Nyoi-Bo Studio

  Nyoi-Bo Studio

  “What should I do then?” the patient asked.

  “I think you should stop taking the flu medication,” Wang Yao replied. “I’ll prescribe you something else.”


  He thought for a moment before prescribing a formula that could stop diarrhea and drive away the cold.

  “I need to stop your diarrhea before treating your flu. Otherwise, neither of your problems will be fixed,” Wang Yao said.

  “OK, thank you,” the patient said.

  Half of the patients coming to the clinic during the day had problems with their stomachs. People tended to get stomach problems in summer since they changed their diet when it was hot. Most people preferred to eat cold food and pre-cooked food during summer. That food tended to get spoiled, and pre-cooked food was often not clean. People would get food poisoning after eating them.

  Wang Yao thought maybe he could develop herbal pills for food poisoning. He actually had the thought several days before. He didn’t take action because he hadn’t had so many patients with stomach problems the past few days.

  “Have you turned on the air conditioning here?” a patient asked.

  “No,” Wang Yao said.

  “How it that possible?” the patient asked. “It is so nice and cool here.”


  “I have good airflow in this room,” Wang Yao said.

  The clinic was built on elevated land. A vacant lot was in front of the clinic, and houses were behind it. None of the houses were built on elevated land, so they were all lower than Wang Yao’s clinic. This made the air flow in the clinic very good.

  Wang Yao had put a lot of plants in front of the clinic and inside the courtyard. The plants had an amazing effect of turning hot air into cool air. In addition, the battle array in the courtyard also reduced the temperature. Even without air conditioning, his clinic was nice and cool. The temperature was always around 77degrees, which best suited humans.

  “I think even with the air conditioning on in my own house, it is less comfortable than your place,” the patient said.

  Wang Yao saw the last patient of the day away after 5 p.m. After the patient left, he started to think about the formula for treating food poisoning. The formula needed to smooth the Qi, regulate stomach function, reduce fever, and stop diarrhea.

  Dark plum, atractylodes macrocephala, codonopsis, terminalia chebula, licorice roots……

  Wang Yao wrote down the components of the formula and began to prepare the herbs in his clinic.

  After dinner, he went back to Nanshan hill with the herbs. He repeatedly ground and sieved the herbs into powder. It was after 11 p.m. by the time he finished.

  He got up very early the next morning. After having a quick breakfast, he started to make the herbal pills. He put some ancient spring water into the powder and placed the powder into the dustpan to shake. He repeated the whole process again and again until the herbal powder became small pills like rice. The pills gradually became bigger. Eventually, they were as big as soybeans.

  The way Wang Yao made herbal pills was simple and old-fashioned. Ancient Chinese practitioners used the same method to make herbal pills. He didn’t wrap his pills with honey, so they didn’t look good. However, they were very effective.

  He made less than a hundred pills in the morning and put them into several bottles.

  In the afternoon, Wang Yao had two patients in the clinic. Both of them suffered from headaches.

  “What do you do for a living?” Wang Yao asked. Both patients were women in their 40s. Their faces had turned red from being exposed to the sun for a long time.

  “We work in the building industry. We tie steel bars,” one of the women said.

  “You work outside at this time of the day?” Wang Yao asked.

  “Yes, because it pays well,” the woman said.

  This time of year, a person could earn more than $200 by working outdoors because no one wanted to. The builders couldn’t find enough contractors, so they increased the pay to attract workers.

  “You got sick because you worked too hard,” Wang Yao said.

  The two women had worked under the sun for more than 10 consecutive days. One could probably manage one to two days, but 10 days was too much. Wang Yao had been checking the weather forecast every day for the past two weeks, so he knew it had been very hot.

  The temperature could reach 104 degrees at lunch time, which was the hottest time of the day. According to relevant regulation, no worker should work outdoors when it was over 104 degrees. However, the builders didn’t always comply with the regulation, especially in an isolated village. No one came to check on them. As long as no one got sick or injured, they all wanted to complete the work before the due date.

  “Both of you need to rest. In addition, try not to work outdoors in such hot weather,” Wang Yao said.

  “We don’t need to take any medication?” one of the women asked.

  “No, and no needles either,” Wang Yao said.

  In fact, the two women just needed to properly rest. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt for them to eat fruits and food like watermelon, which could help them cool down.

  The two women left feeling a little suspicious of their visit. After they left the clinic, they received a phone call from the builder, who wanted them to continue working.

  They thought about what Wang Yao had told them and decided to turn the builder down. He had said that although they could earn $200 a day, the work would cost them their health. They would probably spend 10 or even a hundred times more money to treat the illness caused by overworking.

  A lot of people exchanged their health for wealth. Most of them regretted it in the end. It happened all the time in this world.

  They decided to go home to rest. Perhaps they were truly exhausted.

  “Fortunately, we were paid cash,” one of the women said.

  Normally, the builders wouldn’t pay their contractors right away when they had finished working at the end of the day. The builders would use pay to threaten their contractors and force them to continue working. Most contractors would ask for cash at the end of the day.

  Wang Yao had three patients in total in the afternoon.

  It suddenly became very humid late in the afternoon. There was barely any wind in the village.

  “The weather forecast said it was going to rain in the afternoon. Be careful when you are on the hill,” said Zhang Xiuying, who was concerned about her son.

  “I know. Don’t worry about me, Mom,” Wang Yao said.

  He knew Nanshan Hill wouldn’t be affected by the rain or a thunderstorm. The trees would protect the hill. Plus, Nanshan Hill was not that tall.

  It started to rain at 8 p.m. The rain started light but became heavier after midnight. Wang Yao could hear the thunder. He laid in bed, listening to the rain.

  The rain didn’t stop the next morning. Water had started to accumulate on the hill. The reservoir was soon full of water. The water followed the creek and ran all the way down to the foot of Nanshan Hill. Because there were a lot of trees on the hill, the water was very clear after being filtered.

  No one came to the clinic in such heavy rain. So, Wang Yao didn’t go down to the clinic in a hurry. Instead, he stayed in his cottage reviewing the formulas, including Sanyang powder, strengthening soup, and Nine Herbs pill.

  None of the formulas required licorice roots. He could manufacture a large amount of those formulas after the pharmaceutical factory had been built.

  Woof! Woof! The dog suddenly started to bark.

  “What’s wrong, Sanxian?” Wang Yao asked as he walked out of the cottage.

  The rain was blocked one inch away from him by an invisible wall.