The phone ringing awakened He Suye before six in the morning. As he answered, a girl on the other end urgently exclaimed, “Dr. Liu, come quickly! The patient in bed 18 is in critical condition!”
He immediately felt stunned. Just as he was about to tell her she had the wrong number, she apologized profusely, “I’m sorry, wrong number, wrong number!”
He hung up with a wry smile but couldn’t fall back asleep, so he got up.
In the late dawn of winter mornings, the sky was still grayish at nearly six. He dipped bread in hot milk, eating with one hand while flipping through his thesis with the other. His eyes scanned incessantly, feeling increasingly blocked. He sighed, “That Liu Jie is getting more and more sloppy. Doesn’t he fear the boss reprimanding him for submitting a thesis like this?
He casually crossed out large sections of useless content with a pen and called Liu Jie.
Liu Jie was sleeping like a log in the duty room, and the phone ringing startled him awake. Seeing it was He Suye, he started complaining, “Big Brother, are you having hormonal imbalance? Getting up so early!”
He Suye frowned. “What nonsense did you write in your thesis? No wonder you don’t dare to submit it to the boss yourself. Get your pen out, I’ll read it to you, and you’ll cross out whatever needs to go. No arguing. When I’m on duty, I’ll go to the inpatient department. Please give me a call when you’ve finished.
Liu Jie obediently complied, grinning. “I knew Big Brother couldn’t bear to see me in a tough spot.”
In the morning, he didn’t need to do ward rounds, but because he had prescribed some herbal supplements to certain patients, he needed to check on their progress and adjust their treatment accordingly.
As he stepped into the endocrine and metabolism ward, he found several doctors and nurses gathered, murmuring. One of them spotted He Suye and greeted him, “Dr. He, isn’t it strange? A patient who was fine yesterday suddenly took a turn for the worse today?”
He pondered for a moment. “Was it your ward that had the emergency this morning?”
“Indeed. It was a patient with thyroid ophthalmopathy, admitted just two days ago.”
“Thyroid ophthalmopathy leading to heart failure?”
Another doctor chimed in, “Could be. Nobody knew at the time. It was just for observation upon admission. But now, everyone’s afraid of lawsuits against the hospital. Ah you know, strange occurrences have been plaguing our department lately. Two patients within a week—one with thyroid ophthalmopathy, the other with heart and kidney failure. With New Year’s just around the corner, the whole ward feels gloomy and anxious.”
A young nurse piped up, recklessly, “At least it’s not another SARS outbreak. What’s this compared to that?”
He Suye’s heart skipped a beat. The expressions of the two experienced doctors changed abruptly, and the head nurse scolded the young nurse sternly, “Don’t talk nonsense. Do your job!”
From the ward entrance, a nurse shouted, “The director is here!” Promptly, everyone scattered. Shaking his head, He Suye headed straight to the duty room to find Liu Jie. SARS, the epidemic that had once terrified the nation, hadn’t been mentioned in a long time.
It was such a bleak year. Those who had worked in this hospital knew that everyone had been so close to death, both familiar and unfamiliar faces falling one after another. They incinerated their bodies along with any belongings. Everyone felt that they had truly existed, only to disappear without a trace.
The winter sunlight always seemed hazy, as if smeared on the sky but not penetrating the ward. He Suye looked up at the sky, feeling a sudden emptiness in his heart.
He thought he should go see his mother.
His alma mater was very close to the hospital, practically across the street. The school closed that year, prompting many students to attempt escaping over the back wall. However, they were caught, isolated, and eventually punished. He had once considered doing the same, not only because he hadn’t been home in a long time, but also because two of his closest family members were in this hospital.
He wasn’t afraid of the natural disaster; he simply wanted to check on their well-being at the hospital. However, it never materialized. The once lush ivy no longer adorned the mottled red walls, replaced by the scent of Chinese herbal medicine from the school pharmacy. The playground lay abandoned, covered in dry grass, reflecting the neglect of the old campus, now frequented mostly by graduate and doctoral students, with sparse human presence.
He knocked on the door and entered respectfully. “Professor Yang, I’ve brought Liu Jie’s thesis.”
The old man chuckled. “He Suye? Liu Jie probably didn’t dare to bring it himself, fearing I’d scold him. Come, sit down, and let’s talk.” Taking the thesis, he flipped through a couple of pages. “Liu Jie has improved quite a bit. Or rather, Xiao He, did you help him revise it?”
