Chapter 8: Winter snowfall
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Zhang Fan was summoned back to the hospital midway through his dinner. Tu Xun had the second-highest level certificate in brain surgery, yet there were other reasons why he had lost out to Shi Lei in the race for the position of vice director. Tu Xun was greedy and irresponsible. Superintendent Batu didn’t care about Tu Xun, nor did Tu Xun care about the superintendent. Tu Xun was basically someone who didn’t care too much about his job.
“Little Zhang Fan, this patient is for your orthopedic surgery department. Call the superintendent to do the patient transfer,” Tu Xun told Zhang Fan when the latter arrived.
Tu Xun was trying to bully Zhang Fan, assuming that the new intern doctor still didn’t know the rules at this hospital. If Zhang Fan really did call the superintendent unnecessarily, not only would the superintendent be unhappy, Vice Director Shi Lei would also be peeved that he wasn’t called first. Shi Lei was the type to hold a grudge over small things, and Tu Xun had been suffering from Shi Lei’s bullying for a long time now, so of course a newcomer would have it even worse.
“Doctor Tu, we’ve already accepted this patient.”
“Have you? Okay then, just do as you like.” Tu Xun wanted to say something else, but decided against any more bullying when he recalled Director Nuar’s excellent assessment of Zhang Fan.
Zhang Fan and the other intern doctors had been working at this hospital for two months now. Their monthly salary was 1900 yuan, with a bonus paid once every two months. Zhang Fan’s first bonus that he received was slightly more than 800 yuan.
During lunchtime, Director Nuar summoned Zhang Fan and Chen Qifa to his office. Nuar then closed the door before speaking to them. “We’ve done well over the past two months, with plenty of surgeries. We need to cooperate well and work together to continue improving our work’s quality.”
Director Nuar then took out two envelopes and handed one each to Zhang Fan and Chen Qifa. “These are our medical equipment fee commissions. It’s 900 yuan per person, the same for all three of us.” This was a commission earned from the medical fees for all the equipment used during surgeries for patients.
Before Zhang Fan arrived, the orthopedic surgery department always sent the more seriously injured patients to other departments. But now that Zhang Fan was in this department, he personally took charge of all traumatic injury surgeries. Although the commissions were now being equally split three ways instead of two, Chen Qifa was still happy because their department’s surgeries had gone up, which still meant more commission in the end.
Kuake City was to the north of Mount T. The temperature in Kuake City would drop rapidly starting in October. Now that it was late October, the mountain peak in the distance was already covered in snow.
Zhang Fan had only brought summer clothing along with him from the much hotter S Province. He was having trouble dealing with the lower temperatures these days. He calculated his income over the past two months, and found that he had earned a total of 6300 yuan including base salary, bonus, and commission. He had used slightly more than 1000 yuan on personal expenses, so he had approximately 5000 yuan remaining. Zhang Fan decided that he wouldn’t send any money back to his family quite yet—not until his younger sister was accepted to college.
Kuake City was rather small. Only the main intersection in the center of the city was relatively busy. Any place other than that location was more like suburbs.
Now that Zhang Fan was working in Kuake City, and the weather was so cold, he absolutely wanted to buy some warmer clothes. Zhang Fan rode to a clothing shop on a bike he borrowed from Li Hui, and spent a bit over 1000 yuan on some warm winter clothes.
A few days later, a large snowstorm began to fall in Kuake City. In just a single night, the snow piled up to more than ten centimeters high. In the border province, the first snowfall was the equivalent of an announcement that winter was here. The employees of all businesses here would have to go to work half an hour early just for the sake of sweeping away the snow.
Although winters in Zhang Fan’s hometown province of S Province were also cold, they couldn’t compare in any way to how cold winter was here in Kuake City of the border province. Even with a warm down jacket, you would be frozen completely if you dared to stay outside for half an hour. That was why most locals here wore thick leather jackets instead.
Chen Qifa now had a pretty good relationship with Zhang Fan. Chen Qifa understood that he obviously wasn’t as skilled as Zhang Fan was, so he intentionally began cultivating a better relationship with Zhang Fan. Zhang Fan also wanted a good relationship with the other man so that Chen Qifa would work properly as his surgery assistant, so the two of them were now on quite friendly terms.
“Doctor Zhang, you must be very cold. In our city, down jackets aren’t warm enough. You need to wear at least a leather jacket with a with a warm hat. This isn’t even the coldest part of winter yet. At its coldest, it typically goes all the way to -20 degrees Celsius or more. Now that’s really cold.”
One night after work, Guli caught Zhang Fan as he was leaving. “Hey, Little Zhang Fan, our family is celebrating the Winter Slaughter Festival tonight. I’m inviting you to be a guest and eat with us!”
In this border province, the ethnic minorities would begin slaughtering cows and goats after the first snowfall in order to store food for the winter. Over time, this gradually became a local holiday, the Winter Slaughter Festival. During this festival, it was common for the ethnic minorities to invite friends and family over for a feast.
