Chapter 30: CH 29.2

She looked straight at Ma Hao and saw that he looked like he wanted to say something, so she became even more curious.

Ruan Xufang listened to her talk this whole time. When Ma Hao barged in last time, she was so angry that they had a big fight when they went back and had a cold war. Unexpectedly, she got a call from the hospital giving her bad news about her health.

She has been in a trance as Ma Hao accompanied her through the procedures to get the examination report. She did not have the heart to argue with Ma Hao, but after listening to Sister Cai’s words, her spirit had eased a lot and her anger was reignited. She could not help but glared at Ma Hao and said to Sister Cai: “I am really ashamed of him. I came to see the doctor but he barged in and also beat up the doctor. “

As soon as she said this, Sister Cai’s face changed, “You’re the bastard who made trouble during Dr. Jiang’s consultation?”

She had heard about this yesterday, there was no impermeable wall in the world, and there was no gossip in the department that Sister Cai didn’t know about. She was so angry yesterday that she pulled the young girl into the next bed and cursed for a long time. Unexpectedly, the culprit was now sitting next to her, and she was eating his bananas.

Sister Cai angrily bit down the last of the banana and threw the peel into the bin, “I just don’t understand, Dr Jiang’s character and medical skills are beyond words, why on earth were you picking on him?”

Ma Hao’s heart had already wavered, but in the face of Sister Cai’s questioning, he still insisted stubbornly, “He’s a man, shouldn’t I get annoyed when he looks at my wife’s body?”

“I met him because he is a specialist. He looks at patients to see how they can be cured and doesn’t have nasty thoughts like yours in mind.” Ruan Xufang said, “Besides, if the doctor really has bad intentions, do you think I wouldn’t see it myself?”

Sister Cai’s face turned even uglier at Ma Hao’s, “Your wife doesn’t have any objections, what are you doing here as a family member?”

“Big sister,” she said to Ruan Xufang, “I’m not being mean to you and I can tell that you’re a sensible person, but your man is a really bad person, while the doctor is working hard to save your life, he’s stabbing him in the back. Fortunately, Dr Jiang wasn’t hurt, do you know how much time and money it takes for the country to train a doctor?”

“No,” said Ruan Xufang, who obviously had no intention of taking Ma Hao’s side and she lectured him with the same anger as Sister Cai. She used to put up with Ma Hao’s temper at home but she was now sick and didn’t want to put up with it anymore. She pointed directly at Ma Hao’s nose and said, “Don’t say that Dr. Shao doesn’t want to talk to you, I don’t even want to talk to you.”

“You are really—“ Sister Cai was so angry at Ma Hao, she didn’t want to say more but couldn’t help scolding him a bit, “You still don’t know that it was Dr. Shen who called for security that day. You alone have offended the two most powerful doctors in the department, have you ever thought about your wife?”

Ma Hao was first snubbed by Yu Sang, and was now getting scolded by the two women on the hospital beds. Seeing that no one would give him face anymore, he covered his face and sighed, “Okay, okay, I know I’m wrong,” he stood up, “I’ll go and apologize to Dr Jiang, okay? “

He held Ruan Xufang’s shoulders and said boldly, “I’ll get Dr Jiang to operate on you even if I have to lose face!”

There were many surgeries today and it was almost dark by the time Jiang Xu finished. When he came out of the operating theatre, he took the crock pot soup he had ordered from the guard but it was already a little cold.

He had just sat down at his workstation and taken a couple of sips when the door was suddenly slammed open and, with a “thump”, a muscular man knelt down in front of him before he even had time to look.

“Ahem——” Jiang Xu choked on his soup and hurriedly stood up to help the man.

He still vividly remembers when he first went to the hospital for his internship, he once saw a patient kneeling on the floor and refused to get up no matter how hard he tried to persuade him. His teacher had no choice but to kneel down with the patient in the doctor’s office. It caused a great psychological shock to Jiang Xu, who had just entered the industry.

He never thought that he would encounter the same thing.

“Who’s this paying respects?” Shen Fangyu came from behind and wrapped his hand around the man’s chest before Jiang Xu reached out. The muscles in his forearm tensed up, and with a pull, lifted the man up. He recognized the man and exclaimed, “It’s you?” He let go of his hand, “I should have known not to help.”

Ma Hao: “……”

“Ma Hao?” Jiang Xu also recognised him, “What are you doing here?”

Shen Fangyu was holding him in place, he could neither stand nor kneel at this moment, and he truly regretted what he had done yesterday.

He was no longer as arrogant and domineering as before, his eyes were red, and he looked aggrieved. He rubbed his face and tugged at the corner of his shirt, saying with difficulty as if each word could kill him, “Doctor Jiang, I…I’d like to apologize for what happened earlier.”

After he finished, he lowered his head and stared straight at his toes, not saying another word. The words he had promised in front of his wife not long ago were now swallowed back into his stomach, and he could not utter another word, his face full of embarrassment.

“Is there gold on the ground?” Shen Fangyu taunted Ma Hao sarcastically. He walked over to Jiang Xu, reached out and touched the lunchbox with his fingertips, and asked, “Why are you always drinking soup these days?”

