Du Heng had a smile on his lips, looking relaxed and happy. He searched Li Jianwei's office but didn't find him.

Out in the hallway, he stopped a traditional Chinese medicine doctor and asked, "Do you know where Director Li has gone?"

"He might be in the consultation room; I just saw someone looking for him."

"Oh, thank you."

"President Du is too kind."

Then Du Heng leisurely went to the outpatient service, but Li Jianwei wasn't there either. However, Du Heng saw another familiar face. "Xiao Ma, why are you in the consultation room?"

"Du, my Teacher has been called for a consultation, so he asked me to fill in for a while."

Du Heng took a chair from where Xiao Su had been sitting, pulled it to the other side of the desk, and sat down. He then had Xiao Ma bring another chair from further inside the room. "Oh, how long will he be?"

"He didn't say, but I guess it will be soon. He's been gone for quite a while."

Before Xiao Ma could say more, there was a knock on the consultation room door. Turning, they saw a man and a woman at the entrance. The woman had a worried, sallow complexion and seemed listless, while the man watched her carefully, ready to offer support at any moment.

Seeing this, Du Heng quickly said, "We can chat after work. You should see the Patient first."

Xiao Ma nodded, immediately straightened his chubby frame, and said softly to the people at the door, "Come in."

Du Heng also sat up straight and picked up a disease record from beside him, starting to read.

Xiao Ma was one of Li Jianwei's graduate students who had graduated this year. He was the earnest but somewhat slow-on-the-uptake student Du Heng remembered. Du Heng hadn't heard any news about him before this and had assumed he'd either gone on to pursue a doctorate or returned to his hometown. He hadn't expected Xiao Ma to be quietly working shifts at the Provincial First Hospital.

After taking the medical card, Xiao Ma read the Patient's information on his computer and began to question the woman sitting before him, "Where are you uncomfortable?"

The woman clutched her chest and spoke in a lifeless voice, "My chest... feels... awful..."

Just from her voice, without even seeing her, one might think she was on the verge of death. It startled not only Xiao Ma, the inexperienced novice, but also Du Heng, a veteran doctor with seven or eight years of experience. His eyes involuntarily lifted from the disease record he was holding to look at the woman.

Just as Xiao Ma was about to ask another question, the man standing behind the woman—perhaps fed up with his Wife's demeanor—spoke directly to Xiao Ma, "Doctor, it's like this."

"We're from a village. When the weather's hot, it's unbearable inside the house, so we like to take our bowls and eat outside."

"I forget which day it was last month. We were having dinner, and my Wife was eating under the eaves. As it happened, there was a spider right there. And wouldn't you know it, just as my Wife was scooping food into her mouth, it dropped right in, and she swallowed it."

Poisoned?

That was Xiao Ma's first reaction. "A small spider shouldn't be a problem; its poison isn't very potent. It should have passed through her system by now."

The man shook his head. "It wasn't a small spider; it was as big as a fingertip! Our Child saw it, but my Wife eats so quickly. Before our Child could even say anything, she'd already gulped it down."

"My Wife had already taken a couple of mouthfuls and swallowed before our Child finally managed to say something. By then, no matter how much she tried to throw up, it was no use. All that came out was a single spider leg, nothing else."

Xiao Ma typed on the computer as he listened. Although Du Heng was sitting right across from him, Xiao Ma didn't have the courage to ask Du, his senior, to take notes for him.

Of course, Du Heng didn't offer, either. He just sat opposite, listening with amusement to the 'fascinating' story.

Xiao Ma asked doubtfully, "So, where is the Patient feeling unwell?"

The woman, looking as if she were at death's door and speaking another word would exhaust her completely, let the man continue. "Ever since then," he said, "she's felt like something is blocking her chest, making her feel suffocated. And sometimes, she feels like this thing is trying to crawl out, which makes her keep vomiting."

"When the vomiting gets really bad, I think she's about to bring up her gallbladder itself!"

Hearing this, Xiao Ma's expression relaxed slightly, and a faint smile appeared. "This sounds like it's become a psychological issue; you're essentially scaring yourself."

"Come, let me take your pulse and see if there are any other problems."

The woman obediently placed her hand on the pulse pillow, and Xiao Ma performed a thorough examination using standard techniques.

Du Heng, observing the Patient on the stool, gently said, "From your pulse, it appears you have a spleen and stomach qi deficiency. This is likely because you've been vomiting so frequently, which has damaged your stomach qi. Don't worry; whatever you ate has long since been processed and expelled by your digestive system. I'll prescribe some medicine to strengthen your stomach qi. When you get home, try not to dwell on this incident, and you should naturally recover."

After Du Heng finished speaking, Xiao Ma was about to write a prescription, but the woman, who had been silent, suddenly spoke up, "Doctor, what my husband said is true. He's not lying to you."

"I truly feel something stuck right here in the pit of my chest, making me feel terribly constricted."

Her face turned even more ghastly. Clutching her chest, she gasped, "It's... it's happening again! It's crawling up to my chest..." Her words were cut short as she abruptly turned her head and began to retch violently, the dry heaves looking utterly real and not feigned in the slightest.