Chapter 4

Zheng Ren, who was in a deep sleep, was jolted awake by a sharp phone ring; he reflexively sprang up from bed and immediately answered the phone.

Answering emergency calls 24 hours a day is an essential skill for a young surgeon.

In this skill, Zheng Ren has fully maxed out his skill tree.

"Zheng Ren, what the hell did you do yesterday!"

From the other end came the hoarse shouting and rude cursing of Director Liu of the General Surgery Department; Zheng Ren seemed to feel Director Liu's saliva spraying, passing through the phone and splashing onto his face.

"Director Liu, what's wrong?" Zheng Ren asked calmly.

"You know what you did!" Director Liu did not directly answer Zheng Ren's words, "Performing surgery beyond your rank, not following superiors' arrangements, is a pancreaticoduodenectomy something you can do! Any consequences for the patient, you bear them yourself!"

Director Liu roared.

Zheng Ren wanted to explain, but in a moment he didn't know how to say it.

"Get lost to the Emergency Department to report tomorrow; that's Director Fu's intention." Having said that, Director Liu hung up the phone directly, giving Zheng Ren no chance to defend himself.

Uh... Zheng Ren wasn't angry because of Director Liu's nasty attitude, but his mood was a bit low.

The unreliable system seemed to have disappeared; he entered the previous space again and looked around, but there was no change.

Could it be that my surgical career is about to end?

Zheng Ren was very discouraged.

Although discouraged, life still has to go on.

He glanced at his phone and Zheng Ren was startled. He had actually slept over ten hours; waking up, it was already past six the next day.

Director Liu called me this early; could he not have slept?

As he pondered, the phone rang again.

It was his good friend Yang Lei from the department calling him, voice somewhat anxious.

"Zheng Ren, let me tell you, something big happened yesterday."

"Huh? What happened?"

After the Shou Bing, the patient was smoothly wheeled out; Professor Mori went to examine the pathology specimen and discovered that, after he left the operating table, the Shou Bing had actually been completed.

He flew into a rage, cursing Director Fu like a grandson.

I heard it too; Professor Mori didn't perform the Shou Bing, but we did. Hehe, you say this isn't a slap in the face?

The voice on the other end sounded somewhat schadenfreude.

But in the end you took the blame; Director Fu said he wanted to expel you, fortunately Director Pan of the Emergency Department stepped forward, slamming the table and swearing at Director Fu.

What does that have to do with the Emergency Department? Zheng Ren knows Director Pan; he is a retired senior director from the Military Region Hospital, rehired at Hai Cheng First People's Hospital.

Being of military origin, his temper is naturally explosive, plus his upright character; only Director Pan would do such a thing.

Could he have known something?

"But in the end you were still sent to the Emergency Department." Yang Lei said: "Let me ask you something: in the operating room, who finished that Shou Bing yesterday?"

"..." Zheng Ren then roughly understood what had happened during his peak experience, which had exhausted his energy and caused him to sleep all day.

Probably Professor Mori felt humiliated and just left.

With such a huge leak, someone had to take the blame; moreover, the information was tightly sealed, so no one knew it was his Shou Bing.

It's not that no one knew; likely Director Pan knew. Otherwise he wouldn't have slammed the table and sworn at Director Fu, speaking up for him across departments.

"I don't know either." Zheng Ren thought and replied.

He couldn't say it was him, after all that was just a one-time peak experience; doing it again would surely expose the truth. After finishing the Shou Bing last night, Zheng Ren, in a daze, had told Director Liu and the patient's family; now he slightly regrets it.

That could really get him slapped in the face.

Anyway, he has the system; he's not in a rush, just hoping the system will quickly "come alive".

Zheng Ren hung up the phone, simply washed up, and then went to work.

……

……

Arriving at the department, the first thing he saw was Director Liu's stern, foul expression.

Arguing with Director Liu? That's not Zheng Ren's nature.

As his name suggests, Zheng Ren is a gentleman; Director Liu can pull off a shrew scolding the street, but Zheng Ren cannot.

Spilling yesterday's factual truth? Zheng Ren wouldn't do that either; he didn't even tell his good friend when asked, let alone say it in public.

He believes the day he can use technology to slap Director Liu's face is not far off; he firmly believes it.

Zheng Ren chose to ignore Director Liu, greeted his coworkers, and went to the doctors' duty room. He tidied up his locker, packed his white coat, stethoscope, percussion hammer, and a few professional books into a plastic bag, then lifted it and left the General Surgery Department.

What exactly did Zheng Ren do wrong?

The atmosphere was oppressive; colleagues also dared not ask. Only after Zheng Ren left, Director Liu returned to his office with a stern face, did a little nurse quietly ask those nearby.

