Chapter 22: CH 23

There were crowds of people outside, lights were on, and the sounds of hawking and yelling could be heard from afar, but the car was incomparably quiet, as if a pin dropping could be heard.

After a long, silent confrontation, Jiang Xu broke the silence: “Take me back to the hospital.”

He didn’t directly answer Shen Fangyu, but used a reason he couldn’t refuse to deal with him, “I have to work the night shift.”

“You have night duty tonight?” Shen Fangyu froze.

Jiang Xu let out an “mmm”, “I was planning to go home and take a bath before coming back on duty.” He didn’t like the hospital shower room, but it was just as well that his surgeries were finished early and his home was close to the hospital, so he could go back and change his clothes.

Shen Fangyu, who realized that he had done something inconveniencing: “……”

After Jiang Xu was promoted to deputy chief physician, he was on the second-line. So although he had to stay at the hospital according to Jihua’s requirements, he would only get called when the first line encountered a difficult situation they could not be dealt with, which was easier as second line doctors don’t have to stay up all night.

However, Jiang Xu was unlucky in that whenever he was on night duty, there was bound to be a serious case, so he seriously worshipped the god of the night shift in the second-line duty room.

The god of the night shift in Jiang Xu’s department was seven apples stacked together, symbolizing peace seven days a week, and was said to make the night shift go a little smoother.

“Since when did you start engaging in feudal superstitions, I remember you used to be very dismissive of these?” Shen Fangyu, who had followed him over, looked at Jiang Xu’s expressionless face as he worshipped, “And you don’t look religious at all.”

“I’ve been worshipping since I got pregnant.”

Shen Fangyu suddenly trembled.

Jiang Xu half leaned against the bed, took a few sips of plain water, and picked up his tablet to prepare the PPT for tomorrow’s class. When he saw Shen Fangyu still standing there, he suddenly asked, “Why haven’t you left yet?”

Shen Fangyu’s eyes fell on his plain water, “Don’t you find that stuff hard to drink?”

“If you stayed just to say this…” Jiang Xu threw back his head and took several sips of the plain water that Dr. Shen was disliking, and his lips were stained with a few drops of water. “I think it’s okay. “

“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Shen Fangyu asked.

The night shift could be used for some extra sleep, but Jiang Xu looked back at the tablet, “I have to go to A Medical University for a class tomorrow, I’m going through the coursework again.” After he was promoted to deputy chief physician, he had to teach at A Medical University on a part-time basis and had lecturing duties.

“How many sessions?”

“Four,” Jiang Xu said, “from eight to twelve.”

The doctors who had to teach in the obstetrics and gynecology department had always agreed that the classes were more tiring than the surgeries, and although it had become commonplace for them to do surgeries immediately after a night shift, going to class after the night shift was simply unbearable.

It took time for the doctors to travel between the hospital and the school, so classes are usually scheduled in consecutive sessions.

The breaks between surgeries can be used to rest, you have to stand the whole time during classes, and the breaks between are either used to answer students’ questions or to listen to the supervision team’s criticism.

One person had to talk for hours and taking throat lozenges was useless. Once, there was a doctor who was telling the students about myocardial infarction when he himself got a myocardial infarction and was sent for emergency treatment.

Shen Fangyu suddenly took a few steps closer and took the tablet out of his hand.

Jiang Xu gave him a puzzled look, and he heard Shen Fangyu say, “Go to sleep, I’ll take over your duties.”

“My night shift is not a good one.” Jiang Xu said.

He was notorious for attracting patients.

Shen Fangyu put Jiang Xu’s tablet behind his back and coaxed him like a child, “Go to sleep,” he said, “I have good luck. But you can just sleep here if you’re worried.”

“What about you?”

There was only one bed in the duty room.

“I’ll stay up all night,” Shen Fangyu sat down at the desk, “I haven’t played a game in ages.”

Both Jiang Xu’s phone and tablet never had a lock screen, and even the background was the default setting. It was clean and boring, but unexpectedly, Shen Fangyu found that Jiang Xu’s tablet actually had a game that had been a hit more than ten years ago.

At that time, the game was only on PCs, but it had now been made into a mobile game.

Jiang Xu let him play with his tablet and didn’t stop him, he rolled over and planned to nap for a while when Shen Fangyu suddenly said, “Jiang Xu, it’s only been a minute but I’ve been abused to death, and yet I’m still in the newbie area.”

