Chapter 215: The Obsession with Peeing Standing Up (Bonus Chapter for the League Leader, the Super Awesome Dad)

Ji Xiang left the hospital and wanted to call his family to let them know, but in the end, he didn't.

He felt it was incredibly dull.

Life is indeed very dull, but fortunately, with interesting people like Doctor Zhou in existence, the whole world seemed to have gained a touch of brightness.

He found a small hotel to stay in at random, and the next day he went to the Outpatient Department of the hospital and was successfully admitted.

In the meantime, Ji Xiang... Jing Liang's son made a phone call; he had originally intended to curse him out, but after hearing Ji Xiang's explanation, he was also dumbfounded.

Everything started to go smoothly, and the most critical point was having a doctor who could actually diagnose the illness, rather than a quack who saw a common wart and assumed it was a condyloma acuminatum, or saw a penile cancer and assumed it was a condyloma acuminatum.

This time, Ji Xiang truly experienced what bullying was; a single sentence could throw all of a person's dignity into a cesspool.

I must not become that kind of doctor in the future, Ji Xiang thought to himself.

After being admitted to the hospital, Ji Xiang's mood improved a lot.

He learned from Doctor Zhou and the urologist that his situation was still considered optimistic; undergoing a partial resection of the penile cancer plus an extension surgery would basically have no major impact.

Simply put, he would be able to pee standing up in the future.

Being over 60 years old, this was the most basic requirement, and it could also preserve his most basic dignity.

Ji Xiang knew that the System NPC definitely wouldn't be that cruel.

Lying on the hospital bed, Ji Xiang ruminated on the experiences of the past few days, and his understanding of the evaluation of doctors deepened.

Like the first doctor he met, Yang Yisheng, who showed disdain the moment he saw wart-like growths similar to condyloma acuminatum, without the slightest attempt to hide it.

There must be quite a few people like this, and Ji Xiang couldn't understand what they had gone through to develop such a flaw.

Just as he was pondering this, a middle-aged man walked in carrying a bag.

He looked to be in his 40s, and his complexion was very poor, looking like the dark, sallow color of someone whose Hepatitis B had progressed to Liver Cancer.

Ji Xiang offered a kind smile, but the man's face was as cold as iron; he seemed afraid to even smile back.

Probably the same illness, Ji Xiang judged.

This should be the "control group" the system had arranged for him.

It allowed him to have more Empathy while preventing his own psyche from suffering a severe blow.

He didn't ask much, just observed carefully. The Empathy hadn't ended yet, so he definitely needed to accumulate more experience.

Perceiving the patient's emotional changes in the virtual space to gain valuable Clinical experience would be of great help to his future Clinical work.

The patient in the next bed didn't speak either; after tidying up his luggage, he just lay on the bed looking at his phone, not knowing what he was watching.

The person who came with him was a woman of similar age, likely his wife, but the two of them had no communication.

Two days passed just like that, and on the second day, as they prepared for surgery, Ji Xiang and the patient in the next bed lined up for Skin Preparation; after coming out, Ji Xiang saw the patient from the next bed standing outside the ward, looking dejected.

"Brother, do you smoke?" the man asked.

"I do." Ji Xiang wanted to refuse, but he still said he smoked.

Communication between men is simple: smoke a cigarette together, have a drink together, brag a little, and the next day, everyone goes their separate ways.

He was probably feeling stifled inside; with surgery tomorrow, he wanted to find someone to confide in.

Ji Xiang wasn't a saint, but he was willing to listen to what he had to say at this time to lower his stress a little.

"The hospital doesn't allow smoking; it's a smoke-free hospital now, and I don't really dare to do it myself." The man rubbed his hands together, looking a bit embarrassed. "I've held back for two or three days, and with surgery tomorrow, I'm feeling stifled."

"There's a Xi Yan Shi downstairs, the little house with the red roof next to the main gate; let's go there," Ji Xiang suggested.

Although he didn't smoke, Ji Xiang instinctively wanted to listen to the patient's grievances, even though he had already roughly understood the other man's experience through observation over the past few days.

When they arrived at the Xi Yan Shi downstairs, there were people inside, and the patient hesitated.

"Let's just smoke outside," Ji Xiang said, observing the man's psychological state and making a suggestion.

Finding a corner, the patient took out a cigarette and handed one to Ji Xiang.

"Little brother, I see you and your family haven't been talking; what's going on?" Ji Xiang asked.

"Brother, we sick people really have it rough." The man sighed, put the cigarette in his mouth, lit it, and took a deep drag. "I don't know your experience, but I... sigh."

The man sighed, and Ji Xiang didn't urge him.

After a dozen seconds, the man said, "I only realized how fickle human relationships are after I got sick."

