Little Ye was pondering how to message her crush, but all she could do was zoom in on his profile picture background, staring at it again and again.
Why doesn't her crush post on social media? For someone as talkative as her, posting three times a day was completely normal.
After failing to come up with an answer, Ye Wushu decided to ask her senior brother the next morning.
However, early the next day, the moment Ye Wushu stepped into the 6th-floor ICU, she was bombarded with orders from the nurses.
"Bed 1, continue propofol 3 vials, remifentanil 1 vial."
"Bed 6, continue nicardipine 1 vial."
"Bed 7, midazolam 1 vial, ciprofol 2 vials."
"Bed 9 is being transferred out, pause today's no-companion order."
"Bed 13, should we still use mannitol today? Please ask the neurosurgeon."
"Bed 25, new post-op patient from orthopedics, says he's in a lot of pain, can we give him a painkiller?"
"Bed 29, post-op patient from thoracic surgery says his chest hurts, feels like he can't breathe."
…
Ye Wushu was chased around by the nurses' orders.
In the chaos, she forgot which beds were hers and which were Lu Junran's. As long as something was posted in the group chat, she actively replied:
[Got it, received]
[Ordering now]
[Already ordered]
Finally finding a brief gap, Ye Wushu stopped to catch her breath. She turned around and saw Lu Junran leisurely playing with his phone.
Ye Wushu: "…"
Even her anger seemed gentle: "Senior brother, please handle the orders!"
Lu Junran put down his phone and obediently did as told. After a while, Ye Wushu realized it would've been better to just do it herself, because Lu Junran asked her about every single order:
"Junior sister, where do I order physical cooling?"
"Junior sister, what is midazolam?"
"Junior sister, how do I order dexmedetomidine?"
Ye Wushu was speechless: "Bro, you work in neurosurgery, and you don't know what midazolam is? Midazolam is midazolam! Don't your post-op patients routinely get midazolam for sedation?"
The change in how she addressed him told Lu Junran something was wrong.
Normally, he didn't care about others' emotions or tones, but for some reason, he felt he should keep his junior sister from getting too angry.
He attributed it to not wanting to lose a good "partner"—if she left, who else would teach him how to place orders hand by hand?
Lu Junran explained: "I've never actually been on clinical rotation before. I've been in the lab the whole time."
Ye Wushu looked at him quietly, saying nothing.
Then how did he have the nerve to say earlier that he couldn't read head CTs as a neurology resident?
Lu Junran tugged at her sleeve. He didn't know how to comfort people; all he could say was: "I'll be your strategist. Don't be upset."
Ye Wushu thought about it and realized she did still need his help, so she said: "Fine then. But be more serious."
She turned back to continue handling the orders.
Lu Junran was left sitting there, his mood suddenly turning sour.
Family members were peeking in from the entrance. Although the security guards kept shooing them away, saying they could only come in during visiting hours, many people still set up camp outside the ICU doors. Every time a doctor came in or a transporter wheeled in a new patient, they'd sneak in behind them.
A nurse shouted: "How did you get in again! You can't just walk in here!"
The old lady clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture, her wrinkled face breaking into an ingratiating smile. But her brows and the corners of her mouth naturally drooped downward, making her look deeply troubled.
Ye Wushu remembered this old lady well—wasn't she the family member who had shoved her yesterday?
"I'm the family member of Bed 17. Can you check on him for me? Is he okay?"
The nurse said: "You've come several times already. We've told you—you can't just come in outside visiting hours. He's doing fine. He's on sedatives now, sleeping!"
The old lady seemed to have trouble communicating, just rambling to herself: "He can't move, can't speak. He's suffering. Can you comfort him for me? Thank you! Thank you all!"
Seeing the old lady trying to push further in, Lu Junran stood up. If the old lady "pulled that again," the consequences would be unthinkable.
Lu Junran didn't have much patience for family members like this. He was about to "simply and roughly" escort her out when his junior sister pressed on his sleeve: "Let me handle it."
Ye Wushu said in a low voice: "She's old. Let's be gentler. We don't want something to happen and have her family blame us."
Hearing his junior sister's reasoning, Lu Junran inexplicably felt his irritation ease.
"Ma'am." Ye Wushu hurried over and steadied her. "The patients in here are very fragile. If you rush in like this, you could bring in bacteria and viruses. Please step outside first."
"Then can you check on him for me? He's lying in there like a dead man. I…" The old lady was on the verge of tears.
"What are you saying? He had his surgery and is recovering. How is he like a dead man?" Ye Wushu said. "Don't worry. Being here with us is the safest place for him. Didn't you come to our hospital to get him treated? Then you need to trust the hospital and trust the doctors, right? If Director He saw this, he might think you don't trust him!"
Bringing up He Feizhou was unusually effective, and sure enough, the old lady finally stopped advancing: "Then you two help me take good care of him…"
"Mm-hmm, we will. You go on out now."
As the ICU door opened and closed once more, the ICU finally fell quiet again.
Ye Wushu overheard a nurse's complaint: "That old lady—she just won't listen no matter what we say!"
