Chapter 2: Pinellia

At 8:30 the next morning, after five hours of fitful sleep, Qi Banxia finished washing up and sat unhurriedly at the dining table to eat breakfast. Qi Yuanzhi called just then.

“Bean, weren’t you planning to get a full checkup a while back? The hospital’s employee-family health screening has some extra deals on top of the usual discounts. I signed you up last Friday. If you’ve got time, come in.”

“Hm?” He spoke so quickly that Qi Banxia hadn’t caught it.

Qi Yuanzhi teased her. “Right, I forgot. Our Bean’s a big star. A little discount is beneath her.”

“Brother, did you say a checkup? I’m free today.”

Qi Banxia moved the phone away and glanced at their chat, which had scrolled nearly three pages back. He’d made the same offer before, and she’d turned him down with the excuse that she was too busy.

“I’ll call the health center now, then. Afternoon would be best. The hospital won’t be as crowded.”

“Brother, don’t call me Bean. It’s a terrible name.” At least not many people knew her nickname.

“My nickname, Fuzzy, isn’t any better. I’ve got to check on the other two rooms. Talk later.”

Wu Liu had come up with Qi Banxia’s nickname. On the day Banxia turned one month old, Wu Liu had been holding Jiang Baizhi while helping Sun Mingfen shell edamame. “Why not call little Banxia Bean?” she’d said. “She weighed only five pounds three ounces when she was born. So tiny and cute.”

And so Bean had followed Qi Banxia throughout her childhood. The elders didn’t call her that much after she grew up, but Qi Yuanzhi still called her Bean every other breath.

After he hung up, Qi Banxia finished the other half of her whole-wheat roll. She had just picked up her cup of milk when Tao Tao rang the doorbell.

The young woman came in carrying a bag of fruit and another of low-fat snacks.

“We already have fruit at home. You’ll have bought too much.” Whenever Qi Banxia was back in Yanyang, she spent most of her time with Sun Mingfen. Their three-bedroom apartment was furnished in a traditional Chinese style. Living with family meant never having to worry about household necessities. The fridge was always full.

“Auntie Sun can eat it.”

Qi Banxia helped Tao Tao unpack the groceries and put them away. With a free morning ahead of her, she started reading through the textbooks she’d received a couple of days earlier. The trouble was, whenever she focused too hard, she got sleepy—and nothing made her drowsier than dry academic material.

By around ten, she’d nodded off against the sofa. The sun had climbed high overhead by the time Tao Tao woke her for lunch. Then the driver took the two of them to Yanyang City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in a rush.

——

The air on the third floor of outpatient building A was faintly fragrant with herbs. Patients and their families crowded the oncology corridor. There weren’t many people outside the second-to-last examination room, where a photo posted on the wall had drawn a small crowd of murmuring onlookers.

“The doctor looks so young. Doesn’t traditional Chinese medicine take experience? Can someone that young really treat patients?” asked a woman around fifty.

“I looked her up online. I don’t know how old she is, but she was already a deputy director two years out of school. Must have connections,” said a worried-looking man.

“It says she specializes in complicated internal medicine cases—digestive, respiratory, and cardiovascular problems, liver and gallbladder disease, all kinds of masses and benign or malignant tumors. She’s what, thirty? How can she know all that?”

The people outside started talking over one another.

“She graduated from the first five-year undergraduate, four-year master’s, and five-year doctoral program at Yanyang University of Chinese Medicine. She was promoted to deputy chief physician this July. Doctor Jiang’s a top student.” A nurse in a white cap passed by and reminded them, “Please check in at triage first.”

The patients moved toward the triage desk and formed a line.

“Doctor Jiang,” the nurse called out.

The woman across from the desk paused, gave her a faint smile, then continued down the corridor to the right. She wore pale, flat-soled shoes and a white coat buttoned neatly over her clothes. Her long hair fell down her back like a waterfall. Deep-set eyes looked out from behind angular amber frames. Her gaze was cool, and she seemed difficult to approach.

Before long, the sign above her examination-room door lit up. She started with follow-up patients. Doctor Jiang had a routine: one returning patient, then two new ones, and so on.

A follow-up patient went in. About ten minutes later, she came back out with her CT results and prescription, a smile playing on her lips.

“Ma’am, what does your family member have? How good is Doctor Jiang?”

“My dad has late-stage lung cancer. He’s eighty. The thoracic surgeons at Huaya Hospital said he wasn’t fit for surgery. I couldn’t get an appointment with a traditional medicine specialist, so I ended up taking him to Doctor Jiang. He’s been on her medicine for a year. He’s put on ten pounds, has a much better appetite, and looks almost as well as ever.” The woman spoke confidently.

The call system started beeping again. A father and daughter stood up from the bench and went inside.

“Hello, Doctor.” The girl handed over her appointment slip and sat down. Her father remained standing beside her.

“Where are you feeling unwell?” Jiang Baizhi opened the patient’s blank chart and prepared to take notes.

“Here.” The girl’s face suddenly flushed. She pointed to her chest.

“Could you step outside for a moment?” Jiang Baizhi looked up at the girl’s father.

The man was confused. Remembering what the people outside had been saying, he seemed to assume Jiang Baizhi was worried someone would catch her out for not knowing her stuff. His tone turned hostile. “Why can’t I know what’s wrong with my child?”