"How so?" Ji Xiang asked.

"After the diagnosis, I took a long leave to try dynamic light therapy first; I heard from others that it was good. When they found out I took a long leave, my colleagues came to the hospital to see me, but the few buddies I usually hung out with didn't even call. Guess what they were thinking?"

"You're an official, right? People leave and the tea goes cold?" Ji Xiang joked, patting the man on the shoulder like the System NPC would, trying to comfort him.

"Not at all, I'm just an ordinary commoner, but for a commoner, the tea goes cold before I've even left. Usually, I play mahjong with those fair-weather friends, but after they found out I was sick, they said I had bad luck. They didn't even come to see me or call, afraid that my bad luck would spread through the air."

"..."

Ji Xiang really hadn't expected this reason.

If it were the officialdom or the business world, Ji Xiang could understand the tea going cold. But worrying that penile cancer would affect their luck at mahjong? What evil feudal superstition.

"Sigh, it is what it is." The man sighed. "Let me tell you a joke, brother. I used to put their photos under my quilt at home when I went to play mahjong."

"Why?"

"Bad luck, my luck was bad, so I had to suppress them." The man lowered his head to smoke, speaking vaguely.

"Hahaha." Ji Xiang laughed out loud. "Little brother, you really know how to tell a joke."

The man smiled. "I really want to go back to the past, but unfortunately, I can't. Brother, you... I heard from the doctor that you can have a partial resection and some kind of extension surgery, and you won't be affected much in the future?"

"How did you know?" Ji Xiang asked.

"A doctor told me; I delayed for too long at the beginning." The man sighed and stopped joking. "At first, it was just a white head, and I thought, I usually wear a condom, so maybe it broke at some point and I didn't notice."

"Do you play around often?"

"If you call it fooling around, I guess." The man took a deep drag of his cigarette. "I didn't want to either, but if I don't accompany the client out, I can't close the deal. At first, I wasn't used to it, but later I heard people say this is one of the 'four great iron-clad bonds,' and after trying it, the effect was indeed good."

"You were just having fun yourself, right?" Ji Xiang teased with a smile that men understood.

"There's nothing fun about it." The man began to pour his heart out to Ji Xiang. "I'd be so drunk and muddled, and in the middle of it, I'd have to force myself to go to the bathroom to clear my head twice just to stay sober. Whatever the client said, I had to... why am I saying this?"

"Ha, right, you go on." Ji Xiang really wanted to hear the man talk about those business world matters, but the man didn't bring it up again, and he didn't continue to ask.

"There's no cat that doesn't eat fish; men are the same, and women aren't any different. Who ate the Tang Monk meat? You tell me, brother. Things like white horses and such, they're all the same."

"You went to the hospital; what did the doctor say?"

"The doctor said he suspected an HPV Gan Ran. Looking at his expression, he was full of disgust and kept curling his lip while talking to me. I knew he looked down on me, so I went to another hospital."

"The doctor at the other hospital had me do two photodynamic therapies. After the first one, it did improve, but it started growing again in less than a month. I felt something was wrong, so I didn't do the second one."

"Later on, I went to the most famous dermatology hospital in our area. The best doctor for seeing patients turned out to be a woman. Sigh, brother, me having to take off my pants in front of a woman... it was embarrassing for the first time."

Ji Xiang was stunned. These old men seemed unable to speak without making dirty jokes. It seemed that not only doctors, but even patients who were already terminally ill were like this.

In an instant, Ji Xiang thought of Wang Daxiao's bald head.

"There were really so many people looking for her for treatment that I couldn't get in line. Fortunately, she was still seeing patients at a private hospital. It just meant spending a bit more money; that was a small matter. I went to see her, and she prescribed me topical medicine. But after using it for over a month, it didn't get better. Damn it."

"And then?" Ji Xiang asked.

"I knew this illness couldn't be dragged out, so I went to a military hospital, thinking a Military Doctor would surely be reliable. I specifically looked for an old Military Doctor; he didn't have a single hair on his head, shiny and bright like a lightbulb."

"After he looked at it, he said it was nothing, prescribed me topical medicine to use, and said it would definitely be better in a few months."

"Three months later, it still hadn't improved. When I went for a follow-up, he wasn't there; a young Doctor was there instead. He looked at it and didn't say anything. But brother, you know I'm in business; reading people is a basic skill."

"I saw at a glance that something was wrong!"

"What was wrong?" Ji Xiang's heart stirred, and he hurriedly asked.

"Hesitating to speak, stammering! Although he didn't tell me clearly, I knew that if it was like this, it meant he already had a definite answer. Some things are hard to say; if you say them, you won't have friends."

