An unexpected windfall puts Evan in a remarkably good mood.
Early the next morning, Evan got up, brushed his teeth, and checked the system. He grinned. Overnight, he'd gained almost two years' worth of acceleration. Now that was more like it!
There had to be a bug in the system. His Weibo post still had only thirty-odd views. By his earlier calculations, that should have earned him just a few minutes.
He only hoped the bug would last a little longer…
He had also started taking Xiaoyao Wan, the pill form of Xiaoyao San. Xiaoyao San came from the Song-dynasty Taiping Huimin Heji Jufang, the imperial pharmacy's formulary. It was a modification of the classical physician Zhang Zhongjing's Sini San. Its main use was to treat Liver constraint.[1]
His low spirits had eased considerably. With the medicine helping too, his Liver constraint was much better.
Evan finished washing up and left for work. As usual, he bought two steamed buns at the entrance to his residential compound. When he reached Mingxin Clinic, Clara was already there.
“Morning, Clara. What's happened to you?” he asked, surprised.
Her eyes were bloodshot, her complexion poor. She looked utterly drained, her hair a little untidy and the dark circles beneath her eyes enormous. She turned her phone face down and greeted him.
“Morning.”
“Didn't sleep well?” Evan asked.
Clara nodded. “It was all right.”
“Make sure you get some rest.”
“I know,” she said.
Evan went to his seat to eat his buns.
Clara picked up her phone and started chatting again.
Evan watched happily as the system kept sending him speed-up packs. This bug was really lasting…
Ben arrived soon afterward.
Careless? Not Me: You're so handsome. Do you really not have a girlfriend?
Lonely Dr. Xu: Why do you think I've been behaving myself? I've been waiting for you.
Careless? Not Me: You're terrible!
Lonely Dr. Xu: All right, I'd better go. Time for work.
Careless? Not Me: What are you good at treating, handsome?
Lonely Dr. Xu: Period pain!
Careless? Not Me: Really? Mine is awful every time. It hurts so much.
Lonely Dr. Xu: Then come over and let me help. It works pretty well. Everyone who's tried it says so.
Careless? Not Me: How many girls have you helped? Hmph!
Lonely Dr. Xu: However many I've treated, it was only to make myself better, so the best version of me could meet you right now…
Careless? Not Me: Hmph!
Lonely Dr. Xu: Remember to come. You can't put off dealing with period pain. The sooner we treat it, the sooner you'll be better. Once it really starts hurting, there's nothing we can do.
Careless? Not Me: I'll come over in a bit, then.
Lonely Dr. Xu: Good. Just remember, you mustn't say we met on Tan Tan.
Careless? Not Me: Why?
Lonely Dr. Xu: The people at our clinic are so annoying. Especially this middle-aged doctor. He's such a gossip. If he finds out, he'll tell everyone. That wouldn't be good.
Careless? Not Me: Got it. I'll say I came because of your reputation!
Lonely Dr. Xu: Thanks. Mwah.
…
Clara put down her phone and glanced guiltily at Ben.
He was playing Dou Dizhu. Noticing her looking, he turned and gave her a small smile.[2]
Clara gave him a guilty, unconvincing smile in return, then quickly lowered her head and patted her ample chest.
She picked up her phone and went back to promoting the clinic.
Every woman had experienced period pain. There was an enormous market for it; Clara simply had no money for advertising.[3]
Where were all the young women? On dating apps, of course. They were nearby, they were young, and surely they all had period pain. Just think of the market!
The best part was how cheap it was. She'd spent only a few dozen yuan. Evan's good looks were doing all the work. If she'd used Ben instead—well, that would have been a complete waste.
Clara had wanted to promote the clinic properly. But on a dating app, who would come unless you sweet-talked them? Otherwise they'd think you were a scammer. Somehow, while she was coaxing them along, her sales pitches had turned into sweet nothings.
She hadn't expected the sweet talk to cause trouble. Who knew love on a dating app could happen so suddenly?
It had caught her completely unprepared.
