Physician's Odyssey Chapter 523 - Beyond Cure

Asaka Ochi brought her husband, Kohei Koizumi to the sterilisation room. Upon seeing Kohei Koizumi's dispirited expression, she squeezed out a smile and encouraged, "Don't give up!"
Hearing her encouragement, Kohei Koizumi smiled. Although there's a drastic age gap between them, he was touched by his wife's unrestrained concern for him.
He had married four other times in the past, with a total of five wives. The four of his wives were traditional women with a housewife, a businesswoman, a politician, and a celebrity. But out of all his wives, he only felt warmth from Asaka Ochi. Taking out a copy of the inheritance document from his bag, he smiled as he handed it over to Asaka Ochi.
"Asaka, I wasn't able to take care of you after our marriage due to my condition and even caused trouble for you. But I feel extremely blessed to have you in the final phase of my life. Thus, I told my lawyer to alter my inheritance. After my death, you will receive all of my wealth."
Hearing those words, Asaka Ochi's eyes flickered with astonishment and asked, "Are you not going to leave anything to your seven children?"
Shaking his head, Kohei Koizumi was determined, "They have their own careers, and I have given them all sorts of help. They have to forge their lives by themselves, but you are my main concern. You know how they are, and they will definitely fight over the inheritance after my death. There's nothing more painful than to see your children fighting amongst each other. Hence, I've decided to give my inheritance to you, and at the same time, it is also my selfishness; I hope that you can take care of them."
"You're really selfish!" Tears streamed down Asaka Ochi's face as she sobbed.
By leaving the inheritance to Asaka Ochi, that meant that Kohei Koizumi's children wouldn't fight amongst themselves and only target her. There's no doubt that they would be unsatisfied with the arrangement and take revenge against Asaka Ochi.
"Please promise me!" Kohei Koizumi sighed in heartache.
Shaking her head, Asaka Ochi replied, "Relax your mind for now. Nothing will happen to you!"
When they finished their conversation, footsteps resounded and a group of people entered.
Nodding his head at Asaka Ochi, Helian Zhen said, "We would like to thank Mr. Koizumi for being the second patient of our National Healer Selection. Our candidates will be conducting a checkup for Kohei Koizumi's condition later and do their best to treat you. They might not be official National Healers, but they are prominent within their own realm. However, I have to give you a disclaimer. Many illnesses are currently limited by technology, and there's no treatment for terminal illnesses yet, so please understand if we're unable to treat Mr. Koizumi."
Giving Helian Zhen a bow, Asaka Ochi said in gratitude, "Thank you for giving my husband an opportunity. We've visited various hospitals around the globe, but we weren't able to find any solution. Thus, we came to China with a sliver of hope. So even if he cannot be treated, we won't hold anything against you guys aside from gratitude."
Asaka Ochi had a delicate appearance and only seemed to be in her mid-twenties. Although she was dressed conservatively, she permeated with a sweet aura with her movements. Having such a beauty to beg them, everyone here instantly felt their hormones raging.
As Asaka Ochi swept a glance at everyone present, her gaze finally stopped on Su Tao and was slightly startled. She had a good memory, and she naturally recognised Su Tao.
Seeing her gaze, Su Tao nodded his head towards her, which she instantly responded with a greeting. Although the two of them did not converse with each other, this small action was noticed by everyone present.
"Senior Brother Su, you know her?" Ling Yu asked.
Su Tao sighed at the coincidence in life. He never expected that he would be so fated with this couple. Back then, during the meal, he already noticed that there's something unusual with Kohei Koizumi's complexion that belonged to a terminal illness, and he wouldn't live for more than a year. Although he did not say anything at that time, he still refused to take a look at Kohei Koizumi. But in the end, he was still forced to treat Kohei Koizumi.
However, Su Tao did not feel any malice against this couple, especially Asaka Ochi.
Asaka Ochi was a standard Japanese beauty. She had a round face with wide flickering eyes and a tall stature compared to ordinary Japanese women. At the very least, she's around 5'4". Furthermore, she had a coyish voice that gave others a natural intimacy with each other.
On the other hand, China's current standard beauty was a little deformed in Su Tao's eyes. Right now, only those with a bony frame without any fat and an awl face were considered a beauty. As someone traditional, it's tough for Su Tao to accept this view.
Compared to that, Asaka Ochi had some baby fat, and her body could be considered as ample, which was to his liking.
"We met once!" Su Tao wryly smiled and continued, "I'm afraid that she's here because of her husband."
Ling Yu no longer asked any questions since he could tell from Su Tao's expression that they would be encountering a tough problem next.