Guli’s back no longer hurt at all after Zhang Fan’s rehabilitative massage. She now truly viewed Zhang Fan like a younger brother. Most of the people from ethnic minorities here had direct personalities, and would truly open up their hearts to you after recognizing you as a true friend.
Many people had been constantly inviting Zhang Fan over for the Winter Slaughter Festival. He had been enjoying plenty of fish and meat over the past few days, which greatly improved his complexion compared to when he just arrived.
The snowstorm continued without stopping for four full days in Kuake City. Everything outside was now completely pure white.
During this weekend, Li Hui and Zhang Fan were both off from work, and had nowhere to go. They just stayed in their hospital dorm and chatted while reading books. Li Hui’s girlfriend Wang Sha was working today, so he was stuck with Zhang Fan rather than hanging out with his girlfriend.
Later that evening, after Zhang Fan finished showering and was about to go to bed, his cell phone rang. Zhang Fan saw from the caller ID that this was a call from Superintendent Batu.
“Hello, Superintendent.”
“Zhang Fan, where are you right now? Hurry and come to the emergency department immediately.”
“I’m at the dormitory. I’ll be right over—” Zhang Fan didn’t even get the chance to finish his sentence when the superintendent hung up.
The roads were slippery with how large the snowfall was. Apparently, Superintendent Batu’s nephew had gotten drunk, and then fallen off from a bridge that was three meters tall. Luckily, many other people were with him, so they hurriedly carried him to Kuake City Hospital.
This patient had already gone into shock. According to the CT scan, he had a comminuted fracture of the femur. After Superintendent Batu had the doctors stabilize his nephew’s medical shock, he immediately got on an ambulance together with his nephew to head towards a bigger city hospital. However, it turned out that the snowfall was so great that the mountain paths out of Kuake City were untraversable. In the end, Superintendent Batu could only bring his nephew back to Kuake City hospital.
Chen Qifa was on duty tonight at surgery department #2. Superintendent Batu knew instantly from Chen Qifa’s hopeless expression that Doctor Chen would be incapable of performing such a complex surgery.
“What are we going to do then? You’re an orthopedic surgeon, think of something!” Superintendent Batu roared angrily at Chen Qifa.
“How about we try letting Dr. Zhang take a look? He’s from a big city and a top-level college. He should know more than I do.”
Chen Qifa was the type who would try to push responsibility onto others rather than take any risk himself. Superintendent Batu immediately called Zhang Fan after hearing this. Batu was also regretting now about how he tried to take his nephew to a better city hospital instead. A lot of time had been wasted on the road, so Batu hoped that wouldn’t mean it was too late for his nephew’s treatment.
Zhang Fan managed to run from the hospital dormitory to the emergency department in only three minutes flat. The corridor was filled with just about all the doctors from every department. Since the injured patient was the superintendent’s close relative, just about every available doctor had come over. However, Zhang Fan didn’t see Director Nuar anywhere.
“The surgery must be performed immediately. The patient is still bleeding. Just fluid infusion alone won’t be able to treat his shock,” Zhang Fan immediately told Superintendent Batu after looking at the patient and the CT scan.
Superintendent Batu got closer to Zhang Fan, and whispered, “Do you think you can do the surgery?”
“It will be difficult, but I can do it,” Zhang Fan said in a confident tone.
“Tell me about anything that you need. I will do everything in my power to obtain it. Right now, you’re in complete command for this surgery.”
Superintendent Batu was originally from the radiology department. The medical field was an extremely specialized field, where each patient required a doctor with a different specialty. Batu’s long years of experience had taught him that he should leave the professional medical work to others that had more knowledge in their area of specialty. Zhang Fan’s confident tone gave Batu hope that his nephew could still be saved.
“Take the patient’s blood to test his blood type. Prepare 1000 milliliters of the corresponding blood type for blood transfusion. The anesthesia department needs to be prepared to administer anesthesia. I, Vice Director Shi, and Doctor Chen will go to the operating room first to prepare. Medical equipment department, prepare metal plates to be inserted into the patient’s body.” Zhang Fan immediately accepted his role and started issuing commands.
Thus, the surgery began. A comminuted fracture was still alright for Zhang Fan to deal with. The bigger problem was that a rather large artery had ruptured. Kuake City Hospital was a small hospital that didn’t have any surgical operation microscopes. All Zhang Fan could do was perform hemostatic ligation.
This was the first time that Shi Lei had participated in a surgery with Zhang Fan. Although Shi Lei had heard the rumors before, the rumors couldn’t compare to personally witnessing Zhang Fan’s seemingly well-practiced and professional movements. Shi Lei felt like he was mentally falling apart after witnessing how skilled Zhang Fan was. ‘Just how old could he possibly be? He’s already so skilled at surgery? Considering that I’m probably twice his age, just how much of my life have I wasted?’