It wasn’t that Du Heng was being overly anxious and impatient; he truly felt deeply about this issue.

Looking around, good traditional Chinese medicine practitioners are usually nurtured from a young age, with a Master teaching them personally. Even so, those who can truly stand on their own typically only gain some renown after they are over forty and their faces are lined with wrinkles.

Cao Binghe is a talented practitioner, 29 years old and a PhD student under a famous expert. However, when it came to treating patients, he was completely outmatched by Western Medicine Doctors of the same age. During the month he spent with Du Heng, his diagnoses were often inaccurate, or his prescriptions inappropriate. His title of attending Physician had been earned through rote memorization and didn’t correlate much with his actual abilities.

Even Du Heng himself, if it weren’t for a stroke of incredible luck last year, would still be a mediocre doctor who would get nervous when treating indigestion.

Others started learning from a young age, taught by a Master, and only began practicing independently after thirty years.

Today’s university students start practicing after only five to eight years of study in an environment where everyone is taught the same curriculum. It would be a miracle if they could cure patients; it’s normal if they can’t.

Could one expect those eighteen or nineteen-year-old university students to be smarter than those who had been learning traditional Chinese medicine since childhood? Smart enough to disregard the fifteen or sixteen-year gap in their learning time?

Even if there was one such talent among 100,000 people, they would still need to choose to study traditional Chinese medicine.

But think about it, is this possible?

Why were there no young doctors in the Chinese Medicine Department of Provincial First Hospital?

To put it bluntly, their skills were insufficient, they couldn’t handle responsibilities, couldn’t cure diseases, lacked the patience to endure the long learning process, and couldn’t commit themselves to their studies. It was as simple as that.

Now that Du Xuejing was choosing the path of traditional Chinese medicine, if she didn’t seize every moment and dedicate herself, how could she ever qualify to sit behind a desk and feel a patient’s pulse?

Moreover, she was a girl. She would eventually get married, get pregnant, and have children. Factoring in these life events, she would lose at least five years. What reason did she have not to study diligently?

"Tingting, there are only two paths before you," Du Heng said, his tone serious. "Either follow me to the Health Clinic to start learning from scratch and commit to studying hard, or drop out of school, retake the college entrance examination, and choose a different major.

Otherwise, after you graduate, you will be left with nothing but the ability to recite a few books.

Don’t even talk about planning to avoid clinical work and just focus on research in the future. That’s bullshit. I’m not sure about other industries, but every medical researcher has a certain level of clinical insight. If you only know how to do research and don’t know how to handle clinical work, you’ll be no different from an armchair strategist. What you produce will either be utter nonsense or baseless, imaginary fabrications."

After saying all this, Du Heng began to eat the breakfast his Sister-in-law had prepared. "I’ll give you five minutes to think."

This arrangement was not a whim on Du Heng’s part, but a plan he had been formulating for the past month in the Capital.

Rhinoceros horn clears heart heat; antelope horn clears lung and liver heat. Alismatis promotes diuresis, resolves dampness, and tonifies Yin deficiency; Seaweed disperses goiter, breaks qi stagnation, and easily cures hernias... Du Yi, who had memorized half of the traditional Chinese medicine primer, ’Drug Properties in Verse,’ could recite it flawlessly. But Du Xuejing, despite attending classes for a semester, had barely even glanced at it.

How could Du Heng not be anxious?

If Du Xuejing were in a five-year undergraduate program, at worst, she could take a postgraduate entrance examination later and change her major. But Du Xuejing was in a nine-year program; she didn’t even have the opportunity to change her major.

If he didn’t push her to learn now, what could she do after graduation?

Endure people’s disdain and continue to struggle through the years like others, or waste nearly thirty years of training and become a housewife?

So, not only was Du Heng worried about this, but Zhang Sumei, his Sister-in-law, was also concerned. That’s why when Du Heng spoke to Du Xuejing, Zhang Sumei didn’t interrupt and even offered her full support.

Even if Du Heng needed to discipline Du Xuejing at that moment, she would have helped him choose a rather thick stick for the purpose.

In the end, when Du Heng set off, Du Xuejing appeared in the passenger seat, a sullen expression etched on her face.

For the next month or so, Du Heng would arrange for her to study properly.

When they arrived at the Health Clinic, everyone was busy with their own work.

Du Heng then had Wang Lili take Du Xuejing away. She didn’t need to do any nursing work, but she was to handle all the tasks related to decocting traditional medicines and managing their administration for patients.

Within a week, she had to learn which types of medicine required specific decoction methods and how to prepare and dispense them for patients.

After Wang Lili took the reluctant Du Xuejing away, Cui Guanghai arrived.

He was smiling as if nothing had happened yesterday and cheerfully asked Du Heng if he wanted to hold a full meeting.

Du Heng directly refused the proposal, as he had more important things to do.

Then, in front of Cui Guanghai, he called over Yu Haiting and Wu Buwei, and the three of them began discussing Liu Amei’s treatment.

Seeing the three of them engaged in a heated conversation that he couldn’t join, Cui Guanghai took the initiative to withdraw. As he left, he even thoughtfully closed the door for them.

After a long discussion, the three of them still couldn’t come up with a useful solution.

Now, all three of them shared a consensus: without locating the missing liver, gallbladder, and stomach, none of them dared to prescribe any medication.

