Fang Yuan caught the morning coach to the provincial capital, then transferred to a public trolleybus that took her to the Provincial Affiliated Hospital.
Near the hospital stood an apartment building dating back to the 1930s. It had been her grandfather’s residence in the provincial capital. During her high school and university years, Fang Yuan had lived there together with him.
Taking out the key she had not used in a long time from her bag, she climbed to the third floor. The staircase wound upward, its dark red handrail chipped and peeling with age. The corridor was piled with odds and ends, and from time to time she had to avoid discarded steel wire, coal briquettes, and other items left outside.
The sound of the key turning in the lock caught the attention of the neighbors, and the door next to hers opened.
“Fang Yuan, you’re back? Has your work unit transferred you here? Are you staying in the provincial capital from now on?” Aunt Xiao, her neighbor, stepped out of her apartment. Seeing Fang Yuan, she asked in pleasant surprise.
“I came back to attend a classmate’s wedding. I’ll be returning to the county tomorrow.” Fang Yuan noticed Aunt Xiao had changed her hairstyle and praised her, “Aunt Xiao, your perm looks so beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” Aunt Xiao happily touched her hair. “Oh my, when I got home my husband nagged me for ages. He even wanted to cut my hair off with scissors, saying I’d been corrupted. Tell me, I got this perm at a state owned barbershop. Which state regulation says women aren’t allowed to perm their hair?”
Smiling, Fang Yuan pushed the door open and went inside.
The small apartment her grandfather had left her was a forty square meter, two bedroom flat. Just inside the entrance was a narrow sitting room. No one had lived there for a long time, and the rattan chairs and table were covered with a layer of dust. The curtains were all drawn, leaving the room dimly lit.
“Aunt Xiao, let me clean up first, then I’ll invite you over for a visit,” Fang Yuan said to Aunt Xiao, who had followed her inside.
“I won’t sit down, I won’t sit down. I just came in to tell you something.” Aunt Xiao mysteriously closed the door and whispered into Fang Yuan’s ear, “Someone has their eye on your apartment.”
Fang Yuan was startled and stared at Aunt Xiao with wide, innocent eyes.
“You know the Ding family on the second floor, right? Seven people crammed into a thirty square meter apartment. Your place has been sitting empty for so long. I heard Old Ding secretly reported it to the neighborhood committee, saying you’re part of the bourgeoisie, leaving surplus property vacant while the working class has nowhere to live.”
What kind of situation was this? How had she become part of the bourgeoisie? Fang Yuan felt both angry and bewildered.
“This apartment was left to me by my grandfather. It’s properly registered with the housing authority. I don’t have any surplus property. This is the only property under my name. I just don’t work here anymore, so I rarely come back.” She spoke indignantly.
“I know that, but if those people are determined to stir up trouble, I’m afraid the higher ups might believe them by mistake. If that happens, things will become complicated,” Aunt Xiao said quietly.
“Aunt Xiao, thank you for telling me about this.”
“It’s only right. Old Doctor Fang took such good care of us back then. My husband’s chronic illness was cured by him,” Aunt Xiao said.
After Aunt Xiao left, Fang Yuan stood there in a daze, thinking of ways to deal with the matter. In the end, she came up with nothing and decided to return home and discuss it with her family.
Looking at the dust covering the room, she opened all the windows to air it out, rolled up her sleeves, filled a bucket with water, picked up a rag, and thoroughly cleaned every corner. More than an hour later, the apartment was spotless once again, and the old furniture gleamed.
Fang Yuan carefully wiped clean the framed photograph of herself with her grandfather and placed it neatly back on top of the cabinet. She stood before it for a long time, reluctant to leave.
After cleaning so vigorously, her waist ached slightly, but she still slung her yellow shoulder bag over her shoulder, locked the door again, and headed out.
Compared with the county town, the provincial capital’s roads were much broader. Rows of buildings, some tall and some short, lined the streets. Trolleybuses and bicycles streamed endlessly past, while pedestrians hurried along.
As she passed the broadcasting station, a loudspeaker mounted high above was broadcasting a speech by the nation’s highest leader delivered at a meeting. Quite a few people stopped to listen, their faces solemn and filled with reverence.
Fang Yuan wandered through the Friendship Department Store to choose a wedding gift for Shao Fen. In the end, she selected a pair of red pillowcases embroidered with mandarin ducks. After thinking for a moment, she also went to the tobacco and liquor section and bought a bottle of Moutai that did not require a liquor coupon.