“Because patients have a right to privacy.”

“Children don’t have privacy from their parents.”

Jiang Baizhi frowned. She didn’t want to explain further. “Is her mother here?”

“Her mother’s a country woman. She doesn’t understand any of this.”

The girl seemed to understand what Jiang Baizhi was getting at. She pulled her father aside and whispered to him. At last, he half-reluctantly stepped outside and shut the door.

The patient said she’d felt a lump in her left breast, at the two o’clock position, while showering. She was afraid it was breast cancer. Jiang Baizhi reassured her that it was probably benign, then asked her to remove her jacket and bra so she could examine her.

The girl was at that awkward age when she’d never undressed in front of a stranger, let alone exposed such a sensitive part of her body. Her face grew even redder.

She moved very slowly…

Jiang Baizhi didn’t rush her. She tapped away at the keyboard, recording the girl’s information as she waited.

“Doctor, I’m ready.”

The girl turned around awkwardly. Seeing how tense she was, Jiang Baizhi softened her expression and spoke gently. “It’s all right. It’s just a routine exam.”

She carefully examined the girl. The lump was about an inch across, firm, and movable under pressure.

“Does it hurt?” Jiang Baizhi asked softly.

“A little.”

“Does it usually hurt around your period?”

The girl nodded at once.

“It may be a benign breast lump along with fibrocystic changes, but we’ll need an ultrasound to confirm.” Jiang Baizhi printed a form and handed it to her. “You can check in at the triage desk and come back for a follow-up before five.”

The girl thanked her politely and left.

There weren’t many patients that afternoon. Around four-thirty, the girl and her father returned to the examination room. The ultrasound showed a well-defined, smooth-edged hypoechoic nodule about eighteen by eleven millimeters in size, four centimeters from the nipple, between the two and three o’clock positions. Its internal echoes were uniform, and there was no color Doppler blood flow.

Jiang Baizhi confirmed it was a fibroadenoma. Since the girl was under twenty, she recommended monitoring it instead of having surgery.

“Can you prescribe something?”

“Your daughter has dampness that has gathered into phlegm. She may be naturally introverted and prone to bottling up her feelings and sulking. Or she might have a quick temper and get angry easily, which can affect the liver’s ability to regulate the flow of qi. I can prescribe a few doses to help, but they won’t do much. Keeping her in a good mood is the most important thing.”

“I don’t understand any of that. Just write the prescription and I’ll pay.”

Jiang Baizhi sighed inwardly and didn’t respond.

She printed the prescription and handed it over. “Have another ultrasound in six months. Next time, make an appointment with the breast and thyroid clinic downstairs.”

“Hey, Doctor. Don’t take this the wrong way, but how do these ingredients work together? Astragalus raises qi, while white peony lowers it. Don’t they cancel each other out?” The girl’s father was a bit of an herbal-medicine enthusiast and often read public accounts about it.

“Are you the expert here, or am I? They raise and lower qi in different ways. Why would that make them useless?”

“Patients and their families have the right to ask questions.”

“I get off work in five minutes. If you have concerns, you can come back Thursday, or you can file a complaint.” Jiang Baizhi drew a deep breath. Her icy composure cut the man’s bluster in half.

“Dad, Doctor Jiang’s been very patient. Let’s not make trouble.” The girl tugged him toward the door. As they left, she could hear him grumbling, but he didn’t make a scene.

Jiang Baizhi packed up, changed out of her white coat, and went downstairs. She politely declined an invitation to dinner from a colleague and walked out with a scowl, barely responding when people greeted her.

Passing building B’s health center, she spotted a familiar figure through the glass.

Wasn’t she so busy?

She went into the outpatient lobby of building B. Some of the medical staff finishing their shifts didn’t know her, so she avoided the need for small talk and headed straight for the health center on the first floor. Just as she was about to turn into the waiting room, she ran straight into Qi Banxia, who had put on her jacket and mask.

“You.”

They spoke at the same time.

“You go first.” Qi Banxia knew she’d been caught, so she stepped aside and waited for Jiang Baizhi to ask her questions.

Jiang Baizhi frowned and walked closer. “Have you been busy lately?”

“Yes.”

“So you made time to come to the hospital?”

“Health comes first.”

Jiang Baizhi was left with nothing to say. She wasn’t even sure why she’d been angry in the first place. Hearing Qi Banxia’s reasonable explanation, her irritation faded in an instant.

“Are you done with your checkup?”

“Yes. I haven’t asked you yet—what’s going on with Shi Zhen?” At two that afternoon, Qi Banxia had seen Best Friend Battle’s announcement on the way over. Jiang Baizhi’s name beside Shi Zhen’s had stood out like a beacon. Qi Banxia had nearly shouted in surprise and had almost chipped a tooth biting the sound back.

“She invited me.”

“That’s nonsense. She was clearly…” Qi Banxia remembered that in her previous life, Shi Zhen had been paired with Lu Yao, one of Jiasheng’s rising stars. Had they suddenly changed partners?

“Clearly what?” Jiang Baizhi asked, her expression unchanged, though a hint of confusion showed in her eyes.

“Ahem. Nothing. Are you free? Isn’t the hospital busy?”

“I still haven’t taken my two weeks of wedding leave…”