Chapter 10: I'm an Intern

“The Emergency Department seems pretty empty today, huh, Nurse Wang?” The young resident doctor went to the young nurse and offered her a bottle of iced black tea.

“I don’t drink sweet things.” Wang Jia did not take the drink.

The resident doctor slapped his head and said with a smile, “Oh gosh, my memory is bad. It’s already so late, everyone is probably exhausted. We should take over.”

Resident doctors and nurses were colleagues, and unlike medical interns, they at least show each other some form of care. It was not very respectful for her to have him wait for half a day without giving him any opportunities to hone his skills.

Wang Jia’s tone softened a little. “There’s no work to do right now, though.”

“The Emergency Department actually gets to stay idle?” The resident doctor laughed.

The Emergency Department was practically a hospital’s screening department. Emergency Departments of bigger hospitals transferred a large number of patients to other departments every single day, especially when they were in critical condition. More often than not, the Emergency Department would be stabilizing vitals and giving the patients basic treatment before they were hastily sent off to the operating theater.

If there was one thing the Emergency Department lacked, it was free time. This was why the resident doctors came to the Emergency Department for a chance to perform surgery.

Wang Jia hesitated for a moment, but she did not tell him of the situation in the treatment room. She only said, “The condition of the patients today are a bit more special…”

Another resident doctor came over. He spoke while putting his arm on the resident doctor’s shoulder, “We’re not afraid of special ones. We can do anything. Right, Old Wu?”

Old Wu nodded earnestly.

“I’ve seen a ping pong ball stuck up there; I’ve seen a ping pong ball stuck down there; and I’ve seen balls in the front and back. Whatever it is, we’ve taken them all out.”

Wang Jia had been a nurse for a few years and would not be defeated by the dirty jokes of two resident doctors. She kept a straight face. “The benchmark of the Emergency Department here is to take out a golf ball.”

“How can a golf ball be…” The two new young men who had just entered the trade were immediately rendered speechless.

“Alright, Doctor Wu and Doctor Li, come with me.”

Nurses always meant well, even if their words were sometimes harsh. Although Wang Jia had a rather cynical nature, she still gave the resident doctors an opportunity. However, the final say would be up to the attending physicians of the department and the directors.

In the office a few meters away, the medical interns looked outside with eager eyes. They could not even find the chance to get insulted for their work.

Doctor Wu and Doctor Li followed Wang Jia excitedly and walked into the treatment room with quick steps. When they strode past the doorsill, they felt a familiar heat.

Doctors, nurses, patients, and family members of patients walked to and fro in the tiny treatment room. One only had to take a deep breath and the irritation would set in.

However, Doctor Wu and Doctor Li remained unperturbed. Their enthusiasm forced all the negative current away. They treasured every single opportunity to perform treatment, be it to remove ping pong balls, golf balls, or volleyballs. They were duty-bound to treat all of them.

“Doctor Zhou, these patients are waiting to be sutured, right? Do you need our help?”

Doctor Wu first looked for a familiar face before he turned to a few men with full-sleeve tattoos and were sitting on the isolation beds. His eyes sparkled with eagerness. He was a puppy, and these men were crunchy, juicy bones.

Having asked this question over the past couple of months while performing treatment in the Emergency Department, Doctor Wu knew how the minds of these doctors worked. There was a rift between the director and the associate director, and neither of them were willing to mend that rift.

Among the senior attending physicians, Doctor Zhou was the most generous at giving opportunities. Of course, this could also mean that while he had an ugly face, he was a friendly and laid-back person.

Doctor Zhou was leisurely debriding one of the tattooed men’s wounds. He said, “Suturing needs to be carried out, but I have no authority over them.”

“Huh? Has your role been changed?” Resident Doctor Wu looked around curiously.

The Emergency Department had been divided into different areas of authority according to the beds. An attending physician or experienced resident doctor would be responsible for anywhere between a few to dozens of beds. To ensure that the appropriate amount of care is given, patients would be assigned by the beds within said doctors’ jurisdictions.

The associate director and director only handled ailments. The attending physicians and experienced resident doctors were the ones who routinely gave attention to less important matters.

Based on what Resident Doctor Wu and the others could remember, the first few beds belonged to Doctor Zhou.

Doctor Zhou said nonchalantly, “Those people requested for Doctor Ling.”

“Which one is Doctor Ling?”

It was an unfamiliar name, and Doctor Wu could not help but look around.

“Over there.” Doctor Zhou pointed. As a local powerhouse, he was unwilling to advertise for an external force of power.

