Great Doctor Ling Ran

After a while, the doctors from the Neurology Department and the Cardiothoracic Department returned.

Su Jiafu pursed his lips. “Did he really fall?”

“It was a woman. She stood too long when she took selfies, and her legs went numb. She crashed against the car. The other two are taking a look at her. It’s probably just a fracture.” The doctor from the Cardiothoracic Department grabbed a lamb skewer, put it in his mouth, and ate it.

“Budweiser?” Su Jiafu got them some beer.

“Sure.” The Cardiothoracic Department doctor took the beer and poured half of it into his cup before passing the remaining half to the Neurology Department doctor.

The doctors were already used to it. In a year with three hundred and sixty-five days, two hundred of those days would be spent in teetotalism. In fact, it would be preferable if they remained that way for the other one hundred and fifty days. As time passed, the surgeons became older, their bodies became weaker, and they could not take in high amounts of alcohol anymore.

There was no longer the habit of urging each other to drink more.

During the earlier years, when pharmaceutical sales representatives were all over the country, doctors had a pretty comfortable life, especially doctors who were senior attending physicians or more. They were always offered services that would end up making them very comfortable.

But nowadays, the pharmaceutical sales representatives’ abilities seemed to have become weaker, and young doctors’ interests seemed to have become different. The activities which seniors found entertaining were no longer interesting to the doctors of the newer generation. The influence of the drinking gang was also waning.

Boss Shao took care of the meat that lay over the barbecue pit before grabbing his crutches. The crutches made thudding sounds as he went his way.

By the time he returned, the crutches in Boss Shao’s hands disappeared.

“Did you just give away your crutches to someone else?” Su Jiafu was surprised. He placed another two lamb skewers into his mouth.

“Yes, her legs were swollen, so I gave it to her to help her walk.” As Boss Shao spoke, he called over one of his workers. “Get another set of my crutches from the floor above.”

This time, Su Jiafu was not the only one who looked at Boss Shao weirdly. Everyone did so.

“Why do you even have two sets of crutches?”

“How can two be enough? The number of people moving in and out of this place is too large. Every day, someone will get into an accident. These crutches are just like umbrellas. One cannot be overprepared. Look. Point proven today.” Boss Shao supported himself against the table and said, “When I bought the crutches last time, I made some calculations. One crutch costs me 35 RMB, and a dozen of them would be 150 RMB. So, should I buy only one set, or a dozen of them?”

Su Jiafu could no longer handle the information. He shouted, “Of course you should get one only! Who would even buy a dozen crutches even if it’s cheaper than buying one?! Do you think you are She Saihua [1]?!”

“Why would She Saihua need to buy a dozen crutches?” Yu Yuan was never tired of seeking the truth.

Su Jiafu glanced at her and said, “She Saihua used her crutches to hit people.”

“She Saihua’s family didn’t run out of money, right? Why didn’t they just get a crutch with better quality?” Yu Yuan continued to ask.

“Because when the crutch breaks, the visual effects will be better.”

“Then, is it possible for a scenario like this to happen? When She Saihua hits a person the first time, she did not break the crutch, but it was almost broken. Hence, She Saihua would actually not know about this, and when she uses the crutch, the durability of the crutch reached its limit. Then, with a loud crack, it was broken, and She Saihua fell down.”

“There’s a part in a drama where She Saihua left for battle at the age of eighty-three, right? It’s very dangerous for an old lady like her to fall down.”

“It would be troublesome if the pelvis was fractured. The doctors during ancient times won’t be able to treat it well with their medical conditions.”

“It won’t be any better if the kneecap was fractured either. I wonder if they know how to use splints at that time. The recovery rate for an old lady is very slow as well.”

“Boss Shao’s recovery rate is quite good.”

Then, everyone looked at Boss Shao.

Boss Shao sighed and said, “Doctors like you don’t know how much medical expenses cost nowadays, since you don’t have to pay for it. 150 RMB for twelve crutches, how could I not buy them? I bought a dozen of them in the start because I was going to treat them as consumables. I already gave away five crutches, and now I’m considering whether I should get another dozen for future use. If it doesn’t rain soon, the crutches that I give away will probably be more than the umbrellas.”

“Who will give crutches away as a gift?” Everyone shook their head.

Tian Qi was very excited as she listened to the conversation. She then talked to Ling Ran, “The conversation between doctors like you is very interesting. When I go back, I’ll suggest my family to prepare not only umbrellas, but also crutches in front of the main entrance of our hotel.”

Su Jiafu almost jerked in shock and turned to look at Tian Qi.

Boss Shao served the barbequed meat roasted over salt cedar.

