Chapter 42 An Offer to Teach

A long day at the county hospital leaves the young doctors with more than clinical results to consider.

The woman delivered safely in the end—a big, plump baby boy.

She and her dark-complexioned husband thanked Evan over and over.

The baby weighed six jin and six liang, and they insisted that Evan give him a nickname.

Unable to refuse, he settled on “Little Six.” Six jin, six liang, Little Six: that made three sixes!^[1]

The woman with uterine fibroids came running back for treatment too. Who wanted to go under the knife if they could avoid it, even for a very minor operation?

Evan and the others didn't know whether to laugh or sigh.

Evan wrote her a prescription and gave her acupuncture. She could continue her care at the county hospital; if she was still worried, she could come to Beijing to see him.

Oliver, meanwhile, was rather discouraged. He'd missed his chance. That was the difference between needles and herbs. He'd rushed the decoction over high heat, but even that couldn't match the speed of acupuncture!

The incident made Evan famous throughout the county hospital. Staff kept asking him to take their pulses. The female nurses brought him tea, water, and even fruit to eat.

Oliver was so annoyed that even two bottles of Xiaoyao Wan wouldn't have helped!^[2]

By evening, the hospital's working day was over, and their day of outreach consultations had ended too. After dinner, Evan and Oliver walked slowly back to the guesthouse with Dr. Qian.

“Wait!” someone called from behind.

They all turned. Dr. Zhao, the obstetrician, was running toward them.

They were taken aback.

He hurried up with an embarrassed smile. “Well…”

“Is something the matter, Dr. Zhao?” Dr. Qian asked.

Dr. Zhao waved his hands. “Oh, no, please. About this morning, I… I tend to speak before I think, and I offend people. Please don't hold it against me.”

Dr. Qian chuckled and shook his head. “It's all right. You were thinking of the patient. You spoke out of a sense of responsibility. A less responsible doctor might have stopped caring long before.”

Dr. Zhao scratched his head. “You're too kind. But I really learned something today. Chinese medicine is…” He gave a thumbs-up. “I used to think it was just for building up your health, treating little ailments that didn't amount to much. You could wait months and still see no effect. That was my ignorance.”

He gave Evan another thumbs-up. “Dr. Xu, you're really something!”

Evan smiled a little. “You're very kind. Chinese and Western medicine each have their strengths. What happened today gave Chinese medicine a chance to show its advantages. A vaginal birth is good for both mother and baby.”

“But when a vaginal birth really isn't possible, a cesarean is the only option. That isn't where Chinese medicine has the advantage. So we should talk to each other more and make up for one another's shortcomings.”

“Yes, yes, absolutely.” Dr. Zhao kept nodding.

Dr. Qian looked at Evan and gave a slight nod too.

After a few more courtesies, Dr. Zhao left. They had agreed that he would visit Evan in Beijing to exchange ideas.

Evan had readily agreed.

The World Health Organization had set an upper limit of fifteen percent for a country's cesarean rate. China's, however, would soar to forty-six percent, the highest in the world. The decades ahead would bring a rapid rise in cesarean births.^[3]

So it was hardly surprising that Dr. Zhao had called for a cesarean as soon as he saw a difficult labor!

It would be much later before local authorities began calling for vaginal births wherever possible.

Back at the guesthouse, Evan and Oliver took Dr. Qian to his room and were about to leave.

“If you're not in a hurry, sit for a while,” Dr. Qian said suddenly.

Evan and Oliver exchanged a look, then found chairs and sat down.

Dr. Qian remained standing. With his hands behind his back and his brow furrowed, he paced across the room and back twice.

“Never mind. Let's go downstairs for a walk.”

He opened the door and went out.

Evan and Oliver were puzzled. They didn't know what he was up to, but they followed.

Dr. Qian went downstairs and walked slowly outside the guesthouse. He led the way, with Evan and Oliver behind him, as the sky gradually darkened.

“What do you two make of what happened today?” he asked unhurriedly.

Evan and Oliver exchanged another look.

“Evan, why don't you…” Oliver began.

Evan saw through him at once. Was he going to pull that trick with the long pause again?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to NovelPhoenix for the genuine story.

He ignored him completely.

Oliver drew it out for a while before finally giving up. “I'll go first, then. Director, those two incidents today really came down to the same thing. They didn't believe Chinese medicine worked.”

“Even the woman in labor and her family only insisted on being treated by us because they were afraid of surgery and thought Chinese medicine would cost less. They didn't trust us either.”

“I don't think there's much else to say. We just have to improve our clinical results. I've always believed results are what count. Only results can win patients' trust.”

Dr. Qian offered no comment. He didn't even turn around.

“Evan, what do you have to say?”

“Actually, it doesn't make me angry when people don't trust Chinese medicine,” Evan said. “What discourages me is our own doctors.”

Oliver turned to him, puzzled.

“You'd gone to decoct the herbs, so you didn't see it. The woman's husband didn't trust me because I was young. He wanted another specialist to see her, but they…”

Oliver's face fell too. He shook his head.

