Village Doctor's Women-Chapter 193: Disgust 188

After seeing Wang Jian enter the treatment room, Cai Qiang followed Cai Zhi out of the consultation room.

Some of the onlookers at the door had already left; the weather was simply too hot for them to wait around. When Cai Qiang and Cai Zhi came out, they attracted the attention of a group of people, but the pair ignored everyone, walking through the crowd toward the village outskirts.

"He’s just a village doctor..." Cai Zhi grumbled as they left the clinic. Once they reached the edge of the village, he squatted down on the curb with Cai Qiang. Pulling a tin box of cigarettes from his pocket, he said, "Here, bro, have a cigarette! This is from a medicinal herb merchant. A foreign brand, good stuff. Try one."

Cai Qiang frowned, glanced at the cigarette box, and then looked back toward the village entrance. Seeing no one following, he took a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. "We haven’t gone far. Watch what you say."

"This doctor, Wang Jian," Cai Qiang said in a low voice after taking a drag, "he must have some real skill, given how Doctor Niu and that foreigner were acting. If it were just Xiao Jun and the others showing a good attitude, it wouldn’t matter, but with two experts like them acting the same way, it’s a different story..."

Before he could finish, Cai Zhi said regretfully, "It’s a pity that Gao Yang fellow is more trouble than he’s worth."

Cai Qiang slapped Cai Zhi squarely on the back, knocking the cigarette from his hand and making him wince in pain. "What did you hit me for?"

"No one would think you’re mute if you just kept your mouth shut," Cai Qiang glared at his cousin. "Have you forgotten where we are? If anyone overheard that, they might suspect you were involved in that whole affair."

After speaking, Cai Qiang deliberately looked around. Thankfully, the heat had kept the roads empty. They had also put some distance between themselves and the village committee, so they didn’t have to worry about anyone there overhearing them.

Cai Zhi rubbed his sore back and instinctively reached for the cigarette he’d dropped. Seeing it was covered in dirt, he tossed it away. He muttered under his breath, "I was just speaking carelessly. How could it possibly have anything to do with me?"

That affair had major repercussions. It was said that everyone associated with Gao Yang had been investigated from top to bottom.

Cai Qiang’s brow furrowed slightly as he looked at Cai Zhi, a different concern on his mind. If Cai Zhi were involved in that affair, he would have been taken away too... The thought brought Cai Qiang a sliver of relief, but he still wasn’t entirely at ease about his cousin.

For a man his age, he has a terrible memory. Cai Qiang could only stress again, "You had better never mention that to those two siblings."

Cai Zhi nodded quickly, promising to be careful. Only then did Cai Qiang relent. His desire to smoke had vanished. He threw the half-smoked cigarette on the ground and stamped it out. "Forget it, I’m not smoking. It’s hot enough to kill a man. I wonder when this damned weather will ever cool down."

But Cai Zhi shook his head. "I’ll finish mine. You go on ahead."

"Alright." Cai Qiang stared at Cai Zhi for a moment before turning to leave.

Squatting on the curb, Cai Zhi watched Cai Qiang’s departing figure, his eyes narrowing. What a damn pretender.

Whether it was because his throat was sore from smoking or something else was bothering him, Cai Zhi turned his head and spat a thick glob of phlegm onto the ground.

***

After asking the others to wait outside, only Chairman Kang and Wang Jian remained in the treatment room. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

On the operating table, Cai Xing’s vital signs were relatively stable. Aside from a slightly low heart rate and blood pressure, all his other readings were within the normal range.

"Sen... Senior Brother," Chairman Kang said quietly, looking at the unconscious Cai Xing. "What should I do?"

Faced with this situation, Chairman Kang felt utterly helpless. This wasn’t one of the villagers he had examined earlier; this was a major figure. Seeing Wang Jian arrive had been like finding his backbone.

"What’s wrong with him?"

Wang Jian glanced at Chairman Kang as he took Cai Xing’s pulse, simultaneously sensing the abnormalities in the man’s Qi. Hearing the question, he didn’t hide anything and recounted Cai Xing’s history. "He has a heart condition."

"A high-risk one, at that. The first time we met, he was on death’s door."

"How is it there was no news about this?"

Chairman Kang was surprised. A problem in a leading enterprise like that would normally generate widespread reports. Not to mention, the Cai Family’s industry was a sister industry to his own; any rumor or whisper would typically spread like wildfire. Yet he had never heard a thing about this. How well did they keep this secret?

