Chapter 335: She Protects Him

Damn! Lin Laoshi really cut himself?!

The back-row male student's exclamation died down, and the whole classroom seemed to hit pause—then the next second it exploded like a boiling pot.

Students sprang up from their seats, some with phones raised, frozen mid-air, screens still on the camera interface.

Someone instinctively moved forward, but then shrank back, frightened by the blood dripping from the podium.

Everyone stared fixedly at Lin Yuan's bleeding wrist, their throats filled with the sound of gasping breaths.

But before everyone could process the shocking image of the teacher self-harming to verify Chinese medicine, an even more bewildering scene appeared——

You Nianchu from the third row by the window sprang up from her seat with a swish, her Hermes shoulder bag flung to the floor.

She stepped on the hem of her white dress, practically stumbling forward as she rushed through the circle of students, even accidentally bumping into a classmate's desk in the front row, but she acted as if she hadn't noticed, lunging straight at Lin Yuan.

Are you crazy?! You Nianchu's voice trembled with obvious anxiety as she reached out to grab Lin Yuan's wrist; when her fingertips touched the warm blood, her body shuddered uncontrollably.

Her other hand fumbled into her pocket, looking for a tissue or band‑aid, but her shaking fingers couldn't even open the zipper, so she could only stare anxiously at Lin Yuan.

This scene instantly shifted the tone of the murmurs in the classroom——

No way? How could the school belle You react so strongly?

Wasn't she just sitting there taking notes a moment ago? Why did she suddenly rush forward?

Everyone said she was just here to attend the lecture, but this is too much concern—would a normal alumnus act like this?

The last time I saw someone confess to the school belle You, she merely gave a polite smile, yet now she's actually grabbing Lin Laoshi's hand?

The students' whispered chatter grew louder and louder……

Someone furtively pulled out a phone to record video…… the camera kept switching between Lin Yuan's wrist and You Nianchu's reddened eye sockets.

Lin Yuan was also a bit dazed.

Why is You Nianchu's reaction so huge??

Why is she so worried about me??

I have nothing to do with her!!

Lin Yuan shook his head and said, 'It's fine, I can handle it.'

At that moment You Nianchu noticed the dazed Zhou Minghai not far away, and her pent‑up anger exploded instantly.

She whipped her head around, glaring at Zhou Minghai, her voice suddenly rising: 'Director Zhou! Is this the 'verification' you wanted? To make things difficult for someone, you just watch the teacher harm himself? If anything happens to Lin Laoshi, can you bear that responsibility?'

Zhou Minghai was shoved back half a step by her retort, the smirk on his face freezing.

Zhou Minghai had just begun to say, 'He cut himself,' when Lin Yuan's calm voice cut him off: 'You Nianchu, don't panic, I'll stop the bleeding soon.'

Lin Yuan gently withdrew his wrist, letting the blood drip down his forearm onto the white paper on the podium, spreading a vivid red.

Lin Yuan's other hand picked up a silver needle from his teaching bag, his gaze settling on the Quze point on the inner elbow, and he said calmly, 'It's just a small cut; the demonstration will be fine.'

Before his words finished, the silver needle 'whooshed' into the point; his fingertips lightly twisted the needle hilt, the motion swift and clean, as if what he had sliced earlier wasn't an artery but merely a graze.

You Nianchu wanted to say more, but Lin Yuan's glance stopped her.

She stood to the side, also dazed, watching the scene.

'Let's do a countdown, sixty seconds.' Lin Yuan said, watching his watch.

Everyone's eyes were fixed tightly on Lin Yuan's wrist:

At first the blood welled out steadily, the 'drip‑drip' on the paper especially clear;

but after thirty seconds the flow suddenly slowed, and by the fiftieth second the bleeding had completely stopped, leaving only a fresh red line with no sign of seepage.

'It… stopped?' a girl in the front row covered her mouth, her voice trembling.

'I've been watching the clock! It's only fifty‑five seconds—really under a minute!'

