Chapter 18: I’m Free
It was Monday.
The Emergency Department in the morning gave off a sense of order.
There were no fights or accidents happening around this area, so there were no busy ambulances coming to the hospital.
Ling Ran did not receive a new mission after he made four stitches on a motorcyclist who injured his head. Hence, he asked Nurse Wang Jia to help him familiarize and differentiate the facilities and machinery in the department one by one.
At that moment, the usually irritable Nurse Wang Jia was very gentle while she taught him, and she almost nearly guided him step-by-step while holding his hand.
It was fortunate that the other interns did not witness the moment, or else they would have been flying up in the air with jealousy.
The facilities and machines in the hospital were complex and expensive. It was impossible for an average intern to even operate them, let alone differentiate them. If they wanted to differentiate them, then they would need to depend on whether the teacher that day was in a good mood, whether he or she was feeling generous, and whether that teacher was free.
How hard was it to achieve such conditions? Most of the junior doctors could only get their hands on the normal facilities in their second year when they began their standardized training. As for the advanced facilities, some might not even get to use them in their lifetime.
After one round of explanation, Nurse Wang Jia was parched and Ling Ran’s understanding of the Emergency Department had grown.
“Have a drink.” Ling Ran bought a bottle of cola from the vending machine and gave it to Wang Jia as a token of appreciation.
But Nurse Wang Jia humbly declined, saying, “You can have it…”
Ling Ran was stunned for a moment and said, “I usually drink water. I can tell that all of you really like buying drinks, though.”
“You know I like drinking cola?” Wang Jia held the cold bottle of cola in her hands, she could not bring herself to drink it.
Ling Ran laughed and went on talking with her for a while before he returned to the waiting room.
All the small belongings that the interns brought with them were allowed to be placed in the waiting room. At first glance upon entry, other than cups and food containers, the next largest number of things that could be seen strewn all over the place were power cables and textbooks.
There were some interns playing with their phones, and some were studying. Everyone was preoccupied with their own activity. They would only lift up their heads in alertness like a troop of mongooses in white robes when the doors opened.
Ling Ran smiled at the crowd and went to a corner to open his bag. There was a vial of green liquid the length of a thumb tucked within a foam package.
Upon careful inspection, it looked like an extremely small bottle of drink. It was only 1.7 ounces, and it glowed a faint green color. There was no change in the liquid whether he shook it or placed it under the light.
Even the shell of the container was hard. Ling Ran tried striking it before, and it felt like metal.
Ling Ran did not touch the Energy Serum, he did not know whether it was a common or rare item. There was a need for him to observe more before he could tell.
He took out a notebook and he jotted down all the important points he had heard just now. He was very particular with this sort of thing.
To prepare beforehand was his success formula in doing everything. For this reason, Ling Ran first performed a mental health check on himself the first day he received the system.
After Ling Ran obtained Master Level in Suturing, he still did not let himself slacken from his attempts to understand hospital matters.
Modern medicine was built upon the foundations of modern medical science and medical studies which used equipment and medicine. No matter how skilled he was, without suitable equipment, he would still be like a rootless duckweed. It was just like suturing. Without the suture needles of modern technology and without the complete procedure of sterilisation, it would still be a dangerous skill to use.
It was vital for Ling Ran to understand the conditions of the equipment in the hospital and the nature of the medicine.
Ling Ran stretched his back after he jotted his memories in the notebook and put it away.
“Ling Ran, is the Emergency Department busy?” an intern shouted at him when he saw that Ling Ran was about to walk out.
Ling Ran stood frozen, thought for a while, and said, “It’s quite free.”
“Hey, ‘free’ is not a word to be used that casually.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
“The hospital is a very strange place. When one says that it’s ‘free’, then it’ll be busy later.”
A few residents immediately stood up to remind Ling Ran of this fact, and they eagerly preached their superstitious beliefs of the hospital to him.
Ling Ran went stunned for a moment, then said, “But it should be a good thing for us when there are more patients in the room, right?”
When that was said, all the residents and interns in the office were stunned.
“Ah, it is quite free today.”
“It’s god-damned free.”
“I guess I’ll be free till I clock out from work today.”
A group of doctors and doctors-to-be latched themselves completely on to this new perspective for this particular superstition.