Of course, he didn’t know that a month ago, it wasn’t just him; even Cai Xing’s own treasured son and daughter were unaware. If not for the accident that led to their meeting with Wang Jian and the events that followed, Cai Wenji and the others would have remained ignorant of their father’s grave illness.

Wang Jian didn’t answer Chairman Kang’s question. His brow remained furrowed as he finished his examination of Cai Xing’s physical condition.

"What is it? Did you find anything?" Chairman Kang asked, his eyes filled with confusion. He had tried to examine the patient before Wang Jian arrived but had found nothing. The pulse was weak, but like the monitor readings, it was within a normal range and didn’t point to any specific disease. Now Wang Jian has arrived and done the same thing... has he found the problem?

Wang Jian nodded. "Although the special medicine I prepared managed to pull him back, his body’s entire Life Energy is slowly dissipating. If this continues, his vital signs will only get weaker. At that point, it won’t be a simple coma anymore..."

Wang Jian found a small flashlight, lifted Cai Xing’s eyelid, and waved the light back and forth.

"Pupillary light reflex is normal."

"Body temperature is also normal."

Wang Jian was also stumped. Aside from detecting the dissipation of Qi, he had found nothing else.

Seeing Chairman Kang’s persistent curiosity, Wang Jian explained while he thought, "Because Qi Cultivation is closely related to the Life Energy in the human body, I’m very sensitive to its presence. A healthy person with a normal metabolism should have stable and balanced energy and Qi. The Medical Skills I’ve learned involve diagnosing illness by judging the balance and abnormalities in others.

"It’s like with the villagers who came for treatment today. I could tell what was wrong with them at a glance using this sense, just as you can spot a fracture instantly on an X-ray.

"But with Chairman Cai, the Qi throughout his entire body is steadily dissipating. The pace isn’t fast, but the decline is unstoppable.

"I even tried using my Qi to halt this decline, but the external Qi I pushed into him just dissipated even faster..."

Wang Jian frowned. "Actually, this is a common problem in the elderly. Their Qi diminishes, and their Life Energy becomes weaker than it was in their youth. People on the verge of death are just like Chairman Cai is now, like a deflating ball."

"So, there’s nothing that can be done?" Chairman Kang asked. He finally understood that although Chairman Cai had been saved, the unknown medicine had only bought him time. "If his heart is failing, can’t we perform a transplant?"

"If it were only a heart problem," Wang Jian shook his head, "that man William outside wouldn’t be at a total loss."

For someone like Cai Xing, if a heart transplant could solve the issue, it likely would have been done long before he ever met Wang Jian. However, finding a matching heart for a transplant is a matter of luck; all the money in the world can’t guarantee one.

Wang Jian then added, "His consciousness is the problem."

"Consciousness?" Chairman Kang was stunned. "Brain death?"

Before Wang Jian could answer, he immediately dismissed his own foolish thought. Brain death means a total loss of brain function. Since the brain is the body’s most critical neural center, brain death would cause respiration to cease instantly. Not even an Immortal could save him.

So, Chairman Kang tried another term. "A vegetative state?"

Unexpectedly, Wang Jian still shook his head. "Medically speaking, the condition is similar to a vegetative state, but I suspect the problem lies with the medicine I gave him. Although it pulled his body back from the brink of death, he himself might believe that he’s already dead. That’s what’s causing this situation."

The explanation was bizarre. Chairman Kang opened his mouth to object, but seeing Wang Jian’s solemn expression, he didn’t dare make a joke and clamped his mouth shut. He couldn’t help but speculate. Doesn’t this sound like something out of a novel? Like the soul leaving the body... Could it be that his body was saved, but not his soul? What nonsense.

However, Wang Jian’s theory wasn’t entirely without a medical basis. Medical case files did contain instances of diseases of consciousness. For example, if a person genuinely believed they were being burned, their body would manifest real burns in the afflicted area, identical to those caused by fire. Even cuts, scrapes, and other wounds could appear, sometimes accompanied by bleeding. This type of illness, caused by consciousness, was virtually incurable.

Even if Wang Jian’s Medical Skills were extraordinary, Chairman Kang didn’t believe he could have a truly effective solution. After all, consciousness was arguably the most mysterious frontier of human existence.