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- Chapter 55.5 - A White-Clad Angel and White-Robed Army
A White-Clad Angel and White-Robed Army
The food that was served in Gu Wei’s hospital cafeteria varied wildly from dish to dish: the good ones were so good it was as if the chef had just gotten married and was celebrating; the bad ones were bad enough you’d think the chef just got dumped by his girlfriend. Which kind you got, however, was a matter of chance. Unfortunately, the odds of experiencing the former were infinitely smaller than the odds of experiencing the latter.
So whenever time and energy permitted, Gu Wei and his compatriots often preferred to bring their own meals, making whatever they felt like eating. The head nurse often sighed: “The world is turning on its head: the men (doctors) bring their own meals, and the women (nurses) all order takeaway.”
Once, when the canteen was undergoing renovations, Gu Wei was very busy, and had no taste for the food establishments nearby. I happened to be on leave then, so I volunteered to cook for him. While I was cooking in the morning, he pushed open the kitchen door and called out sleepily: “Wifey…”
It was the first time he had called me that. He moved next to me, as if he had just called his soul back from its wanderings, and stared at the food in the pot, blinking slowly. Only when I had packed the food into a lunch box did he open his mouth to say, enunciating clearly, “Can I get this to go?”
“Alright,” I said, “You can take it all with you.”
Gu Wei immediately took the lunch box with him.
At noon, on his way to heat the food up, he ran into Chen Cong, who asked, “Did your wife make that?”
Gu Wei: “Mmhm.”
Chen Cong tutted. “Look at you living the high life.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Chen Cong was carrying his takeaway lunch in one hand, an apple in the other, and a box of yoghurt wedged under an arm. “We can swap?” He offered.
“You can keep it. I’ll continue on my own simple path and eat my simple food.”
***
“Do you accept red packets?” I asked. It was a serious question.
Gu Wei raised his eyebrows. “Do you want me to, or do you want me to refuse?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Hearing you say that tells me you would refuse.”
Once, as I was going to hand in my materials to my instructor, I caught them just as they ended a meeting, and were sitting around heatedly discussing the topic of “intention”. Suddenly, the Dean of the department turned to me and said, “Lin Zhixiao, your partner is a doctor, right?”
How did I get dragged into this when I wasn’t even involved? I couldn’t hold back a sigh. Honestly, all these scholars who seem lofty in the eyes of other people are actually quite the gossips in private. I was forced to listen to the lecturer ramble on with a “this is insider info, i’m telling you this in the strictest confidence” tone of voice about the number of red packets the hospital receives for nearly half an hour, before I was allowed to leave.
Me: “So, I’ve heard that your hospital receives a considerable amount of red packets.”
Gu Wei: “The market price of a military commander is higher.”
I blinked in surprise. “How do you block all these red packets?”
Gu Wei: “I encircle and intercept in all kinds of places.”
Me: “How much are they usually worth?”
Gu Wei: “I don’t know, I don’t open them.”
I bounced off the sofa. “You…. you keep them!”
Gu Wei: “When an old person doesn’t know what else to do, she hangs around the door to the office. Director A was afraid that if he turned the red packets away, it would make her worry. So he decided to accept them, and return them when the operation is over.”
I remained silent.
Gu Wei: “What is it? Is this a regretful silence or a satisfied one?”
Me: “I’m just thinking this old person must have a lot of money to burn. The head surgeon, the chief doctor, the bed… If this sugar-coated time bomb were to go off, would it bring down the hospital?”
Gu Wei smiled mildly. “There are hundreds of people, and there are all sorts.” He was right, there.
“Don’t you have to deal with scrutiny all the time?” Unpredictable as paparazzi.
He sighed. “The cost of living is so high nowadays, I’m under a lot of pressure to support my family!”
“I’m very easy to look after,” I said immediately. Then added, as an afterthought, “I draw my own salary, too!”
Gu Wei laughed. “Right. So the next time someone offers, I’ll say, I don’t need money, my wife is easy to support, and even draws her own salary.”
Me: “If this gets onto the internet, you’ll feel the heat for sure.”
Gu Wei explained that when it came to accepting red packets, it was often the case that subordinates would mirror their superiors’ actions. And what were their superiors like? Take Director A, for example, who had a strong code of ethics and ruled his department with an iron fist. The track record of someone like that was cleaner than pure water.
***
Director B graduated from the Military Medical University. He was severe of demeanor; strict, self-disciplined, and unsmiling. When he spoke, his words had a weight to them. He was an upright man, but rigorous and unbending, traits that, in tandem, elicited a love-hate response from his students. He’d had a treasured daughter at the ripe old age of forty, making him the poster boy for late marriage and parenthood. Once, when his wife was away on a business trip, he’d had no choice but to take his daughter to work over her kindergarten holidays.
I’d gone to deliver food to Gu Wei that afternoon, and noticed a small child who seemed to have a very full mouth, sitting on the couch in the shift room. Director B squatted on the floor in front of her, feeding her by the spoonful. “Diandian, be good. Papa is going to examine Uncle in a moment, he has a stomachache.”
Diandian gestured with her hands. “There’s a big worm in it.”
Director B wiped the child’s mouth. “Yes, a big worm. And Papa is going to take it out. So be a good girl and stay here and play with your blocks, okay? Come, give Papa a kiss.” I was surprised by the tenderness in his smile.
The first time Diandian met Gu Wei, he hadn’t yet needed to wear a lab coat, and looked very young, so she sweetly called him “Big Brother”
At this, Director B patted Gu Wei on the shoulder and said, “Quick, call me Uncle.”
Gu Wei had nothing to say to this.
***
Gu Wei spent the weekend of his 30th birthday celebrating with his family. On the day itself, however, he was abducted by the “White Robed Army” after work.
The alcohol was all but untouched by everyone except Gu Wei, who drank half a glass, to get his money’s worth. I was surprised that they could be this rambunctious without the help of alcohol–oftentimes with people it was under the influence that they revealed themselves, suddenly and awkwardly, like a fart.
Chen Cong stood there holding the cake box with an evil smirk on his face, and I knew that they were up to some mischief. I thought to myself, at least blow out some candles and sing a birthday song before you smash it.
They, of course, did away with that part entirely. The moment he lifted the box lid, I felt as if my vision went blank—-
When it comes to birthdays, there are the people who will put buttercream on you, like countless other normal people around the world; there are people who smash cakes, those are probably the odd person you will pass on the street, who enjoys cheap thrills; there are people who smash bread, that would be the one and only, weird Sansan; but have you ever heard of a dough smasher?!
This bunch of scoundrels used their professional knowledge to its fullest potential for this prank, carefully crafting their dough to the perfect consistency, adjusting it with a thickening agent, such as syrup. After it had risen, they had thrown the entire box at each other—-it was too sticky to wipe off, or even wash off!
Being with Gu Wei brought me many of such exasperated sighs and surprises.
The two of us, having been lead right into this trap, could only look at the normal cake that they eventually brought out miserably.
Afterward, I couldn’t count the number of times I attempted to wash it off in the cubicle of the bathroom, to no avail. The way Gu Wei and I looked, we would definitely be stopped by traffic police on our way back, no matter who was driving. Chen Cong guiltily called us a taxi. “I really didn’t know how potent it would be,” he told us, “Really, I even looked it up online.”
I said to him boldly, “Next time I see you, you’re dead!”