Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
As Chen Tong gazed at the pine trees downstairs, he placed his hand on his waist without realizing.
His waist did not hurt. His back did not hurt either. As for his neck… Hmm, the pain was still as strong as ever… It seemed to hurt even more now.
‘Don’t tell me that it’s because the pillow I slept on during the surgery was shitty?’
Chen Tong fell into contemplation as he stared at the pine trees downstairs.
“Hey, Old Chen, you’re up.” Wang Cheng, his next-bed neighbor, greeted him while he supported his waist with his hand.
“Yeah, I am.” Chen Tong did not even bother turning his neck. He continued staring at the pine trees downstairs.
The needle-shaped leaves of the pine trees were kind of clustered together, and when a person looked at them from above, it was as if the pine trees were covered with a thick layer of dust. They looked a little dirty.
Chen Tong could not help but chuckle internally. ‘How can the pine trees in the city be compared to the pure and clean ones in the countryside…’
‘Your recovery is going better than mine.” Wang Cheng looked at Chen Tong while feeling a little envious. He asked, “It’s not hurting anymore?”
“No,” Chen Tong said.
Wang Cheng sighed a few times and said, “My waist is still hurting, and the pain is pretty intense. I don’t even know if the surgery was carried out properly.”
“Dad, Doctor Ling said that your surgery was a success, didn’t he? Didn’t Doctor Jin say the same thing?” Wang Cheng’s daughter quickly said as she was worried that Wang Cheng would be in a bad mood.
Wang Cheng snorted a few times. “A successful surgery is only the first step. Doctor Ling only said that the surgery was a success. He didn’t say anything about what will happen after the surgery.”
“Didn’t Doctor Jin say that the recovery is going quite well?”
“What Doctor Jin said doesn’t count.” Wang Cheng pursed his lips and said, “You need to get the chief surgeon’s opinions when it comes to this kind of thing, you know?”
Chen Tong turned and glanced at Wang Cheng. He said, “My surgery was a day before yours.”
“But you seem like you were already doing pretty well two days ago.” Wang Cheng was still dissatisfied as he compared their recovery progress.
Chen Tong smiled. “There’s no point in having a fast recovery. At the end of the day, a complete recovery is more important.”
Wang Cheng shook his head. “I used to say what you just said a lot. I only found out later that you wouldn’t be able to catch up with those who were fast from the start, even if you spend the rest of your life doing so.”
Chen Tong could not help but laugh. He let out a few soft coughs and placed his hand on his waist without being aware of it.
The pain he expected did not come.
Chen Tong raised his head in astonishment and said, “You know, I didn’t even feel this good after my appendectomy years ago.”
“Did a monkey carry out your appendectomy?” Wang Cheng said before laughing at his own joke. He then sucked in a sharp breath because of the pain. “Motherf*cker, didn’t the same doctor operate on us? Why am I feeling so much pain?”
Chen Tong glanced at Wang Cheng before shifting his gaze back to the pine trees he loved so much. “It’s probably because you’re older than me.”
Wang Cheng spaced out for a moment before coughing. He then sucked in a sharp breath because of the pain again.
During the late afternoon, the ward area on the first floor became quiet.
Everyone, regardless of whether they were the patients’ family members or the nurses who were walking around, became gentle in their movements.
With a nurse’s help, Chen Tong covered himself with his blanket and dozed off.
The following day, the doctors will start making ward rounds at four in the morning. The early birds might even start as early as three in the morning. All the patients really wanted to listen to the doctors’ input, so they were really looking forward to it.
These patients had specifically travelled to the Second People’s Hospital of Wuxin City to receive surgery. Some of them received an invitation from Doctor Jin, and some sought Doctor Jin out through connections. Some also came under Doctor Jin’s recommendation because their conditions corresponded to the criteria Ling Ran was looking for.
But regardless of the means, they used to come here, all of them shared the same identity after arriving at the Second People’s Hospital of Wuxin City—a patient.
All patients hoped that they would become healthy once again. With this thought in mind, they did not mind being roused from sleep at four, or even three in the morning during ward rounds.