After buying everything, she went directly to the faculty housing of the Provincial Medical University to visit her university mentor, Professor Qiao.
Professor Qiao had earned his doctorate in the United States in his early years. He had given up the excellent conditions abroad and returned to serve his country. He had also been a close friend of her grandfather while he was still alive.
When Fang Yuan arrived, Professor Qiao and his wife were having lunch. Seeing Fang Yuan, Madam Qiao stood up in delight and pulled her over to eat with them.
Fang Yuan did not stand on ceremony. She sat down directly, took the bottle of Moutai from her bag, and placed it in front of Professor Qiao. Delighted, he immediately unscrewed the cap and poured himself a glass.
Madam Qiao smiled teasingly from the side. “You’re certainly not being polite.”
“My prized student is showing filial respect to me. There’s no need to stand on ceremony.” Professor Qiao took a sip of the liquor. Even the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes relaxed with satisfaction. He praised it, “Rich and mellow, with a lingering aftertaste. It truly deserves its reputation as the national liquor. Xiao Fang, would you like a glass?”
Fang Yuan hurriedly waved her hands in refusal. She still remembered that several years ago, when her grandfather and Professor Qiao had been drinking together, she had become curious after smelling the rich aroma of the liquor and had drunk a glass herself. The result had been a complete embarrassment. She had sung, danced, and made a scene for a long time. It was the most humiliating memory she never wanted to recall.
After lunch, while Madam Qiao cleaned up, Professor Qiao and Fang Yuan went to his study. Fang Yuan noticed that the study had hardly changed. Hanging on the wall was a piece of calligraphy he had written: “Seek Happiness for the Sick.” The bookshelves covering half the wall were filled with thick volumes, while the desk was piled with medical journals and stacks of handwritten manuscripts spread across its surface.
“Professor Qiao, are you writing a book?” Fang Yuan asked after looking over the manuscripts.
“Yes. During my clinical work, I’ve found that when emergency patients arrive, proper treatment within the first few minutes is extremely important. I’ve organized the emergency rescue cases I’ve encountered over the past several years, hoping they will be helpful to future clinicians. I believe emergency medicine will eventually become an independent discipline. Perhaps hospitals will even establish separate emergency departments in the future,” Professor Qiao said with a smile.
“As medical workers, we naturally hope specialties become more and more refined. After all, it’s difficult for any doctor to master everything. But at our county hospital, physicians in internal medicine and surgery also have to do the work of orthopedic doctors and dentists. The longer I work, the more I feel there is for me to learn.”
“It’s good to maintain that mindset. Learning has no end. The day a doctor believes they know everything and no longer needs to learn is the day it becomes dangerous to place patients in that doctor’s hands.”
Fang Yuan chatted with Professor Qiao for a while and told him she had come to the provincial capital to attend Shao Fen’s wedding. Professor Qiao smiled and said Shao Fen had already brought him wedding candies a few days earlier.
Before leaving, Fang Yuan hesitated before saying, “Professor Qiao, so many doctors are now being assigned to remote and impoverished rural areas to support local medical work. I have absolutely no doubt that the directive is noble and correct… but I’ve always been worried that I might be chosen. Does that mean I’m still not a good doctor?”
Professor Qiao smiled kindly and gently patted Fang Yuan on the shoulder. “As long as your heart is devoted to serving the people, you’re a good doctor. Do you still remember the Hippocratic Oath?”
“Wherever I may go, whether I meet man or woman, noble or slave, my sole purpose is to seek happiness for the sick…” Fang Yuan softly recited.
“The next time you come, don’t bring any more liquor. Your teacher’s wife has been telling me to quit drinking.”
A smile appeared on Fang Yuan’s face once more. She stuck out her tongue playfully. “You’ve been saying you’re going to quit drinking for years.” After saying that, she closed the door behind her and ran off.
…
Shao Fen’s marital home was a single dormitory room assigned by the hospital. When Fang Yuan arrived, the two of them hugged each other, laughing and jumping around with excitement for a while. Shao Fen was four years older than Fang Yuan and a native of the provincial capital. Back when they were students, she had always looked after Fang Yuan like an older sister, and the two of them had been extremely close.
