The Daoist Physician of the Great Ming: Two Books I Wrote

In the autumn of the 17th year of Hongwu, a medical clinic quietly opened in the south of Jinling. Its owner, Shen Yan, a disciple of Lingbao Daoist medicine, wore a blue cloth robe and carried a silver needle to travel the world. He did not prescribe cures for the state, nor did he refine elixirs to seek immortality; he only did one thing—wait for people to come. He waited for the old minister of rites, who was furious and had a heart attack, to settle his pulse with three needles; he waited for the lonely ghost of the former dynasty, who had wept for thirty years in an old residence, to sit quietly for a night and send them away from suffering; he waited for the deputy general with a leg pain of sixteen years, to pull out the soldier's evil spirit from his bone with a needle. He had a public notebook called "Stories of the Ming Dynasty," recording folk medical cases and court secrets, which later historians revered as the first-hand treasure of Ming history. He also had a private notebook never shown to others, called "Mystical Arts to Aid the Mortal World," which hid the true 'root cause' of the Ming Dynasty's three hundred years. From Jinling to Beijing, from Hongwu to Chongzhen, he did not become an official, did not take sides, did not seek fame; he only guarded a medical clinic, pulling up those who fell in every storm. Until the sun set on Coal Hill, he closed the last page of his notebook and extinguished the last lamp. In the 34th year of Guangxu, when Beijing's walls were being demolished, an iron box was dug out from the old wall's interlayer, containing two manuscripts. One caused a sensation in the historical world; the other's whereabouts were unknown—some said it never left its owner. For three hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, the sky darkened, but the lamp remained lit. — Description from novelcodex.org