Huaihe Road, Ruyi District.
Xia Lei was sprawled on the sofa. A soccer match was playing on TV, but he didn't even have the strength to lift his eyes to the screen.
The sound of his wife stir-frying ca from the kitchen. The sll of cooking fus drifted into the living room, making his stomach churn.
"Dinner's ready." Lin i ca out carrying two dishes. Seeing her husband's condition, her brow furrowed. "Feeling sick again?"
Xia Lei forced himself to sit up straight. "I'm fine, just tired."
"It's been two months since your surgery. Other people have their appendix out and are back on their feet in a week. Why are you still like this?"
His wife handed him a pair of chopsticks, her voice filled with unconcealed worry.
Xia Lei picked up so vegetables with his chopsticks and chewed without tasting them. "Who knows? Didn't Dr. Xu say all the tests ca back normal?"
"The tests are normal, but *you're* not normal," his wife said, putting down her bowl and chopsticks. "You went to the bathroom three tis again last night. I could hear you sighing from the next room."
Xia Lei's chopsticks froze in mid-air, and his expression turned grim.
This was indeed the problem he found most difficult to talk about—ever since the appendectomy, not only had his stamina plumted, but he was also having issues with his most basic masculine functions.
Last Friday night, he had embarrassingly failed in bed. Although his wife didn't say anything, her disappointed gaze was worse than any reprimand.
"Why don't you... go see a traditional Chinese dicine doctor?" his wife suddenly suggested.
"Chinese dicine?" Xia Lei scoffed. "What good can those bitter dicinal soups do?"
"Sister Wang from my office was also incredibly weak after her surgery last month, and she got better by drinking herbal dicine."
His wife grew more animated as she spoke. "I heard the doctor isn't old, but he's incredibly accurate at reading pulses. He can tell what's wrong with a patient just by feeling their pulse."
Xia Lei shook his head. "Probably just so quack. There aren't any Divine Physicians like that around anymore."
"Western dicine can't find anything wrong, and you're not willing to try Chinese dicine. What do you want to do?"
His wife's voice rose. "Look at you now! You get out of breath just climbing the stairs. When our son asked you to play soccer with him on the weekend, you didn't even dare to agree..."
Her words hit a nerve.
His ten-year-old son had indeed pleaded with him to go to the park last week, but he didn't even have the strength to walk to the edge of their residential district.
"I'll go back to the Second Hospital for more tests tomorrow," Xia Lei said, mounting a final resistance.
"What's there to test? They've already drawn your blood three tis!" His wife pulled up an address on her phone. "Li's Traditional Chinese dicine Clinic, on Construction Road. Take tomorrow off and go check it out. Do it for and our son."
Xia Lei looked at his wife's stubborn expression and finally gave in. "Fine, I'll go. But if it doesn't work, don't ever bring up Chinese dicine again."
His wife sighed in relief and ladled him another bowl of soup. "Finish this mountain yam and pork rib soup first. It'll help you regain so strength."
Lying in bed that night, Xia Lei listened to his wife's even breathing, but he couldn't fall asleep.
He got up quietly, stood by the window, and lit a cigarette.
In the dim light, he looked down at his surgical scar—a faint, three-centiter mark that seed to have drained all the energy from his body.
'Did sothing go wrong with the surgery?' he muttered to himself. The thought flashed through his mind, but he imdiately suppressed it. 'Impossible. Dr. Xu said the surgery was a success, and I've been checked twice since then.'
The next morning, Xia Lei took the day off work and followed the address to Li's Traditional Chinese dicine Clinic on Construction Road.
The late autumn weather was growing colder.
He was wearing thick clothes but still shivered from the cold.
He only felt a little better after stepping into the clinic.
"Hello, please have a seat." A young nurse with a ponytail looked up and greeted him.
Xia Lei glanced around. The clinic was small but tidy, with several ridian and acupoint charts hanging on the walls.
Various Chinese dicinal herbs were neatly arranged in the dicine cabinets, and a faint, herbal aroma filled the air.
"Is Doctor Li in?" Xia Lei's voice was a bit hoarse. "I'm here to see him."
Song Sisi quickly sized up the new patient—he was around forty, with a dium build, but his complexion was dull and sallow. There were obvious dark circles under his eyes, and he stood with his shoulders slumped slightly forward, as if bearing an invisible weight.