Resident Doctor Wu looked towards the direction Doctor Zhou pointed and saw Ling Ran sitting in the cubicle.

“Isn’t he an intern?” Resident Doctor Wu was so shocked that his mouth flopped wide open.

Doctor Zhou was momentarily startled. He asked, “You know him?”

“He came here together with the other interns this morning.”

“Then, you’re probably mistaken.” Doctor Zhou could not help but laugh.

You could forge documents, you could talk your way out of things, but medical skills spoke for themselves.

Ling Ran’s skills were so epic that if Doctor Zhou put all the skin that Ling Ran had sutured into one line, he could probably circle around the globe and invade Taiwan again on behalf of the Dutch. How could he be an intern?

Resident Doctor Wu was just as baffled, but he was still mainly concerned with practicing his skills. He brushed over the matter with a chuckle and said, “I see that quite a few patients are waiting. Why don’t we go and help them first?”

Beside him, Doctor Li quickly nodded.

Doctor Zhou chuckled and said, “Before that, you should be asking patients for permission.”

“There are actually patients choosing their doctors in the Emergency Department?” Doctor Wu blinked in surprise.

Doctor Zhou raised his eyebrows at him helplessly and said, “They want to choose. What can you do about it?”

Resident Doctor Wu was rendered speechless. Resident Doctor Li, who came along with him, did not buy this madness for one minute. He went to a kind-looking tattooed man with a unicorn on his arm and asked with a smile, “Does your injury hurt? Come and sit here, I’ll stitch it up for you.”

‘Boys who like unicorns shouldn’t be too violent, right?’

However, the kind-looking tattooed man glanced at Resident Doctor Li disdainfully and said, “I’m waiting for Doctor Ling.”

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“Your wound only requires a simple suture. It’ll be the same no matter who does it.” Doctor Li was being even more attentive towards the unicorn man than to his own girlfriend, since it meant that he would be able to get a chance to perform a suture.

The unicorn guy snorted and said, “Don’t take me for a fledgling. I’ve had to visit Yun Hua’s Emergency Department many times over. ‘It’ll be the same no matter who does it’? Do you see the stag on my arm?”

“This is a stag?” Doctor Li widened his eyes and went into deep contemplation as he gazed at the one-horned stag’s head. ‘So the tattooists nowadays don’t watch National Geography anymore?’

The unicorn guy growled resentfully, “The other horn of this stag became slanted to one side because some idiot doctor sewed it up wrong. I had no choice but to get it modified into a unicorn. What am I going to do if you twist it up again?”

“Have it modified to a horse’s head, then.” The tattooed man beside him laughed out loud. “Hahahaha!”

“It would easily be mistaken for a donkey’s head.”

“Better a donkey than anything, ya know? Donkeys have big c*cks. We won’t want a mule there.”

Clearly, this was a familiar topic among them. The moment it was mentioned, everyone started laughing so hard that they were all clutching their sides.

“Broken-tailed Tiger, Slanted Dragon Legs, and Wooden Arhat, why are all of you so pleased with yourselves?”

The unicorn guy raised his arms. The bloody unicorn even looked cute <3.

Resident Doctor Wu looked over as he held back his laughter. He saw that there indeed was something very wrong with the tail of the tiger tattoo on Broken-tailed Tiger’s arm.

The problem with Slanted Dragon Legs’ tattoo was not as obvious. One had to look clearly to see that the clouds under the dragon’s belly were modified from the claws.

Resident Doctor Wu did not really understand Wooden Arhat’s tattoo, though. Since all doctors loved solving problems, Resident Doctor Wu thought hard about it.

Wooden Arhat became more and more annoyed as Doctor Wu stared at him. He said, “What I tattooed before this was the Eighteen Arhats, you stupid doctor.”

Doctor Wu was stunned for a moment. Fortunately, he managed to reel his laughter in.

“All of you happened to have injuries on your tattoos. It’s unfortunate, but unavoidable.” Doctor Wu hid his smile and tried to explain. “Those wounds of yours were probably quite large, and your muscle tissues were most likely upturned. Nobody can restore that to full condition.”

“Just admit it if you don’t know how to suture. Why talk so much?” The thugs were all too impatient to listen.

Doctor Wu said gravely, “It’s not that I don’t know how to suture; if the wound is messed up and jagged, we can’t do much about it.”

“Then why are those cosmetic surgeons allowed to stitch as they please?”

The unicorn man became even more displeased when he heard that. He was already used to his unicorn tattoo—at least the girls liked it. He really did not want it to become a horse’s head or a donkey’s head.

