Chapter 47: That bastard
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Zhang Fan was really annoyed as he played Double Rise together with Kang Hua, Wang Qian, and Li Xiao. The three won constantly talked about beauty products and other similar topics, which really bored him.
Tang Jingjing and Li Xiao’s assistant drank tea together outside the tea house’s private room while Zhang Fan accompanied the three won inside for cards. Zhang Fan and Kang Hua were a team for this 2v2 card ga. Even though they could have clearly won with their cards, they ended up losing. Zhang Fan imdiately could tell that Kang Hua was intentionally losing on purpose, which made him even more bored with the card ga. Li Xiao and Wang Qian often played together as teammates in the Double Rise card ga. anwhile, Kang Hua was an expert card player with an especially powerful mory that allowed her to rember every single card that a player had or played. Zhang Fan was also pretty good at card gas in general. Although Kang Hua was going easy on the other two won on purpose, she made it so that the card ga appeared to be quite close.
Since this was Kang Hua and Li Xiao’s first ti eting each other, Wang Qian had intended for this to first be an introduction without any detailed discussions. They played cards for a little more than three hours. If it weren’t for the fact that Li Xiao’s back hadn’t recovered fully yet, it was likely that this card ga would have lasted far longer. Before Kang Hua left, Li Xiao handed her a na card, and so Kang Hua was all smiles as she went together with Wang Qian for beauty treatnts.
Old Huang Yun was retiring from his position as the superintendent at the end of the year. He was now an old doctor who had worked hard in the dical system for more than 30 years. Thus, everyone in the hospital was discussing who would beco the new superintendent. Vice superintendent Ouyang Hong, who was also the director of internal dicine, had the most support within the hospital. She was a veteran doctor and a local. Her ancestors had co with General Tso’s troops (of General Tso’s Chicken fa) and settled down here in this border province. The other most likely candidate for superintendent was the other vice superintendent, Jiang Xingping—the director of general dicine. He had worked here in Chasu City for many years, and was acquainted with several high-ranking leaders.
The first snow arrived before Huang Yun’s retirent. The Chasu City Communist Party Committee had learned their lesson from the previous year’s major snowfall sealing off all the roads, causing the local smaller cities to lack proper dical care and dicine, and thus ordered all the bigger city hospitals to send so of their elite doctors to help the more rural areas in the winter.
Chasu City Hospital was thus filled with an aura of depression as nobody was willing to go to more rural locations. It was already inconvenient to return ho for the holidays in the middle of winter, and if a major snowfall sealed the roads, it would be common to be trapped in the rural countryside for more than two weeks at a ti. Nobody who had family was willing to go to a rural location. After the etings on this topic, there were extrely few volunteers who signed up to go to rural locations. Huang Yun didn’t worry about this, as he simply assigned this task to the director of each departnt, making the directors worry about it instead.
In orthopedic departnt #1, Xue Fei, Zhou Chengfu, and Cui Pingjun were all unwilling to go. Zhang Fan and Li Hongtu didn’t really mind either way. Going to a rural location would definitely an a temporarily reduced inco, which was why nobody voluntarily wanted to go. Gao Shijun had a private discussion with each person individually, so Li Hongtu finally volunteered to go. Nobody else needed to make any arrangents—Zhang Fan, Li Hongtu, and Wang Yanan would go together as a team. No other volunteers were required from their departnt.
But, with them leaving for the ti being, orthopedic departnt #1 no longer had enough mbers to cover all the shifts. Huang Yun used his superintendent authority for the final ti, officially making all the dical specialist fresh graduate doctors who’d joined the hospital last year official doctors. This ant that Wang Yanan finally beca an official mber of orthopedic departnt #1. Huang Yun also added three additional people to orthopedic departnt #1. However, Zhang Fan didn’t get to et them at this ti, because he had already gone to a smaller rural city.
Gao Shijun had chosen the people for this rural assignnt, but Zhang Fan’s team was allowed to choose where they wanted to go out of the four smaller cities around Chasu City. Li Hongtu didn’t care, so he allowed Zhang Fan and Wang Yanan to decide. Zhang Fan chose to go back to Kuake City since he had been in Chasu City for half a year already without returning to visit there. He missed Kuake City.
He would need to tell Wang Qian that he was going back to Kuake City. He also needed to tell Li Xiao about it since he had already taken her money. Currently, Li Xiao had finished her first rehabilitative treatnt program, but since her back pain was caused by the severe condition of a protruding lumbar vertebrae, she would require three successive rehabilitative treatnt programs in total.
Zhang Fan decided to first call Wang Qian, but it turned out that she was currently together with Li Xiao.
“You’re being reassigned to a rural city? It’s fine, you don’t need to go. I’ll call your superintendent and tell him not to send you,” Li Xiao stated.
Zhang Fan hurriedly stopped her. “Sister Li, I just started working here not long ago, and the list of nas has already been decided. If you talk to the superintendent...” Zhang Fan left the rest unsaid. Actually, Zhang Fan was quite happy to go back to Kuake City because he wasn’t allowed to perform anything but orthopedic surgeries at Chasu City Hospital.
