Huang Ying brought the new colleague through the door, surprising everyone greatly.
“Wow, handsome Peng,” someone called out. “What a rare guest, rare guest indeed.”
Qi Yue was also somewhat surprised.
“Just finished surgery, came over to mooch a meal, forgive me,” Peng Jiahai said, bowing his head slightly in greeting.
“You honor us with your presence,” Qi Yue smiled, welcoming him in. “There’s alcohol here, which would you like? I can reheat some dishes for you.”
“No need to trouble yourself, just some wine and light dishes will do,” Peng Jiahai quickly said.
“Don’t be polite, don’t be polite. Yueniang, I’m entrusting my colleague to you as the host,” Huang Ying said, busily pulling a nearby colleague along. “Come on, let’s continue playing. I refuse to believe I can’t win.”
Everyone laughed and went their separate ways.
Peng Jiahai hesitated for a moment before standing by the small bar counter.
Qi Yue turned on the stove.
“Any foods you can’t eat?” she asked, turning back.
“Ah, no, none at all,” Peng Jiahai quickly replied.
“Get yourself a glass, pour what you want to drink yourself, don’t be restrained. They all act like this at my place,” Qi Yue smiled, pointing with her chin.
Peng Jiahai smiled and agreed, taking a glass himself. After looking around, he poured some red wine.
Qi Yue saw this and, after thinking for a moment, took out a steak from the refrigerator.
“Where did you go to university?” she asked as she worked.
“Columbia,” Peng Jiahai said, swirling his wine glass.
The sizzling sound of the steak hitting the oil in the pan filled the air.
“Wow, a top student,” Qi Yue smiled.
“I wouldn’t dare claim that. Every school has both top students and poor ones,” Peng Jiahai said.
Qi Yue turned back to look at him and smiled.
“Thank you for the compliment,” she said.
Peng Jiahai laughed.
The telephone suddenly rang with a ding-dong-ding-dong sound.
“Whose is that?” people in the living room called out.
“Yueniang, it’s your house phone,” someone realized and also shouted.
Qi Yue looked at the oil pan.
“I’ll get it,” Peng Jiahai said, setting down his wine glass.
Qi Yue smiled and handed him the spatula, hurrying toward the phone.
After finishing the call and returning, Peng Jiahai was wearing an apron and skillfully flipping the pan.
“Let me do it, how can I let you, a guest, do the work yourself,” Qi Yue smiled.
“Let me handle it. An uninvited guest should work for himself,” Peng Jiahai said, looking around. “The oven…”
Qi Yue opened the oven, arranged the iron tray properly, then thought of something and went to open the refrigerator.
“Bell peppers or potatoes?” she asked, leaning out from behind the refrigerator door.
“Bell peppers,” Peng Jiahai said.
A colleague here poked their head out and saw this, making two “hey hey” sounds to alert the others.
Everyone looked over.
In the kitchen, a tall, thin man wearing an apron was frying steak, while a woman in light gray home clothes was putting the vegetables she had prepared into the oil pan, habitually blowing on her fingers.
Not knowing what was said, both of them laughed.
“Sister Huang, how many matches have you made? Enough to build several towers of merit, right?” a colleague smiled.
Huang Ying, who had paper strips stuck back on her face, proudly lifted her chin.
“That’s right,” she said.
“Hey hey, how’s this returned overseas student? He looks decent enough…” another person asked with some concern, “Yueniang can’t be taken advantage of by another pig…”
“Don’t you trust me to handle things?” Huang Ying said. “He’s definitely better than that bastard Wu Jianfeng. He has family background, good looks, and education. I’m telling you, there are plenty of people in our department eyeing him.”
She raised her eyebrows at this point.
“But sister here struck first,” she smiled.
Everyone laughed heartily.
“Sister, please accept our bow,” they said in unison.
Huang Ying laughed heartily.
“Sister, you lost again,” everyone said.
