Zhang Fan was given a few days of vacation time to rest after that major surgery, but he couldn’t go to find Shao Hua every day, because she still had to go to work. So instead, he went to the home furnishings store. He wanted to spend another 50,000 yuan to complete the renovation of his unfinished home as it had been stalled for a while.

It was almost time for Zhang Fan to return to his hometown. He would discuss things with his parents then. He would be delighted if they agreed to come back to Chasu City with him, but if they didn’t want to come, he would purchase a new home for his parents in their hometown.

Zhang Fan’s family’s home was in a tiny and old factory mining district. Not only was their apartment home small, it also had terrible insulation. Although it was still alright in summer, it would be so cold in winter! If there was a powerful gust, the entire stairwell would be filled with the sounds of wind!

Not only that, the factory mining district was far away from downtown, making many things inconvenient. For instance, if one of his parents had some ache or pain, there was no pharmacy anywhere nearby to go purchase medicine at. Still, since Zhang Fan’s family wasn’t well off, they could only make do. Back in Zhang Fan’s parents’ generation, many businesses had collapsed, causing many employees to lose their jobs. While Zhang Fan didn’t know what his parents had felt, it had truly left him with a deep impression which was impossible to forget. At the time, his entire family had felt helpless, with no idea what might happen to them in the future. This was the primary factor shaping Zhang Fan’s personality, and the reason why he always wanted more money and a better sense of safety.

Zhang Fan’s parents had been factory employees for most of their lives, but then they were suddenly fired. The future seemed so dark back then. They tried to find other jobs, but nobody wanted to hire them, because they were so old already. They wanted to start their own business, but they had no money to do so, nor did they have any special skills. The only lucky part among all this misfortune was that Zhang Fan obtained his System and started working. [Author’s note: let us all reminisce together if you have been through similar difficult times before.]

Zhang Fan felt that it would be the best if his parents were willing to come to Chasu City. He was just worried that he wouldn’t be able to convince them. His parents’ way of thinking was quite simple. They wanted to avoid giving any trouble to their son, and as long as their son was living happily, they would forget about their own pains and troubles.

Here in the border province, most residences had floor heating. Zhang Fan intended to only do basic renovation in the living room and bedroom as he felt there was no need to spend too much money on these.

The sofa that Shao Hua’s family owned was quite old. Many parts of the sofa, including the armrest, were rather tattered. Zhang Fan shopped around for a while, and then went over to Shao Hua’s family. He was going to bring Shao Hua’s parents along to look at sofas. Zhang Fan planned on purchasing a rather large sofa for them so that he could also occasionally sleep over at Shao Hua’s place!

In the afternoon, Zhang Fan took Shao Hua’s parents out to visit a furniture store. Zhang Fan didn’t say anything about buying a sofa for them, instead saying that they were only there to take a look. “Sir, what do you think of this sofa?”

“It’s not bad, but it does seem a little old-fashioned.” Shao Hua’s father was under the impression that Zhang Fan wanted to buy a sofa for his own new home, so he tried to give advice on what style he thought a youngster would prefer.

“What do you think, Ma’am?” Actually, Shao Hua’s father’s opinion didn’t matter. In matters like these, only Shao Hua’s mother’s opinion mattered.

“It’s pretty good. It can even double as a bed. That’s nice!” Shao Hua’s mother tried touching and sitting on the sofa.

“Okay, I’ll take this one then. I’ll go pay for it right now,” Zhang Fan said.

“Eh? Little Zhang, have you finished renovating your place? Didn’t I hear from Shao Hua that you only finished with the kitchen?” Shao Hua’s mother asked in some confusion.

“I’m putting this sofa at your place first. The furniture store might mark up its price in a few days if I don’t purchase it now!” Zhang Fan gave this excuse and left.

“Eh!? No, wait!” Shao Hua’s mother finally realized what was going on. She tried to stop Zhang Fan, but he had already left. She glanced at her husband, and asked, “What are we supposed to do?”

“What can we even do? You can tell as well, right? He’s got so many ideas of his own! If he wants to buy this sofa for us, then let him buy it. It’s fine as long as he’s truly sincere… sigh!” Shao Hua’s father didn’t even know if he was happy about this or not. He touched his cigarettes and felt like having a smoke.

Later that night, when Shao Hua returned home, she saw to her surprise that her family sofa was sitting out on the street for bulk trash disposal. When she went upstairs to her apartment, she saw Zhang Fan scratching his head while playing Chinese chess against her father. She also noticed a very large brand-new sofa sitting in the living room.

Shao Hua greeted them and went back to her room to put her things down. Zhang Fan hurriedly got up and went to Shao Hua’s room as well.

“This will make my parents feel really awkward,” Shao Hua told him.

