Chapter One: A Sudden Encounter (3)
Date: 2009.3.11
Teacher Lin’s veins had very poor tolerance, especially when it came to viscous substances such as fat emulsion. The backs of both his hands had already begun to swell and turn red, so I went to the doctors’ office to ask about stopping the medication.
“At the moment, your father’s diet is limited. We can only ensure he gets enough nutrition through the fat emulsion.”
“His veins don’t tolerate it well, and applying a hot towel isn’t very effective either.”
“Once we get the results of his biochemical blood test tomorrow, if the indicators are good enough, we’ll stop it. For today, we’ll slow down the drip rate. It’ll take longer to administer, so you’ll have to work a little harder.” Doctor Gu lowered his head and smiled. “The two VIP private nurses in our ward are famous now.”
I rubbed my forehead, feeling a little embarrassed.
Since Teacher Lin was recovering exceptionally well and could already walk, he pushed the mobile IV stand around from ward to ward, making friends with a whole group of fellow patients. Naturally, their family members came around to pick our brains, asking my mom for advice on dietary supplements and asking me about meridian massage.
“Have you always spoiled Teacher Lin this much?”
Looking at Doctor Gu’s conflicted expression, I smiled. “There are two women and one man in our family. He’s a rare resource.”
The doctor laughed. “Then will you treat your husband this well in the future too?”
I nodded. “My mom has set such an excellent example that it’s impossible not to follow.”
After leaving the office, I took a deep breath, pulled out my phone, and called my best friend.
“Sansan, I think I’ve fallen for my dad’s attending doctor.”
Sansan: “Darling, you’ve finally come to your senses! Go! Seduce him! Pounce on him!”
Me: “Born in ’81.”
Sansan: “We can’t have someone who’s already taken. Stop while you’re ahead. Sin, sin, Amitabha~”
Me: “He doesn’t seem taken... When I went to his office just now, he even asked me whether I’d treat my husband as well as I treat Teacher Lin in the future.”
Sansan: “He actually openly flirted with you? Something’s going on. Find out. If he’s single, pounce immediately.”
Me: “Ask who?”
Sansan: “Ask him!”
I had to admit, girls who studied engineering had an undeniable kind of swagger.
Me: “...No experience.”
Sansan said in a tone of exasperation, as though I were beyond saving: “You silly child! You can casually bring it up while chatting, like asking how old his child is or something.”
I had to admit once again that girls who studied engineering could always find a route that you couldn’t, like finding a convenient little path on a densely packed map. It was probably a professional trait. As someone who studied geology, I felt deeply ashamed of my own major...
Sansan: “Hurry up, okay? You’re not getting any younger.”
Who’s not getting any younger?! You bunch of bastards deliberately inflating my age!
I decisively hung up.
After finishing the call, I returned to the ward and happened to run into Uncle Zhang from the neighboring ward being discharged. His son and daughter-in-law were bustling around, while his little grandson turned his head, saw me, and called out, “Auntie Xiao Lin.”
I took the chocolate from my pocket and handed it to him, patted his head, and went over to help. The little guy thanked me, then excitedly ran outside, barreling straight into Doctor Gu, who was coming through the door. He looked up, then wiggled his little butt and ran away.
“Slow down.”
Doctor Gu withdrew his gaze, a faint smile on his face, and adjusted his glasses. “It seems like all children are afraid of doctors.”
He pulled a pen from his pocket, picked up the medicine bag from the bedside table, and wrote down the dosage instructions and precautions.
I took a deep breath, doing my best to keep my expression calm and my tone casual.
“So, Doctor Gu, do you have any children?”
The doctor paused, then looked up at me.
“No. I don’t have any children.”
“Idiot! You should have followed that up with ‘Are you single?’” Sansan texted back.
I gloomily looked up at the sky. Not having children didn’t mean he didn’t have a family. It didn’t mean he didn’t have a partner.
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Doctor’s handwriting: Idiot! If I had a partner but no children, I would have said, “We haven’t had any yet.”
