“Chen Jue, give me back my sister! Give her back to me!”
“I entrusted my healthy sister to you, so why couldn’t you save her? Both mother and child are dead! Give me back my sister! Give me back my nephew! You butcher! Dying a thousand deaths wouldn’t be enough to atone for your sins!”
“Give me back my wife and child! Chen Jue!”
“Right, I want to live!”
Many people were rattling Chen Jue’s coffin lid, scrambling to dig him out…
Chen Jue thought that since he was already dead, they should stop digging. He struggled hard, trying to escape those bloodshot eyes, those arms like iron bars, and the eighteen levels of hell that seemed to have no bottom…
He knew this was his inner demon, a dream, not real. Yet, Chen Jue remained trapped in the nightmare. His body felt as though it were being crushed by seven layers of coffins, making it impossible to breathe. It wasn’t until a small hand reached out from within that coffin—followed by a bruised, mangled child crawling out, dragging a long umbilical cord toward him—that Chen Jue let out a loud cry and broke free from the nightmare.
He didn’t know if that cry had shredded his throat, but when Chen Jue sat up abruptly, he saw something fluttering outside the window. He couldn’t see it clearly, but the sound was familiar.
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
The sound was exceptionally bright in the pitch-black night, a song sung with a crane-like neck.
Oh, it was that rooster that couldn’t tell the time and deserved to be in a pot.
Chen Jue clutched his chest and gasped. His heart was beating too fast—about 120 beats per minute—and it was erratic, as if suffering from insufficient blood supply.
Chen Jue pressed down hard with his hand. Only after taking several deep breaths to steady himself did he slowly lean back against the wall.
His heart was still beating. He wasn’t dead. He was alive.
He had survived in another time and space.
He had died after being pushed down a flight of stairs by a patient’s relative. The person who pushed him was the patient’s younger brother, who possessed Herculean strength in his uncontrolled rage. Chen Jue had indeed failed to save the pregnant woman; when confronting the family, he had been the one in the wrong.
Chen Jue touched the back of his head. The lump there had mostly subsided, but in his original world, there would have been no chance for it to subside.
He had been pushed backward, hitting the back of his head right on the edge of a step. Even though he was in a hospital, there had been no chance for resuscitation. His death had been certain.
He was sure he had died then.
But now…
Chen Jue let out a silent sigh, feeling that being alive was perhaps worse than being dead.
Once his heartbeat slowed down, Chen Jue looked at his surroundings.
The era he had dropped into was not in any history book. Of course, if this was a parallel world or a crack in space-time, it naturally wouldn’t exist in the history books he had studied.
Judging by the villagers’ attire, the era he was currently in was even more ancient than the Qing Dynasty, somewhat resembling the Song. Although the Song Dynasty was an era of brilliant culture, it could never compare to the modern world. In such an ancient time, medical care was underdeveloped, as was everything else.
This household couldn’t even afford an oil lamp at night, so Chen Jue had to close his eyes for a moment before he could vaguely distinguish anything.
It was still the same thatched hut. The low windows were covered with thick, pulpy paper, making visibility very low. He could only faintly see the rooster stretching its neck to reach the corn hanging on the outside wall.
This piece of reality—a living creature that couldn’t be more real—told him that he was still in this place.
Chen Jue allowed his dizzy head to lean slowly against the earthen wall. His arms stiffened for a moment before he finally reached out to touch his stomach.
In truth, his belly was still small and flat; it was impossible to feel the child at all.
Yes, there was a child in his stomach right now.
Even though he was certain he was a man, there was a child in his womb.
When he had just been pulled from the river, his head had hit a stone in the water. After coughing up water, he had fallen into a brief coma. The village head had sent someone to call for a doctor.
That doctor, who had a wispy white beard, felt his pulse and said he was pregnant. When Chen Jue heard those words, he thought he was experiencing hallucinations after death. He closed his eyes, prepared to go back.
But when he opened them again, he was still lying in this ancient thatched hut, and he was indeed pregnant.
Over the past few days, he had checked his own pulse countless times and reached the same conclusion as that doctor.
He was indeed pregnant; the child was over two months old.
Because of his dizziness, Chen Jue had been lying on this heated brick bed for three days, yet he still couldn’t understand how such a one-in-a-million miracle had occurred.
It was as inexplicable as his bizarre appearance in this time and space.
While checking his pulse, Chen Jue had also checked his entire body.
His outward appearance was undoubtedly that of a man, but since he could bear a child, he must have a reproductive cavity, albeit a hidden one.
Chen Jue hadn’t watched many television dramas; those he did watch were related to medicine.
He had seen a Japanese medical drama where a doctor also traveled through time to save his girlfriend, who had terminal cancer.
But that male doctor had only traveled back in time; his original body had fallen into that rift in space-time.
Nothing about his body had changed. Yet Chen Jue not only had an extra bodily function, but he also had an extra child.
He didn’t know if he should say he had come out ahead.
He had been pushed down the stairs by a patient’s relative and fell to his death, only to be brought back to life in an ancient world he didn’t know.
And now, there was an extra child in his belly.
When all these earth-shattering pieces of news piled up together, no single one seemed like a big deal anymore.
This was probably the effect of multiple “buffs” stacking.
Chen Jue sat expressionlessly in the pitch-black night. Every detail of his current situation subverted a doctor’s scientific worldview, yet he remained devoid of expression, as if this person were not himself.
He was a cold person, even toward himself.
“Possessed of talent, arrogant and aloof, with a cold demeanor;”
“Though highly gifted, he lacks a doctor’s heart of benevolence; he is not a good doctor after all.”
