Ye Wushu hadn't been able to find her senior fellow apprentice for quite a while, but the moment she sent him a message, he drifted out like a ghost.
"Who needs the death certificate?" Lu Junran immediately locked onto the two family members and walked over. He was tall—nearly 1.9 meters—and carried himself with authority when dealing with them.
But the family members operated on the principle of "once I'm in the hospital, I'm the boss"—they got tougher with tough people and even tougher with soft ones. The male family member started shouting first: "What's wrong with your hospital? You didn't give us the certificate yesterday, told us to come back today, and now we can't even find anyone!"
Lu Junran ignored them for the moment and instead asked the nurse, "Who was on duty for the liver transplant last night?"
The nurse gave a name.
The family member tried to shout again, but Lu Junran called the guard from outside the door. He swore his tone was perfectly friendly: "Sir, ma'am, please calm down. I completely understand how you feel, but it really wasn't our team that handled it last night. Let me contact the doctor from yesterday for you. In the meantime, please don't go any further inside—it will disturb the patients."
Ye Wushu watched the scene unfold, both shocked and impressed.
Lu Junran found the doctor's name and employee number in the surgery department group chat, called directly, exchanged a few words, and hung up.
"The doctor from last night is on the 11th floor. You can go up and find him there."
The male family member was indignant: "Last night they told us to come here, and now you're saying we have to go to the 11th floor? I'm not going. I'm staying right here!"
Lu Junran shrugged. "Then you'll have to wait outside the door."
The male family member said, "I'm going to file a complaint against you!"
Lu Junran smiled and was about to speak when Ye Wushu rushed out. "I'm sorry, we're just rotating students here and don't know the details of the liver transplant patient's case. If you're in a hurry to get the certificate, you should go to the 11th floor. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until they have time to come down."
Ye Wushu looked completely harmless, and her voice was soft and gentle. The male family member's expression eased slightly, and at that moment the female family member tugged at his arm. "Forget it, let's go."
Since she'd said they were students, filing a complaint would be pointless.
Once the two family members had walked away and the ICU door had closed again, Lu Junran spoke up. He didn't understand why his junior fellow apprentice had stopped him.
Let them complain—if it were him, he'd have said "go ahead." It wasn't like he could be "selected" for anything right now anyway.
Ye Wushu said, "Why bother? If they really pushed it and it escalated to our advisor, that wouldn't be good either."
She tugged at his sleeve. "Forget it, senior fellow. No need to argue with them. We're the bigger people here."
At 5 PM that day, Ye Wushu left work right on time. She was almost moved to tears—it was the first time in her week of working that she'd been able to leave on schedule.
"Bye, senior fellow. See you tomorrow." Ye Wushu slung her little backpack over her shoulder and practically flew out of the ICU with light, brisk steps.
His junior fellow apprentice hadn't walked out with him today. She said she had plans. Lu Junran was too "reserved" to ask who she was eating with, whether it was a man or a woman, or where they were going.
Asking would cross the line. Not asking left him like this—pacing around at home, unable to sit or stand, unable to read more than a few lines of his papers before wanting to text her and ask if dinner was good.
What he really wanted to ask was whether he could come.
At 8 PM, his junior fellow apprentice posted on her Moments. Lu Junran liked it instantly, then studied it carefully.
She'd gone for Thai food and posted a four-grid photo. The last one was a selfie.
Ye Wushu flashed a peace sign at the camera, grinning wide with a row of white teeth, her smile bright and radiant like the first flower blooming on a spring branch.
Her eyes curved into crescents, carrying the unique liveliness and clarity of a young woman, adding the brightest touch of color to the image.
Lu Junran instinctively tapped save.
The next second, a notification popped up.
[Surgery Zhao Hongxi liked this.]
Lu Junran was thoroughly annoyed. He couldn't sleep, and when he remembered that tomorrow was Saturday—his junior fellow apprentice would be on duty, but he wouldn't, meaning he wouldn't see her—he grew even more restless.
Ye Wushu slept wonderfully that night. She had a simple mind and slept straight through until morning, when her alarm dragged her awake. After hitting snooze three times, she finally accepted the reality that weekends also meant work, and dragged herself out of bed in misery.
The ICU had fewer staff on weekends than on weekdays. For doctors, today the 6th-floor monitoring unit only had Dr. Wu Yue and Ye Wushu.
Ye Wushu's job today was simple: continue being a messenger. The nurses posted patient updates in the group chat, and she relayed them to Dr. Wu Yue.
Of course, for simple orders—like renewing a patient's regular medication—Ye Wushu didn't need to page her superior; she could handle it herself.
The morning was calm enough. At noon, her superior ordered dumplings from Yuanji at the entrance, insisting they were the safest takeout for a shift:
"Dumplings, sleep—eat dumplings, sleep well!"
Wu Yue shared her shift survival wisdom with Ye Wushu: "Mango, dragon fruit, Want Want snacks—those go without saying. But things like noodles or vermicelli, foods that tangle and wrap around themselves—you can't eat those either. They attract weird things."
Ye Wushu felt a bit sad after hearing this, because she actually quite liked eating noodles.
