Great Doctor Ling Ran

Zuo Cidian spent the whole night in the emergency room, treating patients whenever there was any and reading a book whenever there were no patients.

He only had a few hours left to enjoy Doctor Ling’s private guidance alone.

Zuo Cidian treasured the opportunity tremendously. When it was almost daybreak, another patient with Colles’ fracture entered the emergency room. Zuo Cidian was so touched that he almost cried. “People of Donghuang are very kind to me indeed…”

When the patient with Colles’ fracture saw the doctor’s teary eyes, he felt somehow uneasy. “I’m not from Donghuang…”

Zuo Cidian nodded and said, “People of Beijing are very kind to me…”

“I’m not a Beijing citizen.” The patient with Colles’ fracture became annoyed. “I was sent here by an ambulance. If you guys only treat locals, why did the ambulance send me here?”

“No, we treat everyone.” Zuo Cidian immediately defended himself. Judging by the patient’s expression, he knew that the patient would definitely file a complaint against him if he did not quickly come up with something suitable to say. This was why Zuo Cidian immediately flashed an earnest expression and started lying. “About this, I’ve actually been helping my son in rehearsing for a school play. Please don’t be angry at me. I’ve been really busy since I have night shifts too. Moreover, my son’s teacher had been rushing me…”

The patient found what Zuo Cidian said relatable. “I know right? Schools nowadays are really horrible. They would give trouble to the parents for no reason at all, coming up with some silly new ideas every day. You know, I only earn a few hundred RMB a day. One day, the school asked all the students’ parents to clean up the school compounds. Why would I forgo my meager income just to do something that I’m not responsible for? If I were to participate in the activity, I would even need to take a day off from work. Isn’t this ridiculous? I’d rather give them a few hundred RMB.”

Never had Zuo Cidian expected that the patient had so much resentment in his heart. He had no way of stopping the patient from babbling away.

A few patients who were receiving fluid transfusion in the emergency room got interested in the conversation too. They started grumbling together with the patient with Colles’ fracture.

When Zuo Cidian saw that the patients were chit-chatting among themselves, he could not help but breathe a sigh of relief. But in the blink of an eye, Zuo Cidian became vigilant again. ‘Those who complain about teachers and those who complain about doctors are usually the same kind of people.’

Before he could stop the patients, they had already changed the topic.

“Hey guys, don’t you think that hospitals nowadays are really dodgy…”

“I’m still going to complain even though I’m in a hospital right now. Look at the drugs they prescribed to me. I merely suffer from gastroenteritis, but they made me take so many tests. They drew my blood and stuff. In the end, they even prescribed so many drugs to me. I thought that fluid transfusion isn’t in trend anymore.”

“It’s still better for you guys who have a health insurance. I have to foot the bill myself. Oh, by the way, do any of you have ribbons or something?” A buff middle-aged man who looked about fifty years old said. Even though he was muscular, he was soft-spoken, and his voice sounded like music to the ears.

Zuo Cidian walked over with a smile. “Hey, I thought you guys were talking about schools? Uncle, would some bandages do? Is your wrist aching?”

The burly middle-aged man hummed in acknowledgment. He then glanced at Zuo Cidian and said, “You’re a pretty friendly doctor, but I don’t really like it when you call me ‘uncle’. Between you and me, who’s actually older?”

“You’re older. I saw from your medical record that you’re retired, so it’s only appropriate for me to call you ‘uncle’.” Zuo Cidian was very careful with his words and tried his best not to offend anyone. Back when he was working in a town hospital, he had encountered plenty of ill-mannered patients, and whenever he failed to handle one, he would be reprimanded horribly. In Zuo Cidian’s opinion, it was easy to appease patients in the city.

Aside from this, he was honing his craft in another hospital’s Emergency Department, so it would not be good to cause Donghuang Regional Hospital any trouble.

The burly middle-aged man sized Zuo Cidian up again. He then sighed and said, “Since that’s what you say, I’ll just treat you as my junior. You know, Doctor Zuo, you should really take care of yourself. If I didn’t know that I’m older than you, I would have called you ‘uncle’ instead.”