"!!!" Ji Xiang was silent.

He was very clear about this situation. When experiencing Empathy for Renal Auto-amputation, the System NPC had once told him about similar matters, though that incident was completely different from what the man in front of him was saying.

"Later on, blood tests, biopsies. When the results came out, the Doctor wrote 'CA'. I knew this was an English abbreviation, meaning Cancer. When I saw that symbol, my brain went 'buzz'."

"..." Ji Xiang didn't know how to comfort him.

The man smoked the cigarette down to the filter, still reluctant to let go, and took another forceful drag.

"Smoking like this isn't good," Ji Xiang said.

"I might be done for," the man sighed. "What else is there to pay attention to? The surgery is done, and I'm ruined. The Doctor said I'm already in the middle-to-late stage. Although it's squamous cell Cancer and not fatal, the procedure involves a total resection followed by bilateral inguinal lymph node dissection..."

"Sigh, whether I can live or not, anyway, I won't be able to pee standing up in the future."

As he spoke, tears flowed from the man's eyes.

"As long as you can live, that's enough, that's enough."

"Brother, I'll tell you the truth, I'm so envious of you," the man said, choking up. "It's not like the usual envy, jealousy, and hate; I'm truly envious of you. If I had met a more knowledgeable Doctor earlier, and done it when it first started showing a white tip, I could have had your procedure."

"Partial Resection, plus Lengthening Surgery—I don't know if I'll still be able to have fun in the future. Although the Doctor said it's all possible, but... at the very least, I could pee standing up."

The man spoke crudely, but the words "pee standing up" struck Ji Xiang's heart like a hammer.

"Let's put it this way: if I could go back and do it again, I'd be willing to pay even half my family's assets to have such a surgery."

"Why not all of your family's assets?" Ji Xiang asked.

"My wife and kids still need to live, so all the assets is out of the question." After pouring his heart out, the man's complexion looked slightly better. "Brother, you take care of yourself. When the Doctor was explaining my condition, he specifically mentioned your case."

"What did he say?"

"Just that it was diagnosed early, so a Partial Resection was possible. Although it's a bit shorter, a Lengthening Surgery can be done. I used to think Lengthening Surgery was some indecent procedure, something only those gigolos would go and do."

"Now that I see it, if I had the chance to do a Lengthening Surgery, that would be great."

The man's tone revealed deep envy. That kind of envy was not what Ji Xiang usually understood; it was rooted in his bones, similar to some kind of obsession.

Ji Xiang didn't know what to comfort him with either. No matter what he said, it seemed to carry a little bit of showing off; after all, he could do a Partial Resection... no, simply put, he could pee standing up.

Just this was enough to make the man in front of him turn red with envy.

Ji Xiang could only accompany him for a cigarette, trying his best to use his presence to alleviate his anxiety and discomfort.

Suddenly, light and shadow flickered, and Ji Xiang returned to the System Space.

Seeing the System NPC, Ji Xiang was stunned. He didn't expect that this time, Empathy would not require going through a surgery.

"You're back." The System NPC stood with hands behind his back, hunched over, and smiled slightly.

"I'm back, Teacher." Ji Xiang's memory was still stuck on the man's envy of him being able to pee standing up a second ago, and he was slightly stuttering.

"Tell me, what did you realize?"

"Teacher, was that Doctor Zhou the Zhou Congwen you mentioned?" Ji Xiang asked.

"Why are you as gossipy as Shen Lang?" The System NPC glanced at Ji Xiang.

"I'm just curious, and the first Doctor, Yang Yisheng, I experienced this time had a different attitude and view toward the Patient than Doctor Zhou," Ji Xiang admitted, although he was also concerned about whether that person was really Zhou Congwen.

"It is him," the System NPC did not hide it. "Many models are built on the Clinical experience of our working group members. Zhou Congwen is young and strong, and his Clinical experience is also rich."

Speaking of this, the corner of the System NPC's mouth revealed a trace of a smile.

"Teacher, what are you smiling at?" Ji Xiang felt it was strange.

"Zhou Congwen's shifts are busy, so his experience is even richer," the System NPC said. "Let's not talk about this; what else did you realize?"

"Peeing standing up is basically an obsession for patients with penile Cancer, a very deep kind of obsession."

"Of course, a Partial Resection + Lengthening Surgery cannot be done in an average Grade A Tertiary Hospital. I don't know if the Second Affiliated Hospital where you are can do it."

Ji Xiang fell silent all of a sudden.

The surgery is actually not difficult, though it does have its drawbacks. Doing a Partial Resection surgery involves more bleeding than just cutting it all off in one 'crack', and the complexity is higher.

But compared to the Patient's quality of life, what does that even count for?

(End of chapter)