'Goodness… is Chinese medicine this powerful? Lin Laoshi is going all out!'

The students' shock peaked; some couldn't help clapping, others kept rubbing their eyes, doubting what they'd seen.

Meanwhile, the Western‑medicine teachers who had originally gathered around the podium also froze in place, their earlier skepticism gone, replaced by disbelief.

Zhou Minghai stood there stunned, not even noticing his case slip fall to the floor.

He stared at the silver needle on Lin Yuan's wrist, then at the still‑wet bloodstain on the podium, his lips moving but no sound coming out.

Chinese medicine—could it really have such terrifying hemostatic power?

In less than a minute, the silver needle stopped the bleeding!

Such a thing is simply unbelievable!

Western medicine could never achieve that!

Lin Yuan pointed to his own wrist where the bleeding had stopped, then looked toward Zhou Minghai.

'Director Zhou, the bleeding stopped in fifty‑five seconds—does this result work for you?' Lin Yuan asked calmly.

Zhou Minghai's face was complex.

Having witnessed Lin Yuan's acupuncture stop the bleeding, Zhou Minghai's face turned ashen yet he still refused to yield.

He pointed at Lin Yuan's bandaged wrist and said coldly, 'It's just temporary clotting! Chinese medicine always loves these 'instant effect' gimmicks—who knows if it'll re‑bleed in half an hour?'

Zhou Minghai waved for the behind‑him Western‑medicine students to bring a portable coagulation tester, saying, 'If you've got the guts, test the PT and APTT—Western medicine relies on data, not just eyeballing 'no bleeding' and calling it hemostasis!'

The students erupted in murmurs, someone whispering, 'Director Zhou is forcing Lin Laoshi to prove Chinese medicine with Western standards.'

Zhou Minghai seized the moment to provoke: 'You don't even dare test the basic coagulation indices, yet you claim 'one‑minute hemostasis'—maybe you're just relying on the body's own clotting mechanism to put on a show.'

'Sure.' Lin Yuan nodded and extended his hand.

Lin Yuan lifted his hand and unwrapped the gauze——

The wound on his wrist had already scabbed; the pale‑red scab's edge showed no seepage, only the earlier bloodstain left a light brown trace on his forearm.

He extended his wrist, and the Western‑medicine student lightly pricked it with a blood‑draw needle; dark‑red blood slowly flowed into the collection tube, with no abnormality whatsoever.

The tester whirred to life, the numbers on the screen jumping little by little. Everyone stared at the display, the classroom so quiet you could hear breathing——

You Nianchu clenched the corner of her garment, her fingertips turning slightly white;

Zhou Minghai leaned forward, his eyes wide open, muttering under his breath, "Impossible to be normal";

Students in the back even stood on their chairs just to see the numbers on the screen clearly.

Half a minute later, the test results came out:

PT (prothrombin time): 12.3 seconds (normal range 11-14 seconds)

APTT (activated partial thromboplastin time): 28.5 seconds (normal range 25-35 seconds)

D-dimer: 0.3 mg/L (normal range <0.5 mg/L)

"All... all within the normal range?" the Western medicine student operating the equipment said with a trembling voice, after checking three times, then looked up at Zhou Minghai, "Professor, the indicators... are fine."

Zhou Minghai lunged to the screen, jabbing his finger back and forth, as if trying to poke the numbers into changing.

But no matter how he looked, those three values sat firmly within the normal range, not a single deviation.

He opened his mouth to say "the equipment is faulty," but seeing several Western medicine colleagues already wearing convinced expressions, he swallowed the words, his face turning from iron‑blue to liver‑colored.

Lin Yuan rewrapped the gauze, his tone still calm: "Director Zhou, do you still think this is the credit of the body's own clotting mechanism?"

Lin Yuan's gaze first fell on the case sheet in Zhou Minghai's hand, his fingertips lightly brushing over the words "antibiotic resistance" and "oozing incision," then turned to the white‑mouse cage placed on the podium—

Inside the cage, the mouse huddled in a corner; the simulated incision on its right hind leg swelled like a small red bean, and the pale yellow pus glued the surrounding fur into strands, making even the slightest movement tremble.