A mission popped up in Ling Ran’s mind immediately after that:
[Newbie Mission: Treat Patients]
[Mission Details: Complete as many treatments as possible within one day.]
[Reward: One Basic Treasure Chest for every ten treatments.]
[Progress: 1/10]
Ling Ran pursed his lips discreetly. He was still to treat patients, but this time, the difference in rewards was incredibly great. However, if he just focused on the number of patients he was to treat, ten could still be easily done.
Ling Ran was full of enthusiasm, since he was feeling curious about the contents inside the Basic Treasure Chest. However, he was too lazy to be chanting repeatedly like the others. He just intended to cast the Great Art of Superstition once.
He was seen merely lifting his head up and heaving his chest. He stood with his body turned facing south, but his face turned to the direction in which the sun rose, and he gently whispered, “Boring—”
*Bang!*
The Senior Nurse Liu Fei rushed in through the doors and shouted, “Residents, please come with me.”
She stopped for a moment and saw the outstanding Ling Ran, so she said, “Ling Ran as well.”
Immediately after that, Nurse Liu turned around and walked speedily away.
A few residents glanced at each other, their faces grew excited.
‘This is a big task!’
Ling Ran also followed the group with swift strides to catch up to them. After half a minute, everyone was lined up at the side doors to the Emergency Department.
“There was an explosion at the suburban factory. Tentatively, the explosion might have been caused by the boiler. There are many casualties already on the way as we speak.” The Director of the Emergency Department, Huo Congjun, calmed the agitated crowd with his slow and steady voice.
To an industrial city like Yun Hua, situations where injuries caused by industrial accidents were common. The Emergency Department already had an operational plan for situations like these, and everyone including the residents were exposed to it.
Ling Ran was the only one who was completely new to this. He stood among the crowd like a giraffe taking its first drink. It was not afraid of the carnivorous animals’ attacks, but it also did not know how to spread its legs to take a drink.
Doctor Zhou, the average-looking man who grew kinder as he aged and became uglier, noticed this. He went to Ling Ran directly and smiled briefly, saying, “Ling Ran, you can come with me later and act as I instruct you.”
Ling Ran immediately nodded his head.
Now, Doctor Zhou was totally confident in allowing Ling Ran to perform a suturing or something else basic. But patients usually suffered from all sorts of strange problems. Without the relative amount of experience, Ling Ran could easily mess up.
There were some jobs where if you messed up a little, it would not be that bad. But if a doctor messed up when treating a patient, the consequences would be too terrifying.
It was like Lego; it was okay to arrange them in the wrong way, but it would be hard to remedy if you were building a something off a plan.
Every patient was a limited edition.
Ling Ran stood behind Doctor Zhou, discreetly adjusted his breath, and waited for the busy moment to arrive.
After half a minute, he heard the wee-oo, wee-oo noise from the siren of the ambulance on the road. It approached them from afar.
“Get ready.” Huo Congjun was still as composed as a mountain. To him, this was nothing more than a part of his daily activities.
Of course, he needed to focus his energy into settling these daily tasks, but they were still just an everyday matter.
The tasks of the gods managing the mortal world from above and the doctors running hospitals on earth were equally tiring, both mentally and physically.
Ling Ran’s back was a little hot due to excitement, it was like the feeling he felt the first time he opened up the box of a genuine Transformer.
Right then, the first ambulance stopped in front of the doors. The back doors of the ambulance were opened, and a mangled body was pulled out.
Huo Congjun took a glance and withdrew his eyes. “Send him to the resuscitation room.”
The first group of people rushed forward without hesitation, their white robes were instantly stained with blood. The ones remaining still continued to wait at the doors.
Then came the second ambulance, the third…
By the time the fourth one arrived, the patients in that ambulance were already able to get down from the ambulance on their own. Department Director Huo’s orders also changed to “send them to the treatment room”.
Doctor Zhou held on to Ling Ran’s arm until the fifth ambulance came. This time, Ling Ran saw six people. All of them had light injuries, so much so that the worst injury he could spot among them was a lacerated brow.
“Debride, suture!” Doctor Zhou’s face was grave, his heart was as calm as northerners gazing at snow. With Ling Ran’s assistance, he could be as relaxed as he wished to be.
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