Great Doctor Ling Ran

“Ling Ran, wait.” Ji Tianlu stopped Ling Ran at the small canteen in the operating area and looked anxiously at him.”How do you feel now? You didn’t sleep for the whole night?” Ji Tianlu asked.

“Pretty good, yeah.” Ling Ran greeted Ji Tianlu in an energetic manner. “1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55…”

Ji Tianlu was stunned for a moment. “The Fibonacci sequence?”

“Yup.” Ling Ran hummed in agreement. He then spread his arms and walked in a straight line in front of Ji Tianlu.

Ji Tianlu looked at Ling Ran in a daze. The first time he saw Ling Ran doing that, he found it pretty interesting. But watching it now… the action could sort of be described as cute, especially when it was performed with a face like Ling Ran’s.

“Are you going to continue operating?” Ji Tianlu did not bother to ask Ling Ran if he was tired anymore. He sat opposite Ling Ran and started to make small talk. Ling Ran could still recite the Fibonacci sequence. What more could he ask for? That was how the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center was like. It was a research hospital, and it had very few doctors and very few patients. In other hospitals, if they could, chief physicians would tire a batch of doctors to death before they got another batch of doctors to do the same. In China, long-distance drivers still got to choose if they wanted to drive when they were tired. Surgeons did not have such a choice at all.

Ling Ran ordered some deep-fried dough sticks and soybean milk. He took a few bites before he said, “I plan to continue operating until night time and see what happens then. I reckon that there won’t be any more patients left at night.”

Ji Tianlu laughed out loud. “Are you kidding me? Let me tell you, as long as you’re still capable of working, there will never be a shortage of patients.”

Ling Ran looked at Ji Tianlu in disbelief. It was not like patients were deep-fried dough sticks that could be conjured up at will.

Ji Tianlu proudly tilted his head up a little.

The Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center had just organized an international conference, and because of that, he had obtained the contact numbers of almost a hundred doctors. He would definitely have no problem getting a few patients if he decided to dial those numbers one by one.

As a doctor in a clinical medicine research center, Ji Tianlu once gathered more than three thousand similar cases just to publish a research paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. If a Chinese doctor did not even know the advantage of utilizing his many connections, it would be impossible for him to conduct clinical research.

Ling Ran did not understand such hospital politics yet. He merely nodded.

He was happy as long as there was an adequate supply of patients. Ling Ran was not the kind of person who wanted to understand everything.

“Ling Ran, did you like Math when you were in school?” Ji Tianlu decided to change the topic.

Ling Ran said, “I didn’t have to courage to like it.”

“Why not?” Ji Tianlu was surprised.

“When I was twelve years old, I got second place in Yun Hua City’s Mathematical Olympiad. The one who got first place was second place in Changxi Province in terms of Math,” Ling Ran said. “That’s why I gave up.”

Ji Tianlu’s jaw dropped after he heard the first sentence, and he became even more astonished after he heard the second sentence. “Why did you give up when you were so excellent at it?”

“I gave up because I wasn’t excellent enough.” Ling Ran sighed and said, “There’s no point in liking Math when you only place second.”

“That’s such a waste. If my son were to get second place in the Math Olympiad, I would do everything I can—”

“It would still be useless,” Ling Ran cut off Ji Tianlu’s imagination, which had begun to run wild.

Ji Tianlu’s face turned slightly red with anger. “Didn’t you say that you were only twelve years old? Nothing is set in stone for twelve-year-olds…”

“Terence Chi-Shen Tao won the gold medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad when he was twelve. He won the silver medal when he was eleven and won the bronze medal when he was ten…” Ling Ran counted with his fingers and said in a soft voice, “If you’re not the best among all in Mathematics, there’s no point in pursuing it.”

“You don’t have to compare yourself to him.”

“As a doctor, there’s no need to compare yourself to others. But the comparison is necessary when it comes to Mathematics.” Ling Ran finished all the deep-fried dough sticks before he wiped his hands and said, “A doctor who’s at the 10,000th place can still save lives. However, Mathematicians who get second place can’t really do anything.”

Ling Ran’s words stunned Ji Tianlu, and he muttered, “Now that you’ve mentioned it, it sounds pretty reasonable.”

Ling Ran chuckled and finished the remaining tofu pudding in his glass.

When he noticed that Ling Ran was about to leave, Ji Tianlu quickly rose and said, “Wait, Ling Ran, I’m not done yet.”

Ling Ran looked at Ji Tianlu’s mouth and asked, “Not done yet?”

