Life is Like a Journey – Chapter 60

Volume 2: Inheritance

Interrogation

Don’t want to go home, find a place to drink with me

While saying she’s going home, as soon as Lu Qingshi returned to the hospital, she still plunged straight into the ICU. The surgery for the troublemaker had already ended. Her emergency measures were very successful, laying a good foundation for subsequent treatment. Although his life was saved, the spinal cord injury was still not optimistic. High-level paraplegia (the inability to voluntarily move the lower parts of the body) was already the best outcome.

Lu Qingshi took his medical record and looked through it carefully: “Use MP plus dexamethasone combined medication¹. If he wakes up, notify me immediately.”

“Understood, Director Lu.”

After leaving the ICU, she immediately ran to the changing room, took off her filthy white coat, hastily took a shower, changed into green scrubs, and plunged straight into the operating room again.

Another smokeless war had just begun.

Gu Yanzhi was also sent to the emergency room for a comprehensive examination. Bedside echocardiography, routine blood tests, biochemistry, and so on. Several medical staff pulled the curtains and pinned her down on the bed with all hands on deck.

“Wait, I’m not injured. Hey! Why are you taking off my clothes???”

Yu Gui held a syringe in her hand, squirting out a little liquid, smiling sinisterly: “Dr. Lu said to give you a full body check-up. Do you know how expensive it is to have a full body examination in our hospital? Don’t struggle, Captain Gu.”

“I…” Before she could say “I f*ck,” the bedside monitor started beeping. Yu Gui glanced at it and quickly hung up another bag of fluid for her.

“Tachycardia, don’t talk! Where’s the nurse? Open another intravenous line.”

Coming out of the operating room, it was dawn again. It wasn’t time for work yet. On both sides of the corridor, sitting, lying face down, or sprawled on the floor were medical staff who had been up for two full days and nights. Hao Renjie was hugging Liu Qingyun’s arm, sleeping soundly, with drool all over the floor.

Long before the surgery ended, Chen Yi had already fallen asleep next to the equipment.

“I can’t go on…” Qin Xuan came out of the adjacent operating room, holding her waist: “My back is about to break, more exhausting than three days and nights of continuous raving.”

Lu Qingshi also had dark circles under her eyes. She leaned against the wall to catch her breath, then slid down to sit: “Me too.”

“How many surgeries did you do today?” Qin Xuan tilted her head and asked her.

Lu Qingshi counted: “Saved about a hundred people, over ten emergency surgeries.”

“Me too. Don’t know why C-sections were clustered today. Seven C-sections, two natural deliveries, and one abortion.”

As Qin Xuan was speaking, she glimpsed the obvious wounds on her hand: “What happened to your hand?”

“It’s nothing,” Lu Qingshi lowered her head to look: “Just a superficial wound. Don’t talk, let’s nap for a bit.”

As soon as she finished speaking, the doctor leaned against the wall and started breathing evenly.

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When busy, they can go for days and nights without sleep, but once it’s time to rest, they fall asleep faster than anyone else.

In the quiet ward, the curtains were drawn. Dawn looked like dusk. A few unruly rays of sunlight crept through the gaps in the curtains, falling on the firefighting instructor wearing an oxygen mask on the hospital bed.

Yu Gui sat by her bedside. Five minutes ago, she had just finished a conversation that ended in discord.

Gu Yanzhi’s current physical condition was very poor. Old injuries hadn’t healed when new ones were added. It was like a machine that had been used for a long time; no matter how much it’s repaired, there will be a day when it’s scrapped. Her cardiopulmonary function was also gradually declining. If this continues, she might not live to see the day of average life expectancy.

As a doctor, her advice was: give up the current job and take good care of her health.

She was directly refused, and Gu Yanzhi even wanted to pull out the IV and leave on the spot. Yu Gui was extremely angry: “If you keep this up, I’m going to tell Dr. Lu!”

It was just meant to scare her, but unexpectedly, the other party quieted down: “What’s the average life expectancy?”

“Sixty.”

