Li Shengli was indeed quick on his feet.

By around noon, he had already returned with the medicine.

Gao Yuan immediately delivered the medicine to the two families in need.

Aunt Wei's condition had stabilized considerably. She even managed to get out of bed and cook lunch, though she didn’t go to the fields to work. She still had a little diarrhea and felt slightly nauseous, but it was nothing like before.

Clearly, the medicine Gao Yuan had given her the day before was showing significant results.

Uncle Wei was deeply embarrassed. Throughout the morning, during the rush to complete tasks for work points, he kept his head down and avoided talking to anyone. He couldn’t have been more ashamed.

Old Man Yang, after waving his cane around, didn’t go home to rest either. Instead, he stayed in the fields, supervising the villagers.

The villagers were too intimidated by Old Man Yang’s gaze to look up, and the awkward atmosphere spread across the fields.

Even though Yang’s father was the village party secretary, he didn’t dare cross his own father. He tried persuading Old Man Yang a few times to leave, but the old man refused. Eventually, Yang’s father gave up.

At noon, after the medicine was brewed, both families took it.

After lunch and the midnight break, the villagers, out of sheer boredom, flocked to watch the commotion again.

Uncle Wei had locked his courtyard gate early, determined not to let anyone in. He had never been this embarrassed in his entire life.

So the crowd, in a frenzy, rushed off to see Zhang’s little grandson instead.

Li Shengli and Gao Yuan stayed there, keeping watch.

After the child took the medicine, Gao Yuan told them to cover him with a blanket. Soon, the child began tugging at his clothes, complaining about feeling hot.

Gao Yuan stepped forward and felt the boy’s forehead—he was sweating.

"How is he?" the child’s grandfather asked anxiously.

At the entrance, a crowd of people craned their necks to watch.

Li Shengli swallowed nervously, his eyes fixed on Gao Yuan.

Gao Yuan said, "He’s sweating now. He should start feeling better soon."

The child’s grandparents exchanged looks, their tension slowly easing.

As Gao Yuan had predicted, the boy’s labored, shallow breathing gradually improved. He no longer seemed like he was being suffocated.

"Hey, look! The kid can breathe again," someone at the doorway shouted.

Suddenly, the crowd erupted in excited chatter.

"Xiaogou’er!" the child’s grandmother called, her voice trembling with emotion.

"Grandma, I need to pee," the boy, though still hoarse, managed to call out.

"My dear grandson!" The child’s grandfather moved forward, wanting to pick him up.

But the grandmother, still furious, grabbed a cloth from the table and threw it at the old man. If it weren’t for his insistence on fishing, how could things have come to this?

The old man didn’t dare say a word after being hit.

The grandmother then picked up the child and took him to relieve himself.

The crowd outside burst into hearty laughter.

Gao Yuan glanced at Li Shengli and said, "Let’s go."

But before they could leave, the child’s grandfather rushed over and grabbed Gao Yuan’s hand, shaking it vigorously. "Oh, Gao Yuan, I don’t even know how to thank you! Our Zhang family only has this one heir. If anything had happened to him, how could we go on?"

Gao Yuan reassured him, "It’s fine now. Don’t scare yourself anymore."

The old man quickly added, "It’s all thanks to you. Without you, we two old folks wouldn’t have known what to do."

"Hmph, just don’t become someone as heartless as Wei Laosan," Old Man Yang chimed in, as he always did at the most critical moments.

The crowd at the door shrank back, uncomfortable.

The child’s grandfather’s face stiffened for a moment. He quickly waved his hands, saying, "No, no, I wouldn’t."

Gao Yuan looked around and said, "Grandpa Zhang, there’s still one more dose of medicine. Brew it tomorrow and give it to Xiaogou’er. If he still feels unwell, come find me."

"Yes, yes, yes," Grandpa Zhang nodded repeatedly. He then glanced at Li Shengli, who remained silent despite opening his mouth as if to speak.

Li Shengli didn’t dare to look up.

Grandpa Zhang turned back to Gao Yuan, "Stay for a meal."

Gao Yuan politely declined, "I’ve already eaten at home. Maybe next time. We have other things to do, so we’ll be going now. Take good care of Xiaogou’er."

With that, Gao Yuan and Li Shengli left.

Old Man Yang, leaning on his cane, took a final look at the crowd before snorting and walking away.

