Peter slowly withdrew the final needle from the seamstress’s right wrist. He placed the used needle into a small separated container, then recorded the patient’s response in his thin notebook. Pain reduced, numbness not fully gone, no dizziness, no nausea.The woman moved her thumb several times, and her eyes immediately grew wet because the pain that had made work difficult for days was finally easing. Peter stopped her hand before she became too excited, because a wrist that had just settled did not mean it could be used for sewing until night again.“Go home and rest your right hand. Do not rush back to finishing orders,” Peter said as he closed the record. “If the numbness increases, your fingers weaken, or the pain rises to your elbow, you need to be examined at a facility with proper equipment.”The woman nodded quickly, but her gaze dropped toward the small medicine box beside Peter. In an embarrassed voice, she asked whether she could be given just one Forging Qi Pill, because

The waiting room at Prosperity Health Clinic that afternoon was not damaged, dirty, or lacking equipment. The chairs were still neatly arranged, the floor still shone, and the clinic signboard reflected the light. Yet patient trust had evaporated like the smell of medicine used too long to hide something. Lina stood at the administration desk with a registration book that was almost empty. The phone in front of her rang again and again, but most callers asked only one thing: whether Doctor Peter Davis was practicing there again. An old patient entered while holding his waist. He looked toward the corridor of examination rooms, then carefully asked whether Doctor Peter was there. His expression immediately changed when Lina answered that he was not. “Then I will come back later,” the patient said. He did not even sit down to ask about another doctor’s schedule, as though the clinic’s name on the do