“Oh, that’s quite long,” she said without any fluctuation in her voice.

Yu Gui held her forehead: “This is just a base number, and it’s calculated with good medical conditions. Your cardiopulmonary function won’t last that long. At most, after forty, you’ll gradually start experiencing symptoms like palpitations, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and so on.”

“Is that so?” Gu Yanzhi’s gaze gradually drifted into empty space, then fell back on her face.

“I ask you for one thing.”

“What?”

“Don’t tell your Dr. Lu.”

Yu Gui stood up and interrupted her vehemently: “That’s impossible. Not to mention that she will personally review and check all the compiled medical records, just based on her level of concern for you, do you believe that as soon as she’s free, she’ll immediately come to see you?”

“I believe it.” That emaciated face looked even paler due to the oxygen mask, but her eyes were burning. When mentioning Lu Qingshi, that kind of tender expression seemed familiar to her.

“So, it’s even more important not to tell her. If there’s a problem with these basic bodily functions, she can’t really help much, right? So let’s not make her worry.”

Yu Gui’s lips trembled, unable to speak.

“Taking you on as a patient, I must have had eight lifetimes of bad luck.”

Returning to the office was like entering a sea of instant noodles. Colorful instant noodle cups, one for each person. Yu Gui sniffed, and the strange smell of various instant noodles mixed together entered her nostrils. Could there be anything more blissful than this?!

None!

She quickly grabbed two cups of spicy flavored ones, tore them open, added hot water, and carried them back to her seat to feast. Just as she was finishing the first cup of instant noodles, the head nurse came in and called: “Yu Gui, someone’s looking for you.”

Yu Gui carried her noodles out: “Who is it? Which patient is looking for me, not even letting people eat…”

Halfway through her sentence, she suddenly froze in place. The person she had been longing for day and night was standing at the bottom of the steps, looking at her. Her hair was messy, clothes wrinkled, carrying an enormous canvas bag on her back, and even wearing mismatched shoes. She looked so rustic, no different from the migrant workers at the nearby construction site.

Yu Gui really wanted to laugh, but somehow she started crying instead, covering her lips with her hand and turning away.

Fang Zhiyou rushed over and pulled her into an embrace, stroking her head: “Thank goodness, you’re still alive.”

Yu Gui was crying and laughing at the same time. Only after experiencing the cruelty of death did she truly understand the meaning of being alive.

At this moment, she couldn’t say a word, just kept smearing her tears and snot on Fang Zhiyou’s shoulder.

She thought, this was even more blissful than having food when starving.

Food?

Something flashed through her mind like lightning – her instant noodles!

Yu Gui quickly let go of her, and sure enough, the noodle soup had spilled all over both of them.

Fang Zhiyou didn’t mind. Seeing her standing unharmed before her, the heart that had been in suspense finally settled.

“I’m hungry too, Xiaogui.”

Yu Gui handed over the remaining instant noodles: “Here, plenty of instant noodles.”

Fang Zhiyou sat on the long bench in the hospital corridor, wolfing down the food. Yu Gui watched her, resting her chin on her hand, her eyes full of twinkling little stars.

“This is just to tide you over. Later I’ll take you to eat the fried rice noodles behind our hospital alley. It’s really delicious, open until two in the morning. Sometimes after my night shift, I go buy a bowl…”

“And there’s Old Zhang who sells fruit at the hospital entrance. His strawberries are always big, sweet, and cheap. He always gives me an extra one or two.”

“How long has it been since you had a haircut? I’ll take you to get one later. There’s a barbershop not far from here, just a street away, that cuts hair quite well. Last time I got my bangs cut there…”

“We can also go for a walk in the park by the river. The landscaping there is very nice, and the landscape lights are beautiful…”

Fang Zhiyou stopped her chopsticks and looked at her: “Yu Gui.”

“Hm?”

“If you keep chattering on like this…”

“Hm?” Little dummy Yu blinked her eyes again.

Fang Zhiyou swallowed: “I’ll want to kiss you.”