Clearing her voice, Helian Zhen announced, "We will begin our second competition now that is also a practical course. We will take everyone's treatment methods and ideas into consideration for the outcome. But this time, there won't be any diagnosis, so everyone has to rely on their own capabilities to come up with the most reasonable diagnosis. Everyone has an hour, and I want to see a complete report when the time ends."
Hearing the announcement, everyone wore grave expressions, since the second competition was genuinely tougher than the first.
Although they only provided an incomplete report for the first round, any experienced doctor would be able to analyse the patient's condition from the supplied information.
But there's nothing provided to them during the second round, and they had to rely on their own capabilities to find out the patient's condition.
Generally, in hospitals, the workload was being split apart with the Radiology Department being responsible for the X-ray, Angiography, CT, and MR Scans. At the same time, the Laboratory Department was responsible for the blood, urine, and feces tests. So, according to Helian Zhen, they would be responsible for all of this to test the candidates' overall abilities.
Ouyang De, Ji Donghe, and Peng Hanyi were western medicine doctors, so they're no strangers to those pieces of equipment. However, someone would usually prepare all those reports for them, so they're somewhat slow when handling it themselves.
After Helian Zhen announced the start, they first took Kohei Koizumi's blood, urine, and x-rays.
Although the results of the first round weren't announced, they knew that Su Tao and Ling Yu were leading based on their performance. Thus, there were signs of the three of them competing with each other.
They initially thought that they could take all three of the quotas by eliminating Su Tao and Ling Yu. But the situation changed, so the three of them felt threatened. Hence, they had to fight for the quotas amongst themselves. Otherwise, one of them would be eliminated if either Su Tao or Ling Yu made it through.
To increase the difficulty, Kohei Koizumi was forbidden from telling them his condition, so it all depended on the candidates' abilities.
When it's time for Su Tao to examine him, he first took Kohei Koizumi's pulse and a bitter smile rose on his lips after a brief pondering.
It's actually the Hidden Abnormal Pulse!
In the Seasonal Variation and Abnormalities In Pulses, those with the Hidden Abnormal Pulse cannot be treated.
Putting it in a nutshell, Kohei Koizumi's pulse was dead!
The Hidden Abnormal Pulse was a result of the five organs failing. When the five organs are severely ill, the energy in the organs will be exhausted, which results in this abnormal pulse. The stomach, consciousness, and root pulse aren't equal, especially when the pulse is no longer slow and easy.
Generally speaking, if the five organs show signs of failing, the patient won't be too far from death.
However, Kohei Koizumi's pulse showed multiple signs of failure.
The heart pulse was hard; the liver pulse was hard, and the body was in high stress; the spleen pulse was weak; the lung pulse was empty; the kidney pulse was also as hard as a rock.
Generally speaking, if there's one of the five pulses showing one of the signs, then that person wouldn't be far from death. However, Kohei Koizumi showed signs for all five, so it's practically a miracle for him to still be living right now.
The reason why he still wasn't dead was due to his excellent foundation that could replenish the energy in his body. Aside from that, it was also because Kohei Koizumi had retained a calm mood.
In truth, not only was Kohei Koizumi's vitality weak, but it's also unstable. Thus, a gentle breeze might extinguish his life.
Looking at Asaka Ochi standing not too far away, Su Tao sighed in his heart. This woman was pretty fortunate. Although she married an old man, the old man wouldn't live for long, and her youth wouldn't be wasted.
Naturally, it's not because Su Tao had no humanity, but Kohei Koizumi's condition was beyond cure.
After that, Ling Yu also took a pulse for Kohei Koizumi like Su Tao and wore a grave expression on his ordinarily calm face.
Although Su Tao knew that Kohei Koizumi was beyond cure, he knew that this was a competition, so he still had to get a diagnosis on Kohei Koizumi.
Hence, under the astonished gazes of Ouyang De and the rest, Su Tao proficiently used the western medicine apparatus to conduct tests for Kohei Koizumi.
But because he had already taken Kohei Koizumi's pulse, he did not take a lot of tests. He mainly did a blood test for Kohei Koizumi. Furthermore, the blood that he extracted from Kohei Koizume was also much less than the western medicine candidates.
When Su Tao ended his diagnosis, it was Ling Yu's turn to extract samples from Kohei Koizumi.
Watching this, Ouyang De, Ji Donghe, and Peng Hanyi wore unsightly expressions, since they realised that not only was Su Tao and Ling Yu proficient in TCM, they're also not strangers to western medicine.
At this moment, their moods were terrible and they felt threatened by the two young men.