Chapter 16: Hot Porridge Assists Yang

  At this time, the door of the west wing creaked open and Left Guixiu walked out slowly with his back bent. Zuo Shao Yang hastily went forward: "Father, you're up?"

  "Hmm," Zu Gui stopped and looked up and down at Zuo Shuang Yang, saying lightly: "The illness... is it better?"

  "After drinking the Ephedra decoction made by Dad, I sweated and recovered completely!"

  "That's good," Zuo Gui walked two steps slowly, stopped again, thought for a moment, and said: "I didn't expect you to know about the Taoyang Shanghan Biyan Liutong Mahuang Tang with added Cang Er Zi Xin Yi. Hmm, not bad, you need to work harder at studying in the future!"

  "Alright." Zuo Shaoyang poked his head into the left wing of the house and took a glance, his body suddenly shaking with surprise. "Dad! Why aren't there any quilts on your bed?"

  As soon as he finished speaking, Zuo Shaoyang immediately understood that the old couple had given him their quilt last night. The old couple must have sat up all night without sleep. On such a cold day... the old couple was frozen to the bone, and for his sake, they actually sat up all night without a quilt, he couldn't help but feel guilty: "Dad! You gave me your quilt, you must be freezing last night, I'll make some ginger soup for you!"

  "It's okay," Zuo Gui said, hunching his back and walking to the door with his hands behind him. "Dad doesn't have a body as delicate as yours, huh? What a big snowfall!" Seeing that his father was wearing a warm hat with two fluttering ribbons on his small head under the large cotton-padded jacket, Zuo Shaoyang hurried over and said, "Dad, it's windy at the door, come inside."

  "Early to rise, exercise the muscles and bones, good for the body!" Zuo Gui stretched his arms and swayed his hips, then slowly walked back into the house, sitting down behind a worn-out wooden desk.

  Liáng shì bǎ le rè téng teng de xǐ liǎn shuǐ duān le chū lái, liǎng rén xǐ le liǎn, Liáng shì yòu gěi Zuǒ Guì pào le yī bēi chá. Zuǒ Guì pěng zhe chá bēi, qīng qīng chuī zhe, yòu màn màn pǐn le yī kǒu, fàng xià chá bēi, cháng cháng shū le kǒu qì, yī fèn shí fēn shū xīn de yàng zi.

  Zuo Shaoyang hesitated for a moment and asked Liang in a low voice: "Mother, isn't there...isn't there breakfast?"

  "Breakfast?" Liang was clearly not expecting his son to ask this question. The family had been struggling financially, and it was already difficult to maintain two meals a day. Where would they have the extra money for breakfast? Remembering that his son was ill last night, he thought he should eat something warm like congee to recover, so he hastily said: "Yes, yes, I'll make some right away!"

  "What are you doing?" Zuo Gui said coldly. "There's only this much food at home, if you eat one more meal, the whole family will have one less meal, how can we get by later?"

  "Master! The child fell ill last night..."

  "What's wrong with being sick? Can't eat because of sickness? How will you live in the future? You women don't understand anything! Go work!"

  Liáng shì wú yán, cuō zhe qián jīn wéi yāo.

  Translation:

  Mr. Liang was speechless, rubbing his front waistband.

  "Actually, I'm not hungry, I just said that casually, it's nothing, nothing..."

  Li looked at his son with a guilty conscience, sighed, lowered his head and entered the bedroom, sat on the bed and started doing needlework, occasionally raising his eyes to glance at the empty medicine shop, after a long time, he let out a soft sigh again.

  Zuo Shaoyang stood behind the counter, his sleeves rolled up, watching the people coming and going at the door. However, not a single person came in to see a doctor. Running a medical clinic or pharmacy business is not something that can be promoted by shouting at the door, nor can one be too enthusiastic about inviting customers in. All one can do is wait stupidly for patients to come to the door. And even when patients do come, one cannot be too enthusiastic, otherwise it will give people the feeling of gloating over their misfortune.

  It's not the snow that's cold, but the thawing of the snow that's cold. Today is even colder than yesterday, despite the hazy sunshine. Our house faces north and sits in the shade, it's so cold that I'm shivering all over. Left Guizhen is sitting obediently at the long table waiting for patients to come and get their illnesses diagnosed, while Left Shaoyang doesn't dare go to the door to bask in the sun, he can only wrap his sleeves around him and stomp his feet behind the counter to warm up.

  With nothing to do, he began to examine the medicines in his family's medicine cabinet one by one, checking what kinds of medicines they had and counting them in his mind. At the same time, he matched the medicines with the names on the medicine cabinet, because he found that many of the medicine names were unfamiliar to him.

  He went through all the medicines in the medicine cabinet one by one, and found that they were all ordinary and very cheap common medicines. There were no precious medicinal materials such as ginseng, etc., which was also expected. If there were precious medicinal materials, selling some of them would not worry about the rent.

