Medical Sovereign

Xiaoyu, who was beside her, looked dumbstruck and lost. She thought, “I’m doomed. I’m doomed. I finally meet a handsome and cool guy, but he wants to hook up with Jingjing.”

God, it seemed that she must stay away from Jingjing. Otherwise she could never meet a guy who liked her, not to mention a boyfriend.

Ding Ning was so annoyed that he almost burst into laughter. This girl was really insane, narcissistic and silly. He didn’t know what made her so confident that she believed that he would fall in love with her.

He, who was speechless, waved the book in his hand and gnashed his teeth in anger, “Psycho, listen to me, I have no interest in a countrified girl, who has no boobs and butt, like you. It has nothing to do with you that I read fast. Besides, I was not looking at you, but looking at the Notes of Basic Theories of Traditional Chinese Medicine in your hands and wondering when you would return it. People, who keep a book without reading it, like you are very unethical. Do you know that? A dog in the manger is used to describe someone like you.”

“You…you…you are the countrified girl with no boobs and butt!”

Zhao Jingjing looked at Ding Ning’s serious face. From the perspective of psychology, she could tell that he did not lie. Therefore, she immediately realized that she had made a big mistake. With her face burning hot, she flew into a shameful rage and cursed feebly.

“A wise man won’t argue with a woman. I have no time to talk nonsense with you. You are wasting my time. See you!”

Ding Ning turned around impatiently and said without turning his head, “Oh, no, see you no longer!”

“Wow, he is so cool and handsome. Jingjing, you don’t want such a good man? If you don’t want him, I’ll pursue him.”

With her head tilted, Xiaoyu lost herself in looking at Ding Ning who was carefully reading a book. There was a sparkle in her eyes.

“Humph, he’s just pretending. What’s the big deal? Anthomaniac, let’s go. You consider it not shameful enough?”

Zhao Jingjing was ashamed and resentful. She glared at Ding Ning, who just ignored them, with hatred, grabbed her backpack, walked away in anger and cursed grumpily.

“Hey! Wait for me!”

Xiaoyu was reluctant to leave and turned around in every a few steps. Until she couldn’t see Ding Ning, she ran to chase Zhao Jingjing.

Finally, it became quiet!

Ding Ning smiled, looked at the time and found that there was not much time left. He immediately put this incident out of his mind and concentrated on reviewing the basic knowledge of modern traditional Chinese medicine.

At 2:50 in the afternoon, as soon as Ding Ning entered the examination room, he noticed a knife-like gaze was fiercely fixed on him.

Looking up, he found that it was from the untidy psycho woman. It made him slightly stunned. He didn’t expect that she was also a candidate for this exam.

Ignoring her murderous gaze, he sat in his position with no expression, while keeping digesting the “duck-stuffing” type of knowledge in his mind.

A man in charge of the examination, who wore glasses and was in his thirties, went up to the platform and said, “Everybody, calm down. This exam is a professional exam. I hope everyone can show your true level…”

After very inspirational opening remarks, the examiner began to hand out the test papers. The examiner suddenly said, “Ding Ning, pack things and go with me.”

“Teacher, aren’t we going to take the exam?”

Ding Ning looked up at him in astonishment, not knowing why he asked him out at the moment.

With a meaningful smile, the examiner said, “You are not going to take the exam here, but take the exam in another place.”

“Another place?”

Ding Ning was confused and didn’t know what he meant. Others were also confused and didn’t know what was going on.

“Go with me, and you will know.” The examiner urged him impatiently.

“Well, I know!”

Ding Ning had to pack the pen he had just put on the table again and walked outside the classroom.

“What the h*ll, what’s going on? Could it be possible that he has pulled strings?”

“I heard that this exam was specially held for a specific student. Wouldn’t it be that guy?”

“I’m not sure, but this guy seemingly has powerful connections. Will he pass directly without taking the exam?”

“Probably not. Without taking the exam? No one dares to do that. There are rules.”

“Keep quiet. Keep quiet. Focus on your exam. Don’t care about things that are not related to you. Don’t whisper into each other’s ears. Don’t talk casually. Otherwise, I’ll consider you were cheating!”

…

The candidates suddenly discussed animatedly, wondering what the examiner was going to do, but was severely stopped by the invigilators.