“I see.” Li Xiao understood what Zhang Fan ant. In order to thrive at a workplace, you would have to give face to your boss. Having soone ask for a reassignnt after the assignnt was already decided would make the boss feel like you truly didn’t understand how society worked. Why wouldn’t you ask your connections to help you earlier? Why ask only after the list was already decided and officially approved? Changing the mbers afterward would be a slap in the face to the boss. Li Xiao mulled things over, then asked, “Which city are you going to? How long will you be there for?”
“I’ll be at Kuake City Hospital. I’ll probably be there for about a month.”
“That’s not very far from Chasu City. Let’s do this. I’ll have my personal driver go pick you up every day, and then bring you back after the treatnt. Will that work for you?”
“There’s an easier way. Just loan a car to Zhang Fan. He can drive over at noon and drive back in the afternoon after treating you. Besides, your business is slower in the winter, and there’s not that many patients at the much smaller Kuake City Hospital. Moreover, Kang Hua is also the head of the Bureau of Culture, Education, and Health there.” Wang Qian imdiately offered a different suggestion.
Li Xiao glanced at Wang Qian before speaking to Zhang Fan again. “That works as well, although Doctor Zhang might find it slightly tiring.”
Zhang Fan hurriedly waved his hand. “It’s no trouble at all. I happen to love driving, so I’ll treat it as having fun with my hobby.” Zhang Fan would be quite bored if a driver ca to pick him up and drive him between the two cities every day. He was far happier driving himself.
“Okay, then. What type of car would Doctor Zhang like to drive? I have several different company cars you can use in the garage. Will a rcedes Benz be alright?”
Even though Zhang Fan knew almost nothing about cars, he had heard of rcedes Benz before as this car brand was far too famous. Thus, he instantly shook his head. “That won’t be necessary, an ordinary car will be good enough.”
“An SUV will be fine. It would be bad if others saw Zhang Fan driving a rcedes Benz. The roads are slippery in winter, so driving an SUV would be safer too. What was the na of that car you were driving before?” Wang Qian was quite familiar with Li Xiao, so she didn’t act reserved around her friend.
“That was a Toyota Cruiser Prado which belonged to a dical equipnt rchant in Kuake City,” Zhang Fan hurriedly explained. He didn’t want Li Xiao to think that he already had a car but still wanted to borrow one.
Li Xiao stood up and stretched her back. She then spoke to her secretary, saying, “Do we have any Toyotas in our garage?”
Her secretary ca over, and answered, “We don’t have any Toyotas.”
“What SUVs do we have in the garage?”
“We have a Jeep Grand Cherokee that’s 90% new. Less than 500 kiloters on the odoter. The Qinghua company gave it to us in lieu of money paynt.”
Li Xiao then turned to talk to Zhang Fan. “Doctor Zhang, will a Jeep Grand Cherokee be alright with you?”
“Sure, I’m happy as long as I have a car to drive.”
“Then I’ll be troubling you to co visit from Kuake City.”
On the next day, Chasu City Hospital sent out four teams of doctors to the four neighboring smaller cities to support them. The team going to Kuake City consisted of Zhang Fan’s three-person team from the surgical departnt, two attending physicians from internal dicine, one pulmonologist, and one cardiologist. All of the smaller city hospitals sent cars over to pick the doctors up. Wang Hongi from Kuake City Hospital’s administrative office and the ambulance driver Old Zhou ca to pick up the five doctors.
Zhang Fan was astonished to see that Wang Yanan was bringing two large suitcases. “What are you doing, moving?” Zhang Fan only brought a few changes of clothes and a set of toiletries.
“None of your business. You’re not even going to help out? I can hardly carry them anymore.” Wang Yanan put down her suitcases. She truly wasn’t able to carry them anymore. Zhang Fan had already placed Li Hongtu’s bag in his borrowed Jeep Grand Cherokee. This SUV had more than enough space for Wang Yanan’s two large suitcases to fit in the back.
Wang Yanan saw that Zhang Fan placed her suitcases in the back of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, so she dashed over to Zhang Fan’s side to comnt, “As expected of your skills. Even the car you drive is at higher level. Everyone else has to ride in ambulances to their rural assignnts, but only you have so much face.” After more than half a year of working in surgery, the originally icy Wang Yanan had beco far friendlier and more open.
Wang Hongi was especially polite to Zhang Fan, for Zou Pingshan had especially told her to treat Zhang Fan well. She wasn’t surprised even in the slightest that Zhang Fan was driving his own, better car to Kuake City. Back in Kuake City, everyone knew that Zhang Fan had been driving around a Toyota Cruiser Prado. Since two ambulances had already been brought over to take the doctors to Kuake City, Zhang Fan didn’t want to take anyone else with him so that he could enjoy driving. He decided to explain things to Li Hongtu and simply drive to Kuake City by himself.
When Wang Yanan learned that Zhang Fan had driven off by himself, her mouth opened so wide that an egg could be inserted in it. “That bastard is so selfish. He drove off by himself?”
“He has so personal business to take care of, so we’ll be leaving first, and he’ll arrive afterward.” This was Li Hongtu’s excuse for the two internal dicine doctors so that they wouldn’t think that Zhang Fan was too arrogant.
Personal cars were still relatively few in Chasu City of 2009, but starting from an unknown ti, it seed like everyone started buying personal cars. Traffic jams thus beca far more commonplace!
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