Chapter 13: A demon! Buddha, please take him away!
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Surgery department #2 instantly became semi-famous through their accomplishments. Not only did the number of patients seeing them for surgery greatly increase, they had also been praised by the local city government. Superintendent Batu felt that he should help to further improve this department after it received praise, so he sent both new male clinical students to surgery department #2.
Both of these fresh college graduates were locals from this border province. One was Li Liang, a fatty who was from the next city over. His father was a low-ranked government official who had used many connections and favors to get someone with terrible grades like Li Liang into Kuake City Hospital.
Li Liang’s father had spent most of his life in the military. Although Li Liang’s father hadn’t been a ranking officer, it could still be said that Li Liang’s father was somewhat close to the government.
Before Li Liang left for Kuake City Hospital, he told Li Liang this: “the fact that you’re bad at studying is in the past. Work is extremely different from school, especially at a job like yours where skills are the most important. After you join the hospital, make sure to become friends with the most skilled individuals there. Our family is well-off enough not to lack your salary, so just try your best to cultivate good relationships with the most skilled individuals. Even if other doctors aren’t useful in helping you raise your rank or obtain governmental positions, a hospital is a place where lives are at stake. They might be able to save your life in a critical moment.”
The other new male student was named Yang Chengming. He was from a bigger city in the area. Yang Chengming was the type who felt like he was saving the world by becoming a doctor. He would receive a promotion here and go from intern to official doctor, and then wait for a chance to be transferred to a bigger city hospital.
He had already been interning at a hospital for half a year. He only came here to Kuake City Hospital because it would be easier to get promoted here. To be honest, he kind of looked down upon a small hospital like Kuake City Hospital. Both Yang Chengming and Li Liang moved into the hospital dormitory.
The new house that Kuake City Hospital rented had two bedrooms, one large and one small. The small bedroom was given to Zhang Fan as a single room for himself. The large bedroom was given to four women—Wang Sha and the three newcomer female students.
Chen Lulu, the new pharmaceutical student, had an average appearance. However, she was from Kuake City, and one of her relatives was the head of a certain government bureau. She could have stayed at her home in Kuake City, but she felt that her mother was too nagging, which was why she moved into the hospital’s rented house for the new graduates.
As a pharmaceutical student, all she knew how to do was fill prescriptions and sell medicine. She knew absolutely nothing about clinical medicine or treatment. She had only gotten into Kuake City Hospital through connections.
“Is Zhang Fan secretly the superintendent’s relative? He gets to live by himself in a single bedroom, so he must be really close to the superintendent. Is he the superintendent’s nephew?” Chen Lulu felt like she had discovered some secret as she constantly asked Wang Sha about Zhang Fan. The other two women also paid attention to this subject because they would want to cultivate a good relationship with Zhang Fan if he really was the superintendent’s nephew.
“Probably not. He came to the hospital from S Province, just like I did. Besides, Zhang Fan is ethnic Han Chinese. Our Superintendent Batu and his wife are both Mongolians.” Wang Sha was unwilling to tell the other women about how amazing Zhang Fan was. ‘I won’t tell you anything, so just keep guessing!’ Wang Sha thought to herself. This wasn’t because she disliked the other women. This was only due to her personality—she thought it would be fun to watch their astonishment.
After surgery department #2 finished its morning meeting, Yang Chengming could detect a powerful aura of obsequiousness.
“Doctor Zhang, have you eaten breakfast? I bought some meat buns filled with lots of extra meat on my way to the hospital. They’re still hot, have some!” Chen Qifa handed some meat buns to Zhang Fan.
That wasn’t the end. “Last night, Superintendent Batu gave me a few leftover packs of smokes from the welcoming dinner. Let’s split them amongst ourselves.” Vice Director Shi Lei handed Zhang Fan and Chen Qifa a pack of smokes each. The two newcomer students, Yang Chengming and Li Liang, were directly ignored.
“Just what is going on with that fellow? He gets to live in a single room, and all the doctors in our department are sucking up to him. Meanwhile, my department director is completely drunk so early in the morning. Sigh! I suppose that a hick town city hospital is only at this level.”
Still, Yang Chengming didn’t really mind. ‘Regardless, I’ll be leaving after I pass the exam to promote to official doctor, so it doesn’t matter. At an important moment, I’ll show off some skills I learned in the big city to them, which will impress everyone. However, they’d better not make me do all the work around here, because I still need to study for my medical license exam.’ Yang Chengming was truly arrogant.
Even a small city hospital like Kuake City Hospital still had more than two hundred employees. Yang Chengming was only a recently graduated undergraduate student. Even the resident doctors here like Chen Qifa would have to respect the official doctors and not act out. Who knew when you might get your face slapped here?
The fatty Li Liang was far more accepting of his position as a newcomer. He did his part and helped to pour cups of water for everyone.
Brain surgeon Tu Xun was currently out, visiting a sick patient at home. The vice director of surgery department #2 was Shi Lei, who was in charge of brain surgery. But, Shi Lei was the type who didn’t want to do any unnecessary work. He wouldn’t get involved with anything that wasn’t directly related to him, and he preferred to visit patients at home rather than stay at the hospital.
This morning, a patient with an upper arm bone fracture arrived for surgery department #2. Shi Lei was lazy, and didn’t want to bother with creating a plaster cast for the patient, so he sent the patient over to the orthopedic department.
“It’s just a simple matter of making a cast. I can handle it, so feel free to rest for a while and have a smoke.” Chen Qifa didn’t have a medical license, so he felt like he shouldn’t be ordering around the new fresh graduate that just joined.