The laughter here made Qi Yue and Peng Jiahai turn back to look.
“You have quite a few friends,” Peng Jiahai said.
“Yes, I’m really a good person,” Qi Yue smiled.
Peng Jiahai laughed.
“Do you like praising yourself?” he said.
Qi Yue was slightly startled, then nodded with a smile.
“I’m afraid others might be too embarrassed to say it, so I say it for them,” she smiled, taking the steak from the warming oven.
Peng Jiahai smiled and plated the fried bell peppers.
“Come, come. Who else wants to try authentic Columbia steak?” Qi Yue smiled, carrying over two plates.
Both sides raised their hands. Qi Yue set the two plates and utensils in front of them. Everyone also took their preferred drinks and thanked Peng Jiahai.
“Director Peng, you must come often in the future.”
“Now we have another chef.”
Everyone laughed.
Peng Jiahai also smiled and agreed.
“Actually, this is all I can make,” he smiled, drinking his red wine. After chatting and laughing for a while, he returned to the small bar counter under the pretense of pouring wine.
Qi Yue was reaching for a beer.
“Red wine?” she handed it to him.
Peng Jiahai thanked her and poured half a glass.
“That patient didn’t make it through the resuscitation,” he suddenly said.
Qi Yue made a sound of surprise, looking at him uncomprehendingly.
“It really was a brain problem,” Peng Jiahai said. “The ophthalmology patient you sent over at noon.”
Really… she guessed correctly?
Qi Yue couldn’t help but be stunned.
In the dream realm, following those ancient doctors, what she learned from them – those pulse-taking and diagnostic methods that seemed so inadequate in their eyes – could actually… really be… useful…
“What a pity,” she said after a moment of silence.
Peng Jiahai nodded.
“Actually, we were just half a day short. If an MRI had been done at the time, he could have been hospitalized immediately, and it wouldn’t have come to a failed resuscitation,” he said.
“I don’t think it was my fault…” Qi Yue said, swirling the beer in her hand.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Peng Jiahai quickly said. “I wanted to know, did you really see this through that… what’s it called, pulse diagnosis?”
Qi Yue didn’t speak.
“I asked the doctors in the Traditional Chinese Medicine department,” Peng Jiahai continued. “They said it was possible, but generally, TCM doctors wouldn’t dare claim they could reach this level.”
Generally, TCM doctors…
Qi Yue was dazed.
Those people…
Weren’t ordinary TCM doctors…
Those people, were they predecessors…
Before her eyes appeared the faces and voices of those people, laughing, talking, respectfully bowing, bustling about, sitting in wheelchairs, seriously and attentively treating patients, gathering together to deliberate over prescriptions, white-haired and aged, young and spirited…
Those people…
“Dr. Qi?”
“Qi… Yueniang?”
Qi Yue came back to her senses to see Peng Jiahai looking at her with concern, his hand gently patting her shoulder.
“Oh, I zoned out,” she quickly said apologetically, rubbing her eyes to dispel the stinging sensation.
Peng Jiahai withdrew his hand, gesturing for her to sit down.
Qi Yue didn’t stand on ceremony and sat nearby, turning the beer in her hand.
“Not really, I just understand a little,” she said, smiling. “I’ve seen this patient’s condition before, in books maybe, I can’t remember clearly. I wasn’t certain either. I didn’t expect to actually guess correctly.”
At this point, she smiled bitterly.
“Of course, I’d rather have guessed wrong,” she said.
Peng Jiahai nodded.
“Emotionally, yes, but rationally, this really is a good thing,” he said, holding his wine glass with both hands. “It sounds quite miraculous.”
Qi Yue smiled.
“There’s nothing miraculous about it. There are no miracles in this world,” she said. “Miracles come from hard work.”
Peng Jiahai smiled and nodded.
Qi Yue lowered her head and opened another can of beer with a pop.
When Qi Yue walked into the office the next day, she was greeted by a large group of visitors.
