Chapter 133: Peeling Potatoes

Ling Ran consumed a bottle of Energy Serum right after ten o’clock that night.

He usually slept at around nine or ten o’clock, and if he got off work early because the surgeries that day went well, he might sleep as early as eight o’clock. This was why Ling Ran already wanted to yawn by ten.

There were still people in the infirmary waiting to get massaged. How could Ling Ran sleep? Which was why he had no choice but to use up a bottle of Energy Serum.

Ling Ran was extremely reluctant to do this. Even though he obtained three Sincere Gratitudes which meant three bottles of Energy Serum today, after using one bottle, his storage of Energy Serum was down to eighty-eight bottles.

It was not even a whole number.

As Ling Ran mourned the Energy Serum he had consumed, he strived to work even harder.

Compared to chiropractic manipulation for the cervical spine, chiropractic manipulation of the back required more physical strength. This was especially true for pushing techniques and rubbing techniques, because they consumed a great amount of energy.

It was even harder for the chiropractic manipulation to be effective when the patient happened to have a wide back.

Even though Ling Ran possessed Master Level skills and did not tire himself out as he performed the massages with standard techniques, it was inevitable that the massages would take up his time.

While chiropractic manipulation for the cervical spine took only two or three minutes to complete, chiropractic manipulation for the back required more than ten minutes.

Since there was plenty of time and very few people at night, Ling Ran simply massaged them while he watched the mission completion status. He only stopped when the numbers stopped rising. This was why some of them received up to thirty minutes of massaging, and it made them so comfortable that they were moaning in pleasure.

“Doctor Ling, it’s late. You should rest, too.” The nurse in the infirmary could not stand it anymore and took the initiative to make this suggestion.

A few people who were awake and were using their mobile phones agreed, and they joined the nurse in persuading Ling Ran to rest.

Ling Ran glanced at his watch and said, “It’s already one o’clock now, it’ll be morning after I work hard for a few more hours. It’s alright, you guys can rest first. I’ll wake you when it’s your turn to be massaged.”

This gave the nurse a headache. She said, “But it feels really bad if I get woken up after falling asleep.”

Ling Ran pursed his lips and thought, ‘Doctors on shift in the hospital are always being woken up to work, anyway. And when they’re done with their tasks, they would be woken up again the moment they fall asleep.’

This was true for most doctors on shift. Even though he did not have much experience being on shift, he had already made the necessary mental preparations.

However, the crowd of people waiting to get massaged were just lay people, and he could not ask much of them.

Ling Ran thought about it and said, “Why don’t we do this? You guys can go to sleep with your clothes on. Instead of waking you up, I’ll just massage you when it’s your turn. Is that okay?”

Since he had already consumed an Energy Serum, it would be a waste not to continue. Everyone was quite embarrassed.

“Wouldn’t this be really hard on you?”

“That’s right, you should rest early, too.”

“I’m not used to sleeping with my clothes on.”

“You’re such a nice person.”

Everyone thought of Ling Ran as a serious person, and no one had any negative opinions of him. Even the few young women present were not worried that Doctor Ling would think about taking advantage of them.

Why would a man like Doctor Ling need to go through so much trouble to take advantage of women?

Since Ling Ran insisted on doing this, the people waiting relented, because they were indeed tired.

Soon, those who usually stayed up late to look at their mobile phones continued doing so, while the rest lay on the infirmary beds and slept.

For organizations like the sanatoriums, their infirmaries were used for a wide range of purposes. Centurial Beach Sanatorium’s infirmary was equipped with all kinds of facilities. At night, there were often residents who slept on the infirmary’s beds while receiving fluid transfusions.

Like peeling potatoes, after Ling Ran was done with a patient, he went to a new patient and started peeling that one.

As the massage time for each person was greatly extended, the time of their pain relief was extended to over a hundred hours. Ling Ran reckoned that the pain relief time for neck and back massages was calculated separately.

Some of the patients had a longer span of time to be relieved from pain, which was more than a hundred and fifty hours. This was because these patients’ necks and backs were in relatively bad conditions, hence why the pain relief time could actually go up to more than a hundred and fifty hours, which was equivalent to more than six days.

If they ignored the slight pain and aches that would definitely be present but wase negligible, the patients would be able to live quite comfortably for the next fifteen days.

