Chapter 359: Need to Pay More

"Are all the patients here like this!"

"A bunch of idiots, no wonder even investors don't come."

"Integrity, do you know what integrity is!"

A person was ranting indignantly, their voice loud and undisguised.

"Professor Xue, please don't be angry, Professor Deng is explaining."

The person cursed for a long time before someone came over to offer a word of advice. But the voice advising them was cold and indifferent, tinged with impatience.

Liu Zhuren was taken aback, then gave a bitter smile.

"Xiao Ji, let's go to the Anesthesia Duty Room." Liu Zhuren didn't want to invite trouble, so he pulled Ji Xiang and turned to leave.

"Zhuren, what happened?" Ji Xiang asked.

"What happened?" Liu Zhuren tilted his head and looked at Ji Xiang with curiosity; he was still a young man, after all.

If it were an old Attending Physician like Zhao Zhe, he would know what happened just by thinking with his heels, but Ji Xiang was still clueless and couldn't grasp the situation.

However, this was a matter of Clinical experience and worldly wisdom.

"I heard the person speaking in the back is General Manager Xu from Orthopedics Department, right."

"Mm." Ji Xiang nodded.

"You... invited an Expert from outside for Orthopedics Department?" Liu Zhuren didn't explain; he calculated with his seasoned cunning and roughly guessed the situation.

Ji Xiang explained the situation in the Orthopedics Department.

"There are two possibilities," Liu Zhuren said. "First, the Family Member had a last-minute change of heart, feeling that the money given was too much and the professor wasn't worth that price, so they skimped as much as possible on everything from the hotel to food and drink."

"That can't be, after all, there's still the surgery..." Ji Xiang was puzzled.

"Look." Liu Zhuren raised a finger and pointed to his own head. "What you think is a hundred percent certain, in the eyes of others, is not the case. A hundred types of rice feed a hundred types of people; in this world, there really are all kinds of people."

"However, similar situations are relatively rare; many record the details of the payment and only make trouble after the surgery is done and the Patient is safely discharged."

"I know about that." Ji Xiang smiled.

Arriving at the Anesthesia Duty Room, Liu Zhuren took out a cigarette and lit it.

"The second type is also uncommon: the Flying Knife professor arrives and believes the Family Member or the doctors here have skimped on their Flying Knife fee, and refuses to go on stage no matter what."

"That can't be..."

Ji Xiang still couldn't understand.

"Do you know where the problem lies?" Liu Zhuren asked, looking into Ji Xiang's eyes.

But before Ji Xiang could ponder it, he continued, "Information gap."

"In similar situations, there is a middleman who stitches the deal together, contacting the Patient and Family Member on the left, and the Flying Knife Expert on the right. They also want to make money; who doesn't like those red, crisp banknotes, right?"

Ji Xiang was even more unfamiliar with this, and he even paused for a moment when Liu Zhuren mentioned the red, crisp banknotes.

"If the money in the middle is taken by the broker, the result is that neither the Flying Knife Doctor nor the Patient and Family Member are satisfied."

"So that's it!" Ji Xiang suddenly realized.

"That's why I generally don't get involved in things where middlemen earn the price difference," Liu Zhuren said. "Xiao Ji, you will eventually be doing Flying Knife work; be careful with similar matters."

"Mm." Ji Xiang nodded. "Zhuren, how do you think this will end?"

"The Flying Knife Expert will definitely have to swallow the loss," Liu Zhuren said. "You see, some unscrupulous doctors will do many outrageous things, but the doctors of this type I've seen are all highly emotionally intelligent."

"Because if their emotional intelligence were even slightly lower, the Patient and Family Member would have sensed something was wrong long ago, and trouble would have started early, not waiting until that moment."

Liu Zhuren spoke very vaguely, but Ji Xiang could roughly understand.

Some things cannot even be described as 'not to be passed to a sixth ear'; even with only four ears present, Liu Zhuren still spoke ambiguously.

"Now that it's blown up, there's actually nothing to worry about," Liu Zhuren laughed. "Xiao Ji, let me tell you something."

"Zhuren, please go ahead."

"It's not that I'm rushing you, but the exam is over; shouldn't you hurry up and write that paper? I know a few Experts on the review board for Chinese Urology."

"Thank you, Zhuren, I've already finished writing it. I'll go back and polish it today and give it to you tomorrow," Ji Xiang said.

"Hurry up, the polishing work... I'd better do it," Liu Zhuren laughed, a look of 'a child worth teaching' overflowing from his face.

Writing articles and publishing papers is essentially a way of communication, but it has now evolved into 'watered-down' papers.

Like an assembly line, international-level scientific research papers, SCI papers, and even papers for world-class journals can all be bought with money.

This kind of thing has become an industrial chain, and everyone in the industry is clear about it.

Liu Zhuren was truly afraid that Ji Xiang would stiffen his neck and take the same attitude he had toward Qin, Qin Lao, thinking that 'watering down' a national-level paper was simply an insult to academia.

If that were the case, the provincial-level scientific research project he was currently helping Ji Xiang connect with would also be meaningless.

Fortunately, Ji Xiang had been working on it silently, and a little polishing would be enough to give the paper to him.

It seemed Ji Xiang still cared about this matter.

"Zhao Ge is getting older; without papers and without scientific research, he can't get promoted. Although he performs surgeries well and is careful in his daily work, he still hasn't been able to become a Deputy Chief Physician." Ji Xiang sighed.

"..." Liu Zhuren frowned.

Ji Xiang's words were a bit presumptuous; he was still a Standardized Training Doctor himself, yet he was worrying about Zhao Zhe.

Xu Leyu was particularly unhappy, but since Professor Deng Chaohong rarely 'asked' him for a favor, he agreed to handle the trouble caused by the Family Member.

Just as Liu Zhuren guessed, the Family Member had found a broker to contact Professor Xue from the Imperial Capital for the surgery, but the middleman had skimped on a sum of money, causing everyone except the broker to be dissatisfied.

Xu Leyu didn't over-appease Professor Xue either; the Patient was already under Anesthesia, and Professor Xue was just cursing—could he really walk out and tell the Family Member—'You need to pay more'?

If that really happened, I'm afraid that once the matter was exposed, the cost to suppress it would be an astronomical figure.

Professor Xue could curse all he wanted, but he definitely wouldn't turn around and leave; he would certainly perform the surgery. Cursing was just to vent his anger.

Sure enough, Professor Xue cursed for twenty minutes without repeating himself, as if he were a level-10 veteran on the 'Stress Relief' forum, and the more he cursed, the more unbearable it became. But in the end, he still changed his clothes and went in for the surgery with an unhappy face.

"Deng Chaohong, that son of a bitch, he must be the one who pulled these strings," Professor Xue cursed while scrubbing his hands. "I knew he was a small-minded man back when we were in school; he only knew how to trip people up and play dirty."

Xu Leyu remained silent, focusing on the work at hand.

"Where is Deng Chaohong?" Professor Xue asked.

"He has a surgery on his side as well," Xu Leyu replied.

"What kind of surgery?"

"A provincial team weightlifter who was training hard for next year's National Games and ended up with a Rotator Cuff Injury."

"That surgery is his too!" Professor Xue said with disdain. "If Deng Chaohong does it, the Patient is as good as ruined! He's just a local Doctor who doesn't even understand where the focus of the surgery lies."

(End of chapter)