"Please fill out this initial consultation form first. Doctor Li is just preparing a prescription for the previous patient; he'll be with you shortly," Song Sisi said, handing him a form and a pen.
Xia Lei took the form and hastily scribbled in the basic information fields.
When he got to the "Past dical History" section, he wrote, "Appendectomy two months ago."
A few monts later, Li Xu saw a patient out. He then took the initial consultation form from Song Sisi and had Xia Lei sit down in front of him.
Li Xu asked gently, "What seems to be the problem?"
"I just... get tired really easily," Xia Lei said with a frown. "I had an appendectomy two months ago. It was supposed to be a minor surgery, but I haven't been recovering well since."
Li Xu nodded, gesturing for him to continue.
"I get short of breath after the slightest movent, and I even feel exhausted just sitting in my office at work. I used to be able to play ball with my son after work, but now I just want to lie down as soon as I get ho."
Xia Lei glanced over at Song Sisi in the distance and lowered his voice. "And... I'm having problems in *that* departnt, too. My wife..."
Li Xu understood and continued asking, "How is your sleep?"
"I don't sleep soundly. I have a lot of dreams and often have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom." Xia Lei sighed. "I went to the Second Hospital for a check-up, and the doctor said all my vitals were normal and told to get more rest. But I've been resting, and I'm still like this."
"Do you feel cold often? Are your hands and feet cold?" Li Xu asked while observing Xia Lei's complexion.
"Yes! I'm especially sensitive to the cold. I'm already using a thick quilt at night."
Xia Lei spoke as if he'd found soone who finally understood. "The soles of my feet are always ice-cold. My wife says my feet feel like a dead person's."
Li Xu had him stick out his tongue—it was pale and swollen, with teeth marks on the edges and a thin, white coating.
Next was the pulse diagnosis. When his fingers touched Xia Lei's right wrist, his brow twitched almost imperceptibly.
The right pulse was deep, fine, and weak; the middle position, in particular, was nearly impossible to feel.
Switching to the left wrist, the pulse was even stranger—wiry and fine, with a sense of instability. The rear pulse was especially faint, fading in and out.
Li Xu had to press down harder with his fingers to barely feel the faint beat of the kidney pulse.
"Does your lower back ache often?" Li Xu asked.
"Yes, it does! Especially when I wake up in the morning. It takes a while to be able to straighten up," Xia Lei answered imdiately.
"How is your urination?"
"Frequent, but in small amounts. Sotis there's a lingering discomfort after I finish." Xia Lei hesitated. "But the urinalysis said everything was fine."
Li Xu withdrew his hand and pondered for a mont. "Was there excessive bleeding after the surgery? Or were you given large doses of antibiotics?"
Xia Lei shook his head. "The doctor said the surgery went very smoothly. I was just on an IV drip for a bit and was discharged in three days."
Li Xu felt that sothing wasn't quite right.
This pulse didn't seem like a simple case of post-surgical deficiency. The kidney pulse, in particular, was abnormally weak, yet he couldn't pinpoint a clear reason for it.
"I'll prescribe you so dicine to regulate your system first," Li Xu said, picking up a pen to write a prescription. "You have a deficiency in both the spleen and kidney, along with liver qi stagnation. Your qi and blood were damaged by the surgery, and that, combined with possible excessive worry, has led to a depletion of your Yang Qi."
"30 grams of Astragalus Root, 15 grams of Codonopsis, 12 grams of Atractylodes..." Li Xu explained as he wrote. "This formula is a modification of the Astragalus Decoction for Replenishing the Middle combined with the Five Sons Inheriting Pill. It strengthens the spleen and boosts qi, warms and nourishes the kidney yang, and is supplented with herbs to soothe the liver."
Xia Lei only half-understood. "Doctor Li, is my condition serious?"
"It's not serious, but it requires patient conditioning," Li Xu said gently. "Post-surgical deficiency is common, but your recovery is slower, which might be related to your constitution. Take this dicine for seven days first, one dose per day, split between morning and evening."
Xia Lei took the prescription and asked hesitantly, "Will this... help get my... sex life back?"
Li Xu smiled understandingly. "It will naturally improve once your kidney qi is restored. But it's a gradual process, so don't be in a rush to see results."
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