Zhao Jingjing seemed to be thinking. It was impossible to allow him to be excused from the exam. Could it be possible that they were going to increase the difficulty of this guy’s exam?

Well, surely it was. Anyway, this guy was so popular on the Internet recently.

She thought, “You kept seeking the limelight. Humph, you deserve it. I hope that you fail to be admitted. How dare you say that I have no boobs and butt.”

Looking down at her small boobs, she instantly felt a little discouraged and hung her head. It… it seemed that her boobs were a bit flat, but she had a very upright butt. The guy had a poor vision.

She thought, “Ah, as a beautiful girl who is the collection of beauty and wisdom, even if my boobs are flat, what does it matter?”

After a fierce mental struggle, Zhao Jingjing soon found a point of self-balancing, once again became valiant, and began to answer questions with dedication.

“My name is Li Hongchun. I am a lecturer of traditional Chinese medicine at the medical school. Mr. Hu Xinning is my teacher.”

The examiner and Ding Ning walked side by side. He adjusted the glasses on his nose without looking sideways and said in a very low voice.

Ding Ning looked at him in astonishment and was about to talk, but was interrupted by Li Hongchun, “Don’t talk, and listen to me. My teacher asked me to tell you to do your best later, and there is no harm but benefits to you.”

Ding Ning nodded thoughtfully, indicating that he understood. Although he had not figured out what was going on, he completely trusted Mr. Hu and believed that he would never deceive him.

Li Hongchun no longer talked, sped up his footsteps and became expressionless again, as if he didn’t say the previous words.

Ding Ning silently followed Li Hongchun all the way to the experimental building. There was an old man, who was nearly seventy years old with rosy cheeks, standing in front of the door with his hands at his back.

Li Hongchun respectfully stepped forward and said, “Principal Lu, Ding Ning is here.”

Ding Ning was stunned. It turned out that this old man was Lu Hanbo, the principal of Ninghai University who rarely showed up. He was a person who enjoyed deputy ministerial-level treatment.

Ding Ning felt flattered and stepped forward to greet him, “Principal Lu, how do you do. I am Ding Ning!”

Ding Ning did that not because of his status as a deputy minister, but out of his inner respect for this old man who had devoted himself to education.

“Hmm!”

Principal Lu responded lightly. He slightly squinted at Ding Ning without showing any emotion and said lightly, “Follow me.”

Ding Ning respectfully responded “Yes” and followed Principal Lu to a room. Meanwhile, Li Hongchun returned along the original path without saying a word, as if he didn’t know Ding Ning.

On both sides of the room, there were all shelves against the wall. The shelves were filled with various Chinese herbal medicines and strongly herbal fragrance. There was an old-fashioned desk in the middle, and a medicine scale and four treasures of the study (writing brush, ink stick, ink slab and paper) on the desk.

Principal Lu did not say anything, turned and left the room. When Ding Ning was confused, an electronic voice suddenly sounded in the room, “Four liang of fuling, two liters of kernel, half a jin of paeonia lactiflora, three liang of dry ginger, half a jin of roasted citron fruit, a jin of peeled rhubarb, six liang of talc, a foot of roasted bark of magnolia, one liter of almond, three liang of licorice, three liang of asarum, half a liter of schisandra…”

Ding Ning, who was reminded by Li Hongchun, knew that the exam had begun. He did not hesitate to start to fill the prescription. He did that very fast and didn’t need to weigh the medicinal herbs. It took him less than a minute to take the medicinal herbs mentioned by the electronic voice and pile them on the old-fashioned desk.

The room became silent. Ding Ning stood there patiently. He glanced over at the room and found that there were cameras installed at six different angles in the room.

There came hurried footsteps outside the door. A vigorous old man, whose beard, hair and eyebrows were all white, pushed the door and walked in.

He glanced at the medicinal materials on the table, frowned, and looked at Ding Ning with a trace of doubt in his eyes. He questioned Ding Ning arrogantly, “Why didn’t you weigh them?”

Ding Ning slightly frowned, stared at him without humbling himself and showing disrespect, and said with incomparable confidence, “I didn’t need to weigh them since I was eight years old!”

“You are such a wildly arrogant young man.”

