Chapter 26

In the afternoon, Qian Xiaoli’s blood oxygen level still couldn’t go up. After discussing with her mother, Tang Feiwang sent her to the EICU and put her on a ventilator. Unable to find the cause of her respiratory distress and dysphagia, Tang Feiwang, who should have gone home after her shift, stubbornly stayed at her computer, searching through various medical records.

“Xiao Tang, it’s 9 o’clock, are you going to stay with me and Lin Ye for the night shift?” Liu Zhinan brewed a cup of coffee, preparing for a long night.

Tang Feiwang pressed her temples and said with a smile, “I’m not tired, I can stay with you for the night shift.”

Liu Zhinan cared for her, “Go home and rest early, don’t you have an injury?”

“It’s much better.” Lin Ye didn’t mention changing the dressing today. Tang Feiwang took time out to eat in the rest room at 6:30 PM, and she took the opportunity to change the dressing.

Liu Zhinan chuckled, “That’s true, you young people are healthy.”

The two chatted for two minutes, during which time Lin Ye didn’t say anything. She was also searching for relevant medical records on her computer.

Around 10:30 PM, Tang Feiwang, who had been sitting for a long time, finally decided to leave her seat. She pressed her hands against her waist to relieve the soreness, and started walking towards the EICU. Even the nurse on duty asked her, “Dr. Tang, aren’t you off work yet?”

Tang Feiwang smiled faintly, “No, I have something to do, I’ll leave later.” She took small steps, walked slowly, went past the nurses’ station and continued walking forward, suddenly stopping her raised foot.

Outside the EICU, Zhang Wan, holding a power bank, didn’t know how long she had been mentally preparing herself, but finally walked towards Qian Xiaoli’s mother. She stood in front of the anxious middle-aged woman and said softly, “Auntie, go back, I’ll stay here with her.”

Qian Xiaoli’s mother looked up at her, her furrowed brows slightly relaxed, and replied, “No need, you have to go to work, go back early.”

“Auntie, it’s okay, I’ve already asked for leave, my leader approved me for three days off, plus the weekend, I can rest for five days.” Zhang Wan boldly sat down beside her.

The woman turned her head and asked Zhang Wan, “What’s your name? I only heard Xiaoli mention it once, I didn’t remember.”

Zhang Wan sniffed her nose and introduced herself solemnly, “Auntie, my name is Zhang Wan.”

“Okay, Zhang Wan.” The woman’s tear stains hadn’t dried yet, and now more tears couldn’t help but flow down. She murmured with trembling lips, “Tell me, will Xiaoli be okay?”

“Auntie, she will be fine, she promised you, and she promised me.” Before entering the EICU this afternoon, the two of them saw Qian Xiaoli. Zhang Wan held her hand, put her ear close to her lips and listened to her say, “Don’t worry, I’ll come out safe and sound.”

Seeing this scene, Tang Feiwang bit her lip and tried to suppress her emotions. She actually found it difficult to empathize, or rather, having witnessed too many separations and deaths, she rarely had people or things that could make her empathize. Perhaps because she had just gone through coming out yesterday, even though she was looking up, her eyes easily turned red. Tang Feiwang stood there for several minutes, then turned right. Qian Xiaoli’s mother saw her and rushed over, kneeling down in front of her with a thud.

“Auntie, you…” Tang Feiwang was at a loss, reaching out to grab the woman’s arm, urging, “Get up, get up quickly.”

“Doctor, Dr. Tang, my Xiaoli shouldn’t be in trouble, right?” In Qian Xiaoli’s mother’s mind, entering the ICU was like having one foot in the grave, it was very difficult to come out alive. She didn’t want to get up, she collapsed on the ground.

Tang Feiwang explained to her, “Auntie, the patient’s condition isn’t too bad, we’ve ruled out several life-threatening diseases. Now we just need to observe, and if any new symptoms appear, we’ll make a judgment.”

Qian Xiaoli’s mother looked up, her eyes fixed on her, “But, she’s already in the ICU.”

“Auntie, ordinary wards can’t provide ventilators, 24-hour medical care, and vital sign monitoring. Your daughter has respiratory distress, so she’s in our emergency intensive care unit, not the other critical conditions you think.” Tang Feiwang spoke slowly, patiently explaining to her.

Zhang Wan reached out and helped the woman up, repeating Tang Feiwang’s words, “Auntie, the doctor said, her condition is not critical.”

“Is that so?”

Tang Feiwang nodded firmly, “Yes, at least not critical at the moment.” As a doctor, she couldn’t speak too definitively.

Zhang Wan and Qian Xiaoli’s mother repeatedly expressed their gratitude, begging her to cure the patient.

Lin Ye stood three meters away, gazing at her from a distance. It wasn’t until Tang Feiwang turned right and walked towards the EICU that she took another step.

“How is she?” Tang Feiwang asked Qian Xiaoli’s attending nurse in the EICU ward.

