Chapter 740: 21-Trisomy (Part 1)

Empathy?

Ji Xiang racked his brains but couldn't imagine what kind of empathy could be found in this sort of Medical Dispute.

The system NPC didn't force him either; he just watched Ji Xiang quietly.

"Teacher, this kind of unreasonable dispute is already akin to a Medical Disturbance, is it necessary?" Ji Xiang asked.

"Medicine in the end may not be medicine, but when it comes down to it, it is still medicine."

The system NPC said a convoluted sentence.

Ji Xiang's face was covered in black lines.

He was completely unable to understand the meaning of the system NPC's words.

"Then let the man try." Ji Xiang said, "Teacher, what angle do you suggest the man choose?"

"Of course, the bystander's angle." The system NPC said, "You are still too young, there are some things you cannot control well, so the man suggests you observe."

Again!

Although Ji Xiang had guessed it long ago, he always felt something was wrong.

Perhaps it was the arrogance of youth at work; Ji Xiang was always unconvinced, wondering why the system NPC only let him observe recently.

Could it be that the difficulty of Empathy had increased?

Although he was unconvinced in his heart, Ji Xiang's sharp edges had long been worn down by someone, so he did not argue and went to the next Operating Room with the system NPC.

Light and shadow flickered, and Ji Xiang opened his eyes.

"What? The Tang Screening has a problem again?!"

The man held his wife's Tang Screening test results, staring blankly at the sheet.

This was already the third time; his wife's Tang Screening results were always bad, and the previous two times they could only abort.

Tang Screening!

Just like the situation he saw at the Medical Affairs Department, this was what Ji Xiang had expected.

From the bystander's angle, Ji Xiang quietly observed the man's reaction.

"The values are very off, it is estimated that the child has a problem. It is recommended to perform a puncture and test the Amniotic Fluid." The Doctor said.

Facing this result, the man was very sad; Ji Xiang could feel the sensation of being drowned by helpless emotions.

Sigh.

Could it be that the system NPC wanted him to feel this kind of helplessness?

Ji Xiang didn't think so.

He watched quietly.

Puncture, Amniotic Fluid sent for testing.

A few days later, the results came out; it was highly suspected that the fetus had Trisomy Syndrome and needed to be aborted.

In these few days, Ji Xiang could clearly perceive the man's helplessness and anger.

The injustice of this world and the successive abnormalities made the man's emotions almost explode.

Perhaps venting anger on the hospital and the Doctor was also a subconscious form of self-protection.

Even so, Ji Xiang still did not approve.

The Doctor or the hospital hadn't done anything wrong, so why should they bear all the negative emotions?

But in this Empathy, Ji Xiang discovered that the man was very familiar with the Doctor at the hospital, so he figured a malicious Medical Dispute would not occur.

Every time he thought of this, Ji Xiang felt a bit strange.

Recalling the system NPC's strange gaze, Ji Xiang dismissed his preconceived subjective cognition and continued to observe quietly.

There must be something fishy!

Those values were silently telling the man that the child was again Trisomy, which meant a congenital deformity.

Even if they could barely continue the pregnancy, there was a 60% probability that the fetus would miscarry in the womb.

Even if there was no miscarriage and the child could be born, the child would have obvious intellectual disabilities, special facial features, growth and development disorders, and multiple malformations after birth.

Just as Ji Xiang was thinking, the man's shout came into his mind.

Why!

Why is it not working again!!

The man stared blankly at the Amniotic Fluid puncture report, his mind a blank slate.

Both he and his wife wanted a child, but fate played tricks on them; every time they were pregnant and had a prenatal checkup, problems would arise.

This was already the third time, the third consecutive time!

Every miscarriage was a blow to his wife's body.

"No, it's better to abort. Don't force this kind of thing, don't have a fluke mentality, otherwise, once the child is born with congenital deformities and insufficient intelligence, the child will suffer, and the adults will suffer along with them." The Doctor friend earnestly advised the man.

The man nodded blankly.

"After this abortion, it will likely be difficult to get pregnant in the future, and even if you do get pregnant, there will be habitual miscarriages and other situations; you need to be mentally prepared."

