Chapter Thirteen: The Road Encounters the Sick

  In the evening, I had dinner at Li Quan's house. Li Quan's family is not bad off and has a suite of rooms in Fuzhou City. They have long been settled down with their own business, and their son is already attending kindergarten.

  Li Quan was thoroughly impressed by Chu Jiaqiang, and his words actually struck a chord with many people who were stuck in the lower rungs of society, unable to climb up. However, most people chose to numb themselves instead. They too felt helpless, as the pressure of life made them lose the heart to resist.

  The next morning, Chu Jiaqiang cleaned up his belongings and took everything that was still usable. If it were in the past, Chu Jiaqiang would have been afraid of the trouble. But now with the Shanhe Map, putting things inside made it extremely convenient. He then went to the landlord's place to return the house, leaving without any attachment.

  Sitting in the car, Chu Jiaqiang looked a bit drowsy. Suddenly, the car slammed on the brakes, startling many passengers, who questioned the driver to express their dissatisfaction.

  Chu Jiaqiang looked out of the car window and saw two cars parked by the side of the road, an off-road vehicle and a sedan. Several people were standing outside the cars, looking anxious, with a middle-aged man standing in the middle of the road blocking traffic.

  The driver hastily apologized and scolded towards the window: "Don't you want to live?"

  All I could hear was the person outside the car window apologizing repeatedly and explaining the situation to the driver. The driver, startled and hesitant, immediately shouted loudly towards the carriage: "Who is a doctor in our car? Who is a doctor?"

  All I saw was a flurry of discussion inside the car, but no one responded. Chu Jiaqiang suddenly got up and walked out.

  "Are you a doctor?" the driver asked, and the people outside the car window who heard that there was a doctor also became excited.

  "I'm not, but I can take a look." Chu Jiaqiang knew that the situation might be urgent, otherwise the other party wouldn't have stopped the car halfway. There were no hospitals within 30-40 kilometers of here, and the nearest hospital was still an hour's drive away. The other party might be afraid of not making it for another hour or two, which is why they made such a move.

  "Really?" The driver was taken aback, then immediately said: "Okay, you go take a look, I'll open the door for you." The driver quickly opened the car door.

  The other party saw that the person who got off the car was such a young youth, and couldn't help but feel somewhat disappointed, but now they could only try anyway.

  Chu Jiaqiang knows some traditional Chinese medicine, but only stays at the theoretical level, such as some disease symptoms, causes of the disease and so on, without any experience in treating diseases.

  This also has something to do with Chu Jiaqiang's past experiences. When he was a child, there lived an old Taoist priest in the depths of Chu Village. Everyone in Chu Village knew about it, and they had a good relationship with the old Taoist priest. The old Taoist priest did not farm, but he was skilled in medicine. He often went into the mountains to collect herbs and spent his days refining elixirs and making medicines. Whenever someone in the village fell ill or got hurt, they would often look for him.

  At that time, Chu Jiaqiang and Chu Jiahao often went to watch the old Taoist make medicine. The old Taoist saw that Chu Jiaqiang was clever and had a mind to pass on a few tricks, but at that time, Chu Jiaqiang didn't want to learn that stuff. In the end, although he listened to a lot, he just didn't dare use the old Taoist's things to randomly treat people, fearing that he would harm others and cause trouble.

  Later on, the old Taoist left and gave Chu Jiaqiang a set of acupuncture techniques. From time to time, Chu Jiaqiang would fiddle with it, but since going to university, he had not bothered with such boring things again.

  "What's your surname, young brother? Have you ever treated anyone before?" The middle-aged man asked hastily.

  "Haha! Never mind the surname Chu, let's take a look at the patient first! Maybe we'll find out later." Chu Jiaqiang was also anxious. He said so with his mouth, but in his heart he was actually nervous and kept praying: Old Taoist priest, you can't harm me, okay?!

  "Right! Right this way, Mr. Chu's brother." The middle-aged man hastily led the way.

  Chu Jiaqiang looked back and saw a middle-aged man, two well-maintained beauties, a 5 or 6-year-old girl, and a beautiful young woman who was 2-3 years younger than him.

  As soon as Chu Jiaqiang came over, several people immediately made way for him. Chu Jiaqiang looked inside and saw an old man lying in the car, with an old woman taking care of him by his side. The old man had his eyes closed, one hand pressed against his chest, his face pale, and he seemed to be suffering from extreme pain at the moment.

  "Hey young man, quickly go take a look at the old man, it's troublesome." The old woman said urgently. The people outside also chimed in, hoping that Chujiaqiang would do his best.

  "Big brother! Quickly save my grandfather!" The little girl said in a sweet and tender voice.

  Chu Jiaqiang smiled slightly and patted the little girl's hair, nodding and saying: "Okay, you all scatter, open all the car doors, the old man is having trouble breathing now. Old lady, you come out first too!"

  Everyone hastened to follow suit. Chu Jiaqiang's hand rested on the old man's wrist. This was his first time taking a pulse, and he felt a bit tense. He found that the other person's pulse was very chaotic.

  Only the elderly have seen yang qi stagnation, blood stasis, insufficient chest yang, and yin cold evil invading and blocking the chest yang, causing heart disease. From a traditional Chinese medicine perspective, the elderly should be suffering from common coronary heart disease.

  From a Western medical perspective, coronary heart disease is mostly caused by arterial stenosis or occlusion. The narrowing of the coronary arteries is often due to the accumulation of lipid substances along the inner wall of blood vessels, which is called atherosclerosis. As atherosclerosis progresses to a certain extent, the narrowing of the coronary arteries gradually worsens, restricting blood flow into the heart muscle. When the heart does not receive sufficient oxygen supply, chest discomfort occurs, known as angina pectoris.

  Chu Jiaqiang was somewhat embarrassed. According to the old Taoist's knowledge, this illness was quite troublesome, especially since the elderly man had now developed to an extremely dangerous stage. Judging from the current situation, it would be difficult for the elderly man to hold on for even half an hour. Upon realizing this, he secretly nodded in approval of these people's actions in stopping a car and finding a doctor. However, he needed a set of long needles to perform acupuncture emergency treatment to clear the blockage of blood and qi in the elderly man's body.

  "The old man has coronary heart disease and it's very serious. Why didn't you bring his medicine when you went out?" Chu Jiaqiang said with some blame.

  Those people listened, their eyes lit up, and they suddenly showed a look of surprise. They originally thought that this young man was just pretending, after all, he was too young, and they didn't have much hope at first. Unexpectedly, after listening to the pulse, he immediately said the old man's condition in one sentence.

  "It's all my fault, it's all my fault! I grabbed the wrong medicine." The old woman blamed herself repeatedly. Both of them had some chronic illnesses - the old man had coronary heart disease and she had asthma, both of which were difficult to cure. There was a big pile of medicine at home, which they had organized before leaving the house, but still, she had forgotten to bring the old man's emergency medication.

  "Mom! This isn't your fault, it's ours for being naughty and dragging you out to play." The two women comforted her at once, also blaming themselves.

  "What shall we do now, Brother Chu?" The middle-aged man was relatively calm and composed.

  "I need a set of needles now, and I don't even hope for very standard golden needles. Go ask around to see who has long needles." Chu Jiaqiang said hastily.

  Another man immediately ran towards the bus and soon came back with a disappointed face, shaking his head at everyone.