Looking at Liu Amei’s previous examination reports, they couldn’t find any useful information, so Wu Buwei suggested they conduct another examination for her, looking directly at real-time images, which might yield different findings.

In the examination room, Xiao Liu carefully moved the B-ultrasound probe over Liu Amei’s abdomen, fearing that the slightest tremble of his hand would pierce her taut, bulging belly.

Du Heng and Yu Haiting carefully watched the screen.

As Yu Haiting looked at the constantly changing images on the screen, he suddenly asked, "Dean, why do I feel that the abdominal cavity isn’t empty, but full of ascites?"

Du Heng was startled. "Full of ascites?"

"Yes, the entire abdominal cavity."

A sudden thought flashed through Du Heng’s mind. Yes! If the abdominal cavity was entirely filled with ascites, that would explain it. A B Ultrasound examination is quite sensitive in detecting ascites; it’s unlikely to miss such a condition. But what if the patient’s abdomen was completely full of ascites? If there was so much ascites that it displaced the internal organs, and there were no reference points, the view of the entire abdominal cavity would appear uniform. In that case, it would be challenging to detect the presence of ascites, or rather, one might not realize the sheer volume—that the entire abdominal cavity was filled with it. Moreover, with no visible internal organs, the focus of the observation would naturally shift.

Upon thinking of this, Du Heng hurriedly said, "Xiao Liu, move the probe upwards, slowly."

Xiao Liu nodded and followed Du Heng’s instructions, moving the probe upwards, no longer examining just the abdomen.

After he moved the probe up past two ribs, something other than empty images and rib shadows finally appeared on the screen.

The three people watching from behind grew excited. Du Heng quickly ordered a detailed imaging examination to determine precisely what lay beneath the chest cavity.

Half an hour later, Du Heng and Yu Haiting were speechless as they held the scan images.

"Dean, we found the liver, gallbladder, and stomach."

"Yes, we found them. They were pushed into the chest cavity by the ascites. No wonder we couldn’t find them in the abdominal cavity."

Yu Haiting put down the images and sighed. "With so much ascites, and the internal organs squeezed into the chest cavity, I can’t imagine how much pain Liu Amei must be in."

Du Heng also sighed, but instead of dwelling on Liu Amei’s suffering with Yu Haiting, his mind was already focused on the treatment.

After a few more moments of lament, Yu Haiting immediately asked Du Heng, "Dean, I remember you have a house for reducing ascites, don’t you?"

"I used one for Yang Yuansheng when he had swollen abdominal, but Yang Yuansheng’s condition and Liu Amei’s are different. The same house definitely can’t be used."

"Can’t we modify it slightly?"

Du Heng narrowed his eyes in thought. "It’s possible, but it would be too slow. You’ve seen Liu Amei’s condition. The sooner the ascites is drained, the sooner she’ll find relief. If we only use medication, it will be far too slow. I estimate that the amount drained each day wouldn’t even keep up with the new accumulation."

"What should we do then?"

"Drain."

"Directly drain it from her abdomen?"

"Yes." Du Heng looked at Yu Haiting. "Yu, can you do it?"

Yu Haiting thought for a moment. He knew the procedure for draining ascites, but he had never performed it before; thinking of Liu Amei’s current condition and the state of her belly, he didn’t dare attempt it.

Du Heng did not insist and immediately called Xu Pinglin for support.

Draining ascites was indeed his weakness, or rather, a gap in his knowledge.

Xu Pinglin was very helpful, directly sending Du Heng’s old acquaintance, Doctor Hou, to help.

Doctor Hou was astonished after reviewing Liu Amei’s file and listening to Du Heng’s explanation; his eyes widened in shock.

When he saw Liu Amei on the sick bed, his jaw dropped.

Her abdomen was enormous, larger than anything he could comprehend.

Looking at the taut, glistening skin of her abdomen, stretched over clearly visible blood vessels, he hesitated.

He swallowed hard and quietly said to Du Heng, "Director Du, let’s find someone else. I don’t dare to do it."

Du Heng rolled his eyes and practically pushed Doctor Hou forward. Today, he had to do it, whether he dared to or not.

Doctor Hou might have voiced his reluctance, but when it came to performing the procedure, he was thoroughly professional and skilled.

In no time, 300 milliliters of dark yellowish ascites, tinged with a hint of red, were drained.

At that point, Doctor Hou decisively stopped and did not continue draining.

Yu Haiting asked, slightly puzzled, "Doctor Hou, why aren’t you draining more?"

Before Doctor Hou could answer, Du Heng explained, "You can’t drain too much at once. You have to let the internal organs slowly fall back into place and give them time to adapt and buffer."

Doctor Hou elaborated, "That’s essentially correct. Initially, we’ll drain it twice a day. Once the internal organs have started to return to their positions, the process can be expedited. Then, we can drain it three to five times a day."

Yu Haiting suddenly understood. He realized he had been so focused on the problem that such a basic point hadn’t even occurred to him.

At this moment, everyone looked from the 300 milliliters of drained ascites back to Liu Amei’s abdomen. It seemed as if there had been no change at all.

But now, neither Du Heng nor Liu Amei herself were anxious any longer.

Having found the root cause, the rest was not difficult.

In the following days, Doctor Hou came for two more days, and during those two days, he taught Yu Haiting and several nurses how to drain the ascites.