In reality, most adults over the age of thirty experienced different degrees of compression when it came to their spines and necks. This was determined by the lifestyles and body structures of modern people.

The evolution that happened millions of years ago created survival advantages for human beings which allowed them to dominate the earth. This was especially true when it came to their nimble upper limbs, palms, and fingers, which created the condition possible for inventing new items and throw weapons. Thus, their advantage of having a large brain capacity was retained, and modernization allowed them to leave their barbaric lifestyles behind.

However, the evolution that happened in the past did not prepare human beings, who used to stretch their bodies to throw javelins, to sit on chairs and type on keyboards.

It could also be said that the lifespan of modern human beings was a little too long. After they reach the age capable of reproduction, evolution would no longer be responsible for how long one can live.

The modern human could even live to the age where their reproductive capabilities would begin to degenerate. Compared to other living creatures, human beings can definitely be considered to be serving their duty on earth past their retirement age. It was almost a given that there would be problems with their body parts.

If human beings were seen as cars, then the job of surgeons would be to replace or repair their parts, whereas internists would be managing the balance of oil, fluids, and the electrical structures of these cars. Massages could only reposition these parts and adjust the spaces between them.

Of course, for cars with parts still in good condition and did not have any major problems with their fuel, fluid, electrical, and other systems, the repositioning of the parts here would still result in plenty of comfort. Well-made adjustments were especially delightful.

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Ling Ran peeled potatoes until the next morning, and received an impressive number of eight Treasure Chests courtesy of the Sincere Gratitudes.

For about every two potatoes peeled, he received one Sincere Gratitude. This made Ling Ran extremely astonished. When he made ward rounds at three o’clock in the morning, he basically received no Treasure Chests from Sincere Gratitude. However, he received a large number of Sincere Gratitudes when he massaged patients at three o’clock in the morning.

At the same time, the total pain relief time had also increased dramatically to 22474/10000. This allowed Ling Ran to receive a new skill branch: [Head Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (Head OMT) (Master Level)]

He was rewarded with the Head OMT skill after obtaining more than twenty-thousand points from accumulating more than two thousand hours of pain relief time. This led to Ling Ran believing that if he persisted for one more day, tomorrow… No, tonight, even if there would be fewer potatoes, he would still accumulate quite a lot of pain relief time.

However, it was a pity that it would be hard for there to be any more major increases to the total pain relief time.

Even though repeated massages were no doubt effective, it would already be impressive for the effect of the second massage to be equal to that of the first massage; it would be hard for the effects of the second massage to surpass that of the first massage.

Head OMT, however, involved a new body part. Besides, there were some senior citizens who had not gotten the chance to enjoy chiropractic manipulation on the back yet. He still had a possibility of accumulating more pain relief time thanks to them.

While Ling Ran was calculating internally, he heard a few soft knocks on the infirmary door again.

*Thump, thump, thump.*

“Come in.” Ling Ran exercised his body and covered the potato he had just finished peeling with a thin blanket.

The potato rolled over and immediately snored loudly.

“Doctor Ling.” The young woman with the master’s degree in Biology tiptoed in. When she saw Ling Ran, she said with a bright smile, “Doctor Ling, I bought you breakfast, have some while it’s hot. Your stomach must be quite empty after not eating for a whole night.”

Ling Ran ran his hand over his abdomen and chuckled. “I’m not that hungry. I’ll just treat working overnight as a way of staying fit.”

“How can anyone stay fit being up all night? Isn’t that even worse for your body?” The young woman pursed her lips and laid out Ling Ran’s breakfast.

For soup-based dishes alone, there was soybean milk, tofu pudding, and rice gruel. As for dry dishes, there were finger-length deep-fried dough sticks, black sugar mantou, pancakes stuffed with vegetables, and pancake soup. There were also carrot slices, pickled vegetables, tea eggs, and fried mushrooms with shredded chicken.

“I took a little of everything because I didn’t know what you liked. The canteen also serves noodles, but it was hard for me to bring them here. If you feel like eating some—”

“It’s alright. Deep-fried dough sticks and soybean milk are enough for me.” Without putting on a show of politeness, Ling Ran washed his hands with a bottle of alcohol-based hand sanitizer as he spoke. He then took a piece of the dough stick the length of a finger, and soaked it in the glass of soybean milk before he ate it.

