This was exactly the visiting hours for the inpatient department, and there were still many people walking back and forth in the corridor. Tang Yuan looked around curiously, and in that moment of inattention, he failed to keep watch over the little white snake in his right sleeve. It seized the opportunity and slipped out, sliding swiftly across the smooth ceramic tile floor before silently slipping through a door crack into one of the hospital rooms.
Tang Yuan’s heart sank, thinking this was terrible. Without caring whether it was impolite, he didn’t even knock on the door but pushed open that hospital room and slipped inside.
The doctor had just finished eating. The department had held a meeting that afternoon specifically to study several backup plans for Cheng Xiao’s surgery tomorrow. After all, some conditions couldn’t be detected through instruments and could only be determined after opening the chest on the operating table. The doctor was troubled by his vague memories. After the meeting, he had specifically gone to the laboratory to practice surgical suturing techniques using models. Though he had initially doubted himself, his body seemed to have its own consciousness after his brain issued commands, completing everything with extreme perfection. Some advanced techniques that he had only seen in precious surgical videos, he could perform cleanly and flawlessly.
It was just like a dream.
The doctor was still somewhat confused, but he also knew that if nothing unexpected happened, he could indeed complete tomorrow’s surgery. So his heart was at ease. When a nurse came to relay that Cheng Xiao wanted to see him, he gladly came for rounds.
Only… he seemed to have just seen a familiar small figure. That little rascal wouldn’t have run to the hospital, would he?
The doctor frowned, pulled out his phone from his white coat, and started calling home. Sure enough, no one answered for a long time.
His footsteps stopped in front of the room where he had just seen that figure. The doctor discovered this happened to be Cheng Xiao’s room. He immediately suppressed the anger in his chest, took a deep breath, and raised his hand to knock on the door. After receiving permission from inside, he pushed the door open and entered.
In the single VIP room, only the LED lamp in front of the hospital bed emitted a dim yellow light. The doctor simply scanned the room and found only Cheng Xiao inside. Had he been seeing things just now?
Cheng Xiao was looking down, playing with the little silver fish that Chun Ge had returned to him. The dim yellow light cast a cold shadow on his face, making observers feel heartbroken.
The doctor knew the other party must be worried about tomorrow’s surgery, so he skillfully softened his voice and said in an extremely reliable tone: “Tomorrow our chief will be the lead surgeon. Don’t worry about anything.” He then used some professional terminology to explain several preparations for tomorrow’s surgery.
Upon hearing this, Cheng Xiao smiled but didn’t raise his head, only saying lightly: “Sometimes I don’t know why I struggle so hard to stay alive.”
The doctor immediately felt this was somewhat troublesome. Generally speaking, this kind of comforting words would be more effective coming from the patient’s family members. But Cheng Xiao’s family members were no longer in this world, leaving only Cheng Xiao to face the disease that would never disappear. When the doctor thought of Cheng Xiao’s thick medical history, he felt solemn respect. Although he had never suffered from any serious illness, working in a hospital, he knew what it meant to live a life worse than death.
He also knew that anything he said now would be pale, and that Cheng Xiao had called him over simply to seek companionship from others on this lonely night. The doctor simply pulled the chair in front of the hospital bed and sat down. Under Cheng Xiao’s surprised gaze, he wiped his hands with medical disinfectant wipes and picked up one of the apples from the bedside table, beginning to peel it on his own.
“This apple was sent with the hospital meal, right? Tsk, big and red. The VIP room really has better things than our doctors’ cafeteria.” The doctor began chatting in a friend’s tone. While diverting Cheng Xiao’s attention, he suddenly remembered he could ask a question: “By the way, we met over a year ago, right? Did you have an impression of me then?”
Cheng Xiao indeed tilted his head, falling into memories, and said seriously: “Yes, you weren’t wearing glasses then, and your bangs were combed back, so I didn’t recognize you immediately today. But did something good happen to you? You weren’t like this personality-wise before.”
“Oh?” The doctor’s hand trembled, and the thin apple peel he had been peeling broke. He continued asking nonchalantly: “What impression did I give people then?”
“Although you were always smiling, you gave people a kind of cold indifference that kept others at a distance, like you were a very important person.” Cheng Xiao said jokingly with a smile.
“Was I that annoying before? No wonder the chief told me to change my personality and get closer to people, haha.” The doctor explained dryly, once again confirming that something must have gone wrong during that period. But what he could ask from Cheng Xiao was already the limit. If there was a chance, he still needed to probe Chun Ge for information.
