Painless Acupuncture
Once at a magic gathering, when talking about Chinese medicine, it was surprising to find that 80% of colleagues believed that Chinese medicine was a scam. Little Master was shocked.
Later, Little Master talked about this with a magician from Red Hat. Little Master thought that treating a disease is like going to war, with both sides having different strengths: me 5, enemy 8.
Western medicine directly kills viruses, reducing the enemyâs strength to 3. Chinese medicine, on the other hand, acts as a buff, raising our own strength to 10.
From the results, after the battle, both sides are left with 2, so it is best not to rely too much on one solution.
As for those who donât believe, on one hand, it may be because there are too many fraudsters. For example, if you have been fooled a few times, you will no longer believe in love.
On the other hand, there are limitations to medicine. Even in todayâs well-developed Western medicine, there can still be misdiagnoses of cancer, not to mention that there are still some diseases that do not have effective treatments.
Another reason may be that the general public has a misconception about Chinese medicine theory, just as it is strange that children who often learn magic canât even repair magical tools.
In Little Masterâs third year at the Magic Academy, he got seriously ill. Not wanting to turn misfortune into a blessing, he then gained insight into the theory of âHuman Ecological Balanceâ, and has not been sick since.
For minor ailments like colds, Little Master just uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut, directly using the âHuangdi Neijingâ (âYellow Emperorâs Inner Canonâ) from Chinese medicine.
Therefore, the sage does not treat those who are already sick, but treats those who are not yet sick. He does not treat those who are already chaotic, but treats those who are not yet chaotic. This is called âthe treatment before the illnessâ. When a disease is already formed, then administer the medicine; when chaos is already in place, then plan the order. This is just like being thirsty and digging a well, or starting to forge a needle when in the middle of a battle. Isnât it already too late?
When the disease is about to occur and there are precursors, Little Master takes action in advance to eliminate them.
However, as mentioned before, due to his profession, Little Master has problems with his waist and neck vertebrae. For example, he canât pass the K-W test in the âMagic Wizardâs Health Guideâ and canât do the swinging posture in yoga.
But Little Master is also lazy and cannot stick to exercise, let alone run for decades like Haruki Murakami. Therefore, he can only rely on acupuncture.
Technically speaking, acupuncture is composed of needling and moxibustion, but in the publicâs impression, acupuncture is often thought of as being only needle insertion, so letâs describe it this way.
In RenĂŠ Descartesâ âDiscourse on Methodâ, he divided the method of studying problems into four steps, with the first step being:
Never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. (This is the famous maxim of âdoubt everythingâ.) For instance, Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men, although he could have easily ascertained this by examining his wifeâs or motherâs mouth.
Because he had taken medicine before without any improvement, Little Master does not believe in herbal medicine. However, meridians, or to be more precise, acupoints, can be easily felt.
For example, Hegu (the tigerâs mouth) and Jianjing, when pressed, feel different from ordinary flesh.
Moreover, meridians conflict with yogaâs three rounds and seven pulses, so Little Master is skeptical.
Before needling, many times Little Master would simulate the entire process:
He would see the 2.5-inch stainless steel needle effortlessly penetrate the epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous tissue. Due to inaccurate acupoint recognition, unfortunately, he would accidentally touch a vein or artery, causing his little hand to tremble in pain, resulting in cutting the adjacent autonomous nerve and living a crippled lifeâŚ
In his old age, Mark Twain lamented:
Most of my life has been spent worrying about things that have never happened - some grief, which is not even there, and behaving as though I were suffering from an abundance of it.
Later, after being needled several times by a friend from a Chinese medicine university without any major issues and being able to jump and frolic afterwards, Little Master speculated that perhaps the motor nerve is not like a fiber optic cable as previously imagined, with only one, and once it is severed, it is useless. Instead, there are many of them, and the human body has the ability to self-repair.
But the friend lives far away and canât come often. Each time, Little Master would leave some needles from the hospital. So, he decides to do it himself.
Of course, such behavior by the friend, poaching from socialist territory, should be strictly prohibited. However, compared to another person who bought an extra-large power bank so as not to have to charge the laptop at home and would stupefy Little Master and catch the attention of the police each time he came back, it is not a big deal.
But there is still one problem - Little Master is afraid of pain.
This is also the reason why he drags himself not to go for medical examinations every day.
So, Little Master takes out the âTrue Qi Circulation Methodâ first, trying to solve this problem once and for all by opening up the Governor and Conception Vessels. He even foolishly wrote a log to record the whole process, but unfortunately, when the qi got stuck at the tail end and couldnât move up, he had to wait and rest for a while.
But the neck cannot be delayed. It has already affected sleep and Little Master is afraid that he will end upâŚ
After treating the six palaces, we treat the five organs. Treating the five organs means having one foot in the grave and one foot in life.
On New Yearâs Day night, Little Master turned and tossed in bed. At this moment of absolute silence, he remembered a few sentences from Arthur Schopenhauerâs âThe World as Will and Representationâ:
Everything that exists is only for the sake of the subject.
When he recited these sentences, he still didnât understand the meaning. It was at this moment that he suddenly remembered that neck, shoulder, waist, and leg pain are different from diseases in the organs and are difficult to cure. Improper treatment or rehabilitation training will only result in the disease recurring or the pain intensifying. But according to the essence of âThe World as Will and Representationâ, it seems that illness only exists for âmeâ.
Thinking of this, Little Master quickly got up and grabbed the book. Sure enough, it said:
Each time the body is affected by an external force, this force directly and immediately stimulates my will⌠And conversely, every sudden excitement of the will, whether it is emotion or passion, also affects and hinders the functioning of the body.
When Little Master thought of this, he suddenly understood. He sat cross-legged, following the method of âTrue Qi Circulationâ, and began to regulate his breath.
Then he concentrated his thoughts into a beam of light, forming the shape of a fine needle. Slowly, he inserted it into Dazhui (Great Hammer), and as expected, the surrounding muscle groups gradually relaxed.
After that, Little Master applied needles to Fengchi, Fengfu (isnât this for treating a cold?), and Gao Huang (disease reaching the point of no return, it really is an acupoint).
After finishing with the needling, he imagined that the light needles slowly emitted heat (Warm Needle Therapy).
Slowly, Little Master peacefully fell asleep.
Translated by gpt-3.5-turbo