The Doctor friend said to the man.

Just!

Ji Xiang felt that the Doctor friend's gaze seemed slightly similar to the system NPC's.

His words were very simple, just stating a fact to the man. However, Ji Xiang felt that there was more to his words, and some things were not explained clearly.

It wasn't that he couldn't explain it clearly, but that the man's Doctor friend was deliberately not explaining it clearly.

Why?

Did he overlook something?

Ji Xiang tried hard to think.

However, Trisomy Syndrome is just a small point of knowledge; although it is tested on exams, Ji Xiang has never studied it in detail.

He is a Surgeon, so it is normal for him to not know enough about this.

Holding the report, the man was in extreme pain, and also disappointed and heartbroken to the Extreme Point.

Why is Heaven so unfair to him!

The man did not go home; he dared not, fearing his wife would collapse because of the report.

Although the man's wife would still guess it even if he didn't go home, the man still went to a small tavern to drink his sorrows away.

The Doctor friend, afraid that something might happen to the man, went with him.

He kept looking at the man deeply, as if he had something to say, but found it hard to speak.

This further confirmed Ji Xiang's guess.

In fact, the man also knew the Doctor friend seemed to have something to say; the Doctor friend's emotions were already written on his face.

It was just that the man was in a bad mood and hadn't asked.

The test results made him think he was the most miserable person in this world, bar none.

But after getting half-drunk, the man's emotions became a little agitated, and he even wanted to slap the table and curse the damned Heaven.

Emboldened by the alcohol, the man put his arm around his shoulder, "Little Sun, if you have something to say, just say it. I'm already this miserable, I don't care what you say. Are you trying to say my genes are no good, or that there's a problem with my ancestral grave, so I'll never have children in this life?

Even if you say I'm a cursed lone star, I'll accept it."

"Brother Zhang, that... don't you find it strange?" the Doctor friend asked in a low voice.

He probed, wanting to speak but stopping himself.

"Strange? What's so strange about it? This is all fate, damn it! Three times in a row, three times!! I wake up scared now even when I dream of the Tang Screening." The man looked up at the sky and cursed indignantly.

"No," the friend said stammeringly. He picked up his wine glass and downed the three-point-three taels of white liquor in one gulp, only then gathering the courage.

"Brother, the Tang Screening is abnormal, let's put it this way. Not to mention the Tang Screening, we've done Puncture Biopsy and Amniotic Fluid testing three times in a row. Usually, Trisomy has a high probability of being caused by marriage between close relatives, because from a genetic perspective..."

He said a bunch of related knowledge, but the man didn't understand a single word.

The four words "marriage between close relatives" were like a bolt of lightning flashing across the man's mind, leaving his mind a blank slate.

Marriage, could it be that it was a damn close relative?

This term stirred up countless waves in the man's heart.

Ji Xiang was also startled.

He had never thought of this term at all.

Similar knowledge points were almost a blank in Ji Xiang's mind.

Although he had studied it, Ji Xiang hadn't thought of this point when applying it to an actual scenario.

No wonder!

Whether it was the system NPC or the Doctor friend before him, their eyes were all strange.

So that was it!

"Brother, are you and your sister-in-law long-lost biological siblings? Or, and I don't mean to be disrespectful, just speaking objectively, was our uncle quite dashing and charming when he was young?" the friend kindly reminded the man.

Duan Yu? Ji Xiang immediately thought of this character from the pen of the old master Jin Yong.

When the man heard his Doctor friend say this, the lingering drunkenness vanished instantly.

It wasn't because of the friend's words that the man sobered up, but because the man remembered one thing.

The man's wife was usually sensible and reasonable, and everything was fine, but she had the attribute of being a "younger-brother-obsessed sister," and she and her younger brother had a close relationship.

Originally, it wouldn't have been anything for a sister and brother to have a close relationship; in the man's view, that was a normal family relationship.

Even if she had a bit of a "younger-brother-obsessed sister" attribute, it didn't matter.

But now, these words awakened the dreamer; thinking back carefully, the relationship between the two of them seemed a bit wrong.