“Cough cough cough cough cough cough cough!” Yu Gui burst into earth-shattering coughs, quickly standing up.

“No, no, no, don’t mess around in the hospital. If the leaders see, we’re dead for sure.”

Fang Zhiyou pursed her lips and smiled lightly: “If not in the hospital, other places should be fine, right?”

“Well…” Yu Gui dug her toe into the ground, turning half her body away, her ears turning a bit red.

“I suppose it’s barely acceptable.”

“Comrade Xiang Nanke, please hand over your sidearm.”

Xiang Nanke removed her holster and handed it over together.

“Police badge, shoulder straps.”

She removed them one by one from her body, finally taking off her hat, placing it flat on her chest, giving a salute, and handing them back with both hands.

After taking off the navy blue police uniform, for the first time, she sat in the interrogation room as a criminal suspect.

She knew that this specially made chair was connected to a lie detector. If there was even the slightest untruthful report, the criminal investigation experts sitting outside would immediately know. Once upon a time, she was also one of these experts.

The light in the interrogation room was blindingly bright. This was also one of the interrogation techniques. She just glanced at the camera, and her eyes were already painfully stung.

“Name.”

“Xiang Nanke.”

“Position.”

“Deputy Team Leader of the Criminal Investigation Unit, Jinzhou City.”

“Was Li Xiaole in the vehicle you were driving at the time of the incident?”

“Yes.”

“The command center had already issued an order to suspend pursuit. Why did you still recklessly seek merit and act on your own? Your wrong decision was the ultimate reason that led to the death of colleagues you worked with day and night!”

Xiang Nanke clenched her fists, nails digging deep into her flesh. She knew this was the other party’s attempt to break through her psychological defenses, but she was powerless to resist. A pained expression appeared on her face.

“It wasn’t just my decision. If we let the suspect escape into the deep mountains of Guiyang, the search operation would become even more difficult. So many civilians, workers, and rescue personnel couldn’t have died in vain. He is the real culprit…”

She had repeated this explanation countless times. The lights in the interrogation room remained on, and several shifts of criminal investigation experts came to question her. Outside the iron windows, the sun rose and the moon set. She was finally released.

“Xiang Nanke, you’ve been released on bail. During this period, you are not allowed to leave Jinzhou City. You must be available whenever the public security bureau summons you.”

Seeing again the bustling streets and flashing neon lights of a peaceful world, Xiang Nanke felt as if she had been away for ages. She threw her coat over her shoulder, and as she turned to leave, she saw Qin Xuan smoking under the dim streetlight.

She lightly flicked off the ash, her movements practiced, smoke curling seductively: “Let’s go, Officer Xiang.”

“Did you bail me out?”

Qin Xuan stretched lazily, covering her mouth as she yawned: “Yeah, who else would it be? Let’s hurry up and go, I’m dead tired and want to go home to sleep.”

“Let me borrow a light,” Xiang Nanke said with a cigarette in her mouth, leaning in. Qin Xuan lit her lighter, and she took two puffs. The flame flickered, and after blowing out a long smoke ring, she spoke.

“How did you bail me out?”

Qin Xuan threw her finished cigarette on the ground and stamped it out: “Hah, simple. Just said you were the cousin of the aunt of the grandaunt of the uncle of your grandmother, and that’s it. Then got a medical certificate from Lu Qingshi, paid some money, and it was done. It’s a small matter.”

The public security system is networked nationwide, her identity background couldn’t be found anywhere. Most likely, it was her money that played a role.

Xiang Nanke took a deep drag on her cigarette, the fire quickly spreading to her fingertips: “Thank you.”

“Alright, you’ve helped me before too,” Qin Xuan patted her shoulder generously. “Stop talking nonsense, let’s go. Go home, take a good shower, have a sleep, and everything will be fine…”

Suddenly, her wrist was grabbed. Qin Xuan looked back. She stood under the streetlight wearing a thin short-sleeved shirt, moths fluttering around the light.

“I don’t want to go home. Find a place to drink with me.”

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