Physician's Odyssey

This should be a one-sided competition, since Bai Fan was ranked 2nd amongst the 32 participants, while Su Tao was ranked last. Because of the complexity of the first question, Su Tao was fortunate to advantage to the next round. As for the second round of his competition, he only made it to the quarter-finals because his opponent had forfeited, so the majority of them felt that Su Tao had relied on luck to come this far.

Furthermore, Su Tao looked too young. Even if Mo Sui'er was the youngest contestant with the age of only 18, it was because she had a dominant sect to rely on. After all, she was the Junior Sister of the Physician King from the last tournament, Liu Ruochen.

However, Su Tao was no more than twenty. He also did not have the support of a sect nor outstanding background. Compared to the other contestants, his status as a TCM Department Head of a third-graded hospital wasn't anything remarkable.

Even if this was no longer the age that judged based on age, age still represented experience, and experience was part of strength. Thus, this was the reason why Su Tao was ranked last on Utopia's official website, only one in a thousand people supported him.

If Su Tao won, then anyone that bets ¥100 would receive a winning of ¥100,000. If someone placed ¥1,000 on him, then they would immediately become a millionaire. However, no one was so foolish, since luck was nothing before absolute strength.

Because this was the last match of the eighth-finals, people had started to leave, since this match didn't have any suspense and felt dull.

However, Bai Fan was more serious than everyone had imagined. He was more focused than any of his other rounds. In the past matches, he would rely on medicine to treat his patients, using a suitable medication after diagnosis that took effect in less than 5 minutes.

With western medicine's influence spreading, TCM was publicly known to mainly nurture. If any of those medicines from Bai Fan went into mass production, it would surely be viral, since everyone knew that, compared to western medicine, TCM didn't have any side effects and caused low harm to the body.

Bai Fan's advancement represented a direction for TCM to reach great heights; it was more practical than acupuncture, massage or fire cupping.

Bai Fan represented a height in a TCM branch that even Wang Guofeng was inferior to, when being compared to Bai Fan in terms of medicine.

Under the introduction of the host, the curtain was slowly pulled apart, revealing two patients. They didn't look any different from ordinary people, but one would notice the abnormal colour on their faces if they took a closer look.

Bai Fan's brows were slightly raised. Just as Xu Tiande had told him, the two patients were suffering from heart diseases and even had a coronary bypass operation done on them.

The diagnosis was concluded through look, listen, question and feeling of pulses.

After entering the quarterfinals, the judges would start to increase the difficulty to make it more complicated. Take the match between Mo Sui'er and Tang Jian, as an example. They purposely used babies, since newly born babies were unable to be diagnosed through asking questions, which was where the difficulty lies.

Heart disease was a rather common disease and was also one that caused the highest fatality rate, which western medicine had a complete treatment package. At the same time, heart diseases also complicated many factors, like heart failure, pulmonary embolism, myocardial infarction, sudden death, pulmonary heart disease and many organ failures.

Because it was common, it made it more difficult.

Bai Fan's gaze fell on Su Tao before he retrieved the Medicine King Tonic from his medical box. "Please take it!"

The patient nodded his head and gulped down the Medicine King Tonic. A moment later, the patient's face flushed with a rosy colour.

The Medicine King Tonic used a lot of herbs that were commonly found. But it was precisely because they were appropriately matched; it had an effect of clearing the acupoints and nurturing one's vitality.

And to match with the Medicine King Tonic, Bai Fan took out a set of golden needles before having the patient lie down and started to perform acupuncture that mainly focused on the heart acupoints.

When Bai Fan started his acupuncture, Su Tao retrieved a silver needle and slowly put it in from the patient's head.

Judge Song inwardly nodded his head at this scene. Su Tao had used Master Dong's Acupuncture Technique, intending to start from the Sancai Acupoints. The so-called Trinity Acupoints meant the Sky, Earth and Human Acupoints. They were respectively the Baihui Acupoint on the head, Xuanji Acupoint on the chest and lastly, the Yongquan Acupoint at the sole that was invested by Dong Jingchang.

Naturally, Dong Jingchang's acupuncture technique wasn't the same as the traditional text. It could be considered as an individual branch that started to spread during the Republic of Formosa. However, it was rarely seen in the country.

Thus, Judge Song inwardly nodded his head with Su Tao's choice. Although Su Tao was young, he was in possession of ancient records that an ordinary person wouldn't know about. However, even if Su Tao used the Trinity Acupoints to ease the patient's heart disease, it's still probably inferior to Bai Fan's medicine treatment.

Seeing that Su Tao had finally started his acupuncture, Bai Fan's face turned solemn before he continued with his acupuncture in his anatta state. The golden needles in his hand were akin to embroidery as they danced.

The heart acupoint was a vital channel in the body, with a total of eighteen Acupoints. Every single Acupoint had its own effect that could enliven the heart acupoint, with good effects to activate the heart's functions.