“Come, come, Dr. Qi, take my pulse.”
“Come, come, take a look at me…”
Young ones or peers, from the same department or different departments, acquaintances or half-acquaintances – quite a few people came.
The matter of yesterday’s ophthalmology patient had obviously spread.
Qi Yue was torn between laughter and tears.
“Alright, alright,” she said, sitting down and assuming the position. “Come on.”
A colleague quickly sat down.
“Good, our cardiothoracic surgery department is going to steal the Traditional Chinese Medicine department’s rice bowl starting today,” he said, waving to the people behind him. “Come, take a photo, capture this historic moment.”
The room erupted in even louder laughter.
“Dr. Wang,” Qi Yue suddenly said, looking at this doctor. “Your liver pain should be properly examined, right?”
Dr. Wang’s laughter stopped.
“How did you know my liver hurts?” he asked. “Did my wife call you?”
Indeed, his liver had hurt for half the night yesterday. He only fell asleep after taking painkillers, and today he was thinking about getting some tests done.
He’d never had this problem before – it was sudden. Besides the two of them, no one else knew.
“You really diagnosed it through pulse-taking?” the onlookers asked in surprise.
“That’s not right, you haven’t taken his pulse yet!”
Everyone said.
Observation, listening, inquiry, palpation – observation is the primary requirement…
Miss Qi, come and look…
Disease originates internally but must manifest externally…
Don’t be hasty, look slowly…
Qi Yue looked at the surprised doctor in front of her, but before her eyes appeared a kindly old man.
In the dream realm, much of the time she was busy treating patients and teaching in her own way, but following these people from south to north, from north to east, she had unconsciously learned some things. But what she had learned, in front of those people, was like the level of a novice apprentice…
Could it be that it wasn’t a dream?
If it wasn’t a dream, then what was it?
She raised her hand.
“Next, next,” she said.
A lively scene appeared in the cardiothoracic outpatient clinic, so much so that those who had gotten numbers to consult were startled.
“That’s not right, I have the first number, why are there so many people queuing ahead of me?”
Soon the director found out and came over with a dark expression.
“…Yes, yes, yes, it’s the lungs, I really had problems as a child!” a young female doctor shouted excitedly, still holding her phone. “My mom said so, my mom had almost forgotten! Sister Qi, how did you know?”
“Know what?” the director shouted.
Only then did the people in the room see that the leader had arrived and quickly quieted down.
But the female doctor didn’t quiet down.
“Know that I choked on water in the bathtub as a child!” she shouted.
The director’s face grew even darker.
“So what? Does that mean you can skip work today and take sick leave?” he asked.
Only then did the female doctor see that the director had arrived, quickly sticking out her tongue and standing up.
Qi Yue also stood up.
“Director, Sister Qi’s pulse diagnosis is like divine,” the female doctor couldn’t help but say.
“Then can she diagnose whether your bonus this month will be more or less?” the director asked.
The female doctor quickly smiled, stuck out her tongue, and ran out.
The people in the room also dispersed in a hubbub.
“I say, Little Qi…” the director looked at Qi Yue with a stern face, just about to lecture her.
Qi Yue also lifted her foot to go outside.
“Director, I’m feeling a bit unwell, I’m going to find someone to take a look,” she said. Without waiting for the director’s response, she ran out.
The director called out twice, but Qi Yue had already run far away.
How outrageous!
These young people are becoming increasingly undisciplined and harder to manage!
Qi Yue ignored the director’s frustration. She ran to the elevator, but it was peak visiting hours and there was no way to get on. She simply turned and entered the stairwell, clattering up the stairs.
Not a dream! Not a dream! She really experienced it! Otherwise how could she have learned these things!
How is this possible!
How is this possible!
Who could give her an explanation! Give her a scientific, rational explanation!
In the dream, that man’s night after night of tearful calling – wasn’t it a dream? Wasn’t it a dream?!
Yueniang…
Come back…
Yueniang…
Come back…