Sophia didn’t respond. In her previous life, she had grown accustomed to such doubts. People always seemed to believe that the best traditional doctors were like antiques—the older, the better. Seeing a young woman, they’d assume she lacked skill. She had witnessed scenes like this countless times and preferred to let her expertise do the talking.
“Where does it hurt?”
The man glanced at his companions suspiciously before reluctantly extending his arm, palm up. Sophia placed her fingers gently on his wrist to check his pulse. After a moment, she looked up at him with a steady, unfazed expression.
Meeting her gaze, the man felt an inexplicable chill and looked away. For some reason, the intensity of her stare seemed to cut through him as if she could see straight through his pretense.
“What’s wrong with him, doctor?” asked the taller man beside him.
Sophia looked them over, then pointed to the door and said coolly, “The door is that way. Kindly leave the same way you came.”
Surprisingly, rather than being offended, they all flushed.
The tall man chuckled awkwardly. “So, you’re saying my friend isn’t sick?”
The man who had been faking a stomachache stood up in embarrassment and began to apologize. “I’m sorry, doctor. We’re just tourists who got lost and passed by here. We saw the sign and thought we’d test you out, but we didn’t mean any harm.”
He genuinely hadn’t expected this outcome. In fact, he had a low opinion of traditional medicine, assuming practitioners would concoct an illness, even if none existed, just to prescribe months of herbal concoctions with slow effects. In contrast, he thought Western medicine’s quick fixes truly counted as real medicine.
This time, they came to the mountain to buy tea and go sightseeing. When they saw this medical clinic that seemed a bit different, they had decided to have him pretend to be ill to test it out. If the doctor recommended a bunch of medicine for a “weak stomach” or similar, they’d planned to walk out immediately. Who would’ve thought Sophia would see right through him?
“Sorry, doctor. I shouldn’t have faked an illness. I…”
“Who said you weren’t sick?” Sophia interrupted, giving him a sidelong glance.
The man froze, then smirked—exactly as he’d thought. This was typical of medicine, always finding something wrong even when you’re perfectly healthy, diagnosing vague conditions like “spleen deficiency.” Then, they’d prescribe a course of medicine for months. So, she was no different after all. He thought she was smart enough to see through his act, but it seemed he had overestimated her.
His lips curled into a mocking smile. “What’s this? Are you going to tell me I have a digestive issue and need a bunch of herbal medicine?”
Sophia could tell what he was thinking; from the moment he walked in, she knew he wasn’t there for genuine treatment. Ignoring his sarcasm, she asked, “Do you often feel pain under your right rib?”
The man was stunned, stammering, and at a loss for words.
“And at night, you sweat coldly, often vomit, have a dark tongue coating, and can’t eat anything sour?” she continued.
The man, shocked, jumped up and asked in disbelief, “How do you know?”
He did indeed suffer from those symptoms. For the past couple of years, he had visited several hospitals because of the pain in his ribs. One doctor told him he needed surgery for gallstones, but a family friend later reassured him his gallbladder was fine and surgery was unnecessary. Yet he continued to experience these symptoms with no clear diagnosis.
“Danny, she guessed right? You actually have those issues?” asked the tall man.
“Yeah! I vomit so much that you guys even joked I might be pregnant.”
The tall man recalled this and looked at Sophia with disbelief, as did the others. Sophia remained unfazed and pulled out a piece of paper, jotting something down. Danny leaned over, curious.
“Doctor, what’s wrong with me? Do I need surgery?”
“No surgery needed! Why does everything have to be surgery these days?” Sophia snapped, causing Danny to fall silent and wait as she completed the prescription. He picked up the paper and read aloud, “Asarum, Sichuan pepper, costus root… ginger juice, honey? Why honey? Doctor, what’s my illness?”
Seeing his nervousness, Sophia replied gently, “Nothing too serious—you have roundworms in your bile duct.”
“Roundworms…” Danny relaxed but then frowned. “Wait, doctor, are you saying that my vomiting and rib pain are all due to bile duct roundworms?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And this traditional medicine…”
“Follow my instructions carefully. By tomorrow morning, you might want to stay in. There’s a chance you’ll start vomiting up roundworms or… you know, the other end.”
“Oh god…” Danny, usually a tough guy, turned pale, as did his friends, horrified by the idea. “Vomit worms? Doctor, I can’t! I’ll just take modern medicine. There are ready-made anti-parasitics out there! Why take something with side effects?”
Sophia’s lips curled into a slight smile. “Suit yourself. But let me remind you—Modern anti-parasitic meds also come with a note about the occasional risk of vomiting worms.”
His face went as white as a sheet.
“…”
“How much?”
“One hundred.”
Surprisingly cheap, Danny paid and stepped out of the clinic, still pale. His friends patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. “Hang in there, brother!”
Danny felt like he was going insane—life suddenly seemed so hard!
Charging only a hundred for a prescription was a far cry from the fortune such expertise would have fetched in her previous life. But given her current circumstances, she could only take things one step at a time.
For now, there was another problem to solve: her clinic had no supply of herbal medicines.
Without herbs, she could only prescribe for patients to take elsewhere. Today’s prescription was a standard one, so it didn’t matter, but as a medicine practitioner, she had many proprietary recipes she didn’t wish to make public. Without a stock of herbs, this wouldn’t work. Sophia made a mental note to find time to procure the necessary ingredients.