If there hadn't been the situation of three abnormal Tang Screenings, the man wouldn't have thought too much about it.

But three times in a row!

Three times!!!

The Tang Screening results were all abnormal, and the values were ridiculously high; the results of the Puncture Biopsy and Amniotic Fluid testing confirmed there was a problem.

This couldn't help but make the man ponder more.

However, this possibility was so terrifying, so terrifying that the alcohol in the man's stomach and blood evaporated in an instant.

Crack!

The man vaguely heard the sound of his worldview shattering coming from an unknown place.

"Thank you, Little Sun." The man calmed down and thanked him sincerely.

Ji Xiang started searching his memories in astonishment.

Sure enough, there were more and more things that didn't feel right.

Ji Xiang even sensed a huge, inexplicable force crushing his own worldview, and the sound of shattering came vaguely.

How could it be like this!

Once, during his internship, Ji Xiang had also heard his clinical instructor talk about a lot of gossip.

But gossip is gossip after all; without having experienced it personally, there wouldn't be such deep resonance. So much so that Ji Xiang hadn't understood the complex eyes of the system NPC at all, until the moment of Empathy, when Ji Xiang finally understood.

So that was it!

This time, Empathy was actually like this.

After leaving the small tavern, the man returned home.

His wife was crying painfully at home, her eyes red, looking unspeakably pitiful.

Although the man hadn't gone home and she hadn't seen the report, the man's smell of alcohol was enough to explain everything.

If it were before, the man would have comforted her softly, persuading her that this was just the unfairness of fate, and then the two of them would have hugged and cried together.

This is fate, there is no helping it.

But!

The man's emotions are quite complicated right now.

The Doctor friend's guess is logical.

The Trisomy test was abnormal three times in a row, the values were especially high, and the Amniotic Fluid test proved it was indeed wrong.

The couple has no blood relation, so how could such a low-probability event happen consecutively!

On the way back, the man had already started to feel suspicious.

This kind of thing cannot withstand scrutiny; the more he thinks about it, the more he feels something is wrong.

"My dear, it's just our bad luck." The man still comforted her with gentle words, but as he spoke, his face was already covered in tears.

No matter how much they cried, it was useless, because it had happened too many times, and to avoid laboratory error, the men decided to do another puncture test.

But the facts were cold—the results of the re-examined Amniotic Fluid were about the same as the last time.

It could only be aborted.

The man accompanied his wife to the hospital, sitting outside quietly waiting for the results.

For this surgery, the man specifically sought out a Doctor friend and slipped a large red envelope to the Doctor performing the surgery.

There was only one request—let the Doctor help him keep a portion of the Embryo Sac.

The surgery ended quickly, and the man held the small bottle full of Formalin, looking at the Embryo Sac inside, and kept saying thank you to the Doctor.

After accompanying his wife for two days, once her body had recovered a little, the man secretly went to the Paternity Test center.

Although the Embryo Sac had not fully developed, DNA testing on a portion of the tissue could be done.

A few days later, when the man received the report, all his doubts and guesses were confirmed.

The child!

Is not his!!

It really is not his!!!

Ji Xiang was also stunned by this bizarre and inexplicable result.

During this time, Ji Xiang had been trying to convince himself that such a strange situation was impossible.

But the facts proved that this was all true!

So that was what the System NPC's hesitant look was about!

How could this be!!!

Ji Xiang was completely dumbfounded; he thought of Bai Chuzhang and the Family Member who was causing a scene.

If it were him, how would he handle it?

Tell the Family Member the truth?

As this thought flashed by, Ji Xiang immediately recalled the man's Doctor friend's cryptic way of speaking.

Before speaking, he had even downed a cup of wine in one gulp before daring to half-conceal and half-reveal a portion of the situation.

And after that, his explanation tried as much as possible to steer toward Duan Yu, to the point that even he himself was fooled.

Ji Xiang sensed something was wrong.

At this very moment, the man was completely bewildered.

It should be impossible for the man and the man's wife to have a blood relation.

If that is the case,

Then!

The truth!!

Is only one!!!

