Chapter 426: Fellow Patients

In later eras, because many ports had enormous cargo throughput and were extremely busy, ships often had to wait offshore for permission before entering the harbor to unload. The waiting time was unpredictable — sometimes delays of ten days to half a month were very common.

The Taijiang Outer Sea of the current age, though not quite that extreme, already faintly carried the same flavor: the cargo ship carrying the Huang family 'couple' was also delayed outside the harbor for a while, only entering the Taijiang Channel after forming a convoy with three other passenger ships arriving from Fujian.

After years and months of dredging and expansion, the Taijiang Channel had now reached a width of two hundred meters, sufficient for the vessels of this era to pass in and out.

Just like the roads, the waterway, divided by navigation markers, was now a two-way four-lane route — smaller boats traveled on the sides, and large ships passed through the middle.

The New Lock Ship with hull number TY83, carrying the Huang family, was now following behind a sister ship with hull number TY22, slowly making its way through the channel.

The party of Master Huang were all standing on the deck at this moment, admiring the exotic scenery. Fang Tangjing, who had visited once not long ago, was waving a folding fan and had already transformed into a tour guide, gesticulating grandly as he pointed out the sights.

"This General's Mansion is truly magnificent. I wonder if we might go inside for a look?"

Almost everyone entering the Taijiang Channel for the first time would be stunned by the Imperial City decorated with blue glass curtain walls, and then express intense interest.

Unfortunately, this place, called the General's Mansion but in reality the Imperial City, harbored too many secrets, so it was really inconvenient to openly sell tickets for tours.

"A restricted military area — it's probably not open for visits." Hearing his companion's remark, Fang Tangjing smiled and offered an explanation.

Coincidentally, just as the Huang family party was sightseeing, on the deck of the TY22 ahead, there was another family surnamed Huang doing the exact same thing and saying the exact same words: "Husband, that great hall is so beautiful — can we go visit it?"

The one asking was a great beauty wearing a blue pleated skirt. And beside the beauty, waving a folding fan and dressed in a straight-hemmed robe, Huang the Provincial Graduate heard this and laughed heartily: "Probably not too difficult. In a few days I'll take you up there to have a barbecue."

This 'couple' was none other than Huang Zhicheng and Zhong Xiuxiu.

Huang Zhicheng, Huang the Provincial Graduate, who had long been active on the behind-enemy-lines front, had discovered not long ago that his wife Zhong Xiuxiu was pregnant.

This was a monumental event.

Huang the Provincial Graduate had lived two lives, yet this was his first time becoming a father, so he took the matter with the utmost seriousness. He had no choice but to request a long leave from Lao Xiong, then headed straight for Dayuan with Zhong Xiuxiu, planning to first get a checkup and then focus on prenatal care.

Over the past two years, news of the divine physicians in Taiwan had long since spread through Fujian, where contact was most frequent. Many official and gentry families had gone across the sea for medical treatment, and some had even brought their children for smallpox vaccination, so Huang Zhicheng had little trouble this time openly and honorably bringing his wife for prenatal care.

Huang Zhicheng's anxiety was not unwarranted. One must understand that seventeenth-century obstetrics was still the domain of midwives — a craft where they'd scatter some coal dust on the bed and then start delivering the baby, a practice utterly unacceptable to someone from later generations.

Fortunately, transportation was convenient nowadays. Stationed in Fuzhou, Huang Zhicheng could be said to arrive the moment he lifted his foot. After packing a few odds and ends, he crossed the strait in no time. The two Huang Laoyes thus had a chance encounter at the Taijiang Mouth.

After the fleet passed through the Dayuan Channel, the ships docked in sequence at the wharf on the opposite bank of the Taijiang.

On Huang Shaozhou Laoye's side, not long after the ship was secured, Nan Wang, Licentiate Nan, whom he hadn't seen in years, found his way aboard.

