A divine healer, a general, a young marquis! Who can rival them!

So, ever since he cured Old Master Wei's severe abdominal pain and then cured several other cases of illnesses that the city's doctors couldn't treat, people in the west of the city no longer used the word "young" to belittle Doctor Yang from the east.

At noon today, several servants carried a sedan chair and arrived in a panic in front of Yang's house.

The man being carried down was none other than Master Hu, the owner of a silk shop in the west of the city.

This old man, Mr. Hu, was not yet fifty and was quite plump, but today his face was pale. He sat leaning back in his sedan chair, one hand tightly clutching his chest, panting heavily, as if a breath was stuck in his chest, unable to come up or go down.

"Dr. Yang... help! Save my master..." the butler cried, rushing to his side. "At first, his legs were swollen and numb, so we didn't take it seriously. But in the last two days, he suddenly can't breathe. Two doctors in town both said... they both said it's water retention affecting his heart, and there's no hope!"

Yang Hu had someone unload Master Hu from the carriage and place him on a bamboo couch in the hall.

He pressed on Mr. Hu's calf again, and then touched below his knee, but Mr. Hu didn't feel anything.

Yang Hu then examined Old Master Hu's feet and asked him some questions about his recent diet and lifestyle.

I understand now.

It wasn't water retention affecting the heart, nor was it any kind of wind poisoning; it was athlete's foot—the feet swell and go numb first, then the knees become numb, the qi rises upwards, rushing to the heart, causing shortness of breath and a feeling of impending death. The cause was precisely that day, when I ate refined rice and flour for every meal.

An old doctor who came along stroked his beard and gave a forced smile.

"Dr. Yang, this is a fatal disease caused by water retention affecting the heart. I've seen many such cases in my many years of medical practice. You, young man, haven't seen many either."

"This isn't moisture," Yang Hu said calmly. "It's athlete's foot."

The old doctor scoffed, "Athlete's foot? That's something only those who do hard labor, carrying loads in mud and water, get. Master Hu was raised on a diet of white rice, white meat, and white vegetables, living a life of luxury. How could he possibly have the ailments of a laborer?"

"It's precisely because of the diet of white rice and refined meat that this disease developed," Yang Hu said.

Everyone in the room was stunned.

Yang Hu didn't explain, but first used silver needles to prick several acupoints on Master Hu's chest.

When Master Hu was breathing most heavily, the women, men, and servants beside him stared in disbelief as Yang Hu inserted needles into the chest of a dying man, making them tremble with fear.

"Are you treating an illness or killing someone?" the old doctor said sarcastically from the side.

Yang ignored him, and after inserting the acupuncture needles, he prepared a bowl of medicine to relieve asthma and dissolved it himself, feeding it to Master Hu little by little.

No one dared to breathe loudly, and all eyes were fixed on the bamboo bed.

About half an hour later, the breath that had been stuck in Mr. Hu's chest was slowly released, and he calmed down. His pale face also became a little rosier.

"It's back to life..." Guan Chang breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's only a temporary relief," Yang Hu said, putting away the needles. "This illness is related to what you eat."

He summoned the steward and whispered in his ear that from now on, there should be less white rice and fine flour, and a little brown rice, red beans, and beans should be mixed in. The rice bran should not be ground too finely either.

Athlete's foot is caused by a lack of the nutrients removed from refined rice and flour, which are found in whole grains.

"Huh?" The butler's eyes widened. "My master, eating such exquisite food every meal, has it caused you health problems?"

"A disease of the rich, a disease of the rich." Yang Hu laughed. "Poor people eat coarse rice and grains, so they don't get this disease much. Master Hu's disease is caused by being too picky about food and eating too refined food."

Upon hearing this, Master Hu changed the food, and then Yang Hu prescribed medicine for a few days.

The swelling in my feet subsided a little each day; the numbness below my knees gradually returned to normal; and I no longer experienced that agonizing shortness of breath in my chest.

In just over ten days, Mr. Hu was able to walk around with the help of canes.

