Chapter 45: Another winter

Translator: imperfectluck  Editor: Kurisu

Zhang Fan went every night to go treat Li Xiao. It was many days before Zhang Fan went to an ATM to check the bank card that she had given him—he had been trying to suppress his desire to check the account, not wanting to become controlled by money.

As she promised, there was 30,000 yuan on the card. This was quite a lot of money for Zhang Fan, equal to almost half a year’s worth of income for him. For this entire year, Zhang Fan had made slightly more than 100,000 yuan. He was highly satisfied.

However, things were different for Li Hui. He had no money saved up whatsoever, and just like Zhang Fan, Li Hui didn’t have a medical license yet. Not having a medical license would mean not having much income. Yet, Zhang Fan was different. No matter if it was in Kuake City or Chasu City Hospital, Zhang Fan had carved out a solid position for himself. Meanwhile, Li Hui was in internal medicine, with zero authority, and couldn’t even work individually. He was working together with his female teacher every day, and had no extra income at all apart from base salary.

Li Hui’s frustration had been caused by several things put together recently. He was the free-spirited type who loved to play around and party. In his department, he loved to joke around. However, the female doctor assigned to be his teacher was the serious type. She had lectured Li Hui several times, but Li Hui wasn’t able to change his personality so easily. This made his teacher really angry, and she stopped trying so hard to teach him. Plus, since Li Hui loved to play around, he would always go visit bars and nightclubs every day after work. Apparently, one of the nurses in his department had seen him, and now scandalous rumors about him were spreading throughout his department. Also, Li Hui’s biggest frustration was that his ex-girlfriend Wang Sha was apparently getting engaged. Obviously, Li Hui wasn’t her fiancé.

As Li Hui and Zhang Fan ate Sichuan cuisine together, Li Hui spoke with a mouth filled with food. “How are you doing at your surgical department? Ha! I probably don’t even need to ask. You’re probably doing wonderful with your skills in surgery. All the doctors and nurses in internal secretion are f***ing going through menopause. All they do is gossip about me.” Li Hui had been assigned to the internal secretion department of internal medicine, which department primarily consisted of female doctors.

Zhang Fan smiled without saying anything. ‘This is how your personality really is, though. So, why should you be afraid of others gossiping about what you’re actually like?’

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Li Hui ordered a bottle of white wine, and served himself some while saying, “Wang Sha is getting engaged, have you heard?”

Although Zhang Fan didn’t know about it, he wasn’t surprised at all that it happened. Of course people would want to get married at this age. Originally, Zhang Fan had thought that Wang Sha would leave Kuake City and return to her hometown; he hadn’t expected that she would permanently settle down in Kuake City. Zhang Fan also chatted as he ate. “What is it, you’re unwilling for that to happen? You’re not thinking about trying to interfere with her wedding, are you? I’m definitely not going to go with you. Someone will probably die.”

Li Hui ignored Zhang Fan while just drinking his own alcohol. He then heaved a deep sigh before saying, “It’s all my fault. I can’t blame Wang Sha at all. I was thinking that once I stabilized things here, I would try to help Wang Sha come over here. Who knew that she would be so stubborn?”

Zhang Fan ignored Li Hui’s words as he felt they were all rubbish. “Could it be that Kuake City Hospital helped to set up her engagement?”

“She’s getting engaged to a director of a high school in Kuake City. That bastard Shi Lei from your surgical department set up the engagement for her.”

“You know so much about it. Still, it’s not their fault. Even without Shi Lei, others would surely try to introduce a good match for her. Wang Sha’s pretty outstanding in many areas. If it weren’t for her own mental weakness, she definitely would have been able to pass the practical skills portion of the medical license exam. Then, she would have also been able to pass Chasu City Hospital’s recruitment exam. Sigh! This is heaven’s will. Just give up.” Zhang Fan was unable to help any more than saying this. To be honest, he really wanted to say that Li Hui deserved what he got for his own behavior. However, he didn’t want to say so after seeing how Li Hui was in a drunken stupor.

Although Li Hui’s alcohol tolerance was alright, he was in a bad mood, so he got drunk really quickly. Zhang Fan directly paid for a hotel room near the Sichuan restaurant, letting Li Hui sleep it off there until he woke up tomorrow. Li Hui already had a poor reputation at his department, so it would become even worse for him if someone saw him so drunk. There were plenty who loved to gossip inside the hospital, and rumors would easily spread everywhere. For instance, there was a young woman who entered the hospital together with Wang Yanan’s group. She was quite beautiful and loved to dress up pretty. However, someone spread a rumor that she was actually a mistress to a rich man.