These were the evaluations the outside world had of him when he took the position of Director of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the age of twenty-nine.
Perhaps because his memory was too good—he possessed a photographic memory—he could still remember those words.
In the past, he hadn’t cared about that sentence.
His personality was already set and hard to change. The head nurse had told him many times to be kinder to patients’ families, to show emotion on his face—to be either gentle or compassionate, to have sympathy, to empathize with the patients.
Otherwise, he would eventually be harassed by a family member.
Chen Jue sat dazed on the brick bed, thinking that she had certainly been right.
He had finally been pushed down the stairs by a family member.
One incident, and it was a big one, leading directly to death, with no more chances to correct his mistakes.
Chen Jue’s hand slowly gripped the clothes over his chest. He felt a suffocating tightness there; at this moment, he finally felt the pain.
Everyone has a day they die. He accepted death—for example, dying of exhaustion on the operating table—but he had never thought that one day he would be pushed down a flight of stairs to his death by a patient’s relative.
Chen Jue had replayed that medical accident in his mind countless times. It shouldn’t have been called a medical accident; it was a failed resuscitation.
Xinhe, I’m sorry.
I don’t want to shirk responsibility, but I can’t breathe. My chest hurts too much.
Chen Jue thought.
He took a few deep breaths and forced himself to keep thinking, as he could no longer sleep.
Outside the low window, that rooster was still pecking at corn kernels, letting out intermittent “cock-a-doodles,” adding a trace of life to this deathly silent night.
Chen Jue watched the dimly lit window and let his thoughts drift.
Xinhe was that pregnant woman.
She was the wife of Huo Jilin, the current CEO of Huo’s Huachen Pharmaceutical Group.
Huo Jilin was also a major shareholder of Zhonghai Hospital.
Jiang Xinhe suffered from severe heart disease.
And he was the Director of Cardiothoracic Surgery, the youngest Director of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Zhonghai Hospital at the time.
Thus, he became Jiang Xinhe’s primary physician.
Chen Jue inhaled slowly. At the time, he hadn’t wanted to take on this patient who didn’t cherish her own life.
Giving birth is like walking through the gates of hell to begin with, let alone for a patient with heart disease.
The patient and the child could not both be saved.
Jiang Xinhe had once told him with a faint smile, “How can one find a way to satisfy both sides, to fail neither the Buddha nor the beloved?”
At that time, she was almost unable to breathe, yet she recited poetry to him word by word, recited poetry to her child, and after finishing Tang and Song poems, she even recited Buddhist scriptures to him.
When a doctor is not enough to be entrusted with one’s life, Buddha becomes a straw to clutch.
It turned out she also knew her physical condition; doctors couldn’t save her.
Unfortunately, even the Buddha cannot reverse human obsession.
Jiang Xinhe insisted on having this child, disregarding everyone’s advice.
Chen Jue asked her why she insisted on this child. If she didn’t have it, she might live peacefully into old age. Medicine was progressing; perhaps she could have a child later.
Wasn’t the Huo Group investing in their hospital to develop extracorporeal embryos? Although he didn’t approve of that research, it became a reason for Chen Jue to advise Jiang Xinhe at the time.
Jiang Xinhe only looked at him and smiled then. Chen Jue understood the meaning in her smile; she also didn’t look forward to a child born that way.
Chen Jue still remembered a conversation Jiang Xinhe had with him before going onto the operating table.
She was practicing prenatal education and had just put down the book she was reading to the child. She remarked casually, “Heaven is very interesting. A cat likes fish, but doesn’t like to go into the water; a fish likes earthworms, but it cannot go onto the land. All things in this world are in a process of possessing while losing, choosing while abandoning. I am abandoning my life in exchange for its life. That should be okay, right?”
This wasn’t just a casual remark; she was writing a suicide note. Chen Jue looked at her without a word.
He was not a man of many words, and even if he were, he couldn’t persuade a mother who was determined to sacrifice herself.
He wasn’t an obstetrician, and though he had seen many mothers, Jiang Xinhe still made him feel incredible.
He couldn’t quite understand it.
He was an orphan; he was healthy, yet he had been abandoned in that hospital the moment he was born. His mother was the exact opposite of Jiang Xinhe.
Jiang Xinhe didn’t want her own life, yet she wanted that unhealthy child to be born.
Why?
He just looked at Jiang Xinhe like that.
Jiang Xinhe was still joking with him, saying, “Doctor Chen, don’t be so somber. Nothing in life goes perfectly. I am willing to give everything I have to exchange for its life.”
As she said this, her expression was gentle and determined, yet it carried a bone-deep sadness.
At that time, Chen Jue didn’t know why she was so sad. He thought it was because of him.
He let out a heavy breath.
Jiang Xinhe’s mindset of writing a suicide note was partly due to him, her primary physician. In the months before her treatment, he had been trying every possible way to persuade her to terminate the pregnancy, which created a pessimistic mindset in her. So much so that now that she was about to go onto the operating table, she wanted to leave a final letter.
Chen Jue had told her categorically at the time, “I don’t do ‘a life for a life’ here.”
“Then promise me, if there’s a special circumstance, please save it first. I beg you, Doctor Chen…”
“I beg you, Doctor Chen… save it… I’ll trade my life for its…”
Chen Jue raised his hand to cover his eyes. Clearly, the lump on the back of his head had subsided, yet at this moment, his eyes stung, as if every blood vessel were about to burst uncontrollably.
He had tried his best, but he hadn’t been able to save them. He hadn’t kept the adult, and he hadn’t kept the little one either.