Last night had been quite a success. Overnight, Evan had become a player with dozens of girlfriends. Clara was starting to feel distinctly nervous.
“Dr. Xu!” a young woman's voice called from the doorway.
Evan had his head down over a medical book. He looked up at the call and saw a very young, frail-looking woman. He paused in surprise.
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“Hello.”
She looked him up and down. In person, he was even handsomer than in the photos, even more melancholy, and somehow more striking. She bit her lower lip gently, a little thrill running through her…
Clara studied her face and tried to remember. Which one was this? She'd added so many people she couldn't keep track.
She hurriedly opened the app and searched through them one by one…
Little Octopus!
The very first one!
Little Octopus came in and gave Evan a shy look. Then she glanced farther back at the annoying, gossipy middle-aged doctor, hard at work on Dou Dizhu.
“Dr. Xu, I've heard so much about you!” she announced loudly. “I've come to have you help me get well.”
She raised her eyebrows at Evan: there, she'd said exactly what he'd told her to.
Evan was puzzled. Why the raised eyebrows?
Clara felt even guiltier.
Ben glanced up from his card game. His brow furrowed deeply, and he immediately lost all interest in playing. Evan's schemes went deeper than he'd thought. Did the fake patients never stop coming?
He stared at Little Octopus for a while. A perfectly decent young woman—of all the things she could do, she had to be a shill!
Little Octopus pursed her lips. What an unpleasant way to look at someone. No wonder Dr. Xu disliked him and called him a middle-aged gossip. Hmph. Nasty man.
“Here, have a seat,” Evan said. “What's wrong? Where do you feel unwell?”
“Well, I've come because of your reputation, so of course I'm here for my period pain!” she said loudly.
Evan was quietly relieved. “All right. No problem.”
Little Octopus raised her eyebrows at him again, smiling as if to say, You know what I mean.
Clara watched from the side, guilty and tense.
Evan was confused. Why did this girl keep raising her eyebrows? Was something wrong with her? A spasm?
The Liver governed the sinews. If Liver blood was insufficient, it could fail to nourish them, leading to numb limbs, difficulty bending and straightening, or trembling hands and feet. Severe cases could involve spasms and tremors. Could excessive pathogenic heat be scorching the Liver's sinews and depleting Liver yin, causing the hands and feet to twitch?[4]
No, that wasn't right either. Even when internal Liver wind caused spasms, they affected the limbs and made the neck rigid. He'd never seen anyone keep raising their eyebrows.
He couldn't make sense of it.
Evan put the question aside for now. “What does it feel like when you have period pain?”
“I'm just so tired,” Little Octopus said in a sugary voice. “And dizzy, with a headache, and my heart flutters. My tummy hurts too. It just goes on and on without stopping. It's so miserable…”
“Does pressing on it make it feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Does it hurt before your period or afterward? How heavy is the bleeding? Are your periods regular? What color is the blood? Any clots?”
“It doesn't really hurt much when my period comes. It's worse afterward. There's not much blood. It usually comes a week early, and the color's quite pale. Clots… hardly any, I think.”
Evan looked at her complexion again. It was pale. It looked like a pattern of qi and blood deficiency.[5]
As Taichan Zhengzhi put it: “When the menses have ceased and aching pain returns to the lower back, the sea of blood is empty, and qi fails to hold firm.”[6]
Pain after the period was usually a sign of deficiency: inadequate nourishment caused pain. With qi and blood deficient, there was less blood, so naturally the menstrual flow was scanty. Her qi and blood were already weak, and menstruation depleted them even further. They could no longer rise to nourish the brain, hence the dizziness and headaches.
An early period could also be connected with insufficient qi and blood. Deficient qi lacked the strength to contain the blood. Without that restraint, menstruation came early.
Evan nodded to himself. “Let me see your tongue.”
Little Octopus stuck out her little tongue.
He frowned. “Don't bunch it up. Let it relax.”
“Oh.”
He recorded his findings. Her tongue was pale too, another sign of qi and blood deficiency.
“Give me your hand. I'll take your pulse.”