The lamb skewers were 1.1 pounds each, and every slice of meat was about the size of a walnut. The outer layer was already in the color of roasted caramel. Since there was a limit to how much weight salt cedar could support, when they took it, the meat even shuddered a little.

Boss Shao grabbed one skewer and ate a piece of meat. He chewed viciously with his teeth and displayed a smile with satisfaction. After he swallowed it, he spoke to the others, who were drooling. “After ‘A bite of China’ was released, the price of salt cedar rose by leaps and bounds. Can you believe that? Let me tell you this, it’ll be a waste to buy salt cedar for the sole purpose of barbequing meat at your own house. When you roast meat over cedar wood, you need to roast big pieces of meat. It’s completely different from the small lamb skewers that I used to make.”

“You pay such great attention to this.” The doctors had their thumbs up. Since the meat was in Boss Shao’s hands, they needed to show their support to whatever he said.

Once Boss Shao satisfied his desire in giving a speech, he said, “All of you, do share the meat among yourselves. Don’t eat too much and get too full! Also, since there are ladies here, I need to tell you this. We should chew the meat in big bites. Don’t just tear off the meat and eat slowly just because the meat I roasted for you came in big chunks. Then it’ll be meaningless!”

Yu Yuan and Tian Qi nodded together before they both took a piece of meat from the skewer using chopsticks. They put it into their mouths.

“It tastes good, right?” Boss Shao wiped his mouth and said, “You go for the tenderness in meat when you eat small pieces of meat. That’s why you need to cut the meat in small pieces, but the cooking fire has to be big. After flipping it a few times, put some seasoning on it, and it is all good to be served on the table. It’s completely different when you want to cook big pieces of meat. The juiciness of the meat matters the most. So the outer layer is supposed to look quite hard while the inner layer should be soft. This means that you want the meat to be crispy outside while it tastes tender inside. In other words, you will know whether you roasted the meat well by the juiciness of the meat after the first bite. So, if the meat is big, the cooking fire has to be small, and you need to use charcoal so that you can barbecue it slowly. No seasoning is needed. The meat can be eaten with just some salt and pepper on it. If you want a stronger flavor, you may add a bit of the cumin. But it is not necessary for that.”

Tian Qi’s eyes sparkled as she ate the meat. After she finished a piece, she looked at Ling Ran with a pitiful look in her eyes, “Doctor Ling, why don’t we share a skewer?”

If each meat skewer roasted over salt cedar weighed for 1.1 pounds, and everyone could get one skewer, the gathering today would just end right after they finished eating. Ling Ran was also worried that he would be eating too much greasy food, so he put the remaining three pieces on Tian Qi’s plate and said, “The rest are all yours.”

“That’s too much. I only want another piece. I’ll leave the other two for you.” Tian Qi used her chopsticks to grab the piece of meat at the top of the skewer, but she failed to do so. Perhaps it was because the meat had become slightly cooler. So, Tian Qi just threw away her chopsticks and used her hand to pull out the meat. She then returned the other two pieces of meat roasted over salt cedar to Ling Ran.

Tian Qi took a sip of beer and ate a big piece of mutton. She felt incredibly great.

Yu Yuan sat next to Su Jiafu. He said to her, “I feel like I’m watching a movie.”

“What?” It was only then that Yu Yuan seemed to snap back to attention.

“The daughter from the rich family eating barbecue. Doesn’t this feel like a scene from a movie?” Su Jiafu gave her a few signals with his eyes.

“Oh…” Yu Yuan appeared to be in disdain.

“What are you thinking now?” As an anesthetist, Su Jiafu was always ignored by the surgeons. But he could not tolerate being ignored anymore when he was the one who organized this barbeque gathering.

Yu Yuan replied seriously, “I’m thinking of what happened just now.”

“The girl who fell down? It is a misdiagnosis?”

“No. She just sprained her ankle. I’m thinking about the crutch.” Yu Yuan pondered and said, “I think She Saihua used a crutch with a dragon head. It’s the kind of crutch which can hit incompetent emperors and wicked government officials, right? How could she possibly break that kind of crutch? So, what we said just now…”

“Boss Shao, give us five tubes of beef tripes,” Su Jiafu shouted suddenly.

Yu Yuan was not able to finish what she wanted to say, and her face scrunched up so strongly that she looked as if she was suffering from constipation. She looked to the left, then to the right before she talked to Tian Qi, who drank beer and ate her meat. “Aren’t you going to drive your car to earn money later? You can’t drive if you drank alcohol.”

“Huh?” Tian Qi’s hand froze. In her hand was the beer can.