Ahead of them, Dr. Qian sighed. “When a great physician treats illness, he must not hang back, weighing his own good or bad fortune or putting his own life and safety first. He must see another's suffering as his own.”^[4]

He stopped and looked up at the dim evening sky. His voice was subdued as he went on.

“Chinese medicine has been passed down for thousands of years. For thousands of years it has saved the dying and healed the injured, helped those in peril and those in need.”

“Which of the great physicians in history didn't break through at the gravest moments, snatching lives from the King of Hell by the narrowest margin? Yet now, no doctor of Chinese medicine dares treat an emergency or a serious illness.”^[5]

“Look back through the ages. Since Chinese medicine began, when has it ever been in this state? How can what we practice today be called a complete system of medicine? Is there really not one of us left who can treat emergencies and serious illnesses?”

For a moment, Oliver didn't know what to say. He felt bitterly frustrated. Everyone saw doctors of Chinese medicine as people who merely built up your health, taking months to produce any results.

They had no part in emergency care. None in treating serious illnesses either. They were like health supplements lingering on the margins of medicine. What a humiliation. How could that be called a complete system of medicine?

“There still are…” Evan couldn't help saying.

He had been about to go on when the system suddenly warned him!

Dr. Qian turned around. “Who?” he asked urgently.

Evan looked west, as though he could see across a thousand miles of mountains and rivers to that venerable doctor with his head of silver hair.

“There are still… people holding Chinese medicine together…” he said with feeling.

“Let's hope so.” Dr. Qian took it as no more than a wistful remark. He looked at the two of them seriously.

“But what you two have shown me gives me some hope for Chinese medicine. Would you be willing to study medicine under me?”^[6]

Reader Notes

1. ↩︎ Little Six. A jin in the modern mainland system is 500 grams, divided into ten liang. Six jin and six liang therefore means 3.3 kilograms. Keeping the Chinese units preserves the joke: the two sixes in the weight gain a third in the nickname, Xiao Liu, “Little Six.” In contemporary Chinese internet language, 666 also expresses admiration through a sound-play on liu, suggesting skill or smooth performance. That modern echo belongs to the novel's humor, rather than establishing internet slang as a custom in 1979. Sources: China Weighing Instrument Association — The 1959 decimal reform (in Chinese); Cui Zhenghan — A study of number expressions in news, April 3, 2024, page 2 (in Chinese).
2. ↩︎ Xiaoyao Wan. As in the earlier frustration jokes, this names a Chinese herbal pill preparation traditionally associated with easing Liver constraint, nourishing blood, and supporting the Spleen. Those terms refer to the traditional functional framework introduced earlier. Here the narrator borrows that association to exaggerate Oliver's annoyance at Evan receiving all the attention. The two bottles are part of the joke; the passage does not say that Oliver took them or give a dose. Source: Luohu District Market Regulation Bureau — Xiaoyao Wan and its traditional functions (in Chinese).
3. ↩︎ The narrator's statistics. This aside looks beyond the scene's 1979 setting. The historical 10–15 percent benchmark dates to 1985; WHO's 2015 statement does not prescribe a national or hospital target. The often-quoted Chinese figure of 46.2 percent came from a 2007–2008 sample of 21 hospitals in three provinces. A later nationwide study reported 28.8 percent for 2008 and 34.9 percent for 2014. The novel's rounded figure and worldwide ranking remain its retrospective generalization; that hospital sample does not establish either a 1979 national rate or a worldwide ranking. Population percentages also cannot determine what an individual patient needs. Sources: WHO — The historical benchmark; WHO — Questions about national and hospital rates; Li et al. — Cesarean delivery rates in China, 2008–2014.
4. ↩︎ The great physician's duty. Dr. Qian quotes the same passage from Sun Simiao's “On the Absolute Sincerity of Great Physicians” that Evan recalled earlier. It belongs to the opening of the Beiji Qianjin Yaofang and asks the physician to put the sufferer's need before personal advantage or fear. “As his own” adds the passage's demand for empathy. The English follows the novel's shortened quotation, preserving its ethical appeal without adding the rest of the classical passage to Dr. Qian's speech. Source: Sun Simiao — “Dayi Jingcheng,” electronic transcription (in Chinese).
5. ↩︎ The King of Hell. Yan Wang, or Yanluo, is a judge of the dead in Chinese traditions of the underworld, related to the figure called Yama. Chinese art often presents him within a group of ten kings who judge the deceased. Dr. Qian's image of wresting a life from him gives the struggle against death a familiar human opponent. It is figurative language in his speech; it does not introduce an actual supernatural encounter or independently establish his historical and medical claims. Source: Nara National Museum, e-Museum — The Ten Kings of Hell: King Yanluo.
6. ↩︎ Studying under a physician. The title's Chinese word, shoutu, means taking on a disciple or apprentice. In this medical context, the relationship concerns learning a senior physician's methods, judgment, and clinical experience through personal instruction. It carries the weight of transmitting a tradition as well as teaching techniques. The chapter ends with an offer; it has not yet shown an answer or any ceremony. The modern source describes this form of clinical mentorship, without supplying rules for the story's historical setting. Source: National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine — Clinical mentorship, articles 3, 6, and 15–16 (in Chinese).