After they met, there was naturally a long stretch of emotional sighs and exclamations. Having paid his respects to the Laoye and his wife, Nan Wang then led everyone off the ship and brought the party to a guesthouse already booked by the Intelligence Bureau for its contacts.

At the same time, the other Master Huang on the neighboring ship was also exchanging pleasantries with the Intelligence Bureau colleagues who had come to meet him.

Huang Zhicheng was one of the earliest founding members of the Intelligence Bureau, but after the Imperial Examinations in Hangzhou back then, he had been undercover behind enemy lines the whole time and had never come here. This trip to Taiwan set an amusing record for him: the very last Transmigrator to set foot on Taiwan, arriving later than everyone who had crossed over after him.

Since he had family members and household staff with him, the Intelligence Bureau personnel who came to receive him couldn't say too much. After a few polite formalities under the guise of a General's Mansion receptionist, they, like the Master Huang next door, went to the guesthouse to rest.

In truth, Huang Zhicheng also had a villa in the Transmigrator district, but due to the nature of his identity, it was inconvenient to make it public.

And so, the two Huang Laoyes who had come to Taiwan in the same period to see a doctor ended up, by coincidence, staying at the very same guesthouse.

That evening, both parties, again by coincidence, booked private rooms in the downstairs restaurant, each drinking and conversing freely with their own company.

Early the next morning, Huang Shaozhou Laoye from Hangzhou, accompanied by Nan Wang and Fang Tangjing, boarded a carriage and went straight to the Intelligence Bureau headquarters at Yunfei Road 76.

At headquarters, Master Huang met the Intelligence Bureau Deputy Director, whose real name was Tang Mude and who went by the alias Tang Qi.

In fact, ever since Fang Tangjing had returned from Taiwan and Master Huang had decided to establish communication with the Transmigrators, he had known that the people he was dealing with were an office under the General, similar to the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

After this, Master Huang connected with the Hangzhou Station, and then, following instructions, took a manor deed given to him by the Hangzhou Station and joined the Land Deed Alliance, acting as an informant.

After the struggle between Xiong Dao and the Land Deed Alliance finally settled, Master Huang, who had played a major role by reporting the Alliance's every move to the Hangzhou Station, received permission to go to Taiwan.

Therefore, when he actually arrived in Taiwan, the first thing he had to do was not go to the hospital, but come to the Intelligence Bureau to "report on his work" — Huang Shaozhou Laoye was now a formal peripheral intelligence agent under the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Bureau.

After entering the Intelligence Bureau, Master Huang and Fang Tangjing first had their palm prints recorded and photographs taken. Although Nan Wang had given him advance warning, Master Huang still displayed ample curiosity about pressing his palm onto a glowing glazed slate to be scanned.

After this came the meeting segment.

Leaning on his crutch, Master Huang was led to the Deputy Director's office, where he discovered that this foreign-barbarian chief surnamed Tang actually wore his hair in a topknot just like his own family.

After muttering inwardly, Master Huang was warmly invited by Tang Qi to sit on the sofa and have tea.

What followed was standard procedure: a Type 28 organizational talk. And Master Huang, having been tipped off beforehand, naturally knew how to answer at this point, so both sides had a most pleasant conversation.

In truth, someone like Master Huang had never really drunk the chicken-soup-for-the-soul lines about "enjoying imperial favor for generations" — the Huang family was a merchant lineage, and Master Huang, well-versed in the ways of the world, had learned the merchant's code since childhood: cooperate with whoever has the capital. That was Master Huang's true nature.

So after Master Huang expressed his willingness to cooperate with the General and "help each other out" in the future, both sides reached a tacit understanding.

Before long, having concluded the talk, Master Huang was seen out the door by Tang Qi. And Tang Qi, after sending off the guest, did not return to his own office but instead went directly to the Bureau Chief, Dai Yun.

In Dai Yun's office, Huang the Provincial Graduate was smoking a cigarette and chatting jovially with the system's big boss. Seeing Tang Qi enter, Huang the Provincial Graduate asked: "Is this Master Huang also here for his wife's prenatal care? An intelligence agent? Is there any necessity for me to make contact?"