Wang Guofeng's expression turned grave. He never expected Bai Fan's Qi to reach this height. Rumours had it that the Medicine King Valley's Medicine King Sutra had a Qi Chapter with a unique method of nurturing Qi that could nurture Qi through medicine. It looked like there's a high chance that it might be true.

Bai Fan was precise with a ripen acupuncture technique. He had reached a state that he could accurately pinpoint Acupoints with his eyes closed. This was also the highest realm of acupuncture that one could achieve; the user needed to be extremely familiar with Acupoints so they could accurately locate them.

Mo Sui'er, who was watching, clicked her tongue in wonder. "Senior Sister, looks like Su Tao is bound to lose. I never expected Senior Brother Bai Fan's acupuncture technique to reach such a high level. With his Ten-Direction Heart Needles, along with the Medicine King Tonic invested by the Medicine King Valley, he can surely cure the patient of the illness."

A trace of doubt flashed in Liu Ruochen's eyes. The thought of Su Tao losing wasn't in her mind; on the contrary, she was thinking about how Su Tao would place pressure on Bai Fan.

It's not hard to win, but he had to win it brilliantly!

From the first match, Liu Ruochen could tell how extraordinary he was. Otherwise, she wouldn't be placing her attention on him. In her view, the Physician King for this tournament had already been determined, it would only be Su Tao, and the rest were merely supporting roles.

Although Bai Fan's skills were pretty good, Su Tao was on an entirely different level.

It's akin to how primary school kid was fighting with a university student. Even the strongest of the primary school kids could never match up with a university student, no matter how skillful they were.

If Liu Ruochen's view was publicly announced, it would undoubtedly cause a great shock, since it was a completely different view from the rest.

In everyone's view, Su Tao was the primary school kid, while Bai Fan was the university student here.

Judge Song's gaze was lost. Lost, not disappointed or frustrated. Her eyes had lost their lustre and the conviction of TCM theory.

From the first match, Judge Song could tell that Su Tao was extraordinary, so he was disappointed when Su Tao's opponent forfeited in the second match, since it was an excellent opportunity for him to examine this young man.

In this third match, Su Tao left him shocked once again. Judge Song initially thought that Su Tao would use the Trinity Acupoints to treat the heart disease, but Su Tao stopped after placing the needle in the Baihui Acupoint.

"You're done?" Judge Song was bewildered.

"Yeah, I'm done." Su Tao's gaze fell onto Bai Fan, who looked busy.

Naturally, Su Tao's current appearance made others feel that he had given up.

"That fellow must know that he will lose, so he just went through the motions."

"Yeah, his luck was already used up. He can go back home now!"

"If Chu Huilin entered the quarter-finals, perhaps he might be able to compete with Bai Fan. What's going on now? It became a one-person show for Bai Fan?"

Judge Dou sighed while smiling at Judge Song. From their previous conversation, Judge Song had given Su Tao a high evaluation, while Judge Dou felt that Su Tao was just lucky that he could win. As for his acupuncture technique, it's probably flashy.

Wang Guofeng's expression turned grave, since he knew that it's impossible for Su Tao to give up. With Su Tao's strength, he definitely wouldn't be stopped by a patient with a heart disease. Even if he lost, he won't lose in this embarrassing manner.

That meant that there was only another possibility that they missed.

Mo Sui'er looked at Liu Ruochen in shock. "Senior Sister, my eyes seem to have blurred out earlier."

Liu Ruochen looked at Mo Sui'er's bright eyes. This Junior Sister of hers always had good eyesight. Ordinary people's vision tests static vision, but there was also a dynamic vision in the eyes with the ability to capture motions.

The reason why Mo Sui'er felt that her vision has blurred out was that the movement was too swift, that also meant that her vision far exceeded the usual standard.

With a lightly smile, Liu Ruochen replied, "It's right when it's blurred!"

However, not everyone possessed the eyesight of Mo Sui'er. Judge Dou waited till Bai Fan finished the last needle before a gratified smile appeared. "The result is as shown, Bai Fan wins this match!"

Thunderous claps echoed, since the Medicine King Valley was the organiser of this tournament, Bai Fan had the advantage as the host and home ground. Thus, his popularity was tremendous, and it was expected for him to win.

Judge Song shook his head and sighed, "I'm afraid that, that isn't the case. Let us take a look at the two patients first."

Judge Dou knitted his brows at Judge Song's words. The two of them had a pretty good relationship, so the latter shouldn't be making things ugly for him. Seeing that Judge Song insisted on going through the process, Judge Dou gently snorted, "Let us take a look at the treatment result, then."

The five judges came to Bai Fan's patient. They observed and took the patient's pulse, and as they had imagined, the patient's pulse was calm, and his heart was beating steadily with energy and vitality.

After that, they walked towards Su Tao and started to take the pulse of his patient.

When Judge Dou tried, disbelief flashed on his face, so he tried again before exclaiming, "Did we get the wrong patient?"

The patient before him had a steady heartbeat with rhythm. Even the ventricular assisting device seemed to have stopped working, the heart was functioning normally with power, but Su Tao only used one needle!