The room returned to silence. After the doctor finished peeling one apple, he evenly divided it into four pieces and placed them on the fruit plate, then picked up another and began peeling it. When he was in medical school, he had often used apple peeling to train the stability of both hands. He could even peel an apple in just half a minute, with the peel thin and even, never breaking in the middle. Moreover, this was a good action for calming his mind. When the doctor came back to his senses from his focused state, he discovered he had peeled all six apples from the bedside table.
“Haha, sorry, I get addicted when I start peeling apples.” The doctor smiled embarrassedly. “What should I do? I seem to have peeled too many.”
“It’s okay, these are all leftovers from today’s three meals. I don’t like eating apples, so you can have them all.” Cheng Xiao was very generous.
Even with the biggest appetite, he couldn’t eat six apples! Moreover, apples would oxidize quickly after being peeled. The doctor first apologized, then carried the fruit plate out for a walk around the floor, trading the apples with the little nurses at the nurses’ station for some snacks.
Cheng Xiao looked at the potato chips handed to him and said with a mixture of laughter and tears: “Can my body handle eating this junk food?”
The doctor looked at him with the gaze one gives an idiot: “You’re not sick in the stomach, and besides, you need to fast for eight hours before surgery. The operation is at ten tomorrow morning. It’s fine, you can still eat now. Oh my, you’ve never even eaten potato chips? Too pitiful. Eating two pieces won’t hurt.”
Cheng Xiao looked at the potato chips in front of him that gave off a tempting aroma. He couldn’t help but reach out to take them, but in his carelessness, the little silver fish he had been holding dropped to the floor due to this movement. The doctor bent down to pick it up, but because the lighting in the room was dim, he couldn’t immediately see where the little silver fish had fallen. Looking carefully, the doctor discovered some light flickering under the hospital bed.
Just as he was about to reach for it, he suddenly heard Cheng Xiao exclaim: “Don’t pick it up!”
At the same time, a clear child’s voice also rang out in the darkness: “Uncle, you’d better not touch that silver fish talisman.”
The doctor was stunned. Not bothering to pick up the little silver fish, he straightened up and looked with anger at the little boy walking out of the washroom that came with the hospital room. That Tang Yuan kid was indeed here.
“You’d better explain this to me.”
Tang Yuan shrank back upon contact with the doctor’s fiery gaze behind his glasses, but then puffed out his small chest and said righteously: “Uncle, do you know what this silver fish talisman is used for?”
The doctor’s mouth twitched. He wanted Tang Yuan to explain why he was here—he didn’t care about any silver fish talisman at all! But from the corner of his eye, he noticed that Cheng Xiao’s face no longer held its previous calm but was filled with anxiety and unease. Remembering that Cheng Xiao had also warned him not to pick it up, his curiosity was greatly aroused, and he pressed: “Of course I don’t know, but you do?”
“Of course I know!” Tang Yuan pointed at his forehead, proudly hinting to the doctor about his photographic memory. What a joke—he had been dragged by his master since childhood to look at catalogs of lost treasures, so of course he knew everything. “Fish talismans are generally about finger-length, divided into left and right halves. They have mortise and tenon joints in the middle that can fit together. The left talisman stays in the inner court, while the right talisman is carried by the holder as proof of an official’s identity. Although it’s said to be the invention of Tang Gaozu Li Yuan, fish talismans are just different in shape from the tiger talismans of the Warring States period, representing different powers. Tiger talismans could mobilize armies, while fish talismans could only prove identity. They’ve existed since ancient times.”
“This silver fish talisman is an antique?” The doctor frowned, feeling that this scene of being educated about historical knowledge was very familiar. In his memory, it seemed someone else would patiently explain things to him like this, but when he tried to see that person’s appearance clearly, he couldn’t do so no matter what, and he couldn’t even remember what their voice sounded like.
“It is indeed an antique, and not an ordinary one.” Tang Yuan stared at Cheng Xiao on the hospital bed. “I wasn’t sure before, but seeing your attitude, this silver fish talisman is probably from the ancient underworld bureaucracy that fell into the mortal world. When underworld officials walk the mortal realm, the yang energy they need is mostly absorbed from others. You somehow obtained this silver fish talisman but aren’t actually an underworld official. I’m afraid you’ve been using the silver fish talisman to steal others’ yang longevity and transfer it to yourself. Without this silver fish talisman, you should have died long ago.”
“Nonsense.” The doctor was quite angry upon hearing this. Being medically trained, he naturally didn’t believe in supernatural things. “Are you saying our surgeries weren’t done well?”
“Not at all. No matter how well surgery is performed, the human body must have the ability to endure it. Uncle, you know in your heart that him surviving so many surgeries is already a miracle.” Tang Yuan shrugged. He had just listened to those surgical procedures in the washroom and felt something was wrong with this Cheng Xiao. During boring times, he had also flipped through those medical professional books the doctor kept at home.