Truth be told, for a very long time, most of them had been in so much pain that they were not even able to sleep at night. For some of the more serious cases, not even painkillers could suppress their symptoms.
Among diseases that were prevalent among ordinary people, hepatolithiasis was one of the more painful ones.
Now that they had gone through surgery, they gave waking up early in the morning no thought at all. All of them were more concerned about their health.
Even though a few of the patients came over because Doctor Jin extended them an invitation, the doctors merely checked on them after they were done with the other patients. This was so that those patients could get a little more sleep. The more demanding patients would not have agreed to head to the Second People’s Hospital of Wuxin City with the other people.
Besides, if a patient’s hepatolithiasis had progressed to a point where he needed hepatectomy, it meant that he had been suffering from it for quite a while. They already had an idea when it came to their condition and how much a doctor could be of help.
And Ling Ran’s performance obviously exceeded those patients’ expectations.
It at least exceeded most patients’ expectations.
Because of this, Ling Ran enjoyed an enormous boost in reputation on the first floor of the Second People’s Hospital of Wuxin City.
During three in the morning, some of the patients who did not sleep well had gotten out of bed and washed up. They also chatted with each other.
“Have you seen Doctor Ling yet?”
“Where did you come from just now?”
“You look like you’re in the pink of health.”
“You look pretty great too.”
Both the patients and their family members had smiles on their faces as they greeted one another.
Chen Tong, too, slowly placed a foot on the floor.
He slipped on a pair of slippers. Without calling a nurse for help, he supported himself with his walking stick, and with his hand against the wall, he slowly inched towards the bathroom. He washed up briefly before opening the door and entering the corridor.
It was only a little over three in the morning, but the corridor on the first floor bustled with noise as if there was a fire drill going on there.
“Hi, Teacher Chen, you’re awake.” A patient who was sitting in a wheelchair looked like he just saw his future, healthier self when he was Chen Tong. He greeted Chen Tong enthusiastically, “You can even walk now! It seems that your recovery is going pretty well.”
“It’s pretty good. I still feel a little bit of discomfort.” Chen Yong shifted his weight in discomfort as he held his walking stick and grabbed the railing beside the wall with his other hand. He panted a few times and said, “My incision is still a little itchy. It’s probably healing soon.”
“I wonder when I’ll be able to start walking.” The patient sitting on the wheelchair smiled. He then looked at Chen Tong and said, “My waist is still hurting a little, and they can’t figure out what’s going on after they looked at the scans either. Sigh, I’m just afraid that there might be complications, or perhaps they didn’t take out enough stones.”
“No matter how horrifying complications are, they wouldn’t be scarier than hepatectomy.” Chen Tong sighed emotionally. He then extended his hand and toyed with the money plant and spider plant at the corner. He then tied their leaves together while he was at it. He did it the same way he knotted ropes for rock-climbing back when he was still part of a scientific expedition team. He could make a beautiful knot using only one hand.
“This is because Doctor Ling is skilled. My friend underwent a hepatectomy and almost died from the pain. It has been a few years, and he’s still feeling the after-effects.” The patient in the wheelchair shook his head and said, “Guess why I was so reluctant to undergo hepatectomy before this and only got it done recently.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to work for two more years in order to get a higher pension so that my relatives can afford to organize a more grandiose funeral for me.” The patient in the wheelchair got so entertained by his own joke that he laughed out loud while slapping the armrest of his wheelchair.
Chen Tong rolled his eyes. As he was about to toy with another spider plant, a nurse ran toward him from behind.
“Why did you get out of bed without permission again?” the nurse grumbled. She got a wheelchair and helped Chen Tong as he settled into the wheelchair.
“I have basically recovered.” Chen Tong smiled in resignation.
“Why don’t you tell Doctor Ling this?” The young nurse pointed at a group of doctors who were walking toward them in an arrow-shaped formation, and the doctors went toward them with the momentum of a tidal wave.
“Doctor Ling.”
“Doctor Ling!”
The patients and their family members greeted Ling Ran one after another. Even though it was only four in the morning, everyone was extremely polite.
Ling Ran flashed a socially appropriate smile. He then turned and entered a room according to the fixed order.
“How do you feel?” Ling Ran held a notebook and took notes as he made the usual inquiries.