“I was just laying out of the foundation for the main topic just now…” Ji Tianlu waved. “What I was trying to say is that, since you’re good in Math, you should do your own calculations. Can you really use up all the hospital beds? Since you can’t, why don’t you just stay in the research center…”

“Why can’t I?” Ling Ran did not understand.

“You can perform ten surgeries every day, right? Together with the surgeries you carry out when you work overtime at night, you perform an average of fifteen to sixteen surgeries a day…” Ji Tianlu himself was astonished as he said that, but he did not make it show. Even though most of the surgeries were arthroscopies and ordinary Achilles tendon repair surgeries, fifteen to sixteen surgeries were still a few times more than the surgical volume of ordinary doctors.

Under normal circumstances, a surgeon was able to perform six to seven arthroscopies a day. A doctor like Ling Ran who could perform so many surgeries for so many consecutive days could not even be found in tertiary Grade A hospitals that prioritized speed, much less clinical medicine research hospitals like the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center. Only hospitals like Aier Eye Hospital, which had a lot of patients and skilled doctors, could achieve this.

Ji Tianlu shook his head vigorously before he continued, “Even if you perform sixteen surgeries on average every day, the patients would be discharged after around two weeks. Sixteen times fourteen equals two hundred and twenty-five. I just have to prepare that exact number of beds, and it’d be enough for you to operate to your heart’s content every day. In terms of the bet we made that day, I’m already the winner!”

The last sentence was what Ji Tianlu ultimately wanted to express by starting the conversation.

He wanted to end the bet early. He also kind of… wanted to show off and relieve his stress at the same time.

On the other hand, Ji Tianlu did not find it appropriate to exploit Ling Ran too much either. The Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center allocated twenty-five percent of the surgery fees to the chief surgeon. That was only half of what Yun Hua Hospital paid. If Ling Ran continued to operate like that every day, Ling Ran himself would not receive much money despite bringing the hospital a lot of profit.

Even though most of the money would go to the center, Ji Tianlu still felt more or less bad about it.

However, Ling Ran only looked at Ji Tianlu calmly and said, “It’s impossible for me to only carry out an average of sixteen surgeries a day.”

Ji Tianlu smiled. “Trust me, sixteen surgeries a day is already the limit.”

“If I operate twenty-two hours a day and use an average of thirty minutes to complete each surgery, I should be able to carry out forty-four surgeries a day.” Ling Ran’s calculation was more straightforward and simple.

Ji Tianlu laughed out loud. “That’s a pretty good idea, but don’t you need to sleep?”

“I take ten minutes to rest after every three or four surgeries.”

“How’s that possible?”

“I’m a bit special in that sense,” Ling Ran answered.

Ji Tianlu chuckled a few times. “So, according to what you’ve just said, even after I’ve tried all means and methods to obtain around one hundred additional hospital beds, there still isn’t enough of them to fit the number of patients you’ll operate on in five days?”

Ling Ran widened his eyes. “You only managed to obtain around one hundred additional hospital beds even after you tried all means and methods?”

The conversation ended there…

Because breakfast time was over.

Ling Ran returned to the operating theater and began a new day.

Ji Tianlu felt annoyed for some reason. He was also too embarrassed to follow Ling Ran into the operating theater. Hence, he went to the demonstration room to watch the surgery instead.

After a while, Ling Ran appeared in the operating theater dressed neatly in his surgical gown.

“Knee arthroscopy?” Ji Tianlu looked at the screen and asked, “Regional or general anesthesia?”

“Regional anesthesia,” a resident doctor in the demonstration room answered softly.

Ji Tianlu laughed out loud. “Great, it’s good that the patient’s only receiving regional anesthetics. I do want to take a look at how Ling Ran handles so many patients who are only under regional anesthesia…”

“Ah… doctor, you’re so young.” The patient who was lying on the operating table captured everyone’s attention in the operating theater with her words.

“Doctor Ling, even though you’re so young…

“Do you have a manager?” The patient who was a middle-aged woman asked out of the blue.

Ling Ran said, “No, I don’t.”

“How about a house?”

“No.”

“How about a car?”

“No.”

“Ah, you have no money, no house, and no car…” The middle-aged woman seemed to have forgotten that she was about to undergo surgery. She sized Ling Ran up, and after a long while, she said, “It’s okay if you don’t have a house or a car. It’s pretty amazing for young men to pave their own way by relying on themselves after all. Oh, by the way, Doctor Ling, what kind of girls do you like?”

Ling Ran placed a tourniquet on the base of the middle-aged women’s thigh before he said, “Right now, I like the ones with injured legs the most.”