CHAPTER 60: 060 RETURN VISIT TO XIÀCŪN

"Uncle, you don’t need to see us out."

The three of them, Du Heng and his two companions, dressed in white gowns and carrying their medicine boxes, were leaving the villager’s home. The villager, an older man, tightly gripped Du Heng’s hand. "Doctor Du, I’m so sorry to have troubled you three, making you come all this way."

"It’s our duty," Du Heng replied. "Auntie is unwell and can’t move around easily. Since we’ve started her treatment, we must see it through to the end."

"Thank you all so much for coming all this way. We didn’t even prepare any food for you."

"That’s quite alright, Uncle. When Auntie is able to get out of bed and has fully recovered, you can have her make us something delicious then."

The Uncle withdrew one hand and wiped his moist eyes. "My wife has had hemiplegia for nearly half a year now. I thought she would have to lie on the bed for the rest of her life. I never imagined there would be a day she could get out of bed again."

The Uncle once again gripped Du Heng’s hand tightly with both of his. "When she’s better, I’ll have her personally cook a meal for you. You are her benefactor, and the benefactor of our entire family."

Du Heng also clasped the Uncle’s hand briefly but then gently withdrew his own; if they dallied any longer, they might not get away before dark. "Uncle, Auntie’s hands and feet have regained some sensation now. You’ll still need to trouble yourself to massage her often, and ensure she takes her medicine on time every day. Whether Auntie can recover well is all up to you now, Uncle."

"Definitely, definitely. Doctor Du, please rest assured."

"Alright then, Uncle, we’ll be going. If anything comes up, just give me a call."

With that said, Du Heng quickly got into the car.

During this period, Du Heng had fulfilled his promise: he once again made house calls to diagnose and treat those patients with chronic diseases.

There were simple reasons for doing this. Firstly, he believed in seeing things through to the end, and the patients’ matters were of utmost importance. Secondly, many patients, such as those with hemiplegia or Paralysis, were unable to come to the Health Clinic for follow-up appointments. Thirdly, having only seen one patient at the Health Clinic in several days made Du Heng, who needed to complete 3,000 disease records, extremely anxious.

Currently, the system showed 626/3,000 valid disease records. These 626 included some from his treatments in Duke Village, as well as patients who had only recently started taking the medicine he had prescribed earlier. There was still a long way to go to complete the task.

Therefore, stepping out of the Health Clinic and going deep into the villagers’ homes was the only way forward for now.

Sitting in the office and waiting would only mean an increase of one or two patients per day.

Du Heng had considered resigning and applying to larger hospitals. There would be no shortage of patients there, and he could complete the task quickly.As for the authorized job, haha, once he completed the task and received a fixed 100,000 yuan per month, who would care about an authorized job then?

However, after making some inquiries, Du Heng quickly dismissed the thought of resigning.

All the big hospitals were currently short-staffed and recruiting. But some of them had a minimum requirement for doctors to be Graduate students; Du Heng, an undergraduate, wouldn’t even be considered. Others would take undergraduates, and they preferred those with experience who could be put to work immediately. But one look at Du Heng’s resume—an attending Physician from a Township Health Center, and a traditional Chinese medicine doctor at that—and they would immediately reject him. Even if they didn’t reject him outright, the big hospitals would require Du Heng to start as a resident doctor. Moreover, there would be an assessment period, during which he could only act as an assistant to the big hospital’s attending Physician and wouldn’t be allowed to diagnose patients or prescribe medicine independently. The reason? They simply didn’t trust the skills of a village doctor. An attending Physician from a Township Health Center was nothing in their eyes.

Du Heng had initially thought he could endure it, but when he found out the assessment period was as long as the standardized training period, he immediately abandoned the idea of resigning.

So, for now, Du Heng could only resort to the most straightforward, yet most effective method: finding patients within the Health Clinic’s catchment area.

"Senior Brother, where are we going now?" Wu Buwei asked Du Heng as he started the car.

"We’re going to Duke Village. I’m taking you two to a banquet today."

"A banquet?" Ma Zichen leaned forward from the back seat. "Du, is it one of those rural banquets?"

"Of course."

Wu Buwei, having accompanied Du Heng on his rounds for two months, was now quite familiar with rural areas and knew some of the local customs and taboos. "Senior Brother, what kind of banquet is it? If it’s for a funeral, I’m not going."

"No, it’s for Baby Steps."

"That’s fine then. But is it alright for Xiao Ma and me to go?"

Du Heng chuckled. "Do you remember the first patient you saw in Duke Village last month?"

Wu Buwei grinned; how could he forget the first patient he had diagnosed independently using syndrome differentiation, the one who had almost gotten the better of him? "Of course, I remember! His name is Du Jiang, a kinsman of yours, Senior Brother."

"That’s him. Today, his son is one month old, and he invited me for the Baby Steps feast. So, you two can come with me without any worries."

"Then let’s go!"

Wu Buwei stepped on the accelerator, and the small car slowly moved along the street.

Shortly after they started driving, a light rain began to fall again, PITTER-PATTER against the windows.

Wu Buwei glanced at the raindrops on the window and eased his foot on the accelerator. "This wretched weather. It’s been raining for four days now."

Ma Zichen, however, looked out the window with keen interest. As someone who had grown up in the city, he found everything in the countryside novel. The villagers’ courtyards, their houses, the livestock they raised—all these things piqued his curiosity. Even the rainy rural scenery held a unique charm for him.

"What’s wrong, Wu? Isn’t the rain nice? The air has that fresh, earthy smell, and the trees are so green and vibrant."

"Nice? What’s nice about it? It’s so annoying," Wu Buwei retorted unhappily. He did not like rainy days.

Du Heng glanced out the car window. "I don’t know what’s going on this year. There’s been far too much spring rain."

"Du," Ma Zichen asked, still admiring the view outside, "doesn’t the book say spring rain is as precious as oil? How can more of it be a bad thing?"

"Sigh, too much rain isn’t good either," Du Heng explained, looking at the distant hills which were already tinged with green. "We plant wheat around here, and it’s not the case that the more water, the better. Besides, this is the loess plateau—there’s little vegetation, and the soil is loose. If you get a sudden downpour, it might not be a huge problem. But this kind of persistent drizzle can be very damaging."

"What kind of damage can it do?" Ma Zichen genuinely didn’t know.

"A heavy downpour comes and goes quickly. Although there’s a large amount of precipitation, it doesn’t permeate deeply into the soil layers in a short time, so most of the rainwater just flows away. But this kind of persistent drizzle is different. It completely saturates the soil layers, making the land soft and prone to collapse."

As he spoke, Du Heng pointed out the window at a courtyard. "See that? Many of the houses here are still these kinds of earthen houses. The courtyard walls are earth, and the house walls are earth too. The longer it rains, the more water the earth absorbs, and the houses themselves risk collapsing."

As they were talking, the car rounded a bend, leaving Shang Ling Village. The view before them opened up.

Ma Zichen noticed people still busy working on the mountainside despite the rain and asked Du Heng, "Du, what are those people doing?"

Du Heng followed Ma Zichen’s gaze. "They’re digging sand. The mountain below Shang Ling Village is all sand. I hear the quality is quite good. Anyone around here wanting to build a house comes here to dig sand."

"Why dig from here?"

Du Heng sat up straighter and chuckled. "To save money, of course."