The physical energy consumed from performing a whole night’s worth of massages was by no means less than that consumed in performing surgery using the M-Tang technique for ten hours. And in Yun Hua Hospital’s operating theater, Ling Ran got to replenish the nutrients in his body with food such as pork trotters, porridge, beef, chicken feet, chicken gizzards, duck wings, mushrooms, and corn.

On the other hand, Ling Ran had learned very early on not to reject small gifts from girls too much, especially when it came to gifts like this which he indeed needed. Verbal refusal would only result in the girls putting on sad faces, and it was impossible for Ling Ran to console them. It was also useless to reason with them; Ling Ran might as well accept the gifts as a given from the very beginning.

“I appreciate you spending so much to buy me breakfast,” Ling Ran answered in a standard and polite manner. He then raised his head, finished the glass of soybean milk, and took the bowl of tofu pudding.

“When I said that I was buying breakfast for you, the canteen lady did not even want my money. She asked me to convey her gratitude to you, too.” The young woman beamed with delight and gently handed Ling Ran a steel spoon. She then said, a little shyly, “The spoons from outside are all made of plastic. I brought this spoon here myself. I’ve already disinfected it a few times with hot water.”

“Thank you very much.” Ling Ran naturally took the spoon from her. Based on his experience, things prepared by girls were very convenient and rarely any unforeseen circumstances happened when he received those things.

After consuming the tofu pudding, Ling Ran ate a pancake stuffed with vegetables, half a black sugar mantou, an egg, and some side dishes. Ling Ran could finally breathe easily again, and he felt as if he could battle for three hundred more rounds.

*Bam.*

Doctor Zhou pushed the door open and came in. “Ling Ran, why are you in the clinic?”

In an instant, Doctor Zhou saw the young postgraduate student whose face was red with shame. He could not help but feel a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you guys to be in here.”

“Doctor Ling, I’ll come and tidy the place up later.” The young woman ran out of the clinic, anxious and embarrassed. It was only after she had exited the door and when the cold wind blew on her face did she think remorsefully, ‘Why was I afraid? Wouldn’t it be better if there was a misunderstanding?’

It was not until afternoon when the young woman found another chance. She held a meal ticket and looked excitedly for Ling Ran. To her surprise, she saw that the group from Yun Hua Hospital were already packing up.

“Are you guys going back?” When that thought entered the young woman’s mind, she immediately became misty-eyed.

“Yeah, we’re going to leave after making some preparations.” The plain, ugly resident doctor let out a simple-minded laugh. “Just saying, the environment of the sanatorium is really good. If I had a choice, I would be quite willing to work here—”

“Where’s Doctor Ling?” The young woman pouted, and this made her look even more adorable.

The plain ugly resident doctor froze for a moment when he saw this before saying, “He’s probably still massaging people in the clinic. He said—”

The young woman turned and ran quickly.

When she arrived at the clinic panting, she, as expected, saw Ling Ran, massaging an old man’s head. The old man felt so comfortable that he was moaning in pleasure, and his baggy eyes squinted so much that they looked like little hills.

When the young woman’s breathing evened a little, she saw that Ling Ran had shifted to the treatment bed beside the old man’s, and was starting to massage an old woman’s neck. He then advised the old woman, “Massages don’t need to be performed too frequently. After this, you should be able to feel relaxed for quite a while. Make sure to do an appropriate amount of exercise, and the comfort will last for quite a long time. The next time you feel any discomfort, you can look for me at Yun Hua Hospital.”

Ling Ran took into account the fact that he did not spend all day in the operating theaters. There were always gaps between surgeries, and it would be nice if he could take the opportunity to massage a few people and stay fit at the same time.

At that moment, the old men and old women in the clinic praised Ling Ran in unison.

“This young man is highly skilled, and he’s a nice person, too.”

“There are rarely any young people as attentive as him.”

“I heard that you didn’t sleep at all last night? This won’t do. It’s great that you’re giving us massages, but you should also take care of your health.”

When the young woman gazed at the attentive and earnest Ling Ran whose quality of work did not change even after working continuously for so long, she could not hold her tears back. She could not help but think of Romain Rolland’s ‘Jean-Christophe’: Some people’s lives are like quiet lakes, some are like clouds who drift about in the endless sky, some are like the fertile plains, some are like the intermittent mountains…

Ling Ran’s life… belonged to the world…