He Suye could only nod. The old man took off his glasses and asked carefully, “Are you not considering studying clinical medicine for your Ph.D.? Only focusing on switching to internal Chinese medicine, becoming a doctoral student under Gu Ping?”
He took a deep breath. “I’ve made up my mind. I’ve already talked to Professor Gu about it. I’ll probably start after the New Year.”
The old man sighed regretfully, shaking his head. “It’s a pity. A promising clinical talent like you was snatched away by Chinese medicine. Your grandfather must be delighted, but your father must be fuming.”
He smiled. “I’ve always wanted to study Chinese medicine, and it has nothing to do with my family.”
The old man nodded. “That’s good. Nowadays, few young people are studying Chinese medicine. If this continues, our country’s traditional medicine will disappear. We all know you’re very promising. Study hard!”
After chatting for a while, he got up to leave, but Professor Yang stopped him. “Oh, Xiao He, could you do me a favor?”
He Suye nodded. “Professor Yang, please tell me, I’ll do my best.”
The old man smiled. “Don’t be so nervous. It’s just a lecture by a professor from a university in the United States, but he’s very interested in Chinese medicine. I’ve already talked to Gu Ping. Could you handle this for me? Do you have the time?”
He smiled. “No problem, but remember to treat me to a meal!”
After finishing work at noon, He Suye went to the flower shop and finally bought some tulips after visiting several stores. He then took the bus to the outskirts.
The cemetery was a rarely visited place, but almost everyone would come here at some point in their lives. It was also the final resting place for many. So, people always hoped to visit as infrequently as possible, after all, seeing familiar faces depart was a sad and helpless thing.
He gazed at the tombstone for a long time, his mother smiling at him. In his memory, his mother always smiled.
“Suye, Mom, and Dad are going to work now. Be good and don’t run around at home. There’s bread and milk on the table if you get hungry.”
“Suye, it’s okay if you didn’t do well on the exam. Just work hard, okay? Don’t cry, be good!”
“Suye, Mom knows she hasn’t been there for you. Mom’s been too busy with work, no time to accompany you, not even time for your parent-teacher meetings. But Suye, you’ve grown up to be so sensible and outstanding, and Mom is very proud of you.”
His heart felt sour, his eyes reddening. He heard from the doctor that when his mother passed away, she was still smiling and said, “The person I’ve let down the most in my life is my son, Suye. Don’t blame your father, Suye. It was my choice. Don’t blame him.”
But he still blamed his father. There was a knot in his heart that grew tighter with time, and now he couldn’t untie it.
He placed the tulips down and reached out to touch the tombstone, which was spotless.
His thoughts were endless, once they started, they couldn’t be stopped.
“Mom, does Dad still come to see you twice a week? Do you know? I haven’t seen him for a long time. I don’t know if he’s okay. Do you know?”
“Mom, I’ve decided to study Chinese medicine, even though Dad wants me to specialize in cardiovascular medicine. Do you know? My first choice for the college entrance examination was Chinese medicine, but Dad changed it to integrated Chinese and Western medicine without my consent, which is why I hold a grudge against him.”
“Mom, I like Chinese medicine, probably because of Grandpa. When I was a kid, I loved watching him prepare Chinese herbal medicine and treat patients. One day, he sat me down in his rocking chair and said, ‘Suye, your name itself is a Chinese herbal medicine. Chinese medicine isn’t just about herbs; it’s also a field of study. Each herb has its taste and characteristics, bitter, sweet, sour, spicy, and pungent. They’re made into prescriptions, each with its taste and effect, but the intricate principles of healing, like life, are understood by few.'”
The afternoon sun suddenly faded, and a cold wind began to blow, with signs of rain looming. The petals of the tulips swayed in the wind as if signaling an impending shower.
He stood up, and smiled at the tombstone, “Mom, I’m leaving now.”
Instead of going home directly, he went to his grandfather’s house in the old city.
He Suye’s grandfather was a renowned old Chinese doctor, whose family lineage was said to date back to imperial physicians of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He had been the president of the Chinese Medicine University before being appointed as the director of the Health Bureau. After retiring, he had been leading a semi-retired life.