***** Vol.4 Chap.9 Old acquaintance *****
Doctor May-Ling Chen and her husband, Doctor Haw-Ting Tsai, founded the Tsai-Chen Clinic in a poor section of the town in Xilon, China. May-Ling specialized in acupuncture treatment. While treating some patients, she accidentally discovered two hidden meridians in the body that corresponded to the yin and yang life forces.
Pressure points on the yang meridian caused patients to be docile while pressure points on the yin meridian caused patients to be violent. However, the effects of the acupuncture treatments were only temporary, lasting at most a week. Patients must come back for treatment repeatedly.
May-Ling’s father was an herbalist and had collected a host of stories about a legendary village where there was no violence among the villagers. His untimely death from a gang fight caused his life work to pass to her, who promised her father to finish his work.
Because of a tragic accident at the clinic, her husband passed away after they had founded the clinic for five years as well. Heartbroken, she took time off to pursue her father’s dream to locate and study the villagers of this legendary village with no violence.
After examining the journal left by her father, she had some idea where the legendary village was located. As she proceeded up the mountain, she was captured by a gang midway, but was spared her life in exchange for her agreement to stay and serve the gang. Dramatically, a gangster who was once her patient rescued her from the gangster’s den.
Stealthily, she proceeded up the mountain and located the legendary village, and her presence was a shock to the villagers. Unfortunately, they decided to send her back to the gangsters for fear of retaliation. Before her departure back to the gangsters, while exploring a cavern for a flower in making the special tea favored by the villagers, she mysteriously disappeared.
A week after she failed to show up at the temple, the chief monk became very concerned. He sent word to her clinic, which was temporarily managed by the staff from a nearby hospital headed by Doctor Wu, the Dean of the Medical School, her friend and confidant. Saddened by the news, Doctor Wu secured the hospital board to annex the clinic as part of the hospital operations.
While sorting over the mail sent to the clinic, Doctor Wu came across an invitation letter to May-Ling to attend the upcoming Workshop of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The invitation was from Dr. Chris Abrahamson, with all expenses paid.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
After much consideration, Doctor Wu decided to attend the Workshop as her replacement. He felt an obligation to present her discovery to the scientific community and as a tribute to her and her contribution. Immediately, he wrote to Dr. Abrahamson regarding the substitution and secured the permission of the Workshop on the change.
With mixed emotions, he arrived at the conference only to find out that he was placed in a panel session not with Dr. Abdelcizi but with someone else by the name of Dr. Smith. He had never heard of this Dr. Smith, much less the person’s research area. Anyway, he consoled himself that he was only presenting May-Ling’s research findings.
Curious of the switch, he looked up Dr. Abdelcizi’s contact info on the web and called.
“Computer Science.” A voice on the other end of the line sounded.
“May I speak to Dr. Abdulcizi?”
“I am sorry, there is no such person here.”
“Hmm, I may not have pronounced his name correctly. Let me spell it out. It is A-B-D-U-L-C-I-Z-I.”
“Yes. Dr. Abdulcizi is no longer on the faculty.”
“Do you know where he has moved to?”
“No.” The return voice did not sound friendly.
“Did he leave a forwarding number so that I can contact him?”
“Nope. Is there anyone else you want to talk to?”
“I guess not. Thank you very much.”
Doctor Wu was quite mystified.
Going over the conference program, he could not find Dr. Frank Abdulcizi’s name either.
That is strange.
Flipping through the program, he found his name in the plenary session for the next day with a Dr. JB Smith.
Who is Dr. JB Smith? I’ve never heard of this name. But what is being presented seems very much like what Dr. Abdelcizi presented last time.
Doctor Wu was quite confused. Well, he could not back out now especially since the conference paid for all his expenses.
As he was pondering about other May-Ling’s friends, he thought she also mentioned the name of Dr. Kristin Sobrinowski who worked with dolphins. So, he opened the conference program and searched for her name.
Nothing.
This was really getting unsettling.
As May-Ling’s representative, he wanted to renew the connection with her friends. So, he looked up what he remembered was Kristin’s contact info.
“NOAA Division of Underwater Research. How may I direct your call?”
“I would like to speak to Dr. Kristin Sobrinowski, please.”
“I am sorry, there is no such person here.”
“Huh? Are you sure?”
“Sir. We do not have anyone with that name here. Good bye.”
The phone went dead.
Doctor Wu scratched his head, wondering what was going on. All of May-Ling’s previous acquaintances including May-Ling herself had disappeared. The thought was quite disconcerting to him.
His reason for coming here to this conference was to spread the news regarding May-Ling’s discovery of the pressure points related to the yin and yang forces so that perhaps this discovery could be of help to the whole medical community. With that thought in mind, he felt the weariness of travel setting in. Curling up in bed, he was asleep in no time.