Shen Congyun was suddenly filled with doubt, his eyes shifting nervously as he continued to ponder.

The more he remained silent, the more suspicious the family became.

“What… what’s wrong?” Cao Xinjian’s wife looked around anxiously, noticing that her son also wore a confused expression.

Gao-Yuan had initially spared Shen Congyun’s dignity, speaking only in professional terms that none of the bystanders, including Li Shengli, could understand.

Shen Congyun glanced at Gao-Yuan, his brow deeply furrowed. He hesitated and carefully said, “It’s unlikely to be masked, yang, is it?”

Gao-Yuan turned to Li Shengli and said, “Shengli, go back to the clinic and fetch a few slices of fuzi.”

“Got it.” Without another word, Li Shengli took off like a gust of wind and, in no time, was back again.

Looking at Li Shengli’s speed and comparing it to Shen Congyun’s earlier sluggishness, even Cao Xinjian’s son couldn’t help but twitch the corners of his mouth in amusement.

“Here you go,” Li Shengli handed the fuzi slices to Gao-Yuan.

“Crush them into a paste, form it into a small cake, and heat it,” Gao-Yuan instructed.

“Leave it to me,” Li Shengli said, and once again rushed off, this time heading into the kitchen. Cao Xinjian’s wife hurried after him to help.

Soon, the two returned.

Li Shengli handed the warm fuzi cake to Gao-Yuan. “Will this work?”

Gao-Yuan nodded. “Place this on Comrade Cao’s belly button.”

Li Shengli carefully applied the fuzi cake as instructed, and everyone watched Cao Xinjian nervously.

“What’s going on?” Cao Xinjian’s son whispered to Li Shengli.

“How should I know?” Li Shengli replied frankly.

Cao Xinjian’s son frowned. “You seemed so eager; I thought you knew.”

Li Shengli glanced over at Shen Congyun, only to find him more nervous than anyone else.

Before long, to everyone’s surprise, Cao Xinjian’s intense agitation began to subside. He was no longer as frenzied as before.

Shen Congyun’s face grew even more sullen.

Gao-Yuan looked at Shen Congyun and asked, “Do you have anything else to say?”

Shen Congyun’s mouth twitched, but then he lowered his head again, focusing intently on cleaning the dirt from under his fingernails.

Seeing his lazy and defeated demeanor, Gao-Yuan couldn’t help but feel a bit frustrated. “You should leave,” he said sharply.

Without saying a word, Shen Congyun immediately turned and walked out the door. The moment he stepped outside, he broke into a run, his footsteps echoing in the distance.

Li Shengli stood there, dumbfounded. He had never seen the old doctor run so fast!

“Hey, why did he just leave like that?” Cao Xinjian’s wife exclaimed in a panic.

“Sister-in-law,” Li Shengli replied, “haven’t you figured it out by now? That old trickster Shen Congyun couldn’t treat this illness, so he ran away.”

“Really?” Cao Xinjian’s wife said anxiously, “What are we going to do now?”

Cao Xinjian’s son chimed in, “Mom, didn’t you notice? This young doctor can cure Dad’s illness.”

“Really?” She looked at Gao-Yuan in surprise, but when she saw how young he was, she hesitated.

Li Shengli added, “You know Zhang Yuancai’s elderly mother, right? Even the big hospitals in the city couldn’t help her, but Doctor Gao here was the one who cured her.”

“He cured her?” The whole Cao family was stunned. As neighbors, they were well aware of how severe Zhang Yuancai’s mother’s illness had been.

Suddenly, both mother and son looked at Gao-Yuan with newfound respect.

“Doctor, Doctor Gao, please sit, sit,” Cao Xinjian’s wife hastily urged him, then turned to scold Li Shengli. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

Gao-Yuan waved off the hospitality. “No need for formalities. Shengli, give me some paper and a pen. I’ll write a prescription.”

“Right away.” Li Shengli hurriedly handed the prescription sheet to Gao-Yuan.

Having already thought it through, Gao-Yuan prescribed a strong dose of Guifu Eight Flavor Decoction to balance the yin and yang, correcting the previous medication error. He also instructed the patient to take yougui in small doses to guide the dragon energy back into the body’s center.

After finishing the prescription, Gao-Yuan handed it to Cao Xinjian’s son, adding, “Once the medicine is prepared, let it cool completely before giving it to him.”

