Entrust My Life To You - Chapter 11

April 9, 2009
A new group of internal doctors and nurses came to the ward. That group of people often attracted people’s attention in the hallway. My heartbeat was a little faster when I heard the voice of the Doctors next door. When the Director pushed the door open, I subconsciously lowered my gaze.

The ward was occupied by nearly twenty people, it made the air thin. The Director held Teacher’s hand and shook it, made my line-of-sight move to the side. Doctor Gu held the medical record folder in his hands and hung in front of him. He lowered his eyesight with a faint smile on his face. This expression reminded me of my childhood when I had listened to my grandmother’s story about the Mahākāśyapa who reached unconstrained perfection. That time he may not seem obvious, but no one couldn’t see through it.

(Maha Kasyapa or Mahākāśyapa (Pali: Mahākassapa) or Kāśyapa was one of the principal disciples of Gautama Buddha. He came from the kingdom of Magadha. He became an arhat and was the disciple of the Buddha who was foremost in ascetic practice.)

Later, the doctor recalled: “When I didn’t see you for 20 days, my heartfelt peaceful. But now when I see you again, I found out how happy I am.”

Half-past eight, the head nurse came to give Teacher Lin an injection, followed by a new face. She had a petite body, her eyes curved when she smiled and she had two cute dimples. As the head nurse put in the needle, she squatted on the ground. She pinched her cheeks like a small mushroom and looked back without blinking.

An hour later, that little mushroom came to change Teacher Lin’s infusion bottle. Teacher Lin looked at her writing on the infusion record, and he couldn’t help but ask: “Kid, how old are you? Where did you come from?”

“I came from K City. I’m already 21! I’m not a kid anymore!”

Mother: “What a coincidence, I also came from K City.”

In the next ten minutes, Teacher Lin and I stared at my mother who chatted with that little girl with a pleasant-sounding Wu dialect.

“There are very few people from K City here, I can’t believe I ran into a fellow-villager here!” The little girl danced with excitement, wanted to give my mother a hug, but found it inappropriate on the way, so she plunged into my arms.

There were really such beauties who threw themselves into someone’s arms?! It was the only sentence that crossed my mind at the time.

On lunch break, I met Doctor Gu, who just came back from the clinic. I just wanted to say hello until one person threw herself out of the nurse station.

“Teacher Gu! The final emergency medicine exam is about cardiopulmonary resuscitation or electric cardioversion?”

I watched that little mushroom anxiously circled around Doctor Gu and suddenly saw me, “Ah, the fellow-village sister!” Once again, beauty was in the air, it made other people feel like they were only an outsider.

In the hospital, the new nurses called the old nurses as teachers. Some junior doctors called senior doctors as teachers. But she called him Teacher Gu, are you — crossing jobs?

“Because he is really a teacher!” When the little mushroom came to change my father’s infusion bottle, she talked righteously. “He teaches a class, monitors the exams, and also checks the test paper!”

“I’m not her teacher.” When Doctor Gu came to examine, he looked helpless. “The Director went out for a meeting, I substituted him to give a public elective course, their exams were only according to their random computer number, and my apprentice helped with their exam corrections.”

However, this didn’t prevent Little Yu’s shouting: “Good Morning, Teacher Gu!” “Hello, Teacher Gu!” “Good-bye, Teacher Gu!”

Teacher Gu was very depressed: “Kid, your real teacher is sitting inside his office.”

The little mushroom named Cheng Yu, in her own words; was a careless little girl. On our first meeting, she ordered a delivery order to our ward, told me about her father’s wages and her mother’s work. Such a simple child rarely existed.

A long-time later, Little Yu hugged my arm and said, “Teacher’s wife, the first time I saw you, I knew you were a good person! At second glance, I knew you could cure the teacher!” I’m confused about being shouted by the ‘teacher’s wife’ nickname, but this was a story for later.

This time I came for chemotherapy and became familiar with the nurses. Occasionally, I would share some small talk with them. As for the doctors, still the same as usual; Doctor Gu’s five-minutes rounds. I went to cook the black-fish soup at three o’clock; he came in to do his rounds. When I came back at 03:30, I couldn’t believe he was still talking to Teacher Lin in the ward. When he saw me come in, he nodded and said goodbye. When he passed my side, he smiled and said, “The fish soup smells good.”
 
I looked at his back suspiciously, and there was an unexplained feeling. It seemed that he did nothing out of the ordinary, but he always made people felt that he did something different.

At night, I was washing the dishes in the pantry, a shout “Sister!” shocked me and made me turned around.  

“Xiao Du!”

This little guy just had his hair cut, and it made him looked more energetic.  

“The head nurse said, after this month, you won’t come to the hospital anymore.”

“Well, there are still two months left. But, Doctor Gu said that I should come here to say hello to you. How is it between the two of you?”

I looked up to the sky, what kind of question is this.

Finally, I ignored him: “How is your lesson-review?”

“I don’t know what to say, my score was a bit low, but not too low…”

“That is a good state, challenging the enemy strategically and assigning importance to the enemy tactically.”

“I want to study medicine.” Xiao Du became silent, scratched his nose.

I looked at the stiff boy in front of me and nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

“Oh, Doctor Gu’s school is probably out of reach.”

I patted his shoulder: “The higher you stand, the further you see, you can also see the other options to walk through. Now, don’t think about anything else, try hard to stand up in a high place first.”

Before Xiao Du left, he said: “Do you know what Doctor Gu told me? He said, ‘don’t think about anything else, try hard to pass the test, and we’ll talk about the rest later.'” He smiled cunningly, “Did you two plan it?”

Special Dialog:
Doctor: I guess you have fate with children.