Ye Wushu turned around and happened to meet Lu Junran's gaze: "What's wrong?"
Lu Junran smiled slightly and gave her a thumbs up: "Junior sister's communication skills are solid! Very suited for internal medicine."
For a moment, Ye Wushu couldn't tell whether it was praise or mockery.
"Forget it. If every family member I encountered in medicine was like this…" Ye Wushu let out a long sigh toward the ceiling: "Then just kill me now."
At that time, Ye Wushu was too young and naive to know that this didn't even count as one of the eighty-one tribulations.
Tang Sanzang's journey to fetch the scriptures had an endpoint, but once you set foot on the path of medicine, the road stretches endlessly.
"When is ENT going to transfer this patient out—" Ye Wushu said. "Next time that old lady comes back, I'm calling He Feizhou directly."
In truth, this was just her "talking big"—she wouldn't dare call the chief director. But then…
A flash of inspiration struck Ye Wushu: "I'll send Zhao Hongxi a message to ask." She was absolutely brilliant—this way, she'd have a topic to talk about!
Lu Junran sat down in silence.
But after a while, having glanced over several times from the corner of his eye, he noticed his junior sister was glued to her phone, showing no sign of coming over to write up the medical history.
"Ahem." Lu Junran spoke up: "Junior sister, where's the blood transfusion request form?"
Ye Wushu had just received a lukewarm response from her crush and was in a bad mood. "Didn't I already teach you last time?!"
Even as she said this, she still came over and helped Lu Junran fill out the "blood transfusion request"—only to double-kill him again: "Senior brother, how did you even get into your PhD program?"
Lu Junran showed no shame and said without hesitation: "Your senior brother excels at research, not clinical paperwork."
Ye Wushu: Fine. She had nothing to say to a research powerhouse.
Lu Junran observed her expression and asked cautiously: "What's wrong? Did they not respond to you?"
"They responded." Ye Wushu said listlessly. "But they said they weren't sure and told me to ask the attending on duty today."
She had said "okay, thank you, sorry for the trouble," and the other person replied with an "ok"—so cold. Even without ever having been in a relationship, she could tell the other person wasn't interested in her.
Ye Wushu asked: "Senior brother, help me analyze this."
"Analyze what?"
Lu Junran stared at the WeChat chat page. There were only four messages total: the first was Ye Wushu asking when bed 17 would be transferred, Zhao Hongxi replying that he wasn't sure, then Ye Wushu saying "okay, thanks," and Zhao Hongxi sending an OK emoji.
Lu Junran couldn't even articulate why he was so pleased.
He couldn't show it—he was his junior sister's "revolutionary comrade," and he couldn't gloat.
"To be fair, this doesn't prove anything." Lu Junran analyzed from his own perspective. "They might not even know what you look like, or who you are."
This was truly words from experience. Lu Junran used to get added on WeChat by girls all the time, and for him, it was actually quite bothersome.
Two complete strangers with no shared interests as a conversation starter—the girl could only awkwardly force small talk, and since he wasn't interested in women, he mostly replied out of politeness.
But later, Lu Junran discovered that even "replying" could be misinterpreted, so he simply stopped adding strangers altogether.
Only men with "no other options" would chat endlessly online. Take Lu Junran, for example—meeting and getting to know someone in person was the most energy-efficient and sensible approach.
Ye Wushu had a sudden realization: "So should I post some photos on my Moments?"
Ye Wushu pulled up several sets of photos she'd taken before. "Senior brother, help me take a look—which ones should I post?"
Lu Junran said, "Shallow." But his eyes honestly looked over.
They were a set of ancient-style portrait photos. Ye Wushu stood among a Jiangnan garden, dressed as a noble lady of old, one hand holding a fan and the other lifting her skirt hem, her profile turned toward the camera with a radiant smile.
Lu Junran said this one wasn't good—too posed, too deliberate.
So Ye Wushu flipped to another set of tourist photos. "These were taken right after the college entrance exam. Do I not look like this anymore?"
In the photo, Ye Wushu wore a simple white tee with light blue jeans. Back then, her hair was shoulder-length with bangs, and her oval face was slightly sharper than now. In any case, it was a palm-sized face, with clean, bare skin and a student-like innocence about her.
She stood on a mountaintop, between the sky and earth just before dawn, her features striking—the most outstanding scenery of all.
Lu Junran couldn't find any fault, so he said: "This one's too far in the past. Not suitable."
"That's true, but I really don't take many photos." Ye Wushu said. "Got it! How about I book a photo shoot soon? I haven't had pictures taken in a long time."
Lu Junran thought for a long time about reasons to veto her idea, then said, "I don't think you should. Men who judge by looks are too shallow. A man who gets interested in you just because you post a photo—that's not acceptable."
Lu Junran added, "It's low-class."
"Then what do I do?" Ye Wushu asked humbly, seeking his advice.
Lu Junran said, "In my opinion, when it comes to fate, it's best to let things take their natural course. Don't force it."
Ye Wushu blinked, feeling like something wasn't quite right.