Seeing this report, the man felt cold all over.

Logically speaking, the fetuses from the three consecutive Trisomy cases should not be the man's, but the Brother-in-law's.

But this angle, which a normal person wouldn't even dare to imagine, plunged the man into distress.

The man's wife did indeed have a tendency to be a "younger-brother-obsessed sister," but he hadn't cared about it before.

While being good to her family, she was also very good to the man, unlike many people talked about online who only cared about their younger brother.

Holding the results,

The man suddenly remembered a few things.

Every time after a miscarriage, his wife would go home to live for a period of time, saying it was to let her parents take care of her and let her body recover, so the man could focus on his career.

Before this, the man had always thought his wife was very thoughtful, and her whole family was especially good to the man, which was why the man didn't care about his wife being a "younger-brother-obsessed sister."

However!

Now, recalling many details made the man shudder.

Before every pregnancy, she had experiences back in her hometown.

After every miscarriage, she would return to her hometown.

Every time the Doctor warned that she shouldn't get pregnant for at least six months to a year, she was always impatient to get pregnant again.

Even when the man wanted to take contraceptive measures, she would be very unhappy, and the two had even argued over it.

At the time, the man thought she was anxious to have a child, and for this, the man even felt guilty, always thinking about trying to persuade her.

Some things cannot be rushed, or it would cause great damage to the body.

But now, looking back, all the details pieced together into a terrifying reality.

The man had been cheated on, and by his own Brother-in-law!

Countless thunderclaps rang in the man's ears, the roaring sound was constant, and his whole person felt dizzy.

No!

This is impossible!!

It is impossible for such an absurd and ridiculous thing to happen in this world.

The man was screaming in his heart.

However, after all possibilities are ruled out, even if the final conclusion is extremely ridiculous, that is the truth!

The man suppressed his urgent feelings and, as per his wife's request, sent her back to her hometown in the county.

Every time she had a miscarriage, she would return to her hometown, and this time was no different.

It was just that his feelings this time were completely different from when he had sent her back in the past; the volcano in the man's heart was about to erupt.

Barely suppressing the negative emotions within, the man pretended he hadn't discovered anything and sent his wife back to her parents' home just as he always did.

As time passed, Ji Xiang began to examine the inner world of the protagonist within the Empathy.

This was because a Doctor friend had informed and guided him to reach the correct answer.

But the Family Member that Bai Chuzhang faced had no one to guide them; if Bai Chuzhang dared to say something similar to what the Doctor friend said when facing an emotionally agitated Family Member, it likely wouldn't have any effect and would instead trigger even greater conflict.

Then, what should he do if he were in Bai Chuzhang's position?

Ji Xiang gradually calmed his mind.

There are all kinds of people in this world; things like NTR or cuckolds have already become internet slang, and it is likely not rare in this world.

Many people even risk being discovered and having their reputations ruined just to leave behind various pieces of evidence and videos.

These are all strange fetishes; Ji Xiang knew that just because he couldn't understand it didn't mean such things didn't exist.

Bai Chuzhang has it so hard, Ji Xiang sighed.

He racked his brains but couldn't figure out what Bai Chuzhang would do; perhaps a "gourd monk handling a muddled case" is the best solution, and playing dumb is the only way out.

Then let's see how the man actually intends to handle it, Ji Xiang thought to himself.

The family members at her parents' home had gloomy expressions, with only the Brother-in-law looking completely indifferent, holding his phone in the bedroom watching a livestream, ignoring his sister entirely.

In the past, the man would have thought they loved their daughter dearly and were just spoiling the Brother-in-law.

But now, the man had other thoughts.

"How come you didn't keep it again," the mother-in-law blamed.

The man could only respond sheepishly, saying things he didn't even understand himself to brush her off.

"Brother-in-law, are you flush with cash lately?" The Brother-in-law didn't care at all; he leaned over to the man and asked with a grinning face.

"..." The man froze.

"It's just that the economic situation hasn't been good lately, and prices are rising fast. My pockets are emptier than my face; I'm really out of money, can you lend me some?"

"Sigh."