That aside, Guli recovered nicely. She no longer felt any pain three days after the surgery, so she kept shouting to be released from the hospital and to run around. This really scared Zhang Fan as he absolutely couldn’t allow her to get off the hospital bed just yet. If she did, all the previous work would be for nothing.

Guli’s mother accompanied her every day. She was in her forties, but due to being outside in the wind and sunshine every day, she appeared more like Guli’s grandmother. Guli’s mother didn’t understand any Chinese, but she really spoiled Guli.

Rumors started secretly spreading that Chasu City Hospital was going to construct and sell cheap houses to the hospital staff. Since this was a direct benefit of working for the hospital, the houses would be much cheaper than the market price.

Zhang Fan intended to purchase one. The house would be ready around the time that his younger sister was in college. He would then bring his parents over here.

Winter was coming, so the weather immediately became much colder. Chasu City was slightly warmer than Kuake City, but not by much. There was no highway leading from Chasu City to the provincial capital. The only road to the capital went through a canyon, which would also be sealed by snow in the winter, but Chasu City at least had an airport. In winter, there would be a lot more injuries with people falling and injuring themselves, especially the elderly. It was easy for the elderly to fracture a bone if they fell.

Wang Yanan made even prettier casts than Zhang Fan did. She was hardworking and paid close attention to the details. Plus, with a woman’s natural sense of beauty, the plaster casts she made were particularly pleasant to the eye. After several months of tutelage under Zhang Fan, Wang Yanan had now become capable of dealing with ordinary orthopedic emergency treatment patients by herself. Zhang Fan selflessly taught her everything he knew, and Wang Yanan was hardworking; thus, she improved her skills swiftly. Gao Shijun also tacitly accepted her as a member of his orthopedic department—he even began issuing her bonuses.

Guli was finally able to leave the hospital after more than two weeks. Zhang Fan had been anxious for the entire time because she was far too lively. He was worried that she might go against the doctor’s advice, leave the hospital bed, and injure herself at any moment. When it came time for her to leave the hospital, her boxing coach Wu Yanchao brought several muscular men and lifted her away as if she was a queen. The sports school was only average, and didn’t have any professional doctors on staff. Wu Yanchao stayed behind for a while, so Zhang Fan thought he had some questions about Guli’s treatment. He asked, “Teacher Wu, do you have any questions about Guli?”

“Not at all. Guli’s recovering excellently. Everything else can wait until she’s completely recovered. There’s something that makes me feel awkward to say, but I have to ask you something.”

“Not a problem. Let me know if you have any questions at all,” Zhang Fan said. He could tell Wu Yanchao was feeling conflicted.

“As you know, we’re a sports school. Our sports training level is alright, but we lack a professional doctor on staff. It’s common for our students to get injured while playing sports. We typically either tell them to rest for a few days, or just give them some pain medication. However, the children are still young, and Chasu City doesn’t have any doctors specializing in athletic injuries. I felt that you seemed particularly knowledgeable about athletic injuries, so could I ask you to occasionally come check on the children at our school when you have time? I’ll do my best to negotiate your fees with the school principal, although there probably won’t be much.” Wu Yanchao’s red face seemed to be radiating holy light. Zhang Fan respected those who were hardworking professionals.

“Sure~! My work at the hospital is quite busy, but I can probably visit once every two weeks to give the students at your sports school a checkup. If any special situations arise, feel free to directly call my cell phone.” Since Zhang Fan was temporarily unable to level up any other categories in his System, he decided to focus on orthopedic surgery to his utmost. However, even without his System, Zhang Fan would still go to the sports school just out of respect for Wu Yanchao’s care for the children. This wasn’t a matter of money.

The more that Wang Yanan improved and learned about orthopedic surgery, the more she became impressed with Zhang Fan. Zhang Fan had graduated only one year earlier than she had, yet he was already one of the most skilled doctors in orthopedic department #1. Becoming like Zhang Fan was her goal. Her family viewed her as such a headache. She was a young woman who worked together with mostly men, and she was always completely exhausted whenever she returned home. She wouldn’t even have the energy to eat meals together with her family. It was also commonplace that she wouldn’t return home for several days in a row while living at the hospital. However, her uncle really supported her. He said that at a workplace where skills were the most valuable, those who were the most skilled would be the rulers. He said that she should fight for the sake of her dreams while she was still young, and that her hard work wouldn’t be wasted.