Mr. Hu personally came to express his gratitude, bringing a hefty sum of money for the consultation, along with a plaque covered with red silk.

Yang Hu accepted the consultation fee, but declined the plaque, saying, "Master Hu's recovery is half due to the medicine and half due to the change in his diet. Hanging this plaque would make it seem like it's all my doing."

Master Hu felt more and more that this young doctor was honest. He held his hand and thanked him repeatedly, saying that in the future, if anyone in the west of the city had a difficult illness, he should recommend Yang's doctor first.

Yang Hu used most of the consultation fee to buy more medicine, and the rest was used to help a few families in the west of the city who had run out of food.

As soon as Master Hu recovered, the pampered wealthy families in the west of the city panicked. For several days in a row, they sent servants to ask: "Our master eats fine rice and flour at every meal, shouldn't he also abstain from these?"

Yang Hu accepted all comers and examined them one by one, explaining in detail the reasons for avoiding refined grains and adding coarse grains.

Suddenly, a few more pieces of coarse rice and other grains appeared on the dining tables of these grand mansions in the west of the city. The servants whispered among themselves that Dr. Yang from the east of the city was even taking care of what the masters ate for every meal.

The news spread throughout the western part of the city within a few days.

"The doctors in the city all said that Mr. Hu's asthma was hopeless, caused by water retention attacking his heart, but Doctor Yang cured him with just a few acupuncture needles and a few doses of medicine."

"The strangest thing is that Dr. Yang said this illness was caused by eating too refined a diet, and told Mr. Hu to switch to eating brown rice and other grains. Isn't that strange? We can have mountains of gold and silver, but the brown rice in our poor people's bowls is more nourishing."

The old doctor who had pronounced Yang Hu dead and publicly ridiculed him never showed his face in the west of the city again after the news of this incident spread.

"Master, it's the same rice, refined rice and flour, white and fragrant, so why isn't it as nourishing?"

"You don't know! This rice..."

"That little husk and the tiny point on the outside of the rice may look insignificant, but all the nourishing nutrients are inside!"

Yang Hu said:

"The finer you grind it, the more finely it becomes. In the end, all that's left is a clean, white bowl that looks precious, but all the truly useful parts are gone!"

Aji seemed to understand but not quite, yet he remembered those words firmly.

Late at night

backyard.

Lu Rou was using an abacus to write down her recent income, her small eyes smiling beautifully.

"Young master, this month's output is 30% higher than last month's!"

"Even if you have a lot, you should spend it sparingly!" Yang Hu said.

"There are many people going hungry in the west of this city. Let's help them out."

"Aren't all the patients you treat rich people suffering from 'rich people's diseases'? Most of the money you collect probably ends up being spent on food for the poor, doesn't it?"

As Lu Yan sorted through the medicinal herbs, she pursed her lips and said with a smile:

"Young master, you are right!"

Aren't you treating diseases of affluence?

"Half of the money we collect from these patients suffering from 'rich man's disease' is taken by you to feed the poor!"

"yes!

"We should collect more of the things we eat that are considered 'rich man's disease'!" Yang Hu said.

"That poor family, how could they possibly eat all of our straw rice?"

Liu Ye had just returned from the medicinal herb garden on the outskirts of the city, and had even caught two pieces of wild game on the way. Upon seeing this, she immediately burst into laughter.

Seeing this scene, Liu Ye grinned.

Qin Ying remained silent, simply observing the room filled with lights, listening to the clatter of abacuses, and observing the murmurs and jokes...

Amidst these sounds and sights, I slowly came to a stop.

Yang Hu is becoming more and more famous.

During this period, more and more new faces appeared among the patients who came to see him, especially those respectable families in the west of the city who originally lived in large, closed courtyards and rarely even opened their gates.

These families secretly sent their maids and servants to deliver invitations, asking Dr. Yang to examine them.

Those people live in mansions and courtyards where people usually can't even get in if they knock...

When Yang Hu held the invitation, he knew very well that after practicing medicine to this extent, there were places he could never have accessed before, and he could gradually find opportunities to enter them under the pretext of seeing a doctor.