Behind Ling Ran, Yu Yuan, Zuo Cidian, Lu Wenbin, and Ma Yanlin also held a notebook each. They had no choice but to take notes as well since their boss was doing so.
In the past, Ling Ran had never taken notes when he made ward rounds. But now… since he wanted to take notes, no one could stop him from doing so.
However, Ling Ran refused to let other people look at his notes. Lu Wenbin and the other doctors in Ling Ran’s treatment group suspected that Ling Ran had been jotting down some great secret in his notebook.
Or could it be some secret scripture related to the field of medicine?
After Lu Wenbin looked at the monitor and jotted down a string of numbers, he saw that Ling Ran was in deep contemplation as he wrote in his notebook.
“Doctor Ling?” Lu Wenbin snapped Ling Ran out of his reverie in a hushed tone. He did not want a repeat of the incident where everyone waited for Ling Ran while he was deep in thought for ten minutes.
“Okay, let’s carry on.” Ling Ran wrote a few words in his notebook and talked to the patient a bit more. He only nodded and walked forward after he was done.
The indicator “8/10” hovered in Ling Ran’s field of vision.
From the perspective of mission completion, this meant that only eight of the surgeries Ling Ran carried out fulfilled the criterion of an “Extremely High-Quality Surgery”. He needed two more of these to complete the mission and obtain an Intermediate Treasure Chest.
Through the system’s notifications, Ling Ran could see how the system rated each surgery he carried out.
Ling Ran had completed twenty-five hepatectomies since he received the mission. Only eight of them fulfilled the criterion of extremely high-quality surgery.
Ling Ran wanted to know why.
This was so that he could improve his operating technique and consistently carry out extremely high-quality surgeries.
Ling Ran specifically prepared a notebook to make records because of this.
Normal doctors would not get a direct rating after they finish operating on a patient.
Ordinary doctors could only use their intuition to determine whether they carried out surgery well.
Now that Ling Ran got to know how well he performed in each surgery, he really wanted to know what constituted an extremely high-quality surgery.
Ling Ran really wanted the answer to this question. “What have I done right?”
Of course, the corresponding question followed. “What have I done wrong?”
He did not even need to get the exact answers to these questions. If he was able to identify a few determining factors, he might be able to write a few research papers.
From this point of view, the notebook he was holding did contain secret scriptures related to the field of medicine.
“Good morning. How do you feel?” Ling Ran had arrived at Wang Cheng and Chen Tong’s ward.
“Pretty good. I’m just having a bit of a headache.” Wang Cheng sat up with the help of his family members. He sounded a little weak.
[Follow-up regarding his headache.] Ling Ran wrote in his notebook and asked, “Anything else? How’s the incision?”
“It hurts a little too.”
“How about your waist?”
“There’s a little bit of pain too.”
“I’ll write an ultrasonography authorization request form for you,” Ling Ran said.
“Alright.” Wang Cheng had no objection.
Ling Ran quickly wrote something in his notebook. He then went in front of Chen Tong and asked, “Good morning. How do you feel?”
“Nothing much.” Chen Tong contemplated for a moment and scratched his head. “I feel a little tired.”
“How about your incision? Does it hurt?”
“No. It’s just a little itchy.”
“How about your waist?”
“I don’t really feel anything.”
“I’ll write an ultrasonography authorization request form for you. If everything’s clear, you can get discharged already,” Ling Ran said.
“Alright.” Chen Tong was only taken aback after he said that. “I can get discharged already?”
“You can choose to stay in the hospital for two more days for observation, but you can get discharged already.” Ling Ran continued writing in his notebook. [The difference between extremely high-quality surgeries and ordinary surgeries is extremely jarring. The difference in prognoses between these two patients is super obvious only a few days post-surgery.]
Ling Ran and the rest of the doctors exited the ward at lightning speed and walked toward the next room. Wang Cheng stared begrudgingly at Chen Tong and said in disbelief, “Are you really feeling no pain at all?”
Chen Tong thought carefully about it and said, “No, it’s just that my incision is a bit itchy. Are you in pain?”
Wang Cheng just chuckled.