“I’ll do it. I often created casts for patients at the bigger city hospital. My director praised me for how great they were.” Was this just how Yang Chengming’s personality was? Or was he intentionally trying to act pretentious? Everyone looked strangely at him when he said this.
Shi Lei could only chuckle. How strange! Right after someone as demonically talented as Zhang Fan arrived, another genius had joined their department?
“Alright, since you’ve worked in the bigger city hospital before, go ahead. Old Chen, feel free to take a rest.” After Yang Chengming left to go see the patient, Shi Lei secretly whispered to Chen Qifa, “Guess we’ll see his skills now?”
“Nah, he’s just acting arrogantly. Don’t be fooled into believing him. Just compare him to Zhang Fan. Even though Zhang Fan also loved to volunteer for work when he first arrived, he was respectful and addressed us all as doctors. As for this guy? He’s already making such big claims before he’s even done anything. Rest assured, he’s definitely all talk with no actual skills to back him up.”
Since Shi Lei had seen how skilled Zhang Fan was, he had become more impressed with all college students’ skills, but Chen Qifa wasn’t the same.
Later, a young child patient arrived for the orthopedic department.
“This is a radial head subluxation, a very common injury seen in children when their arms are pulled with too great of a force. How about you set the bone, Yang Chengming!” Chen Qifa was now beginning to bully the newcomer Yang Chengming. Even though Chen Qifa now respected Zhang Fan, Chen Qifa had still previously been the only orthopedic surgeon of surgery department #2 as Director Nuar was constantly too drunk to be able to personally deal with any surgeries.
Although Chen Qifa didn’t have a medical license, he still had plenty of pride. ‘Hmph, I can barely keep my head held up high with Zhang Fan around. If you turn out to be amazing as well, I might as well quit this department and go to general surgery in surgery department #1 instead.’
“Um, I still haven’t learned how to set this type of bone injury yet.” Yang Chengming could only grit his teeth as he responded with a dark expression. The child was crying in pain, and the parents were anxiously asking about what could be done, yet Chen Qifa seemed to have an expression that it had nothing to do with him. “Doctor Chen, I don’t know how to set this type of bone injury yet,” Yang Chengming repeated.
“They don’t even teach you something like this in the bigger cities?”
“I just haven’t gotten to learning it yet!”
“Then learn it properly in the future. You can’t be so arrogant. You need to be humble.” There was a loud click as Chen Qifa clapped his hands. He then said, “Okay, the bone is now set in its proper place. You parents, can’t you raise children more properly!? A young child’s elbow can’t be pulled on with such great force!” After scolding Yang Chengming, Chen Qifa then scolded the child’s parents.
Yang Chengming’s face became completely red out of embarrassment. He didn’t even know how he managed to leave the doctor’s office in front of the patient’s family.
Later that day, the pudgy manager of a hotel in Kuake City accidentally slipped on the outside steps since the weather was cold and the ground was icy. He fell on his knees and fractured both his patellas (kneecaps). Since the manager weighed more than 100 kilograms, this was an extremely painful fall.
The ambulance brought him to Kuake City Hospital. The four nurses and a doctor found that they weren’t even strong enough to carry him out of the ambulance. In the end, they had to call for two burly men from the hospital’s security staff to carry the pudgy patient for some CT scans.
“There’s no helping it. His kneecaps have been shattered into several pieces. We’ll have to apply patella claws,” Zhang Fan said after looking at the CT scans.
‘You’re acting so pretentiously! Everyone knows that such a case would require patella claws!’ Yang Chengming thought to himself in such a fashion since he hated seeing how confident Zhang Fan appeared to be. There was no helping it that Zhang Fan would attract jealousy, as he was paid by far the most attention out of all the recent graduate intern doctors.
“Will this surgery be problematic?” the hotel manager’s wife asked. She was wearing clothing that was obviously far more expensive than what the average citizen in Kuake City could afford.
“Not a problem, it’s just a simple small surgery,” Zhang Fan told the patient’s wife. Originally, this surgery should have been best performed on both kneecaps simultaneously. However, there weren’t enough people in the orthopedic department. While Zhang Fan could operate on one kneecap and Chen Qifa could operate on the other, that would leave nobody to act as their surgical assistants. So, Zhang Fan could only operate on one kneecap at a time.
“Eh? He’s the main surgeon for this surgery? Is this a joke?” At the operating table, Yang Chengming paused in surprise for quite a long while when he saw that Zhang Fan would be the main surgeon instead of Chen Qifa.
“Why are you in such a daze? Go wash your hands already!” Chen Qifa had already begun the disinfecting process. He angrily shouted at Yang Chengming when he saw that the latter was in such a daze.
“Cut open the skin, clean up the pooled blood, debridement, connect the bones, and connect the patella claw.” Zhang Fan’s movements were well practiced and swift. Sometimes, he even gave advice to his assistant Chen Qifa. “While we might have set his kneecap in place, you need to remember to touch the outside of the kneecap to see if everything is properly flat. Otherwise, there could be consequences down the road.”
Chen Qifa nodded as he also worked swiftly. Yang Chengming had wanted to use this surgery as an opportunity to practice his surgical sutures, but he didn’t get a chance to do anything as Zhang Fan personally took care of everything.
‘Heavens, this Zhang Fan is a recently graduated student like myself? He must be a demon! Buddha, please take him away!’ Yang Chengming finally understood why the other doctors in surgery department #2 were so deferential towards Zhang Fan.
Zhang Fan was simply too incredible. ‘I should focus more on studying. I won’t be able to show off with this demon around.’