“Okay.” She obediently held it out.
Evan reached over and located the three wrist positions, cun, guan, and chi. Before he could begin taking her pulse, Little Octopus suddenly bent her hand and secretly scratched his palm twice with her little finger.[7]
Evan was taken aback.
Little Octopus bit her lip, blushing and giggling to herself.
Just then, another woman appeared at the door.
“Excuse me… does Dr. Evan Xu work here?”
Clara looked over at the voice and sucked in a breath.
Holy shit. Two queens, face to face!
Reader Notes
↩︎ Three formula names. As in the previous chapter, wan identifies pills, while san names a powder formula; a powder formula may also be prepared as a decoction. Hong Kong Baptist University's database places Xiaoyao San in Taiping Huimin Heji Jufang, translated there as Formulas from the Imperial Pharmacy, and Sini San in Shang Han Lun, the Treatise on Cold Damage. The novel describes the former as an adaptation of the latter. The entries support their respective textual sources and traditional uses, but do not establish that direct historical relationship. Liver constraint is the traditional pattern discussed earlier, rather than simply another name for feeling unhappy. Sources: HKBU — Xiao Yao San; HKBU — Si Ni San.
↩︎ Dou Dizhu. The phone game seen in earlier chapters is based on a three-player card game, with one “landlord” playing against the other two players. Ben's absorption in it supplies the contrast with Evan's medical reading. The game name does not establish that Ben is gambling for cash. Source: JJ Games — Dou Dizhu rules (in Chinese).
↩︎ Period pain and Clara's market. Dysmenorrhea is the medical name for painful menstruation. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists describes it in over half of menstruating women, commonly lasting a day or two each cycle. That is different from Clara's assumption that every young woman she contacts must have it. The passage follows her increasingly reckless sales logic. The assurances sent from the account are Clara's promotional claims, including her claim that nothing can be done once pain starts; they are not conclusions supplied by this source. Source: ACOG — Dysmenorrhea: Painful Periods.
↩︎ Liver, sinews, and internal wind. In this traditional framework, the Liver is a functional system associated with storing blood and nourishing the sinews, the tissues involved in movement. “Wind” names a category of disturbances involving movement, including tremors and spasms; it is not air traveling inside the body. Heat and deficient yin or blood enter the traditional explanations of these patterns. Evan runs through that vocabulary because he mistakes a social signal for a possible symptom. His questions do not establish a neurological or Liver disorder in this patient. Source: WHO — Chinese medicine terminology, entries 138, 143, 432, 1237, and 1258.
↩︎ Qi and blood deficiency. This traditional pattern combines diminished functional strength, described as qi deficiency, with inadequate nourishment by blood. Pale complexion and tongue, fatigue, dizziness, and palpitations belong to its descriptive vocabulary. Evan connects the timing and amount of menstrual bleeding with two traditional ideas: insufficient nourishment can cause pain, and qi helps contain blood. His conclusion is a pattern assessment, not a laboratory finding of anemia. The individual links between these ideas and this patient's symptoms remain his clinical reasoning; the terminology standard defines the categories without proving that reasoning. Source: WHO — Chinese medicine terminology, entries 434, 442, and 1122.
↩︎ The sea of blood.Taichan Zhengzhi is the Chinese title given by the novel, approximately “Patterns and Treatments for Pregnancy and Childbirth.” In traditional reproductive theory, the sea of blood is an image associated with the Chong Vessel and the supply of menstrual blood. “Empty” describes depletion within that framework. The quotation connects pain after bleeding with that depletion; it does not report a measurement of blood volume. The English is translated from the novel's quotation. Its exact wording and location in an independently checked edition remain unverified. Source for the concept: WHO — Chinese medicine terminology, entry 2953, printed p. 403.
↩︎ Cun, guan, and chi. These are three adjacent positions used to feel the radial pulse at the wrist, not three separate arteries. The familiar examination is interrupted here before Evan obtains or reports a pulse finding. Source: WHO — Chinese medicine terminology, entry 883.