(Me: Who could understand such an obscure hint?)
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Date: 2009.3.12
I came out of the ward, preparing to go back to the hotel to shower and sleep, and happened to see Doctor Gu come out of the neighboring room after making his rounds and head back toward the office.
I followed two meters behind him, watching as he curled his fingers and occasionally tapped the corridor handrail with his knuckles as he walked. The soft little sounds had a distinct air of self-amusement.
I discovered that when he was in a relatively good mood, he would tap things with his knuckles, whether it was his desk, a low cabinet, or the corridor handrail. When he was in a bad mood, he would place his hand on his thigh and lightly tap with the tip of his index finger. This was probably one of his unconscious habits.
It made me think of the ten-month-old baby next door. His mother was a Liszt enthusiast, and her phone ringtone was La Campanella. Every time a call came in, the baby would follow the accents by patting the wooden railings of his crib, his little head bobbing up and down, clearly enjoying himself.
Thinking of this, I couldn’t help laughing.
The doctor suddenly turned his head.
I hadn’t even laughed out loud!
When you’re laughing and suddenly stop, your expression looks especially like you’ve swallowed a fly, so I simply kept smiling. A patient’s family member smiling at a doctor was probably something he was accustomed to.
The doctor politely curled the corners of his mouth at me, slipped his hand into the pocket of his white coat, and continued walking.
I saw that his ears had turned red.
At one in the afternoon, I returned to the ward and was sent by Mom to the doctors’ office to pick up Teacher Lin’s full blood chemistry report. It wasn’t quite official working hours yet, and the doctors in the office were chatting.
A doctor surnamed Chen teased, “Gu Wei, hurry up and sign up for that thousand-person matchmaking event. Fast-acting, highly effective. Don’t waste resources~”
Everyone else joined in, egging him on.
“You’re paying the registration fee for me?” Gu Wei shot back coolly.
“Doctor Gu...” I knocked on the door.
The man with his back to me stiffened and whipped around.
“Hmm?”
“My dad’s full biochemical panel...” I really had picked the worst possible time to come.
“Oh.”
He stood up from his seat and quickly flipped through the medical chart.
“Mm, mm... I took a look. The indicators... are all within range. Once he finishes today’s fat emulsion, he can stop it tomorrow.”
Watching him fumble around slightly, I held back my laughter, thanked him, and left.
I had taken only two steps out the door when I heard Dr. Chen’s voice.
“Gu Wei, why are you blushing?”
I pulled out my phone and sent a text.
“A man who gets teased about going to a matchmaking event...”
Sansan immediately called me.
“You’ve hit the jackpot! You actually found one who’s single!”
Why did she make me sound like a human trafficker who had kidnapped an innocent single man?
Five thirty in the afternoon.
Doctor Gu went to the nurses’ station to look through a patient’s CT scans. Just then, the head nurse was carrying a steamer basket of assorted shumai to distribute to everyone. Seeing him absorbed in the scans, she called out, “Gu Wei, here, have a shumai.”
“No, thanks. I haven’t washed my hands.”
He continued looking through the scans without lifting his head.
The head nurse was a woman in her forties with a motherly personality. She picked one up.
“Come on, come on. Open your mouth.”
And stuffed the whole thing into his mouth.
“Mm...”
The preparation room was right beside the nurses’ station. When I came out carrying Teacher Lin’s vegetable soup, Doctor Gu was holding a stack of CT film bags, his mouth full of food. He was trying his best to swallow while also struggling to say a complete “thank you.”
When he suddenly saw me, he choked a little, but couldn’t cough. His face quickly turned red from holding it in.
Amitabha, what a sin, what a sin.
I caught sight of his water cup sitting on the duty desk and hurriedly handed it to him.
“Cough, cough cough.”
He freed one hand, took the cup, and gulped down two mouthfuls. Once he recovered, he said, “Thank you.”
Seeing all the nurses laughing behind their hands, I simply couldn’t bring myself to say, “You’re welcome.”
