sisi started preparing his herbs.

With nothing to do, Liu Shaohua looked around.

Suddenly, his gaze fell upon a display rack next to the medicine cabinet.

On it were several bottles of simply packaged shampoo—the very same "Ding’s Natural Herbal Shampoo."

"Huh?" Liu Shaohua pointed at the bottles in surprise. "You carry this kind of shampoo?"

Song Sisi, while expertly weighing the herbs, casually asked, "What’s the matter? You know about this shampoo?"

Liu Shaohua curled his lip in disgust. "Of course I know about it. This stuff is getting torn to shreds online recently. It’s basically public enemy number one."

Then, he said with a hint of pride, "I’m actually in that line of work. We recently took on a big job to specifically write code and use software to generate massive numbers of comments to smear this shampoo—saying it causes cancer, hair loss... we make up the most disgusting things we can think of."

"I’ve been hammering away at my keyboard for this job the last few days. At least half of those nasty reviews were generated by my software."

After saying his piece, he even asked, "Is the shampoo really that bad? I see you have it on display here. Don’t tell me you guys got scammed into buying it too?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, the air in the entire clinic seemed to freeze.

Song Sisi’s hand, in the middle of preparing herbs, froze mid-air. She slowly turned her head and glared at Liu Shaohua, furious flames flickering in her eyes.

Li Xu and Hu Qiming also snapped their heads around, their gazes shooting toward Liu Shaohua like lightning.

Being stared at by the three of them made Liu Shaohua’s hair stand on end. He shrank back and stammered, "What’s wrong? D-did I say something wrong?"

Li Xu didn’t speak.

Hu Qiming spoke for him. "Do you know who manufactures this shampoo?"

Liu Shaohua replied as if it were obvious, "Of course I do. Ding’s Pharmaceutical Factory! I heard they used to be pretty famous. Looks like they crashed and burned trying to cross over into a new industry."

Hu Qiming asked again, "Then did you know... that Doctor Li is a major shareholder in Ding’s Pharmaceutical Factory? And that the formula for this shampoo was developed by Doctor Li himself?"

"Huh?"

Liu Shaohua was completely and utterly floored.

His jaw dropped. He looked from the shampoo bottles to the grim-faced Li Xu sitting behind the desk, and a deafening buzz seemed to explode in his head.

’Doctor Li... is a shareholder?’

’He developed the formula?’

’Then everything I just said... doesn’t that mean...’

"I... I..."

Liu Shaohua stammered, a cold sweat instantly breaking out on his skin.

He finally realized what he’d done. He had just walked right up to the main target and confessed everything.

And he had even bragged to the man’s face about how he was smearing him.

’What kind of epic social suicide is this?!’

More importantly, he had not only admitted to being part of a smear campaign, but he had also admitted to using technical means to spread malicious rumors. This was an attempt to completely destroy someone!

He was sick with regret.

’If I had known, I would have asked the client for more details.’

’I never expected...’

"D-Doctor Li, I... I really didn’t know."

Liu Shaohua stammered, "If I’d known this was your business, I never would have taken this job, no matter what. Everyone knows how skilled you are..."

He apologized profusely, his words a jumbled mess.

Li Xu shook his head. "You haven’t just offended me. You’ve broken the law, do you understand? This is commercial defamation. It’s cybercrime."

Liu Shaohua’s face was a mask of misery, and he looked like he was about to cry. "Doctor Li, I had no choice. The economy is bad right now, the IT industry is facing serious layoffs... I was just trying to make a living, earn a little extra cash... I really know I was wrong. Please, forgive me just this once. I can return the money, how about that?"

Li Xu looked at his pathetic state. Although he was angry, he knew this kind of person was just a pawn being used by someone else.

The real mastermind was the one who posted the job.

"I can forgive you," Li Xu said lightly. "But you need to do one thing for me."

"What is it? Tell me! As long as I don’t go to jail, I’ll do anything."

Liu Shaohua clung to his words like a lifeline.

"Cooperate with us and provide evidence."

Li Xu said, "Hand over all your records for the job, the other party’s contact information, the transaction records, and the source code for that comment-generating software of yours. We’re going to catch the real mastermind behind this."

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