Doctor Wu was defeated by the other party’s logic. After thinking for a few seconds, he said falteringly, “Well, being cut open by a machete is not like being cut open by a surgical blade. Even cosmetic surgeons can’t hide those scars.”

The unicorn guy suddenly laughed and said, “You almost got me. I think you’re just an old loser who actually can’t fight anymore but is still full of hot air. Take a look at Doctor Ling. Everything you claimed, he’s fixing them up like it’s nothing! You just don’t have enough skill.”

The moment he said that, the other injured tattooed men agreed and acknowledged Doctor Ling while mocking Doctor Wu. Resident Doctor Wu blushed.

After a decade of studying, ranking highly among those of his grade for each test, and then ranking in the top 5,000 in his province for his college entrance examination before he enrolled into a medical school that was part of Project 985[1], he then studied hard for five years in his postgraduate programme in the same school, and slaved for his mentor for four years before he finally fought his way out and obtained a position in Yun Hua Hospital, the most famous hospital in the province. He left home early, returned at dusk, burned the midnight oil to study, and whenever his hands were finally available, he queued outside the Emergency Department to seize every opportunity…

But now he was actually being looked down on by a few tattooed men who claimed that he did not have enough skill.

Resident Doctor Wu snorted softly, no longer wishing for a chance to perform surgery. He got up and went to the cubicle where Doctor Ling was.

Resident Doctor Wu mumbled in his mind as he walked, ‘Suturing is just simply suturing. What am I supposed to do? Stitch their wounds into flowers or something?’

After that, he saw Ling Ran at work.

Plain and simple? This was not the case for Ling Ran at all. Even a layman could tell that he was anything but plain and simple.

For a moment, Resident Doctor Wu had wanted to mock Ling Ran for being ‘pompous.’

As he watched the decapitated eagle tattoo on the patient’s back return to normal before his eyes, Resident Doctor Wu found himself truly unable to utter the words.

Every single one of Ling Ran’s movements, from inserting the needle to making knots, did not just hit the standard; they were all careful and calculated movements. No other doctor would have been able to reattach a decapitated eagle’s head like that.

Even so, regular doctors were not particularly concerned about the tattoos of their patients. Doctors were there to treat and save patients, they were not tattoo artists. They would very much rather use their refined medical skills on what was beneath the patient’s skin, not on the patient’s skin. Of course, most doctors were not masters of suturing.

Most doctors’ stamina were also limited. Of course, resident doctors were not included in that category.

As he thought of this, Resident Doctor Wu suddenly had an urge to cry. This urge lasted for at least five seconds.

Then, Resident Doctor Wu gathered up his emotions, suppressed his impulses, thrashed his dignity, and went behind Ling Ran with the shamelessness of a resident doctor. He praised Ling Ran in a pleasant tone, “Doctor Ling, you suture so well. How did you train to become this good?”

This was how pure a resident doctor’s spirit of learning was.

Ling Ran—already suturing the tenth patient—was looking forward to the effects of the EXP upon completion of the mission. The answer slipped right out of his tongue when he was suddenly asked this question.

“The Newbie Gift Package gave it to me.”

Resident Doctor Wu was startled for a moment. He laughed. “Doctor Ling, you’re so funny. We met in the waiting room before this. You came with the interns. I thought that you were an intern, too. Are you working part-time in a medical school?”

“Call me Ling Ran, I’m an intern, and I’m not funny.” Ling Ran’s tone was a little cold and stiff.

He had to give the wound his full attention. The Master Level in Appositional Suturing Technique did not provide him the ability to dress wounds properly.

Resident Doctor Wu did not have time to care about Ling Ran’s tone. The word ‘intern’ had already completely stunned him to his feet. Resident Doctor Wu blinked a few times and slapped his thigh all of a sudden. “I knew it! I knew it…”

Medical interns were essentially medical students who had not yet graduated and often had to address resident doctors as teachers.

‘But! But… this guy sutures so well…’

For some reason, Resident Doctor Wu began to recall a particular summer, and more specifically, a certain semester. He was thirty and had ordered a Giant ATX online with the living expenses he had saved up by being single. It was something which he had had his eye on for a long time. In contrast, a particular year one junior who had just entered university, drove a Mercedes Benz c330—a gift from his father—while delivering Resident Doctor Wu’s orders. The junior also had a girlfriend working and studying together with him.

For some reason, Resident Doctor Wu could feel his eyes tear up.

Translator’s Note:

[1] Project 985 is a project that aims to promote the development and reputation of the Chinese higher education system by founding world-class universities in the twenty-first century.