The newlywed room was only about seven or eight square meters. The moment the door opened, everything inside could be seen at a glance. The most eye-catching item was a wedding photograph hanging above the bed. The bride and groom each held a Little Red Book in their hands, their faces filled with righteous determination. There was a red lacquered wooden bed with a bright red paper-cut of the Double Happiness character placed on the quilt, a wardrobe with glass doors, a writing desk, and a standing cabinet. The limited amount of furniture had already filled the tiny room to the brim.
Several familiar classmates had already arrived. A group of young people began cheering and teasing, pressing the couple to tell the story of their romance. The newlyweds answered with solemn expressions that they had come together because of a shared revolutionary goal, and that they had only begun dating and registered their relationship after receiving the organization’s approval.
Everyone laughed and stopped asking further questions, afraid that pressing the matter might bring trouble to the newlyweds. In those days, men and women in love had to keep their feelings hidden because romance was considered a “petty bourgeois sentiment” that was subject to criticism.
Shao Fen took out peanuts, melon seeds, and candies from the cabinet, carried over a snack tray, and handed some to each guest.
Fang Yuan handed over the red envelope containing her wedding gift money. Shao Fen squeezed the envelope, smiled, and said, “This feels so thick. You’ve given far too much. I’d be embarrassed to accept it.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. Just think of it as a gift for my future little nephew.”
Shao Fen froze for a moment before realizing what she meant. Laughing, she reached over to tickle Fang Yuan’s sides. The two of them played around for a while until Shao Fen’s mother came in and said the food in the cafeteria was almost ready, asking her to take the guests over.
At the time, many people kept their weddings simple. After obtaining their marriage certificate, they would hand out wedding candies, and the ceremony was considered complete. However, Shao Fen’s family still hosted two banquet tables in the hospital cafeteria. The grain coupons, meat coupons, cigarette coupons, and other ration coupons required for such a banquet would have taken the family at least two years to save.
Relatives from both families, along with colleagues and friends, gathered cheerfully in the hospital cafeteria to celebrate the newly married couple.
That day, both Shao Fen and the groom, Li Xinwen, wore relatively new clothes. Shao Fen wore a red striped autumn shirt with blue trousers, while Li Xinwen wore a navy blue Zhongshan suit with black trousers. Each had a red flower pinned to the front of their chest. Their faces glowed with happiness, and they looked every bit the part of newlyweds.
The wedding ceremony itself was very simple. The bride and groom bowed toward the portrait of the Great Leader hanging high on the cafeteria wall and recited their vows: “We will forever remain loyal to the Great Leader, uphold the socialist path, liberate all humanity…”
Afterward, they bowed to both sets of parents, and the ceremony was considered complete.
There was no alcohol at the banquet. Everyone used water in place of wine. The newlyweds went from table to table offering toasts with cups of water. When they reached Fang Yuan’s table, their classmates and colleagues took turns making them drink several cups of boiled water. By the end, the groom was so full he looked as though he was about to blow bubbles from his mouth.
After the lavish wedding banquet, which included both meat and vegetables, Fang Yuan and several of the bride and groom’s classmates and friends, all young people, followed the newlyweds back to their new room.
It was no longer customary to hold boisterous bridal chamber games, but simply gathering together was lively enough. The young doctors linked arms and loudly sang “The East Is Red” and “Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman” inside the cramped newlywed room.
At that moment, Shao Fen stepped forward and announced, “Let’s welcome little Fang Yuan to perform a beautiful song for us, ‘Katyusha.'”
She was the first to applaud, and everyone immediately joined in, their enthusiastic applause echoing through the night.
Fang Yuan touched her long braid and stepped forward with confidence. She had sung “Katyusha” before at a school evening performance, where she had performed it as a duet with one of her senior schoolmates.
She linked one arm and gestured toward the senior schoolmate in the crowd. Although he was rather ordinary-looking, he had a rich, resonant voice. Smiling, he strode forward and linked one arm toward Fang Yuan in return.
“Apple trees and pear trees were blooming all around, mist drifted gently over the river, Katyusha stood on the steep riverbank, her song flowed out like the radiant light of spring…”
The bright young woman stood gracefully, her jet-black braid draped over her chest. Her crimson lips parted gently as the warm orange glow of the lamp bathed her figure. The scene resembled a richly colored oil painting.
“She sang of the eagles soaring over the grasslands, she sang of the one she loved, she treasured the letters her beloved had sent…” The senior schoolmate’s deep, resonant voice joined hers.
The moonlight that night was gentle and bright. At some point, people from the same dormitory building had gathered outside the window. Drawn by the moving song, they stopped to listen, softly humming along.