They said it was because yesterday's Shou Bing violated the principle, making Professor Mori very angry, so... an old nurse said.

What a good person, how could this happen?

Don't throw around the good-person card; I think Doctor Zheng is really in for bad luck this time. You don't know, Director Liu was scolded by Director Fu all night, and the scolding was utterly nasty.

Zheng Ren didn't hear his colleagues' gossip; he took the elevator downstairs and arrived at the Emergency Department opposite the hospital's main gate.

It is a five-story building; according to the original plan and design, it should be a standalone emergency building, with all emergency patients receiving treatment there.

But emergency work is tough; doctors simply can't be retained. Even if administrative measures are used to force them to stay, they would choose to resign.

This situation exists not only at Hai Cheng First People's Hospital; it's the same nationwide.

Without doctors, even excellent hardware can't develop the emergency department. Thus the first floor of the emergency building is for internal, external, obstetrics and pediatrics emergency, while floors two and above remain idle.

Being assigned to the emergency department is like being a criminal exiled to far-eastern Siberia by the former Soviet Union; this is the consensus among doctors.

Zheng Ren also doesn't feel wronged; after all, he's a man with a system, not worth stooping to the level of petty people.

Arriving at the Emergency Department to report, Director was not there.

The head nurse told Zheng Ren that Director Pan had arranged for him to be the inpatient chief, responsible for surgical clinical work.

Zheng Ren's guess proved correct; it seemed someone indeed knew that he was the one who performed that surgery, for example, Director Pan.

"Yo, Chief Zheng, are you the attending physician?" Before Zheng Ren could get the key to the locker, a sarcastic voice came from beside him.

Zheng Ren looked and saw it was Dr. Yuan Li from the Emergency Department.

Although he didn't often come to the emergency department, after so many years he at least knew who it was; but that was all, just a nodding acquaintance.

"Brother Yuan, I was promoted to attending physician last year." Zheng Ren, good-natured, replied with a smile.

"From now on, you, as the attending physician, had better teach me well." Yuan Li leaned against the doorframe of the surgical emergency department, his tone growing increasingly strange.

"You're the senior brother; being so formal is unnecessary." Zheng Ren felt a bit headache, and he simply wasn't good at arguing.

"Never mind, Director Pan has spoken; from now on you'll be Chief Zheng." Yuan Li coughed, spat a mouthful of phlegm onto the floor, "Pah!"

"Yuan Li, how dare you speak like that!" The head nurse refused to stand for it; with Director Pan absent, she first made sure Yuan Li and Zheng Ren wouldn't come to blows.

"Head Nurse, I just won't accept it. Why, after so many years in the emergency department I can't be the inpatient chief, while he, just arrived, can?" Yuan Li said somewhat agitatedly.

"Go tell Director Pan about it; Xiao Zheng just arrived..."

"Don't worry, we won't come to blows." Yuan Li looked at Zheng Ren with a disdainful face and said, "Kid, can you see the illness clearly?"

"..."

"Not speaking, are you full of confidence?" Yuan Li said.

Seeing that a fight wouldn't happen, the head nurse said nothing more.

Actually, she was also curious why Director Pan had delayed appointing an inpatient chief, yet gave the position to Zheng Ren.

Moreover, yesterday Director Pan, in the dean's office, slammed the table and cursed, even pointing at the dean's nose and saying that if a few years earlier a phone call had summoned two truckloads of soldiers to kill your mother.

Although Director Pan has a bad temper, he is nonetheless a reasonable person.

There must be a reason for all of this.

Early morning is the quietest time in the emergency department; internal medicine and pediatrics doctors also come out to watch the excitement.

Seeing Zheng Ren's helpless expression, Yuan Li felt he had this kid figured out, thinking don't assume you can do as you please just because you have Director Pan's backing. We doctors make a living by our skills!

As they were speaking, an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old young man holding a registration slip walked over.

"Which department?" Yuan Li asked.

"Headache." The young man, unused to such an enthusiastic doctor, hurriedly replied.

"Any external injury?"

"No."

"Go to internal medicine." Yuan Li felt a bit regretful.

Zheng Ren, however, stood still, lost in thought.

When he saw the patient, his field of vision began to become three-dimensional.

That semi-transparent screen appeared again before his eyes, with Chinese characters continually appearing in the upper right corner.

The system was still there, just not speaking; seeing this screen, Zheng Ren felt completely at ease.

The characters on the screen kept expanding; Zheng Ren examined them closely.

Male patient, seventeen years old, headache accompanied by nausea, no vomiting for ten hours.

Next came the patient's vital signs and various test results, and finally the diagnosis…

Zheng Ren almost seemed to hear the sound made when the characters appeared; this damn thing is the system? It's like the dear father who maxed out all his diagnostic skill points.

Could it be that I've turned into a Terminator?