Cao Xinjian’s son quickly ran out to get the herbs.

Turning to the patient’s family, Gao-Yuan said, “I’ll be at the clinic. If there’s any problem, come find me right away.”

With that, Gao-Yuan and Li Shengli left for the clinic.

On the way, Li Shengli, still puzzled, asked, “Doctor Gao, don’t we usually drink medicine while it’s hot? Why do we need to drink this one cold?”

Gao-Yuan explained, “This is called ‘hot medicine taken cold,’ a method to sneak past the upper body’s defenses.”

Li Shengli blinked in confusion for a few seconds, then nodded admiringly. “Impressive.”

Gao-Yuan elaborated, “This technique comes from the Neijing and is called the method of reverse reinforcement. The patient isn’t actually suffering from real heat; his symptoms are false heat masking a cold condition.”

“Huh?” Li Shengli was shocked.

“If it were real heat,” Gao-Yuan continued, “the previous medicine should have shown some effect, even if it was mild. As long as the direction wasn’t wrong, the condition wouldn’t have worsened so rapidly. But since Comrade Cao took cooling herbs and his illness only became more severe, that proves the treatment was wrong.”

“He fell ill with sudden upper-body heat; his face flushed as if painted, yet his lower limbs were icy cold. This is what we call a masked yang condition in traditional medicine—real cold beneath false heat. That’s why I used a method to test whether it was indeed false heat.”

“You mean the fuzi cake I brought?” Li Shengli asked.

Gao-Yuan nodded. “Yes. This is a method taught by Master Zuo Jiyun. If it were real heat, applying the fuzi cake wouldn’t relieve the symptoms and might even make them worse. But with real cold masked by false heat, the symptoms will lessen. It’s a useful technique when you’re unsure in practice.”

Li Shengli quickly took note of this.

“For conditions like this, where the upper body shows false heat and the lower body has true cold, hot medicine is taken cold. The cool liquid tricks the overheated upper body, and when it reaches the stomach, the heat from the medicine takes effect. That’s the reverse reinforcement method,” Gao-Yuan explained.

Li Shengli grinned. “I get it now. It’s like sneaking past enemy lines, waiting for the right moment to strike—just like sticking a knife in when they least expect it!”

Gao-Yuan chuckled, feeling more at ease. “Exactly. You’ve got a strategic mind now. But today’s treatment may have seemed ordinary, yet it was actually quite dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Li Shengli asked, confused.

“Comrade Cao’s condition was already masked yang—real cold with false heat. Shen Congyun’s initial misdiagnosis led him to prescribe cooling herbs, which worsened the situation and caused a crisis. Fortunately, the dose was small. But if he had switched to stronger cooling herbs just now, Comrade Cao could have been in critical danger.”

Li Shengli’s mouth dropped open as he finally understood why Shen Congyun had run away so suddenly. He had thought the old doctor simply didn’t know how to treat the illness. Now he realized Shen’s mistake had made things worse.

“So you’re saying he’s the one who made my old squad leader this sick?” Li Shengli asked, furious.

Gao-Yuan nodded.

“Damn it!” Li Shengli growled, his anger boiling over. He stormed off toward the clinic.

Gao-Yuan hurried after him.

Cao Xinjian’s house was just a short distance from the joint clinic.

Li Shengli rounded the corner and arrived at the clinic in no time.

When Gao-Yuan caught up, he was met by Liu Sanquan, who was just leaving.

“Dr. Liu, you’re back?” Gao-Yuan asked.

“Huh? Oh, yes, yes,” Liu Sanquan mumbled before hastily slipping away.

As Gao-Yuan stepped forward, he could hear heated arguing coming from inside the clinic.

The assistant, He Yu, had already stepped outside, clearly trying to avoid the conflict. She saw Gao-Yuan coming and gave a timid nod, gesturing inside.

With a frown, Gao-Yuan hurried inside, where he saw Li Shengli pointing angrily at Shen Congyun.

“You’re the one who said that slow work makes fine work! You’re the one who claimed you take a week to do a rural round to avoid misdiagnoses! You’re the one who said you’re not like me! Well, guess what? You made a misdiagnosis! Now what do you have to say for yourself? How dare you pretend you weren’t slacking off, you old trickster?”

Shen Congyun kept his head down, still picking at the dirt under his nails, pretending not to hear a thing.