Chapter 99: Settling Accounts

Chapter 99: Chapter 99: Settling Accounts

Monday was Yu Zhiming’s day to work in the Outpatient and Emergency Department.

Although only a week had passed, the treatment Yu Zhiming received upon returning to the department had changed drastically.

Although he was still practicing in Consultation Room 15 at the far west end of the hall, a brand-new nameplate now adorned the door.

"Dr. Yu Zhiming, Diagnostic Specialist"!

At 8:40 a.m., Yu Zhiming admired the nameplate for a moment before stepping into the familiar-enough consultation room.

As Yu Zhiming was getting ready, someone knocked and entered.

The young nurse, Wang Li, quickly tried to stop him. "Hey, clinic hours haven’t started yet. Please wait outside and line up according to your number."

"I’m not here to see a doctor..."

Yu Zhiming looked toward the deep voice and saw a soldier in his thirties or forties, his face etched with exhaustion, dressed in a military uniform.

Yu Zhiming noticed a black armband pinned to the man’s shoulder.

"I’m Yu Zhiming. And you are?"

The soldier raised his hand in a military salute to Yu Zhiming, his expression mournful. "My dad passed away at 2:15 this morning."

Hearing this, Yu Zhiming realized he was the son of the patient who had undergone the extracorporeal cerebrovascular bypass surgery.

To be honest, Yu Zhiming was somewhat surprised the patient had held on for so long.

"My condolences," Yu Zhiming offered awkwardly.

"Thank you!"

The soldier’s voice was tinged with self-reproach. "In my sixteen years as a soldier, I’d never spoken so much with my father face-to-face as I did these past two days."

"But now... I’ll never have that chance again."

"Dr. Yu, thank you. You let my father pass on without regrets, and you gave me the chance to really talk with him."

As he spoke, the soldier’s eyes filled with tears.

He quickly placed the gift he had brought on the table: two tin boxes of coffee beans, both covered in foreign lettering.

"I was on a peacekeeping mission in Africa. The local coffee beans are pretty well-known."

"It’s just a small token of my appreciation. Please accept it."

With that, before Yu Zhiming could respond, the soldier turned and strode out of the consultation room...

Yu Zhiming’s first patient was a thirty-two-year-old man named Zhou Jing, whose chief complaint was bleeding gums.

"For the past month or so, my gums have been bleeding on and off. Sometimes it’s a significant amount."

"I’ve tried different toothpastes and started eating more fruits and vegetables, but the bleeding won’t stop."

"Sometimes, when I wake up in the morning, I can even spit out little blood clots."

Zhou Jing asked with a worried look, "I heard that frequent, unexplained bleeding from the gums can be a sign of leukemia or other cancers."

"Dr. Yu, what do you think about my situation...?"

Yu Zhiming cut in, "Besides the intermittent gum bleeding, have you experienced any other discomfort?"

Zhou Jing shook his head. "No aches or pains, no fever or cold. My appetite is good, and I haven’t lost any weight."

"There’s also no swelling or blood blisters in my mouth or on my tongue."

Hearing this, Yu Zhiming thought, ’This guy has definitely self-diagnosed more than once based on what he’s read online.’

He picked up a tongue depressor and said, "Let me take a look..."

As he spoke, Yu Zhiming suddenly changed his mind.

He was reminded of the Qin Family’s second son. ’Perhaps the blood in this man’s mouth is also coming from somewhere else...’

’Like his nasal cavity, for instance?’

Yu Zhiming put down the tongue depressor and gently placed his hand on the tip of Zhou Jing’s nose.

"Breathe slowly and gently..."

Yu Zhiming tried to quiet his mind, focusing on the sound of the man’s breathing and the disturbance in the airflow.

’The Outpatient and Emergency Department is just too noisy,’ he thought. ’It’s nowhere near as quiet as the examination rooms at the Center.’

’Should I move my outpatient clinic over to the Center?’

Yu Zhiming pushed aside his distracting thoughts, clearing his mind to focus solely on the subtle breathing...