The villagers were left marveling, not expecting Gao Yuan’s medical skills to be this impressive. He really lived up to being a college student!

…

Outside.

Gao Yuan said to Li Shengli, "You haven’t eaten yet, right? Come to my place."

But Li Shengli was in no mood for food. He furrowed his brow and asked, "What exactly was wrong with Xiaogou’er? Wasn’t he just coughing? I even gave him medicine for the cough. After he took it, he stopped coughing—doesn’t that mean my medicine worked? But… why did it turn out like this?"

Li Shengli was completely puzzled.

Gao Yuan thought for a moment and said, "You’ve been on the battlefield before, right? You’ve seen soldiers with external injuries. Do you know how those wounds are treated?"

Li Shengli replied, "First, you clean the wound, remove any dirt, then disinfect, stitch it up, and bandage it. You also have to be careful about infections."

Gao Yuan then asked, "What if you didn’t clean the wound or disinfect it and just stitched it up right away?"

"Hmm?" Li Shengli was taken aback. "Then there’d definitely be problems. It’d get infected."

Gao Yuan explained, "But from the outside, it looks like the wound is stitched up and taken care of."

Li Shengli fell into deep thought.

Gao Yuan continued, "Traditional Chinese medicine works the same way. The boy went fishing with his grandfather and caught a cold. The body has its defenses, and the first line is the defensive qi on the surface. When the cold wind attacks, it’s blocked, which is called wind-cold trapping the exterior, and it also stirs up the phlegm inside the body. That’s why Xiaogou’er first had a cough with phlegm."

"At that point, it was necessary to clean the wound, so to speak. In Chinese medicine, this is called resolving the exterior. Whenever there’s an exterior syndrome, it has to be resolved first. But you only saw the cough and ignored the exterior syndrome."

"You used a cough-suppressing decoction, Xuanfu Daizhe Tang, which pushed the cold wind trapped outside deeper into the body. The situation wasn’t that bad before, but your medicine made it worse by driving the illness inside."

"When the pathogenic factor can’t be expelled, it stays inside and causes havoc. That’s why his condition worsened after taking your medicine. It wasn’t that you cured his cough, but that his illness had progressed to the point where he couldn’t cough anymore."

Li Shengli was stunned.

Li Shengli had studied medicine under Liu Sanquan, but Liu Sanquan himself didn’t understand the importance of resolving exterior syndromes, so how could Li Shengli know?

At this point, Li Shengli’s medical knowledge was limited to matching symptoms with prescriptions—cough medicine for a cough, diuretics for difficulty urinating, laxatives for constipation. As for pattern differentiation, he had no clue. This is why his misdiagnosis and mistreatment rates were relatively high.

Li Shengli let out a sigh and sat down on the yellow earth as if all the strength had been drained from his body.

Gao Yuan stepped forward, patting his shoulder. "I know you’re different from the other doctors at the clinic. You’re a soldier of the people. You genuinely want to help the common folk."

Li Shengli looked up; his eyes dazed, not expecting Gao Yuan to say such words.

Gao Yuan spoke sincerely, "But practicing medicine, like fighting a battle, is a technical skill. Passion alone isn’t enough. A doctor is like a general on the battlefield. You need to know how to deploy your troops, understand the enemy’s situation, make careful plans, and consider all sides."

"In every aspect—up, down, front, back, cause, effect, development, and change—you must be well aware. Treating illness is the same. If you rush in blindly, the more enthusiastic you are, the more likely you’ll do harm while meaning well. Only by mastering strategy can you command in battle."

Li Shengli remained silent.

Gao Yuan stood beside him, remembering his own tumultuous journey in the past. His path to learning medicine had been extraordinarily difficult. Covered in filth, not a single person had been willing to take him as a disciple.

Perhaps even Gao Yuan himself couldn’t explain just how hard it had been back then—how many pitfalls he had stumbled into, how much suffering he had endured, and how much despair had driven him forward.

After a long while, Li Shengli finally said, "But I won’t learn medicine from Zhao Huanzhang. I can’t forgive any landlord."

He lifted his head, looking at Gao Yuan with bloodshot eyes, filled with bitterness and defiance, and his voice had turned hoarse as he said, "You haven’t experienced my hardships, so you can’t understand how much hatred I hold in my heart."