"This old brother of yours from the same clan isn't as good a shot as you, and probably doesn't have enough bullets either, so he's here seeking help to have a child." Tang Qi laughed heartily. "As for contact, just let it happen naturally. No need to let him know your identity."

"Mm, understood."

After both Huang Laoyes had simultaneously finished reporting on their work, they spent the remainder of the day taking their families shopping on Chikan Avenue.

Early the next morning, the two groups, one after the other, went to Chikan General Hospital.

The General Hospital, just like hospitals in later ages, never lacked for patients. The outpatient building and the inpatient department were crammed full of people from early morning — business seemed far too brisk.

Fortunately, the two Huang Laoyes did not need to queue.

To meet the medical needs of Transmigrator family members and special patients from the Ming state, Chikan General Hospital had long since opened a dedicated "Inpatient Unit," or what might be called a VIP ward, to solve this problem.

And both Huang Laoyes fell precisely within the admission criteria.

For Huang Zhicheng, it went without saying — Zhong Xiuxiu was his old man's lawful wife.

And Huang Shaozhou Laoye had also come for medical treatment with an Intelligence Bureau medical account slip, so the two groups were quickly settled into the Inpatient Unit.

The Inpatient Unit, just like in the Old World, was separated from the large hospital up front. This standalone Inpatient Unit had a beautiful environment, with gardens and ponds — squarely at the level of a sanatorium.

In the two-story building, the two families were each assigned a ward.

In this era, the vast majority of those coming to the Inpatient Unit for treatment brought household staff with them, so the wards here were all suites with private bathrooms, convenient for maids and servants to keep night watch.

After they were settled, around nine in the morning, once the two Transmigrator doctors on duty returned from their rounds in the main inpatient department, it was finally the Inpatient Unit's turn.

The one assigned to Huang Zhicheng's side was Dong Qiang.

After exchanging a few teasing remarks with Huang the Provincial Graduate, Dong Qiang cheerfully wrote out a long string of examination orders for Zhong Xiuxiu, who had just reached three months of pregnancy: blood pressure, weight, fetal heart rate, complete blood count, urinalysis, blood type, blood glucose, liver function, kidney function, hepatitis B antigen, syphilis serology, electrocardiogram.

Among these, except for HIV, which did not yet exist in the seventeenth century and was thus omitted, the remaining tests were not much different from those of later generations.

This kind of examination was extremely expensive and slow, because it not only required some instruments and consumables, but some items also needed Dong Qiang himself to personally operate and interpret them one by one.

This was also only because Zhong Xiuxiu was carrying the descendant of Transmigrators; otherwise she would certainly not receive such care.

Zhong Xiuxiu thus began her long journey of tests, while Master Huang did not need testing — when the formidable Master Bai Shuchao entered the door with a string of medical students and saw Master Huang's big toe at first moment, he immediately diagnosed the condition: gout.

Then the Huang Family members, utterly dumbfounded, sat in on a live lecture Master Bai gave his students about gout.

This lecture was rich in content. Master Bai not only explained the principles of gout, this "disease of kings," to his disciples, but also used Master Huang lying in bed as an example, clearly telling everyone that this currently very rare disease would, in another twenty or thirty years, appear among the population on a scale of tens of millions.

Master Bai was projecting the situation of later generations — thirty years after the reform and opening up of later generations, living standards rose dramatically, and gout sufferers among the countrymen exceeded 80 million, with the annual incidence rate still constantly rising.

And in the New World under the rule of the Transmigrators, because there were large tracts of tropical and temperate farms and plantations, in twenty or thirty years the nutritional level of the countrymen would only be higher than in later generations, making the incidence rate of gout even more terrifying.

After finishing the lecture, with a single order from Master Bai, Master Huang was swiftly wheeled into the operating room.