One night, Zhang Fan and Wang Zipeng rested against a wall of the operating room. They had just completed three surgeries in succession, which had been exhausting.
Zhang Fan squinted, and asked Wang Zipeng, "Do you have a girlfriend?"
"Yeah."
Zhang Fan opened his eyes and looked directly at Wang Zipeng. "How long have you been going out for?"
"Almost 10 years!"
Zhang Fan inhaled a cold breath in surprise, asking, "Just how old are you?"
"Haha, we started going out with each other in middle school. She was my deskmate."
"Oh! How did you get her to be your girlfriend?" Zhang Fan felt that he could learn from Wang Zipeng. He viewed Wang Zipeng as a grandmaster in love, having been able to start a romance in middle school and make it last even now when he had a job.
"I didn't do anything special to pursue her. Basically, we sat right next to each other, so we somehow became a couple. At the time, our families were strongly against early romance, so we went out in secret, haha!" Wang Zipeng had a blissful expression as he recalled this.
Zhang Fan grit his teeth as he said, "It's not like you're handsome. How come you get to be so happy? You must be so shameless, targeting her while she was still so young!"
"Brother Zhang, it's simply up to fate. I was also in middle school at the time."
There was no continuing this conversation, as they were simply too different. Zhang Fan had zero experience with romance. He had been really poor during college, and the first girl he tried to ask out had directly pointed this out to him, which had been such a metaphorical slap in the face for him. Ever since then, Zhang Fan's youthful passion for romance had been extinguished.
'Whom should I ask for love advice? Li Hui? No, that thing is so unreliable. Wang Yanan? No, she also has no love experience. Senior Su Jing? I'd be too embarrassed to ask her,' Zhang Fan thought, wondering whom he could ask for love advice as he rested against the wall.
"Brother Zhang, since you've passed your medical license exam, which department do you want to be permanently assigned to after rotations?" Wang Zipeng struck up a conversation after seeing that Zhang Fan wasn't saying anything else.
Zhang Fan was no longer in any mood to hold a conversation, so he simply said, "Any one. It doesn't matter which, I'm not picky."
Well, Zhang Fan successfully killed off the conversation with this.
After Zhang Fan finished his work shift, he decided to try and talk to his senior, Su Jing, about love advice after all. However, it turned out that she had left right after work to go pick up her child. She was quite busy.
There was no helping it. Zhang Fan ate some dinner at the hospital cafeteria, and then returned to the operating room. Little Yi was working as the operating room nurse for today. Since there weren't any surgeries scheduled right now, she came over to chat with Zhang Fan.
"You're also not going out for the weekend? You really work so hard. I really like men who work so hard."
Little Yi was also quite pretty. However, humans were curious creatures. For some reason, Zhang Fan felt that Shao Hua seemed really special to him. He had never experienced this feeling before.
"Oh! I haven't gone out recently," Zhang Fan replied listelessly.
"If you're tired, you should rest up. Don't work yourself to exhaustion. How about after my work shift tomorrow, we go visit Chasu River to watch the sunset together?"
"I still need to work tomorrow at that time. Oh! I also have a medical report that I haven't finished yet. I don't know where that Wang Zipeng went, I need to go find him to do it for me." Zhang Fan was unable to take it anymore and ran off.
Little Yi bit her lips as she watched Zhang Fan running away panickily. She was feeling lonely. It was quite difficult for nurses to find romantic partners with the nature of their long and exhausting work hours. Any nurse who wasn't a head nurse yet would also have to work complete 24-hour work shifts.
With so much overtime work on a daily basis, it would be quite rare for the nurses to get to know other young people as romantic prospects.
Well, Zhang Fan could no longer stay in the operating room, as he didn't want to bring troubles to others because of his own confusion. He was no Li Hui, who was such a playboy.
Since he couldn't trouble Little Yi in the operating room, he no longer stayed in the operating room for the first night in an incredibly long while. He finally returned to the apartment that Kang Hua loaned to him. To be honest, loaning him the apartment was a bit of a waste. He almost never stayed here. Wang Qian had purchased so many electronics for him as New Year's gifts, but he hadn't used a single one yet apart from the laundry machine. He hadn't even turned on the television a single time.
Zhang Fan washed up, and then went to sleep with his frustrations. He was in no mood to study with medical textbooks.
At 3:00 a.m., a light started flashing on Zhang Fan's cell phone, which woke him up. Ever since cell phones started becoming commonplace, Chinese hospitals started paying for the doctors' cell phone fees. However, the hospitals would request that the doctors leave the cell phones on at all times so that they could be contacted at any hour.