Jiang Xu slapped his hand away, and before he could say “None of your business”, Shen Fangyu was the first to say, “I’ve come to check, where are the breakfast photos?”

“I don’t have any.”

“I don’t believe you,” Shen Fangyu stretched out his hand, “Give me your phone.”

Jiang Xu gave him a sideways glance.

“If you don’t give it to me, it means you’ve taken it.”

Jiang Xu was silent for a moment, then he handed him his phone. Shen Fangyu took it and clicked on the photo album to look through it, laughing as he did, “It’s so easy to get hold of Dr Jiang’s phone, you’re not afraid of privacy leaks.”

Jiang Xu looked at Shen Fangyu as if he was retarded, “It’s not like I’m going to give my phone to just anyone.”

Shen Fangyu gave a meaningful “oh”, “So I’m so special in your heart.”

Jiang Xu didn’t bother to pay attention to him anymore, and Shen Fangyu went back to going through the phone.

“You really didn’t take any pictures?”

There was no picture of breakfast in the album.

“That’s fine,” he said, “then I’ll watch you eat it with my own eyes tomorrow.”

To express his unadulterated interest in Jiang Xu, he would start by supervising him eating breakfast every day.

Jiang Xu said speechlessly, “If you like supervising people so much, you should just quit and go to the detention center.”

“Then you’ll have to wait until your stomach gets better,” Shen Fangyu picked up his half-finished soup, “It’s getting cold, I’ll take it to the lounge and warm it up for you, you can go over and eat it later.”

“Wait…”

Shen Fangyu glanced at Ma Hao who had made a noise, “Oh, you’re still here.”

“I ……”

This was the third time that Ma Hao had come to Jiang Xu’s office. Every time he had come here before, Jiang Xu was not there, he was either in the operating room or in a meeting.

“I came to ask Dr. Jiang to operate on my wife. Dr. Jiang, you must save my wife, that Dr. Shao, she is a female doctor, they all say that male doctors are better at surgery than female doctors, I didn’t expect you to be that good before, please do me a favour and operate on my wife, I only have one wife, I really don’t feel comfortable letting Dr. Shao operate on her!”

He thought Shao Le was the doctor going to operate on Ruan Xufang after hearing Big Sister Cai rule out Yu Sang.

There were too many misunderstandings in Ma Hao’s words, and Jiang Xu was about to speak out to explain when Shen Fangyu spoke first, “You want to beat up Jiang Xu but at the same time, you want him to help you, you’re really interesting.”

He put down the soup, and his words became harsh.

“You don’t want your wife to be seen by a male doctor, and you don’t want a female doctor to perform a difficult surgery, you’ve really got that sexist workplace rhetoric down.”

He spoke mercilessly and with a bit of mockery. By the time he finished, Ma Hao’s face had turned red. He stammered for a long time, before saying: “It was my fault before, I shouldn’t have …… shouldn’t have …… “

After Ma Hao was restrained by the security guards, the reason why he burst into the office spread all over the obstetrics and gynecology department, so Shen Fangyu also knew that Ma Hao disapproved the fact that Jiang Xu, a male doctor, had joined the gynecology and obstetrics department, and probably thought he bad intentions towards his wife.

This kind of discrimination was common in the obstetrics and gynaecology department, and he and Jiang Xu had received a lot of stares during their internship. However, he understood that the patients had their own considerations, but Ma Hao was just a patient’s family member. That’s why he couldn’t help but taunt him since he was making a scene yet the patient had already approved.

Only after he finished did he realise that Jiang Xu was tugging on his sleeve and shaking his head slightly.

Shen Fangyu’s expression moved subtly.

“Don’t worry, as long as you cooperate with the treatment, I will definitely be the one to operate on your wife, and if you’re not sure, you can go and check with Director Cui.”

Jiang Xu said to Ma Hao, “Also, the stage of Ms Ruan’s tumour is relatively ideal, I will go to the ward later to discuss the surgical procedure with you and arrange it as early as possible.”

His face didn’t look like Shao Le’s when she spoke to him and Ruan Xufang; he didn’t look sympathetic and uncertain about how to comfort him, his tone was very calm, but serious. The official tone inexplicably gave Ma Hao a little reassurance, and his heart that had been hanging in the air finally touched the ground a little bit.

Shen Fangyu did not know about Ruan Xioufang’s condition, and when he heard the words “stage of tumor”, he glanced at Jiang Xu and realised why the other party had stopped him from going on.

Ma Hao’s wife had been diagnosed with cervical cancer, and Ma Hao looked genuinely devastated. The white light from the office hit the top of his head, and perhaps it was an illusion, but he looked like he had more grey hair than yesterday.

Jiang Xu withdrew his gaze from the top of his head, “If there’s nothing else, go back to the ward to accompany your lover, she needs you now.”

Although Shen Fangyu’s words had made Jiang Xu a bit happy, there was no need to add fuel to the fire.

“So, doctor ……,” Ma Hao asked cautiously, “How long will my wife live?”

