Guanghe District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Miaoli was holding her phone, an excited look on her face as she watched a video and the ensuing discussion in her old class group chat. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

She handed her phone to her department director, Guo Yu, who was standing beside her.

"Director Guo, you have to see this! Li Xu did something incredible again! He went over to the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine and cured a patient that all their experts were helpless to treat!"

Guo Yu took the phone. After watching the video, he was delighted. 'As expected of our hospital's special consultant,' he thought.

But his delight quickly turned to anxiety.

"Li Xu went to the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine?" Guo Yu's brow furrowed. "He... he couldn't have been poached by them, could he?"

He knew very well that Li Xu was currently the star attraction of their Guanghe District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

If he were poached by the wealthy and powerful City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, it would be an absolutely massive loss for their hospital.

The more Guo Yu thought about it, the more uneasy he became. He immediately took out his phone and called Li Xu.

"Hello, Doctor Li. I hear you're making waves at the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine now!"

Guo Yu started with a joking compliment before cautiously probing, "You're not planning on jumping ship, are you? Our District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine may be small, but our sincerity is great."

Li Xu, on the other end of the line, heard the worry in Guo Yu's voice and laughed. "Director Guo, you can rest assured. I just went to help out a friend; I have no intention of leaving. I still prefer the freedom of my own little clinic."

Hearing Li Xu's assurance, Guo Yu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

...

Inside a patient room at the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Seeing that the patient's condition had stabilized, Li Xu instructed Lin Guorui and the girl's family, "The prescription is correct for her condition. From now on, just make sure she takes her medicine on time and gets plenty of rest. She'll be fully recovered after a few more doses."

With that said, he prepared to take his leave.

"Doctor Li, I'll see you out!"

Lin Guorui insisted on escorting him, and Hu Qiming quickly followed.

The three of them walked and talked, discussing their insights on treating Rushing Piglet Disorder.

As they passed the internal medicine specialist's office, it just so happened that Xue Shuheng's office door was open.

He immediately spotted Li Xu, who was chatting cheerfully with Lin Guorui.

Xue Shuheng's brow instantly knotted together.

'What's this brat doing here?'

'And he's laughing and joking with Lin Guorui?'

A nameless rage surged up from the bottom of his heart.

He felt that his authority had been challenged.

"Li Xu, stop right there!"

Xue Shuheng stepped out of his office with a grim expression, calling the three to a halt.

Li Xu turned around and looked at this "teacher" before him, whose face was full of ill will, his own gaze indifferent.

"What are you doing at the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine?"

Xue Shuheng demanded in an interrogating tone, "Is this a place you should be?"

Li Xu, who despised the man's sanctimonious hypocrisy, couldn't be bothered with pleasantries and retorted directly, "Where I go doesn't seem to be any of your business, does it?"

"You!" Xue Shuheng was so choked with anger his face froze. He turned his fury on Lin Guorui. "Director Lin! What is the meaning of this? Why did you bring him to the hospital?"

Lin Guorui was put in an awkward position and could only tell the truth. "Professor Xue, it's like this. I asked Doctor Li to come and take a look at the patient in bed 302."

"Examine a patient?" Xue Shuheng sneered, looking at Li Xu with contempt as if he had just heard the world's biggest joke. "A patient on death's door—he can examine her? Does he even know what he's looking at? Lin Guorui, have you lost your mind? To actually trust a doctor from some little clinic!"

"Professor Xue, you can't say that." Lin Guorui was starting to get annoyed as well and stood his ground. "The fact is, after Doctor Li examined the patient, he wrote a prescription. The patient took the medicine and has already shown great improvement!"

"Impossible!"

Xue Shuheng's first reaction was disbelief.

But seeing the unwavering certainty of Lin Guorui and the rock-solid composure of Li Xu, he couldn't stand still. He immediately spun around and stormed towards Ward 302.

When he saw the patient, who should have been on the brink of death, now lying peacefully on the bed with a healthy color in her cheeks and breathing steadily, his eyes instantly widened.

Refusing to believe it, he strode forward, grabbed the patient's wrist, and took her pulse himself.

What he felt at his fingertips was no longer the faint, thready, and failing pulse from before.

Instead, it was a gentle, moderate pulse that, while weak, was brimming with life!

'How is this possible?!'

'The patient was terminally ill this morning, with no doubt she would die. And now, just half a day later, she's actually been brought back from the dead?'

'And the one who created this miracle was none other than one of his own disobedient students.'

Xue Shuheng's face burned with humiliation.

But he was absolutely unwilling to admit that he was inferior to Li Xu.

He was a specialist in internal medicine at the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a respected and highly regarded professor, a teacher admired by countless students!

And Li Xu, in his eyes, was nothing more than a wet-behind-the-ears kid who had just graduated, relying on a bit of luck and unorthodox methods to make a name for himself!

'If word of this gets out that he, Xue Shuheng, had made a terrible misjudgment and been outdone by his own student, how could he ever show his face in this field again?'

'His reputation, his authority—it would all be gone!'

'No!'

'Absolutely not!'

'He had to find an opportunity, a chance to crush Li Xu under his heel in front of everyone and prove that he was the true authority!'

Just as Xue Shuheng's mind was consumed by dark emotions, racking his brain for a way to save face, his phone suddenly rang urgently.

The caller ID showed it was the hospital's emergency department.

Xue Shuheng took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the rage in his heart, and answered the call.

"Hello, this is Xue Shuheng."

"Professor Xue! Thank goodness, we finally got through to you!"

On the other end of the line was the anxious voice of Dr. Han from the emergency department. "We've admitted a very difficult case here. The situation is critical, and we'd like to ask you to come for a consultation immediately!"

Dr. Han quickly summarized the patient's situation:

A village woman had taken her seven-year-old daughter to visit her own parents.

During lunch, the family made her a delicious bowl of pork noodles.

Unexpectedly, while fighting with her cousin over a piece of meat on the bone, the little girl ate too quickly, and a piece of pork bone got stuck low in her throat. It wouldn't go up or down, and she couldn't swallow.

Seeing this, the frantic family immediately resorted to the most primitive folk remedy: sticking their fingers down the child's throat to try and induce vomiting, hoping to dislodge the bone.

However, this crude procedure not only failed to work, but it actually backfired.

Soon after, the little girl's throat and neck began to swell rapidly.

By midday, her entire head, face, and chest had swollen up like a rubber ball, a glossy, purplish color.

The child, in extreme pain and suffocating, could no longer swallow anything or make any sound. She could only keep her mouth open, drooling in agony, her breathing like a broken-down bellows.

Only then did the family realize the gravity of the situation and rush her to the emergency department of the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.