Although it was strange that Cheng Xiao’s silver fish talisman was often lost around the hospital and always had someone pick it up and return it to him, that couldn’t be explained by Tang Yuan’s reasoning! The doctor was about to scold Tang Yuan for speaking nonsense when he saw a little white snake winding its way out from under the bed, with an obvious fish-shaped bulge in its belly.
Tang Yuan cried out in distress and pounced over, holding the little white snake upside down and shaking it: “My little ancestor! How could you eat things randomly? This silver fish talisman should be sealed away. How could you swallow it in one bite? Aren’t you afraid of choking!”
“Plop!” Something indeed fell from the little white snake’s mouth, but unfortunately, when it hit the ground, it silently crumbled into powder.
Cheng Xiao silently looked at the pile of silver powder on the ground, soundlessly curved the corners of his lips, and when he raised his head again, his expression was completely blank. “Doctor, I want to rest.”
The doctor was so embarrassed he didn’t know where to put his hands and feet. He naturally didn’t believe Tang Yuan’s nonsense about underworld officials and yang longevity. Although he found the little silver fish’s shattering suspicious, he knew Tang Yuan had done something wrong this time. He quickly apologized and left the room carrying Tang Yuan and the little white snake.
The room returned to deathly silence. Cheng Xiao clenched both fists tightly. After an unknown amount of time, he finally opened his right hand again.
In his palm were crushed potato chip crumbs.
He looked for a long time, finally lowered his head, and licked a little bit.
It really was delicious…
Chun Ge pushed open the break room and happened to see the doctor reading medical books, while in the corner, a boy around ten years old was facing the wall with his head down in reflection.
“Oh my, how pitiful. You’re really heartless.” Chun Ge joked. The fact that the doctor had temporarily adopted a little boy was known to familiar colleagues. Some understood, others didn’t, but Chun Ge felt that was the doctor’s own life after all—as long as he felt it was OK.
“Hmph, he deserved the lesson.” The doctor felt that his earlier wavering due to Tang Yuan’s confident ghost stories was utterly ridiculous. Chun Ge had handled that silver fish talisman before—had his yang longevity already been stolen? The doctor originally wanted to ask this out loud, but seeing Chun Ge’s tired expression, he immediately changed his mind. Having such thoughts was really too ridiculous. If he said it out loud, he would definitely be mercilessly mocked by Chun Ge. He must apologize to Cheng Xiao on Tang Yuan’s behalf tomorrow morning.
“Still looking at Cheng Xiao’s medical records? Get some rest early. You’ll have to stand for a long time tomorrow.” Chun Ge yawned, rubbing his wrists to massage his hand muscles.
The doctor closed Cheng Xiao’s thick medical record. He had looked through it several more times after returning. Although Cheng Xiao’s heart was riddled with holes, surviving was indeed a miracle, but weren’t medical miracles common? The doctor stood up, planning to take Tang Yuan to wash up, but only then discovered that this little rascal wasn’t bowing his head in repentance at all—he was using his forehead against the wall and sleeping soundly!
Just as the doctor was about to raise his hand to knock Tang Yuan’s head, both his and Chun Ge’s pagers simultaneously rang with piercing sounds. Both looked down, and upon seeing the text clearly, they rushed out the door in unison.
Tang Yuan, awakened by the noise, rubbed his eyes with his small hands. After figuring out what had happened, he couldn’t help but sneer: “Stolen life—how long can it last anyway? Fortunately, this silver fish talisman didn’t have much spiritual power. It could only steal yang longevity through others’ touch on the holder’s last day of life, and the same person could only be stolen from once, with the stolen days being random. Look, fortunately Uncle wasn’t fooled just now. It seems Uncle won’t need to prepare for surgery tomorrow either. He can go home with me in a bit, right?”
The little white snake around his neck flicked out its bright red forked tongue. Tang Yuan immediately deflated, saying meekly: “Little ancestor, seeing you like this, eating spiritual energy from antiques is also possible? But let’s make a deal, okay? Can you not eat the spiritual energy from my second senior brother’s good antiques? Evil spiritual energy like from silver fish talismans—eat all you want!”
The little white snake tilted its head thoughtfully, and finally nodded somewhat reluctantly.
“Sigh, but evil antiques aren’t easy to find either! In the past, when I was with Master, I saw him seal away many powerful evil antiques, but unfortunately they’re all sealed in storage… There probably aren’t many in the current world… Ah! My little ancestor! I’ll think of a way! My spiritual energy is insufficient! My health bar is empty! Don’t bite my face! It hurts!”