The nurse replied, “She’s been fine since she was intubated and put on a ventilator, but she definitely can’t be taken off it.”

Tang Feiwang’s voice was very soft, “Is she awake?”

“She’s been sleeping since she came in this afternoon, she just woke up a while ago.”

“Okay, good.” Tang Feiwang stepped closer and called her name, “Qian Xiaoli.”

Qian Xiaoli hummed through her nose, not opening her eyes. She looked very weak, completely different from the state she was in when she came in this afternoon, when she was just short of breath due to lack of oxygen.

Tang Feiwang called her name again, “Qian Xiaoli, can you hear me? If you can, open your eyes.”

Qian Xiaoli reluctantly opened her eyes, but her eyelids quickly drooped down. Tang Feiwang took out her stethoscope and pupil pen to examine her. She didn’t find anything wrong, and then instructed, “Qian Xiaoli, raise your arm.” Qian Xiaoli heard this and struggled to raise her right arm, but only raised it a few centimeters before letting it fall down as if it had lost strength.

Tang Feiwang hurriedly asked, “Do you feel weak all over, can’t lift your arm, and don’t want to open your eyelids?”

Qian Xiaoli nodded slightly.

The nurse, with years of experience, asked, “Dr. Tang, is there something wrong with her nervous system?”

Tang Feiwang by the bedside and Lin Ye, not far behind her, said in unison, “Myasthenia gravis.”

Considering myasthenia gravis, Lin Ye still called the neurology doctor on duty in the middle of the night for a consultation. The doctor on duty examined her, and combined with the purposeful communication with Zhang Wan just now, basically confirmed myasthenia gravis.

It turned out that Qian Xiaoli was a full-time author, who typed every day at a fixed time, during the day, and went to bed early at night. In the past half month, Qian Xiaoli had been striving to reach the top of the completion list, typing for several hours more than usual every day, so she felt unusually tired at night. Both she and Zhang Wan thought it was just because she wasn’t getting enough rest.

Tang Feiwang guessed that she had been ill for several weeks, and recently, her respiratory and pharyngeal muscles were affected, which caused her respiratory distress and dysphagia. But to be safe, Lin Ye and Tang Feiwang still felt that they should do the examination and get a diagnosis before using medication, after all, medication shouldn’t be taken casually. The ventilator could maintain her vital signs for tonight.

“I’m going home. The results of Qian Xiaoli’s examination will come out tomorrow morning. I’ll need your help with the medical orders.” It was almost 12 o’clock, and the two of them walked out of the EICU one after the other, then walked side by side. It was late at night, and the air conditioning in the hospital was set low. Tang Feiwang put both hands in her pockets to keep warm, watching the shadows of them reflected on the ground, tightly pressed together. The smile on her lips grew brighter.

Lin Ye looked up, her gaze passing through the glass, silently looking at the twinkling lights outside the window, and nodded lightly.

The next day, Qian Xiaoli’s examination results came out, confirming myasthenia gravis. Lin Ye promptly gave medical orders, using corticosteroids, pyridostigmine bromide, and other medications. That night, Qian Xiaoli’s blood oxygen level improved significantly. After another night, she was taken off the ventilator and transferred to a general ward.

This morning, Tang Feiwang, who had been on a 24-hour shift, was making rounds. As soon as she walked out of room 106, Zhang Wan, standing at the door of room 107, greeted her warmly, “Good morning, Dr. Tang.”

Tang Feiwang was infected by her, and she smiled, “Good morning.”

“Auntie, Dr. Tang is here.” Zhang Wan’s cheerful laughter echoed throughout the ward.

“Good, good.” Qian Xiaoli’s mother divided the two peeled apples into slices, taking a small plate to the patient in the next bed. She wiped her hands with a tissue, got up to greet her, clasped her hands together and said, “Thank you, Dr. Tang, thank you.”

“It’s the result of our entire department working together, not just my credit.” Tang Feiwang waved her hand, moved to the right side of the bed to examine Qian Xiaoli, and asked her, “How are you feeling today?”

“Much better.” Although she was taken off the ventilator, she was still given low-flow oxygen. Qian Xiaoli flipped through her phone to show Tang Feiwang, “Dr. Tang, my final chapter just went out.”

“Wow, you can type now.” Tang Feiwang put away her stethoscope and instructed, “You still need to rest more, and don’t sit for long periods of time when you write in the future. Get up and walk for two minutes every hour.”

Qian Xiaoli readily agreed, “Okay, thank you, Dr. Tang.”

Tang Feiwang stood up straight, carefully took a book out of her pocket, and said somewhat embarrassedly, “I learned from your friend that you are the author Hai Mu, and I wanted to get your autograph.”

Qian Xiaoli held the book in her hands, looked down at the words on the cover, and was surprised, “Old Sea Tang Opens, my book from 10 years ago?”