He didn't rush to reply; instead, he bent over and leaned close to the cage, observing for a full ten seconds.

Lin Yuan rose to his feet and looked at Zhou Minghai, his voice a little deeper: "Director Zhou, when you say 'cure,' do you mean immediate healing, or just seeing clear signs of anti‑inflammation? TCM treats infection by 'draining pus and detoxifying, supporting the righteous and consolidating the foundation,' unlike antibiotics that only target killing bacteria—within half an hour I can make this mouse's red swelling subside and stop the pus; does that count?"

Zhou Minghai snorted coldly, slapping the case sheet onto the podium with a slap:

"Don't play word games! If it's still oozing pus after half an hour, you will admit in front of all the students that TCM is merely 'empirical medicine' and has no right to discuss 'science' with Western medicine!"

The Western medicine students behind him immediately joined in the uproar.

A male student in a white coat even held up his phone to record, the camera fixed on the cage: "Exactly! If you can't show results, don't stubbornly insist!"

Another bespectacled student sneered even more: "Maybe those herbs were just randomly picked; if the mouse dies from the treatment, it only proves TCM lacks rigor!"

"Shut up!" You Nianchu suddenly rose from her seat, her clear voice cutting through all the noise.

She strode to the side of the podium, her eyes icy cold, sweeping over the protesting Western medicine students:

"You haven't even heard of 'pattern differentiation and treatment,' yet you dare to deny TCM? To study medicine you must first learn virtue—are you even worthy of being called medical students?"

Those protesting students fell silent at once, and even Zhou Minghai stared—

He never expected that a female student from the School of Economics would not only dare to oppose him but also silence the Western medicine department students.

"This student, you're not even from my School of Medicine—do you understand medicine at all to dare spout nonsense?" Zhou Minghai said coldly.

Around them, Western medicine students began to clamor.

You Nianchu, however, felt no fear of his identity as department head—after all, she wasn't from his School of Economics, so what was there to be afraid of?

You Nianchu's clear voice rose above the clamor:

"Director Zhou, what do you know about 'science'? When Nixon visited China in 1972, American doctors personally witnessed acupuncture anesthesia in surgery; now the WHO recognizes acupuncture as effective for over thirty diseases. You hide behind the excuse that 'anatomy has no acupoints'—have you simply not read the latest medical consensus, or are you deliberately turning a blind eye?"

She walked up to the case record and flipped to the last page:

"This postoperative infection case—I saw it last week at the affiliated hospital—the patient was allergic to three antibiotics, so Western medicine had no recourse and turned to the TCM department; finally, applying honeysuckle and dandelion externally plus needling the Hegu and Quchi points, the swelling subsided in five days. You deliberately omitted the follow‑up, didn't you, because you're afraid TCM will steal Western medicine's limelight?"

This scene left Lin Yuan also stunned?

You Nianchu this girl—she's not from economics, is she? How does she know TCM??

You Nianchu shifted her tone, directly hitting Zhou Minghai's sore spot: "Your opposition to restoring the TCM specialty isn't just because TCM lacks the research funding and achievements you want? You're just after research grants and accolades, aren't you?"

The moment Zhou Minghai was rebutted, his face turned iron‑blue!

"You… you crazy girl, what nonsense are you spouting…?" Zhou Minghai gritted his teeth.

He couldn't fathom how a student from the School of Economics like You Nianchu could know so much about the School of Medicine??

Zhou Minghai's finger almost poked You Nianchu's nose as he spoke coldly and angrily:

"You Nianchu, you're an economics student—what are you constantly sneaking into our medical school classrooms for? I'm the head of the Western medicine department, your elder! Yet you keep defending Lin Yuan, that fake TCM teacher, over and over—could it really be as the forum rumors say—that you two are in a teacher‑student romance?"

Those words landed like a bomb, exploding loudly in the classroom.