  Even among commonly used medicinal materials, the variety is not very complete, and some commonly used medicines are not available, which can be seen that the business of the pharmacy is really not good. He connected the medicine with the name of the medicine, and soon remembered the aliases of these medicines.

  Then he took out the price list of the medicine and remembered it one by one, so that it would be convenient to calculate the account.

  It's almost noon, and Liang Shi enters the kitchen to prepare lunch. At this time, a patient finally arrives. He is a middle-aged man who walks in timidly, looking around nervously. Liang Shi raises his head to look at him, showing a hint of joy on his face before quickly regaining his composure. In a drawn-out tone, he says: "Sit... down. You're here for a consultation?"

  "Yes, Doctor."

  "What's wrong?"

  Afraid of cold, feverish, and headache.

  "Cough?"

  "Uh... no cough."

  Zuo Gui nodded and asked again: "Sweating?"

  "Ah, it seems like there is something."

  Zuo Gui asked about his diet and bowel movements again, felt his pulse and looked at his tongue, saying: "There's nothing seriously wrong with you, I'll give you a prescription to take back and decoct, that's all."

  "Oh, Doctor, what's wrong with me?"

  "It's freezing cold today, you've caught a chill, don't worry, just take some medicine and you'll be fine."

  "Oh, thank you, Lang Zhong."

  Zuo Gui finished writing the prescription and handed it to Zuo Shao Yang. He asked Zuo Shao Yang to prepare the medicine according to the prescription.

  Zuo Shaoyang packaged the medicine while saying to the middle-aged man, "Sir, you have a Guizhi Tang syndrome. Do you know how to decoct and take Guizhi Tang?"

  The middle-aged man said: "Isn't it just boiled with water and taken?"

  "Not so!" said Zuo Shao Yang with a smile, "You add seven liters of water to the sand pot and simmer over low heat. At the same time, cook about one liter of thin porridge, when the water is cooked down to only three liters, remove the floating sediment on top, pour it into a bowl, let it cool, first drink one liter, then drink the hot porridge..."

  "Why drink hot porridge?"

  "At this time, drinking hot porridge has two purposes. One is to use the thin porridge to supplement sweat source, as cold damage requires sweating, and sweating must have a source of sweat, that is, there must be fluid available for sweating. The second purpose is that the Guizhi Tang prescription has strong nourishing power but weak sweating power, so it needs to borrow the hot air from the hot porridge to help with sweating. The stomach is in the middle burner, and the yang energy of Taiyang is used to supplement the middle burner. Drinking hot porridge can stimulate the stomach yang, which can also make the wei-yang (defensive yang) excited, helping to dispel wind evil."

  The middle-aged man understood: "I see."

  "After taking the first dose of medicine, cover yourself with a quilt and sleep for about an hour or so. This can help to warm up your body's defensive energy, but don't cover too thickly, lest you sweat too much. However, it's essential that the whole body sweats slightly, including hands and feet. It's not good if only your forehead is sweating and then you throw off the quilt saying you're done. Hehe, of course, excessive sweating is also bad. If it's like after running and you're drenched in sweat, that's no good either, as too much fluid loss will harm your vital energy."

  "Alright, I remember."

  "Furthermore, if after taking the first dose of medicine and covering with a quilt to sleep for a while, you have already started sweating slightly, with a sensation of sweating all over your body, and this continues for an hour or so, it indicates that the sweating has been effective, and you should stop taking the medicine. Don't think about wasting the remaining medicine and continue taking it, as continued sweating will cause trouble and harm the upright (qi). This is called stopping when the disease is relieved. If after taking the first dose of medicine and sleeping for an hour you still haven't started sweating, then immediately take the second dose!"

  "Only one time?" The middle-aged man asked in surprise.

  "Yes, after taking the second dose of medicine, if you still don't sweat within an hour, take the third dose immediately without delay. If you still haven't sweated after another hour, take the fourth dose right away and continue to take it consecutively, with no more than an hour in between. Now is noon, which means that for this half day until tonight when it gets dark, if you don't sweat within an hour, you'll have to drink three doses of medicine consecutively."

  "Ah?" The middle-aged man was somewhat surprised, "Three times of medicine in three hours? This..., won't it be too hasty?"

  "This is called 'sweating without delay'!" Zuo Shaoyang smiled and said, "This cold must be sweated out as soon as possible. When the evil wind invades the body, it's like a sudden storm, it must be eliminated while it's still on the surface of the skin, otherwise, once the evil wind invades the meridians or even the five organs and six viscera, it will no longer be just a minor cold, but will turn into a major illness, making treatment very difficult. Therefore, we must use large doses of medicine continuously at the site of the cold, and with the momentum of thunder, eliminate the evil wind on the surface of the skin, not allowing it to invade the body and brew up disaster!"