Tang Feiwang nodded, “Yes, the novel you published online 10 years ago, and the physical book came out 7 years ago, but I was too busy with work to grab one.”

“Dr. Tang, how much did you pay for the second-hand book?” Old Sea Tang Opens was released 7 years ago, with a limited edition of 3,000 copies. Qian Xiaoli knew that some of her books were priced ridiculously high on Xianyu.

“Teacher Hai Mu, don’t worry about that, as long as I can get the book, I’m willing to pay any price.” Tang Feiwang handed her the pen.

Qian Xiaoli unscrewed the pen cap as instructed and asked, “Dr. Tang, can I just write To, okay?”

“Okay, okay, thank you!” Tang Feiwang understood the meaning of To, and added, “Write To Lin Ye at the top.”

“Is it for Dr. Lin?” Zhang Wan went to pay for Qian Xiaoli, knowing that the doctor who gave the medical orders yesterday was Lin Ye.

“Yes, she’s Teacher Hai Mu’s loyal reader.” 10 years ago, Lin Ye had been reading Qian Xiaoli’s novels on the website; 7 years ago, Lin Ye and Tang Feiwang had been squatting on the website to grab the first physical book she released, but unfortunately, they both suddenly got busy with work and failed to get the book.

“It’s an honor.” Qian Xiaoli opened the first page of the physical book, wrote two lines of words in a flowing script, signed Hai Mu at the end, asked Zhang Wan to take the stamp out of her backpack and put it on the book, and then handed the book back to Tang Feiwang. Tang Feiwang put the book away, thanked each other a few times before leaving the ward. She began to plan in her heart how to give Lin Ye a gift tonight.

However, she had only taken two steps when she was stopped by Qian Xiaoli’s mother, who had left the ward a step behind her.

“Dr. Tang, can I have a word with you?” Qian Xiaoli’s mother said mysteriously.

“Auntie, do you want to…?” Tang Feiwang didn’t understand what she meant and still stood there.

Qian Xiaoli’s mother took out a red envelope from her bag and stuffed it into Tang Feiwang’s white coat pocket, “Dr. Tang, thank you for your hard work.”

“No, Auntie, I can’t accept this.” Tang Feiwang took out the red envelope and stuffed it back into the other’s bag, emphasizing, “This is a matter of principle, we don’t accept red envelopes.”

“Then can I give you some fruit?” Qian Xiaoli’s mother had actually guessed that Tang Feiwang wouldn’t accept the red envelope, so she had bought three boxes of fruit in advance.

Tang Feiwang had never encountered such a situation before, and she didn’t know how to handle it. She could only say, “Actually, the patient signing her name to me as an author is already a gift…”

Qian Xiaoli’s mother refused, “That’s one thing, and this is another. I asked Director Gao, and he said it’s okay to give fruit. Dr. Tang, take it and share it with your colleagues.” After she finished speaking, she turned around and told Zhang Wan to move the boxes. So, a box of apples, a box of mangoes, and a box of kiwifruit were brought to the emergency room office.

Tang Feiwang and Lin Ye were originally scheduled to work on the same day, but a few days ago, Lin Yangyang got sick, and Lin Ye switched shifts for one day, so their work days this week were two days apart.

Today was Lin Ye’s birthday, and it happened to be her day off. Tang Feiwang was on the day shift, and she thought she would get off work early and go over to have some cake with her. However, things didn’t go as planned. The patient didn’t plan to let her go. Close to 6 o’clock, an ambulance suddenly brought in a serious car accident victim, and she was busy until 11:30 PM before stabilizing the patient.

“Dr. Tang, the medical orders haven’t been uploaded.” The nurse reminded her and sent a message asking, “Dr. Tang, why are you so distracted today?”

Tang Feiwang replied, “I have something on my mind.” After recording the patient’s medical history, she left the hospital at 11:42 PM. The traffic on the street was reduced in the late night, Tang Feiwang stepped on the gas hard, almost at the speed limit, and got off the motorcycle at 11:55 PM. She didn’t stop for a moment, and immediately dialed Lin Ye’s number. However, she called three times in a row without an answer. Just like the birthday wishes she sent her at midnight today, it was like a stone sinking into the sea.

Tang Feiwang was sure that Lin Ye wasn’t resting, because when she made the first call, the lights in her room were bright. But when she made the second call, the lights in the room suddenly went out.

So, did she cross some boundaries…?

The night was deep, Tang Feiwang stood under the sycamore tree, the soft moonlight reflected her lonely shadow. She lowered her head, took a square gift box out of the packaging bag and stuffed it into her backpack, then sent a WeChat message to Lin Ye.

[Birthday gift, not expensive, I’ll hang it on the handle of your door.] Tang Feiwang went home and closed the door before sending the message. It was past midnight, maybe if the sentiment wasn’t so heavy, she could accept it calmly?