However, it turned out that trouble was bound to happen regardless of what you ate—it had nothing to do with the food.
After lunch, Wu Yue instructed, "Honey, I'm going to rest for a bit. If there's an emergency, call me. You have my number, right?"
Not long after her superior went to rest, a nurse rushed over to Ye Wushu: "Bed 3 is gone! Her phone isn't going through!"
A patient from the ICU wandering off—this was a huge deal!
Ye Wushu wondered if she'd heard wrong.
It wasn't until the nurse repeated herself a second time that Ye Wushu quickly called her teacher: "Teacher Wu, something's wrong—the patient ran off!"
On the other end of the line, Wu Yue's brain went blank.
The next second after hanging up, Wu Yue came out wearing her white coat. She rubbed her nose, clearly with a headache: "Call the police, then contact the security department. Follow procedure and pull the surveillance footage."
If it were a regular ward patient who'd left without saying anything, they could wait a bit longer while making calls without immediately calling the police—after all, once the police arrived, it would bring a lot of trouble to everyone's work.
But for a patient in the ICU, if they didn't call the police now and something happened to the patient outside, all the medical staff would be sued. Given their hospital's reputation, it would even make the trending searches.
"Wait." Wu Yue first stopped Ye Wushu, who was about to dial 110. "Pull the surveillance first. Only call the police after confirming the patient isn't still in the hospital."
The nurse beside them breathed a sigh of relief.
"I remember the patient in bed 3 has a relatively stable condition. They were supposed to be transferred to a regular ward today anyway. Disappearing for this short while shouldn't cause anything major," Wu Yue said. "They might have just gone out for a stroll."
If it were a patient with deep vein thrombosis in the lower extremities who was strictly confined to bed, going out for a stroll would have everyone screaming internally, barely managing to keep their faces calm.
So they first pulled the surveillance footage from the ICU and its vicinity. Just as they pinpointed the time the patient disappeared, the family member helped the patient back in.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief in unison. The situation hadn't blown up, and the patient hadn't gotten into trouble—this was the best possible outcome.
"How could you run outside! ICU patients aren't allowed to leave!"
The family member smiled sheepishly: "It was too stuffy. He wanted to go for a walk."
Bed 3 was a VIP private room, which allowed one family member to stay and accompany the patient. However, generally speaking, those in private rooms—besides being VIPs (with a self-funded bed fee of 3,500 yuan per day)—also had severe conditions. Most were comatose, and very few could get out of bed and wander around on their own.
Who would have thought that today, a family member would actually take the patient out for a stroll!
Wu Yue didn't want to say more. She called the original department: "When are you transferring this patient back? He said the ICU was too stuffy today and went out for a walk on his own. I can see his mental state is pretty good—he doesn't meet the ICU admission criteria. You need to come get him right away."
Only when it was just Wu Yue and Ye Wushu did Wu Yue say angrily: "Next time they want to call and ask us for a bed, it won't be that easy! Everyone wants to come—get in line! They don't take care of their own VIP patients properly. We're helping them manage, not acting as their maids!"
Ye Wushu silently handed over a cup of milk tea: "Teacher Wu, have a drink."
This was something she'd bought with her own money earlier to comfort herself for having to work on the weekend.
Wu Yue looked over suspiciously.
Ye Wushu quickly said: "Hong Kong-style silk stocking milk tea, regular ice, half sweet. Very safe."
"No thanks." Wu Yue had already lost all her energy and means.
Watching Teacher Wu walk back, Ye Wushu sat down at her temporary "workstation." She wanted to "share" today's bizarre incident with someone.
But most of her good friends weren't in medicine. After thinking it over, Ye Wushu sent it to Lu Junran in one go:
[Senior! Let me tell you! Something huge happened today!]
Ye Wushu liked to type in separate paragraphs. Just as she finished that sentence, a nurse @'d her in the group chat:
[Bed 21 blood sugar 18]
[Bed 10 intake/output imbalance—intake 2300, output 500]
[Bed 19 chest drainage tube newly drained 200ml of blood, bright red in color (photo)]
Then came a long string of photos.
Oh! Right! Although it was the weekend, the nurses still worked in three shifts. It was their shift change now, so there were many messages that needed handling.
Ye Wushu turned into a diligent order-processing worker, replying to each item as she handled it.
By the time she finished the last one, her superior came to ask what she wanted for dinner.
Ye Wushu thought for a moment and said: "How about we eat the safest option—dumplings?"
Wu Yue said: "Dumplings won't help either. Let's skip them and switch it up. How about maocai?"
So Wu Yue ordered a mildly spicy version of maocai, and Ye Wushu ate until her eyes turned red.
On the other end of the phone, Lu Junran, who had been waiting for two hours, finally couldn't hold back and sent a: [?]
Oh, ignoring him—maybe she was having a "great chat" with Zhao Hongxi.
Ye Wushu fumbled and accidentally tapped the voice call button: "Senior…"
She was so spicy that she couldn't speak a complete sentence, choking on every word.
"What's wrong? Take your time." Lu Junran had been lying in bed resting, but he immediately sprang up. He had already forgotten the displeasure of waiting for news, replaced by an inexplicable feeling of heartache.