Binhai University Affiliated Hospital is the most renowned and comprehensive hospital in Binhai City. It receives the most critical patients transferred from other areas and those who specifically co seeking treatnt.
Lin Jie impersonated a relative visiting a patient and sneaked into the inpatient building of this hospital, making his way to the intensive care unit.
He was looking for patients in the terminal stages of liver cancer and uterine cancer!
For such patients, the cancer cells have already spread throughout the body, leaving no hope for treatnt—only consuming resources while waiting to die. Lin Jie just needed to draw a few milliliters of blood from them.
Lin Jie changed into a white coat in the restroom, carrying a stethoscope in his hand, masquerading as an intern doctor, and wandered around the wards searching for targets.
The managent of the Affiliated Hospital was quite strict, and the bed cards were ticulously filled out. Besides basic patient information, there was a brief diagnosis, which saved Lin Jie a lot of effort.
He road through over a dozen wards and found four patients with uterine cancer!
After his initial inquiry and own diagnosis in a three-person general ward, he identified a thirty-one-year-old woman nad Pan ichen as a terminal uterine cancer patient.
Clad in a hospital gown, she lay lifeless on the bed, her hair completely gone due to chemotherapy, with no family by her side.
She was severely emaciated, her face pale and haggard to the extre, but judging by her facial features, she must have been a beauty when healthy!
When Lin Jie requested to draw so blood for an experint, Pan ichen did not refuse and cooperatively, though weakly, extended her needle-poked, skinny arm.
Lin Jie took out a prepared empty syringe and skillfully drew about ten milliliters of venous blood.
"I wouldn't have guessed, you're so young, yet your technique is exceptionally skilled!"
Pan ichen managed a slight smile and said, "Now the young nurses are afraid to insert needles on ; it's always the head nurse personally doing it, and even then, it takes three to four attempts each ti. You're really good at it."
"Luck! Pure luck! Thank you for your cooperation!" Lin Jie replied perfunctorily, ready to leave, as he still needed to find a liver cancer patient.
Pan ichen suddenly spoke, "Can you... can you chat with for a while?"
Seeing her dull eyes and extrely pale face, Lin Jie felt a sense of compassion inexplicably soften his heart. He sat on the corner of her bed and said softly, "My job is quite idle; I can chat with you for an hour!"
A glimr of emotion flashed in Pan ichen's eyes as she gratefully said, "Thank you! I just want to tell you my story. I feel you're very approachable, and I'm afraid if I don't say it now, there might not be another chance."
"Go ahead, I'm listening," Lin Jie responded quietly.
Pan ichen gazed emptily at the ceiling, recalling as she spoke, "My story is very cliché, extrely cliché! I co from a small county in Chuansi Province, with a father and mother, and a younger sister and brother."
"After graduating from vocational school, I returned to the county to work!"
"Unexpectedly, my brother suddenly fell seriously ill, urgently needing a large sum of money. With no other choice, I agreed to beco a boss's mistress to gather the money."
She spoke lightly, without a trace of emotional fluctuation, as if narrating soone else's story.
"My brother's illness finally got better, but my affair with that boss was exposed. His wife beat up severely, and my own parents expelled from ho, saying they no longer had a daughter."
"I ca to Binhai, sowhat resigned, and engaged in work you can surely imagine. A few years ago during the Spring Festival, I returned once. They accepted the money and gifts but didn't even let in!"
"That ti, I truly realized I no longer had a ho, nor family."
Pan ichen turned her gaze to Lin Jie and said indifferently, "Back in Binhai, I beca even more indulgent."
"Two years ago, I was diagnosed with uterine cancer. When I heard the diagnosis, I didn't feel scared but rather a sense of relief, a feeling of liberation. My heart said, finally, the mont has co."
"Do you find this feeling strange?"
Lin Jie gently shook his head and said, "I don't find it strange. People like you with self-destructive and world-weary tendencies are not uncommon. To exaggerate a bit, every one of us has so self-destructive tendencies, but the vast majority manage to control it rationally."
"True, you're a doctor, so you must have seen all kinds of strange patients!"
Pan ichen smiled self-deprecatingly and continued, "After being diagnosed, I took out all my savings and traveled. When the money was gone, I ca here, volunteered as a test subject, and even donated my body. Now I'm just waiting to die."
"That's my story, quite boring, isn't it?"
Lin Jie gently shook his head and said, "No matter how one lives, it's their life. As long as you don't find it boring, you probably don't care about others' opinions or judgnts either."
"I do care, I care a lot..."
Tears welled up in Pan ichen's eyes as she choked out, "If I didn't care, why would I have self-destructively indulged in a fit of anger? But with things as they are, I can't go back."
Lin Jie, montarily indifferent, stood up. After her emotions cald a bit, he pondered and said, "Do you have any unfulfilled wishes? Do you want to contact your family?"
Pan ichen shook her head, "Unfulfilled wishes? Before entering the hospital, I already fulfilled them. I wrote a will. When I die, the hospital will send soone to deliver it to my family."
"The experints they're conducting on are done. Now, I just want to leave this world sooner."
"You don't know, the anesthetics are increasingly ineffective. This daily tornt is so unbearable and painful. But none of the doctors or nurses is willing to help ."
"I wonder if you..."
Pan ichen only finished half her sentence, but Lin Jie understood what she ant—assisted death, which is still not allowed dostically.
Seeing Pan ichen placed in this ordinary three-person ward, Lin Jie knew she wasn't lying.
If the dical experint on her wasn't completed, at least, she would've been arranged into a single-occupancy room to avoid external interference with the experint data.
Lin Jie knew what kind of pain a terminal cancer patient endures.
He took off the stethoscope, pretended to give Pan ichen a check-up, and when his fingers pressed on her carotid sinus, he whispered, "If a person lies on their side with sothing hard like a knuckle pressing here, cardiac arrest could occur within minutes!"
Pan ichen understood Lin Jie's words, nodded slowly, and softly said, "Thank you! Thank you..."
Leaving the ward, Lin Jie didn't know if what he did was right or wrong, feeling a bit inexplicably heavy.
Finding the terminal liver cancer patient took Lin Jie quite so effort, running several floors, and he finally found the patient he was looking for in a single room.
Fortunately, this patient was inserted with tubes all over and was in a coma, with no one accompanying them. Lin Jie swiftly drew so blood and left the room.
It seed Lin Jie's luck had run out!
Just as he completed his task and exited the room, he bumped into a group of doctors, and leading them was a familiar face.
Lin Jie quickly turned around, walked briskly in the other direction, silently praying, "Didn't see ! Didn't see !"
But contrary to his wishes, a loud voice imdiately shouted, "You, the guy walking briskly, stop right there!"
"Keep walking, and I'll recognize you. Don't make call security!"
Under these circumstances, Lin Jie had to stop and turn around, with a cheeky grin, "Professor Chen, what a coincidence, I didn't expect to bump into you here!"
Professor Chen Shi waved to stop the people behind him, slowly approached Lin Jie, and said in a deep voice, "Indeed, it's quite the coincidence. It's my first ti seeing you in a white coat with a stethoscope!"
Reviews
All reviews (0)