The man looked at the Brother-in-law, who was shirtless at home, wearing only a pair of briefs, looking as pale and soft as a white-cut chicken.

In the past, the man only thought the mother-in-law was coddling him, but now, no matter how he looked at him, he found him unpleasant and suspicious.

"My life is hard too; the company has been forcing a lot of overtime lately. Your sister is in this state, and my boss won't even grant me leave..." the man explained.

"You're so stingy," the Brother-in-law was unhappy the moment he heard this; he curled his lip, his face full of disdain.

"Let's go, come out and have a drink with me. The child has problems again this time, and I'm not feeling well," the man said, pulling the Brother-in-law.

He put on some random clothes, and the two of them went out to drink.

Seeing the Brother-in-law heading toward the most expensive place in the county, the man quickly pulled him to a roadside shop.

"You're not even a city white-collar worker, how embarrassing. Brother Zhao comes back driving a Mercedes and smokes Huazi cigarettes. Look at you, poor as dirt; my sister has suffered so much being with you."

The Brother-in-law complained the entire way.

He spoke extremely naturally, as if the man owed him a great deal of money.

Ji Xiang knew that the man really didn't want to spend any more money on him; it was highly likely that the next time the man returned, they would have become irreconcilable enemies.

As for why the man wanted to take the Brother-in-law out to eat, Ji Xiang also had a rough idea.

Pulling him into an old shop, the man ordered two dishes and a bottle of white liquor.

"Brother Zhao drinks Moutai when he comes back, why are you so poor and stingy, ordering Red Star Erguotou. Eating with you is so embarrassing," the Brother-in-law nagged.

"Be glad there's something to drink; your sister has had three surgeries in two years, how could I have the heart to focus on my career."

"You're just incompetent, don't blame my sister."

The man suddenly had a thought and patted the Brother-in-law's shoulder hard, "But it's okay, I've found a way to make money. Once your sister is a bit better here, I'll calm my mind, and I'll be able to make big money soon."

Hearing the man talk about making big money, the Brother-in-law's eyes lit up instantly.

"How do you make money? Brother-in-law."

The man feigned mystery, his brows furrowed with worry again, and he sighed deeply without answering the Brother-in-law's question.

The meal of sullen drinking was even more depressing; as the liquor entered his sorrowful heart, his worries only compounded.

But the Brother-in-law didn't feel anything at all, constantly nagging about how majestic Zhao Ge from next door was now, how he almost held a massive banquet when he came home, drove a Mercedes, smoked high-end Chinese cigarettes, and so on.

The man could see that the Brother-in-law's envy came naturally from the bottom of his heart, but he didn't pay him much mind.

Taking advantage of when he was drunk, the man took a few strands of the Brother-in-law's hair and kept them properly.

It really is like this, Ji Xiang sighed in his heart.

If he were in the protagonist's perspective facing a similar situation, he feared he wouldn't be capable of the man's meticulousness and detail.

The system NPC letting him experience it from the perspective of a bystander was correct in hindsight.

The next day, the man returned to the city, taking the Brother-in-law's hair to the Paternity Test center.

Arriving at the Paternity Test center, the man was somewhat uneasy; Ji Xiang could perceive the fear in his heart, and even infinite confusion.

If the guess was true and the test results proved it, the worldview the man had formed since childhood would be completely shattered.

As for things like face, they were no longer within the man's consideration.

When the last paternity test confirmed that the embryo had no relation to him whatsoever, the man's pride had already been completely lost.

Now, the man only wanted to know the truth.

Ji Xiang just didn't know if the man could accept this truth.

A few days later, the test results came out, and the man arrived at the identification center early.

Ji Xiang could feel the man's heart beating like a drum, as if it were about to jump out of his throat the next second.

Checking the electronic system, the man clearly saw the words—result 99.99% match.

So that was it!

Everything was real!!

People, oh.

Ji Xiang sighed deeply, and he also felt somewhat bewildered.

What Bai Chuzhang should do, and what the man in Empathy should do—these matters were tangled together, turning Ji Xiang's brain into a pot of mush.

(End of this chapter)