The caller ID showed that the call was from Chen Qifa. "Teacher Zhang, we received a patient whose femur bone has been shattered severely. Are you able to come over right now?"
Zhang Fan checked the time, and then said, "Sure, I can be there in one hour. Treat the superficial injuries and prepare the medical equipment for me."
"Alright."
Zhang Fan immediately got out of bed, put on his clothes, hurriedly washed his face, and started driving from Chasu City to Kuake City. It truly was convenient now that he had a car. No taxi would possibly take him in the middle of the night for a ride that was more than one hundred kilometers. The taxi drivers would be afraid of getting mugged.
There wasn't a single car on the road between the two cities. The Jeep Grand Cherokee had good front lights, and Zhang Fan drove rather quickly. He was able to get to Kuake City Hospital in exactly one hour. Chen Qifa had already informed the hospital security guards, so the gate was already opened for Zhang Fan.
Zhang Fan entered the operating room, greeted Ma Lihua and the operating room nurse, and immediately checked the patient's CT scan. No wonder Chen Qifa had no guarantee of being able to perform the surgery—the patient's femur bone had truly shattered very severely.
The patient was a man in his mid-thirties. He had been using a tractor to pull wooden logs as cargo. However, one large log had fallen off the tractor and hit him right on the thigh, fracturing the femur severely.
"He will require a bone screw. There's no metal plates that long," Zhang Fan said after analyzing the CT scan.
"That's my diagnosis as well. However, I've never performed a surgery with a bone screw before," Chen Qifa said from the side.
"I'll show you how it's done. It's mainly about proper alignment of the bone screw with the bored holes. It's not that difficult."
Shi Lei also arrived for the emergency surgery. He was the vice superintendent who was in charge of the surgical departments, which meant that he was in charge of arranging the necessary personnel and equipment for this emergency surgery.
The surgery took quite a while to finish with how severely the patient's bone was shattered. It was almost 6:00 a.m. by the time that Zhang Fan was done.
Zhang Fan gave Chen Qifa some advice, and then prepared to go back to Chasu City. He still needed to check up on the general surgery department's patients in the morning. Although it was the weekend, that wouldn't matter when it came to caring for patients. They would need to see their doctor every day.
Shi Lei pulled Zhang Fan over to an isolated area, and handed him an envelope, saying, "Sorry to trouble you to come over in the middle of the night. This money is for your hard work. I'm paying you according to the standards of a department director. That's the right I have as a vice superintendent. Please don't think it's too little."
"I'll be taking this then, Vice Superintendent Shi. Thank you for taking such good care of me." Zhang Fan didn't act reserved, as he felt this was what he deserved.
"No need to be reserved with me. It's a pity that all the restaurants are still currently closed. I'll have to let you leave on an empty stomach. There will be plenty of opportunities to eat together in the future, though. Come visit us in Kuake City whenever you're free. It's almost spring, so there will be some nice fresh river fish to eat, haha!"
Zhang Fan chatted with Shi Lei for a while. Chen Qifa then walked Zhang Fan to the latter's car. Before Zhang Fan left, he told Chen Qifa, "Wait a second for me."
Zhang Fan then opened the envelope from Shi Lei, counted the money, and found that it was exactly 1000 yuan. He took out 500 yuan and handed it to Chen Qifa, saying, "I'll take half. You split this half with Li Liang. How much you split with him is up to you, I won't interfere."
Being quite familiar with Chen Qifa, Zhang Fan spoke very directly.
"Teacher Zhang, no! This is the fee for your hard work! Why give it to me? I don't want it."
"Forget it. I'm in a hurry to leave. Take it. It isn't easy on anyone to come perform surgery in the middle of the night." Zhang Fan stuffed the 500 yuan into Chen Qifa's hands.
Zhang Fan then drove off. Chen Qifa watched Zhang Fan's car until it disappeared off into the distance.
"I truly did choose such a great teacher. He really does care about me," Chen Qifa exclaimed to himself. He had worked at Kuake City Hospital for 20 years now. Whenever a more experienced doctor from a bigger hospital came over to help with a difficult surgery, they would simply leave after getting paid. Giving part of their money to the surgical assistant? That was unheard of.
Zhang Fan arrived back in Chasu City right when the sky was beginning to brighten. He was getting a little hungry, so he stopped at a random restaurant for some food and hot tea. He then went straight back to the general surgery department, where he would nap for a little while before needing to wake up again and check up on his patients.