Chapter 13.2 Public Photo

Shi Miao had just ordered coffee and desserts when a phone call came in.

Looking at the note on the screen, she took her phone and walked out of the office to find a secluded corner to answer it.

“Hello, Dad.”

“Daughter, congratulations.” Shi Jianqin’s voice was full of laughter. “I just saw the list of selected papers.” He was in a meeting, and he took a few minutes of break in the middle to call his daughter.

“I’ve read the paper, Dad couldn’t match your level when he was young.”

“Thank you, Dad.” Shi Miao put one hand in the pocket of her white coat and stared at a point in the distance outside the window.

Before answering the phone, she had been thinking that her father hadn’t called her in a long time, would he happen to remember her birthday? But no, she heard someone on the other end of the phone shouting: “Director Shi, we’re waiting for you.”

Shi Jianqin replied to the person: “I’m coming.”

He said into the phone, “Dad has to go back to the meeting. See you at the Cardiothoracic Surgery Annual Meeting in October.”

Shi Miao: “Okay. You’re busy.”

After saying goodbye, she hung up the phone and put it in her pocket.

She wasn’t busy at the moment, so she stood at the window for a few more minutes. She and her father hadn’t seen each other for almost a year. The last time they met was last summer, when the director took her to Shanghai on a business trip. In the evening, she called her father, and they had dinner together.

After her father remarried, he lived in Shanghai. When her grandparents were still alive, he would come back twice a year during the long holidays. After her grandparents passed away, she and her brother also grew up, and there were no longer people or things he cared about here. Except for business trips, he rarely came back to Beicheng.

Gradually, she rarely mentioned him in front of others.

None of her friends and colleagues knew her father’s name or what he did. Occasionally, when someone asked, she would vaguely say that he worked out of town. Knowing that both her parents had remarried, seeing that she didn’t want to talk more about it, they stopped asking.

Shi Miao composed herself for a moment and returned to the office.

Several colleagues were discussing the October annual meeting, the top annual surgical academic conference, gathering top surgeons from around the world. This year, it was being held right at their doorstep, and everyone wanted to go and broaden their horizons.

The director would lead their department’s team of young doctors to the conference, but the team had limited spots, and the competition was fierce.

She was lucky to have received an invitation to the conference because she was selected for the outstanding paper.

He Wenqian saw her come in: “Shi Miao, can I ask you for a favor?”

“Why are you suddenly so polite? What is it?”

“Let’s swap night shifts. I’ll take yours tonight, and I need to go home with my wife tomorrow night.”

Shi Miao: “No problem.”

Tonight was Friday, and she had a normal day off on Saturday, so she would have a long weekend.

When it was time to get off work, Shi Miao went back to the duty room to pack her things and go home. She didn’t have any surgeries today, so she wasn’t tired, and she was alone at home anyway, she looked at her gym bag thoughtfully and decided to go swimming.

After a simple meal, she packed her swimsuit and a change of clothes into her gym bag and left.

It gets dark late in the summer. When she walked out of the hospital, the sun hadn’t set yet, and her shadow was stretched into a long line by the setting sun. When she was a child, she liked to walk in her father’s shadow. Her father would hold her hand, and their shadows overlapped on the ground, and she thought it was fun.

This was one of the few happy moments she could remember with her father before her parents divorced.

Today she didn’t take a taxi; there was a bus stop near the hospital that went straight to the swimming pool she usually went to.

While waiting for the bus, Shi Miao texted Uncle Chen to avoid him making a wasted trip in the morning: Uncle Chen, you don’t need to pick me up tomorrow morning, I’m off work starting tonight.

Uncle Chen immediately replied: I’ll pick you up now.

The display screen at the bus stop showed that her bus was arriving in two minutes.

Shi Miao: No need, the bus is coming soon.

A few minutes later, Min Ting’s call came in. After answering, his first words were: “Did you change your rest schedule this week?”

It seemed that Uncle Chen had already told him, Shi Miao: “Yeah, I swapped shifts with a colleague.”

Min Ting asked: “So, are you having a normal day off tomorrow night, or do you have to go back to work?”

Shi Miao: “I have to go back to the hospital to cover for a colleague.”

There was a moment of silence on the phone.

Min Ting apologized: “I can’t have dinner with you this week, I was planning to tomorrow night.” On her birthday, she went to his house to celebrate, and she suggested waiting until this Saturday to have him accompany her for another meal, and he had been keeping this in mind.  But plans changed, and tomorrow night’s dinner conflicted with her shift.

Shi Miao asked: “Do you have something to do tomorrow at noon?”

“Yeah.” Min Ting explained, “I have a meeting tomorrow, and I won’t have time at noon.”

He added: “I also have a dinner engagement tonight.”

Shi Miao said it was because she changed shifts, “We can have dinner another time.”

Min Ting thought that she had been waiting for this meeting for several days, “I’ll come see you tonight.” He glanced at his watch, “I’ll come over after the dinner engagement, probably around 9:30.”