A moment later, his hearing extended like the tentacles of an octopus, following the air Zhou Jing inhaled and probing deep inside...

It didn’t take long for Yu Zhiming to find something.

Behind Zhou Jing’s nasal cavity, closer to his throat, was a small, uneven protrusion...

Zhou Jing watched as Yu Zhiming casually sketched a simple diagram on a sheet of A4 paper, his heart leaping into his throat.

"Dr. Yu, I don’t have nasopharyngeal cancer, do I?"

Yu Zhiming reassured him, "I think things are okay. It’s not that serious; it doesn’t seem like cancer."

"But you’ll need to go to the ENT department for further tests to be sure."

Zhou Jing let out a breath. "Oh," he said, comforting himself. "If you say it’s okay, Dr. Yu, then it’s definitely not cancer."

"Definitely not cancer..."

After Zhou Jing left, the second patient to enter came as a surprise to Yu Zhiming.

It was Ding Ye, the beautiful attending physician from the Obstetrics and Gynecology department.

"Dr. Ding, what are you doing here, causing trouble?"

Ding Ye waved the registration card in her hand. "I’m certainly not here to cause trouble. I paid the one-hundred-and-twenty-yuan specialist registration fee specifically to have you give me a physical."

Yu Zhiming paused for a second, then looked at the young nurse, Wang Li.

"My registration fee is one hundred and twenty yuan?"

Wang Li nodded. "That’s the fee the hospital set for you. It’s the lowest tier for a specialist."

Yu Zhiming said, "Oh," and turned to Ding Ye.

"We’re colleagues in the same hospital. You could have just come to the Center to find me. Why waste money like this?"

Ding Ye snorted. "Easy for you to say. If I had actually gone looking for you, who knows what excuse you’d have come up with to refuse?"

"It’s more reliable to just pay for it myself."

As she spoke, Ding Ye lay down on the examination bed and complained, "You have to be over forty to qualify for the hospital’s free physical benefit."

"People like me have to pay for it ourselves."

"Come on, Dr. Yu, hurry up and examine me. Especially the gynecological stuff..."

In the seventh-floor conference room of the Huashan Hospital’s main administrative building, the weekly dean’s meeting was underway.

Dean Li Yao saw that Vice Dean Yuan Qi—who had been on medical leave for a month with paragonimiasis—the other two vice deans, the Secretary of the Disciplinary Committee, and several department heads were all present, so he declared the meeting started.

"First, let’s discuss the matter of Dr. Yu Zhiming."

Li Yao began with a sigh of emotion. "Over the past three or four days, we’ve witnessed quite a spectacular drama unfold. Fortunately, the dust has now settled without causing any substantial harm to our hospital."

"However, there are still some matters that need to be dealt with."

After a brief pause, Li Yao continued, "Those people who hung banners at the Qi Yue Medical Research Center last Friday morning—what are your thoughts on how we should handle them?"

Seeing that no one else was speaking, Yuan Qi spoke up first. "They’re just a group of passionate young people who can’t stand injustice. It was merely a moment of rashness; their intentions were fundamentally good."

"In my opinion, a light punishment to serve as a warning should be sufficient."

When no one else spoke, Li Yao said slowly, "These people didn’t try to calm the situation or public opinion. Instead, they fanned the flames. That goes beyond mere impulsiveness."

"It’s thoughtless, showing a complete lack of regard for the bigger picture. They must be punished severely."

"Of course, we still need to cure the disease to save the patient."

"My personal recommendation for their punishment is this: the interns are to be sent back where they came from."

"As for the residents and staff physicians, they will receive a major demerit on their record."

"And as for the ringleader, Cai Haowen, he will be advised to resign."

Yuan Qi quickly interjected, "Dean Li, isn’t this punishment a little too severe?"

"From what I understand, Dr. Cai Haowen is a very capable attending physician..."

Li Yao cut him off. "No matter how capable he is, is he even half as capable as Dr. Yu Zhiming?"