“With a good prognosis and no recurrence, she’ll be no different from a normal person.” Jiang Xu commented, “it’s a minor surgery.”

Early stage cervical cancer might sound scary to a patient, but Jihua sees countless patients every day, most of whom are difficult cases from all over the country, and in comparison, Ruan Xufang’s case could only be described as a “minor surgery”.

“Really?” Ma Hao looked at Jiang Xu in disbelief, although he listened to Sister Cai’s optimistic speech, his heart was still drumming, after all, there are cancer patients like sister Cai who seem to be alive and well, but there are also countless people who say that cancer is incurable.

“I heard …… that cancer is a terminal disease. I have an aunt who found out she has cancer, and she passed away three months later.” The more he said, the lower his voice got, as if he was afraid of losing his wife’s life too.

“The prognosis has to do with staging and classification, and your wife was lucky to have been diagnosed in time.”

Influenced by various TV dramas, many people equate cancer with death, and yet, not all cancers are untreatable, the earlier they are detected, the greater the hope of salvation and the higher the five-year survival rate.

Although there is an element of luck involved, in most cases, the prognosis for early cases like Ruan Xufang’s is good.

“Then you …… won’t hold a grudge against me.” Ma Hao asked, “You’ll operate on my wife properly, right?”

Jiang Xu: “……”

“Alright,” Shen Fangyu said, “If you don’t want him to hold a grudge against you, you should stop hanging around him. Dr. Jiang doesn’t have that much time to wrangle with you here.”

He escorted him out but as soon as the door closed, Ma Hao pushed the door open again and bowed to Jiang Xu solemnly, “Doctor Jiang, I’ll leave my wife in your hands.”

Jiang Xu heard that he had cried and made a big confession to his wife after the examination results came out earlier, causing other patients to complain frantically. He swept a glance at his back as he left and returned his gaze to the already cold soup.

Late affection was always a source of regret, but fortunately, Ruan Xufang had the rest of her life to wait for him to make amends.

“You look…… cold and difficult to deal with,” Shen Fangyu came around to his side, “but I didn’t expect you to be quite soft-hearted.”

Jiang Xu didn’t say anything.

“But the soft-hearted also have to pay a fine.” Shen Fangyu slapped a piece of yellow A4 paper in front of Jiang Xu.

Jiang Xu looked at the A4 piece of paper and a black line flashed across his face.

“I’ve just come from the administrative office, and Sister Guo asked me to give Dr. Jiang a ticket, and by the way, she kindly invited you to take a look at the bulletin board.”

On the bulletin board of the obstetrics and gynaecology department were two extremely synchronously tickets. Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu were looking at themselves on the bulletin board, one on the left and one on the right.

The one on the left was a ticket criticising Jiang Xu for assaulting a patient’s family, while the one on the right was praising Shen Fangyu for stopping the disturbance with reasonable and legal means.

Shen Fangyu flicked the white paper on the bulletin board and read the last paragraph, “It is not advisable to use violence to counter violence, so I ask all colleagues, especially Comrade Jiang Xu, to follow Comrade Shen Fangyu’s example and proactively learn from him how to properly respond to medical disputes.”

Jiang Xu gave him a blank look and tore off the piece of paper, revealing the ticket that was blocked underneath and read out the contents word for word: “Comrade Shen Fangyu is fined two hundred yuan for being violent and destroying public property.”

Hearing this, Shen Fangyu took out a ticket of the same format from the pocket of his white coat, took glue and stuck it on the other side of the bulletin board. Then he sang in counterpoint, “Comrade Jiang Xu is fined two hundred yuan for using violence and injuring a patient’s family member. ”

The two violent maniacs looked at each other.

“Shen Fangyu.”

“Hm?”

“It wasn’t me who posted yours.”

“I know,” Shen Fangyu said, “Sister Guo is busy, I just happened to be on my way and brought it over to help her put it up. It’s okay if you don’t post for me, I can help you out, I’m that considerate.”

“……” He didn’t care if it was considerate or not, Jiang Xu just wanted to put glue on Shen Fangyu’s mouth.

The two tickets that complemented each other on the bulletin board looked good under the light. Shen Fangyu held his elbow and admired his work and Jiang Xu’s expression, then put away the glue and fished out another ticket and waved it in front of Jiang Xu.

The Administrative Division usually gave out two tickets, one to the person being fined and the other was put on the bulletin board.

This time, he already tore off the first ticket and Shen Fangyu had posted the other on the wall. Jiang Xu spoke with a grimace: “Why do you have another one?”

“I asked Sister Guo to print an extra one,” Shen Fangyu winked at Jiang Xu, “and said I wanted to keep it as a souvenir.”

“Give it to me.” Jiang Xu reached out for it.

Shen Fangyu quickly folded the ticket in his hand and stuffed it into his jacket pocket, “I’m not giving it to you, I’m mad at you.”

Jiang Xu: “……”

Jiang Xu didn’t know if the man would remain a teenager to death, but he felt that Shen Fangyu was no longer the level of a teenager, he should be a kindergarten graduate.

So he took a deep breath and said to Shen Fangyu, “Why don’t you just go and heat up the soup.”