The old man wrinkled his eyebrows, twitched his eyes and began to weigh these Chinese medicines one by one with his face darkening, while saying, “A jin of peeled rhubarb, six liang of talc, a foot of roasted bark of magnolia…”

As the old man weighed the medicinal materials one by one, he, who was expressionless at the beginning, became slightly astonished and shocked in the end. He incredulously opened his mouth, “All of them are correct with no deviation even one gram.”

He suddenly turned and stared at Ding Ning, with fervor and surprise in his eyes, “How did you do that?”

“Nothing but skilled in that.” Ding Ning replied lightly.

The old man twitched his eyes, squinted at Ding Ning, stroked his white beard and said with a sneer, “The assessment is not over yet, continue!

The electronic tone sounded again, “Make up three prescriptions with the Chinese medicines you took, and add detailed comments of their sources and explanation.”

Ding Ning did not say anything. He soon divided the medicinal materials on the table into three parts, thought for a while, picked up the goat-hair brush and dipped it in ink and began to write in an unrestrained way.

The old man couldn’t help but go forward. As he watched the unrestrained characters, which had a unique style and were powerful enough to permeate the paper, on the prescription written by Ding Ning, his eyes suddenly lit up and he secretly praised Ding Ning for his good writing.

Six to One Powder: From the Treatment of Typhoid. Six liang of talc, a liang of licorice. Effects: clear summer heat and excrete dampness. Indications: syndrome of summer dampness, body heat and polydipsia, difficult urination, or diarrhea. This syndrome is caused by summer heat and humidity. Summer is yang pathogen, internally connected to the heart and harming the body with summer heat, so the patient feels hot, upset and thirsty. The moist heat goes down is harmful to the bladder, so it makes urination difficult. The summer dampness permeates the large intestine and causes diarrhea…

Soup of fuling, schisandra ginger and asarum: From the Synopsis of Prescriptions of the Golden Chamber. Four liang of fuling, three liang of licorice, three liang of dried ginger, three liang of asarum, half a liter of schisandra. Effects: Warm the lung and resolve retained fluid. Indications: Syndrome of the internal suspension of cold fluid. The patient coughs, spits much sputum which is white and clear, likes spitting saliva, feels the chest full and has asthma, white and slippery tongue coating, sunken pulse, etc. This syndrome is caused by spleen and stomach lacking vital energy, failing to perform the function in transport and conversion, dampness gathering into fluid, cold fluid harming the lung. Cold fluid harms the lung, the lung’s function declines, so the patient coughs and spits much sputum, which is white and clear. The spleen is insufficient and cold fluid does not converse, so the patient likes spitting saliva. The sputum gathers and the breath is obstructed, so the patient feels the chest full and has asthma. White and slippery tongue coating and sunken pulse are the syndrome of cold sputum…

Hemp Seed Pill: From the Treatise on Febrile Diseases. Two liters of the kernel, half a jin of paeonia lactiflora, half a jin of roasted citron fruit, a jin of peeled rhubarb, a foot of roasted bark of magnolia, a liter of almond. Peel them, remove their tips, stew them and remove the grease. Effects: loosen the bowels to relieve constipation.

Indications: Gastrointestinal heat is the syndrome of constipation. Dry stool, frequent urination, red tongue, little saliva, fine rapid pulse. This syndrome is caused by gastrointestinal heat and no fluid in the spleen. The syndrome is called “restrained spleen and constipation” in Treatise on Febrile Diseases. The heat of the intestines and the spleen, the spleen is restrained with no fluid, the bladder is unfunctional, and so the urination is frequent. The intestines lose dampness, which causes constipation…

Ding Ning wrote the three prescriptions at one stroke, and made full use of the medicinal materials. The old man examined it for a while, put it down with a blank expression and said lightly, “You’ve gone through the first pass. Go out and turn right into the third room.”

Ding Ning slightly bowed to show his respect and went out according to his words.

The old man shook his head with a bitter smile towards the monitor, took out a small book from his pocket and used his pen to record carefully: Full marks in clinical distinguishing medicinal materials, recognizing medicinal materials, filling prescriptions, giving prescriptions, explaining prescriptions!

Note: His specialty is filling prescriptions with hands without any error. He’s a rare talent.

Signature: Lin Zongming.