"I’m well aware this isn’t the first time Cai Haowen has stirred up trouble just to target Dr. Yu."

Li Yao then declared, "It’s foreseeable that in less than ten years, maybe even sooner, Dr. Yu will become a signature, flagship physician for our Huashan Hospital."

"Given that, is there any reason to keep that fellow around just to annoy Dr. Yu and make him uncomfortable?"

Yuan Qi opened his mouth, but he ultimately swallowed the words he was about to say on Cai Haowen’s behalf.

He knew full well that Yu Zhiming’s very existence was a resounding slap in his face.

Yuan Qi had originally thought the molestation accusation was the perfect opportunity to drive Yu Zhiming away.

If the incident had just dragged on for another day or two, regardless of whether the kid was framed or not, Yuan Qi could have leveraged the immense public pressure to launch a major attack at this very meeting.

Under the pretext of protecting the hospital’s reputation, he would have had him fired and then held him liable under his talent recruitment contract.

Yuan Qi had been absolutely confident he could pull it off!

But, to his utter astonishment, the whole affair had developed far too quickly and intensely.

And its conclusion was just as sudden.

Moreover, not only had the molestation accusation failed to do him any serious harm, it had actually enhanced his reputation.

All of Yuan Qi’s eager anticipation had come to nothing.

Dean Li’s voice pulled Yuan Qi from his thoughts.

"Yaoming Pharmaceutical could have easily made this incident disappear, but instead, in a complete break from their usual behavior, they allowed it to become a media firestorm."

"We must respond in kind."

"I propose that for all drugs and medical supplies we currently procure from Yaoming Pharmaceutical that have a viable substitute, we switch our contracts to the alternative manufacturers."

Yuan Qi was startled.

’This is basically a move to completely drive Yaoming Pharmaceutical out of Huashan Hospital.’

Yuan Qi quickly advised, "Dean Li, is it really necessary to be so ruthless? So absolute?"

"It was just the impulsiveness and poor judgment of a few young people. We shouldn’t take it out on the entire company."

Li Yao snorted coldly.

"Vice Dean Yuan, you’re a veteran in this world. Surely you’re not blind to the shady dealings and implications here?"

"Dr. Yu’s skills, his potential... I refuse to believe Yaoming Pharmaceutical hadn’t heard a single rumor."

"We all know perfectly well what it means to be a beautiful female pharmaceutical rep in this industry for several years."

"Normally, if Dr. Yu had really developed a relationship with those two women that went beyond friendship, Yaoming Pharmaceutical would have been thrilled, wouldn’t they?"

"Even if there had been a genuine falling-out, some conflict or unpleasantness, they would have covered for each other and talked it over. They’d turn a big problem into a small one, and a small one into nothing, and it would all just blow over."

"Isn’t that how these things have always been handled, with a tacit understanding?"

Li Yao’s tone turned serious. "But the way Dr. Yu’s case was handled was, astonishingly, the complete opposite."

"Doesn’t that give us cause for deep thought and alarm?"

"If we don’t respond with a firm hand now, what happens the next time someone decides to blow an issue out of proportion without a second thought? How will we protect the hospital’s reputation then?"

Seeing that everyone was lost in thought, Li Yao acted as if he had just remembered something and turned to say, "Vice Dean Yuan, I forgot to mention something to you."

"The investigative team from the Ministry of Health said that after this meeting, they’d like you to join them for tea to discuss some things."

Li Yao put special emphasis on the words "for tea."

Yuan Qi’s face instantly turned ashen.

He, of course, understood the special meaning of being invited "for tea."

’This tea would be a bitter one!’

Not wanting to see the looks of pity from the others, Yuan Qi unsteadily got to his feet.

"Dean Li, it wouldn’t do to keep the investigation team waiting. I’ll excuse myself from the rest of this meeting."

Li Yao nodded and loudly called Secretary He into the room.

Accompanied by He Yingjun, Yuan Qi stumbled out of the conference room...