The account on the tablet was very new, and it was obvious that Jiang Xu hadn’t played much.

Shen Fangyu looked at the dead character on the screen with a depressed look on his face, “Shit, it’s all your fault, now I can’t do anything besides work.”

“There’s a copy of “The Biology of Cancer” on the table,” Jiang Xu said lightly, “It might make you realize that you’re not too good at your job either.”

“……,” Shen Fangyu glanced at the book that was thicker than a dictionary, pondered for a moment, and chose to put down the tablet to flip through the textbook and receive a baptism of knowledge.

This book was a classic work on oncology and the original English book had been a beacon of scientific research in the field of cancer. It was just really hard to read, and there were several papers sandwiched inside the thick pages, all of which were notes made by Jiang Xu.

Jiang Xu’s handwriting was quite neat during his school days, but it was now getting more and more scribbled, but as a doctor, it wasn’t difficult for Shen Fangyu to read. With the help of Jiang Xu’s notes, Shen Fangyu quickly entered the state, unknowingly forgetting about the passage of time.

Perhaps it was because of his luck, but the night was exceptionally quiet, and it wasn’t until the middle of the night that the first line called, saying that there was a patient with placental abruption who was prone to hemorrhage.

Shen Fangyu answered the phone and prepared to rush out. Although he answered the phone quickly, he still missed a ring, and Jiang Xu was woken up. He originally wanted to ask a question about the situation, but Shen Fangyu immediately said, “Don’t worry, sleep, it’s fine.”

It was as if his words had some kind of magic power, and Jiang Xu, who had always been a light sleeper, really did fall asleep.

By the time Shen Fangyu returned, it was almost dawn, and the mother with placenta abruption was safe, as well as her pair of dragon and phoenix babies.

*Twins.

Delivering a baby was like opening a treasure chest, and the obstetricians always treated the birth of a dragon and phoenix like a first prize.

Shen Fangyu was excited and wanted to tell Jiang Xu, but saw that he was asleep. He wanted to send him a message on his mobile phone, but was afraid that the notification would wake him up, so after struggling for a while, he got a sticky notebook from the desk and as he wrote, the tip of his pen suddenly paused.

Since when did he have the desire to share with Jiang Xu?

After a moment of silence, Shen Fangyu simply put down his pen, balled up the paper, and threw it into the trash can.

His mind wasn’t quite at peace and he was unable to concentrate on the book. He put the tablet back on Jiang Xu’s pillow, pulled out a chair and sat next to him, suddenly remembering something old.

The game on Jiang Xu’s tablet was something they were both good at in the past.

He and Jiang Xu didn’t meet in a classroom at A Medical University, but at an internet café in City B. It was after the college entrance exams that year, he didn’t even take off his school uniform and went straight to the internet café to do an all-nighter.

When he took his card and went to choose a seat, he noticed a boy in the crowd who hadn’t taken off his school uniform either. Shen Fangyu immediately realized he was a student from No. 6 Middle School.

Shen Fangyu’s No. 4 Middle School and No. 6 Middle School were the two most powerful high schools in City B. They had always been neck and neck in performance and they would put up banners every year threatening to be number one in the city, so no one knew which school was really number one.

The two schools competed in everything. One year, No.6 Middle School listened to the students and got a new uniform manufacturer, replacing their big, baggy, and shapeless sports uniforms with red baseball uniforms, which looked really good on them.

Seeing this, No. 4 Middle School contacted the same manufacturer and, without even changing the pattern, just changed the school logo and replaced their school uniform with a baseball uniform. To avoid confusion, the school leaders changed the color of the uniform to blue.

Originally, red and blue were both popular colors for school uniforms, but the students of these two schools could easily recognize each other, after all, they were wearing the same design although it was in different colors.

Shen Fangyu sat next to the boy in the red school uniform, and the other party didn’t even give him a second glance, his fingers were flying, and his actions were quite smooth and beautiful.

He was playing an online game that was a big hit at the time, and a game had just ended when Shen Fangyu extended an invitation, “Want to join me?”

“I don’t play with amateurs.” The other party dropped five words.

“Coincidentally,” Shen Fangyu put his arm on the back of the other person’s chair, “Me too.”

Both of them took a chance on playing together, and to their surprise, it was as if they had known each other for a long time. They worked together quite well, getting more and more excited as the night went on.

When they got up in the morning after a short nap, the boss wandered over to them, holding a stack of newspapers in his hand, and said in a very discerning manner, “Want a copy?”

