The Chief Medical Officer

Originally serialized under the title The Chief Imperial Physician, The Chief Medical Officer is a long urban novel by the Shanxi writer Xie Rongpeng (pen name Yinhe Jiutian), published on Qidian Chinese Network starting in 2011; the print edition was issued in succession by Jiuzhou Press and 21st Century Publishing House, 13 volumes in all. The protagonist, Zeng Yi, lost both parents in childhood, was taught medicine by his grandfather from an early age, and majored in traditional Chinese medicine at university. Armed with his family's secret techniques and a training that spans both Chinese and Western medicine, he arrives for his internship at the Provincial People's Hospital on the very day a group of top Western-medicine physicians are consulting on a stubborn case without reaching a satisfactory plan. He stumps the authorities by diagnosing the illness through observation alone, then wins the experts' support with his humility; three doses of herbal medicine root out the disease, and overnight he makes his name, being exceptionally appointed to the provincial health-care expert panel. Thereafter he cures one after another of the intractable complaints that have baffled even famous Chinese and Western specialists; his acupuncture and bone-setting make the tangible seem intangible, and even the grand masters of Chinese medicine look on him with favor and single him out for advancement. Zeng Yi builds his standing on the medical art, but through it he also comes to know figures in politics, business, the military, and the police; observing the world with a cool eye as he practices, he gradually enters official life, maneuvering with the spirit of "the superior physician heals the state" through the cracks between human relations, professional duty, and politics, until at last he becomes a leading figure in the Chinese medicine world. This volume, the first in the series, covers Zeng Yi's first entry into medicine, his rise on the strength of his skill, and the beginning of his admission to the provincial health-care expert panel.