Zuo Cidian’s expression slowly stiffened. “As long as you’re happy.”

“I’m happy. I’m definitely happy.” The burly middle-aged man chuckled.

Zuo Cidian turned in resignation and went to examine the patient with Colles’ fracture.

As the infirmary at the Great Wall of China was shabby, he could only carry out a physical examination for the young woman with Colles’ fracture. Now that he was working in the hospital, it would be bad faith to not send the patient for an X-ray. He might end up getting sued to the point that he lost everything he had.

Zuo Cidian was busy attending to the newcomer with Colles’ fracture. The middle-aged man who had received two strips of bandage was tying them together in a leisurely manner as he lay in the hospital bed.

Soon, the burly middle-aged man had already made two strong knots on the headboard of the hospital bed. He then extended the bandages, forming a circle. He seemed to be testing if the circle was big enough.

In this very moment, Zuo Cidian was reading the X-ray scans of the patient with Colles’ fracture. When he saw what the middle-aged man was doing from afar, he almost had a mental breakdown. ‘What the f*ck? Why are you trying to hang yourself and commit suicide in the emergency room? Don’t you think that the doctors here are busy enough already? And are you trying to save social resources while you’re at it?’

Zuo Cidian rushed toward the middle-aged man at lightning speed. As he was at a loss for words, he yelled, “Don’t move!”

The burly middle-aged man extended his hand which was not attached to the fluid transfusion tube into the circle formed by the bandages and did a pull-up. He then slowly lowered his upper body and looked at Zuo Cidian. “I’ve not trained my chest for quite a few days. The hospital beds here are really sturdy. It won’t break.”

“This… this wouldn’t do either. You’re still receiving fluid transfusion.” Zuo Cidian slowly left as he spoke. He breathed an internal sigh of relief. ‘Fortunately, he didn’t turn out to be that much of an idiot.’

Zuo Cidian earnestly treated the last patient with Colles’ fracture under Ling Ran’s guidance. He then bade farewell to the medical staff members of Donghuang Regional Hospital before boarding the sedan car provided by a pharmaceutical sales representative and heading to the airport with Huo Congjun.

Huo Congjun was in a very good mood, and he talked nonstop as he sat in the front passenger seat.

Ling Ran asked, “Are you done with the conference?”

Huo Congjun chuckled. “Yeah, it was just a small conference. I just had to speak for a bit and participate in a themed forum. All of us sat down and chatted for a while so that younger doctors can draw from our experience, and then the conference ended.”

Zuo Cidian whipped out his phone to look at the time. It was not even ten in the morning.

Huo Congjun saw what Zuo Cidian was doing, and he glanced at his watch too. After thinking about it for a few seconds, he added, “The conference started at eight in the morning. A lot of the participants are busy people and have a lot on their plates, anyway, so it’s a good thing for them to wake up early too.”

Zuo Cidian played along and hummed in acknowledgement.

“The forum was very simple too… Hmm… I merely showed my face there. It didn’t really take up much of my time…”

Zuo Cidian nodded a little. This way, they managed to cover up most of the timeline-related loopholes.

Huo Congjun and Zuo Cidian silently communicated for a while. They then put on satisfied expressions and looked at Ling Ran.

“Have you arranged for patients for me to operate on?” When Ling Ran saw that Huo Congjun was looking at him, he asked, “What surgery do most of them need?”

“Most of them need hepatectomy. It’s a scheduled surgery, after all. So plenty of patients are receiving traditional treatment as they wait to be operated on.” Huo Congjun paused for a moment and asked, “Did you hear what we were talking about just now?”

“About the conference? I thought it has ended?”

“Yeah… by the way, do you need patients who require M-Tang surgery lately? Lu Wenbin said that he wants to carry out M-Tang surgery.”

“Yes!” Of course Ling Ran would not say no. Patients got discharged all the time, and since the ward area was empty, he certainly wanted to take in a large number of patients.

Zuo Cidian wriggled uneasily and said in a low voice, “Department Director Huo, can we take in some patients with fractures too? Those with Colles’ fracture.”

“Sure.” Huo Congjun immediately agreed. His favourite thing to do had always been to snatch patients from other departments.