In those days, the newspapers would publish all the answers a day after the college entrance exams, the two high school students looked at each other and simultaneously matched the answers in the internet café.

“How did you do on the exam?” Shen Fangyu dropped his pencil and looked over at his new friend with a smile.

His new friend wasn’t modest at all, “You’ll see me in the papers.”

In those days when smartphones were not so popular, the residents of B City relied on the B City Daily for their news, and every year, this top newspaper would devote a huge 1/4 of its pages to the city’s top scholars in arts and science.

Shen Fangyu raised his eyebrows, “What’s your name?”

“Jiang Xu.”

That was the first time he had heard Jiang Xu’s name, but he didn’t know that they had long been the talk of the school leaders of No.4 and No.6 Middle School in countless joint exams, and that the school leaders of both sides had even bet countless times on who the top student in science would be.

“Shen Fangyu,” he introduced himself without waiting for his new friend to ask, “See you in the papers.” He stood up, picked up the school jacket on the back of his chair and slung it over his small arm, giving a provocative and arrogant smile, “But it’s not me who’ll see you, it’s you who’ll see me.”

At that time, no one expected that a month or so later, a picture of the two would appear in the B City Daily at the same time, one left and one right, just like a wedding invitation.

The large headline bluntly indicated the outcome: “Two top students of science in B City!” The newspaper even printed a gimmicky subhead in an eye-catching font below—

—Four out of six in the decisive battle between the two, who will win in the end!

The two top science students appearing in the newspaper at the same time became the talk of the day for many people in B City. Not many people cared about the overly showy headline, but it turned out to be a prophecy that predicted a decade-long rivalry between Shen Fangyu and Jiang Xu.

The games they used to be good at were shelved, and after they switched to mobile games, Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu, who hadn’t touched games for years, didn’t go back to playing. The passionate battles in front of the computer at the age of 17 or 18 were a thing of the past, leaving two bored doctors who had no hobbies other than work.

Medicine required talent, but more than that, it required repetition.

And that was something that took up several hours.

“If we were friends at university, we would have had an easier time over the years.”

Shen Fangyu’s expression was somewhat complicated, as if he had remembered something from the past.

He asked, “Do you regret it?”

Jiang Xu didn’t answer him.

Shen Fangyu smiled and shook his head. He was about to sit up when Jiang Xu suddenly let out a muffled groan, and Shen Fangyu’s expression changed. He saw Jiang Xu frowning, a layer of cold sweat on his forehead, one of his legs curled up and his hands subconsciously hugged it, as if in severe pain.

Shen Fangyu instantly realized that he had calf cramps. As the pregnancy progressed, Jiang Xu’s early pregnancy reactions improved slightly, but as the fetus entered a faster growth phase, Jiang Xu’s body could not keep up with the calcium levels and experienced frequent night cramps.

He put his hands on Jiang Xu’s leg and massaged it slowly and forcefully, unlike Jiang Xu’s dazed movements, his strokes were more precise, and before long, Jiang Xu’s frown finally loosened, as if the cramp had eased.

“Does it hurt often?” He asked.

Jiang Xu’s consciousness was fuzzy and he subconsciously gave an “mmm” at his words.

Jiang Xu’s endurance was very strong, even when his early pregnancy symptoms were at their strongest, his face never showed any fragility, often even making Shen Fangyu forget that he was pregnant.

It was only at night that the pressures the baby brought him would accidentally show on his face.

“Go to sleep,” Shen Fangyu said, “I’ll keep an eye on you, and I’ll massage you if it hurts again.”

Jiang Xu seemed to hear him, but also seemed not to hear him. He thought for a moment, but gave up thinking and fell back into a deep sleep.

Shen Fangyu looked at him with a slightly complicated expression.

When Jiang Xu woke up in the morning, Shen Fangyu had already left for the office. He subconsciously went to look for his mobile phone, but saw a glass of milk on the small table beside his bed.

There was a piece of paper pressed under the glass of milk—

[Drink it before you go to class, you are a bit short on calcium.

PS: I picked up a placenta abruption last night and delivered a pair of twins!]

Shen Fangyu’s handwriting was sharp and forceful on the paper. Jiang Xu’s eyes flickered imperceptibly as his eyes fell on the crisp exclamation mark.

After looking at it through the light, he suddenly realized that there seemed to be more writing on the back.

He turned it over and froze.

[PPS: Why don’t you consider …… staying with me?]