Just as I was preparing to slip away, Dr. Chen strode past the nurses’ station entrance carrying two takeout boxes.
“I’m heading home! See you, comrades!”
“Eh? Where did you get two boxes?” the head nurse asked in surprise.
Doctor Gu, who had been standing beside her trying to catch his breath, suddenly came back to himself. “He stole mine!”
Dr. Chen, already running off into the distance, shouted with a laugh, “You’re a lonely bachelor. Don’t waste resources!”
Watching the nurses laughing themselves silly and Doctor Gu looking utterly speechless, I was completely at a loss. Much later, I suddenly remembered to ask him about it, and only then did I learn that it had been a department activity. Everyone had been given a box of ejiao.
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Doctor’s handwriting: Somehow, you always manage to run into every kind of ridiculous situation.
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Date: 2009.3.14
On a soft, milky-white bed, the doctor’s eyelashes cast faint shadows beneath his eyes. In the crook of his arm was a tiny replica of the doctor, wearing a one-piece pajama suit, curled up facing him with his hands and feet tucked in, his soft hair resting against his little head. The two sleeping figures breathed gently in unison, sunlight falling across them. When the camera turned toward the doorway, an unfamiliar woman walked in...
I suddenly opened my eyes.
Teacher Lin was making the faintest snoring sound beside me. I let out a breath and raised my wrist to check my watch. It wasn’t even two in the morning. I gave myself a self-mocking smile, closed my eyes, and tried to summon sleep again.
I don’t know how long I had been lying there in a daze when I suddenly heard a chaotic rush of footsteps toward the ICU diagonally across from us. Half a minute later, the crying was earth-shattering. Then came the sound of an IV bottle smashing, the stand toppling over, the wheels of a hospital bed rolling, and a sharp female voice:
“He was perfectly fine when you took him into your care! How could he suddenly be gone?”
I vaguely recognized the familiar voice. I put on my coat, got out of bed, and pushed open the door.
There was only a row of night-lights in the corridor. Doctor Gu stood perfectly straight, a medical chart folder in his hands. Shards of glass were scattered across the floor, while the deceased patient’s family surrounded him in a circle, loudly demanding an explanation. The night-lights cast an extremely faint glow over his face. His gaze was lowered, making his expression impossible to see clearly.
Caregiver Xiao Du carried a broom over and tried to clean up the shards of glass on the floor, but one of the emotionally agitated family members shoved him hard.
“Get out of the way!”
Caught completely off guard, the caregiver stumbled sideways, but Doctor Gu grabbed his arm and steadied him.
“Clean it up later.”
The young caregiver frowned as he headed toward the nurses’ station. When he passed my doorway, he stopped.
“Was it that retired professor?” The one who had just come out of surgery yesterday.
Xiao Du curled his lips. “When they signed the surgical consent form, they were already told the old man was eighty. Bad heart, diabetes, previous craniotomy, had a stent put in, poor health to begin with, and his cancer had already metastasized at the late stage. It would’ve been better to take him home and let him enjoy a few more peaceful days. But several of his children saw that the old man had a high retirement pension and insisted on surgery. Every extra day they kept him alive meant another day of collecting his money. They were nowhere to be seen when it was time to show filial piety, and now they’re smashing and throwing things. What’s the point? Doctor Gu just happens to have a good temper.”
The nineteen-year-old boy was indignant, his voice growing louder and louder until he drew the attention of the deceased patient’s family. I quickly patted his shoulder.
“Go get some sleep first.”
Xiao Du frowned and was just about to turn around when suddenly the deceased man’s youngest son stepped forward, grabbed Doctor Gu by the collar, and slammed him hard against the wall.
“How could a perfectly good person be sent into your care and end up dead? Explain it to me!”
I was completely stunned.
In my more than twenty years of life, it was the first time I had ever seen a patient’s family get violent with a doctor. By the time I came to my senses, I had already rushed over with Xiao Du.
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