“Not at all. Your parents really liked it. Don’t overthink things, and don’t separate the finances too clearly. If we’re all going to be one family, then everything will be shared. A family isn’t like the bank that you work at.” For once, Zhang Fan actually scolded Shao Hua.

“You have so many excuses. Hurry and get out. I’m going to change out of my bank uniform.”

“Sigh! Your father beat me up for an entire afternoon in Chinese chess already. I feel such a headache from all that Chinese chess!”

“You deserve it. Get out already.” Shao Hua pushed Zhang Fan out of her room, but the latter took advantage of an opening and swiftly kissed her before leaving her room.

“Sir, Shao Hua’s here now. Let me help set the table for dinner. Shall we stop playing for now?”

“No need for you to help out, you’re a guest. All you have to do is wait for the food to be ready. Let’s continue playing.” Shao Hua’s father continued to abuse Zhang Fan in Chinese chess.

Zhang Fan returned to his work at the respiratory department after taking three vacation days. Director Jumabieke knew quite clearly that Superintendent Ouyang had rewarded Zhang Fan with some rest time for his accomplishment with the military emergency patient’s surgery as he had also been present. He even greeted Zhang Fan after the departmental morning meeting. However, Zhu Qianqian was quite furious. She even reported to Director Jumabieke that Zhang Fan was skipping out on work for the past three days, but Director Jumabieke didn’t say anything apart from “Oh, Zhang Fan is doing other things in the hospital right now.” Zhu Qianqian thought to herself, ‘What other things could a mere rotation doctor possibly be doing in the hospital! He probably just gave Jumabieke a gift to overlook his skipping work!’

Well, Zhu Qianqian couldn’t really do anything, since Director Jumabieke refused to say anything to Zhang Fan. Although Zhu Qianqian was in a terrible mood about it, she didn’t dare to say anything to Zhang Fan, either, because she was afraid of making him unhappy, potentially meaning that he would outright refuse to do any work for her. Since Zhang Fan seemed to have Director Jumabieke’s special favor (in her mind), she decided to just tolerate it.

The W Province southerner’s pleural effusion had been completely drained. His tuberculosis treatment had been quite effective. It was almost time to end his treatment and have him leave the hospital. Zhu Qianqian personally wrote the complete medical report on this patient, without letting Zhang Fan touch a single portion. What she wrote was that her preliminary diagnosis had been a lung infection, but that later tests had determined the patient to have tuberculosis!

Zhu Qianqian was quite sly in everything she did. She knew that what she did was illegal, but she also knew how to avoid the hospital and the Bureau of Health’s inspections.

Zhu Qianqian had accumulated quite a large number of medical reports over the past three days with Zhang Fan absent. Zhang Fan didn’t say anything, and immediately began to work. He was on duty today for both day shift and night shift, meaning that he would be working for 24 hours consecutively.

Zhu Qianqian summoned the W Province southerner to her office. She wanted to get some extra money from him.

“Your illness was truly difficult to deal with, but you should’ve been able to feel it for yourself as well over the past few days that it’s much better already. I even had a surgical specialist drain the pleural effusion for you. My other patients don’t receive such special treatment.”

“Thank you, Doctor Zhu, for all your hard work in treating me.”

“Don’t be happy just yet. Tuberculosis is an illness that often recurs, and this time, I broke the law in order to help treat you. I can’t do that for you again. This time, I risked my job just to treat you.” Zhu Qianqian was saying all this just in order to get more money from the tuberculosis patient.

“I know, I know. You must have been quite worried. Please take this as compensation.” The southerner directly handed 500 yuan in cash to Zhu Qianqian. However, he now had an ugly expression. He had already given Zhu Qianqian multiple red packets before his tuberculosis treatment, as per Chinese doctors’ social customs. Yet, Zhu Qianqian was breaking Chinese etiquette now by asking for even more money after the treatment was over. This was outrageous greed on her part.

Zhu Qianqian didn’t care one bit whether the patient was happy or not. She took her money and happily went to go fill out the paperwork for the tuberculosis patient to leave the hospital. She was going to release him tomorrow. “Take this medicine with you and make sure to take it on time. Make sure to get checked up regularly afterwards at a hospital. You can just go to clinics for this, no need to come find me.”

On the next day, the southerner asked in detail about how often he needed to take his medication and how often he should get checked up before leaving. Zhu Qianqian had infuriated the southerner with her lack of proper etiquette when he had observed proper etiquette for the entire treatment’s duration. He had been a businessman for many years now, and knew quite well about the proper way to do things. Besides, it wasn’t like Zhu Qianqian was the only pulmonologist out there that he could see, so he intended to teach Zhu Qianqian a vicious lesson.

Orthopedic department #1’s Director Gao Shijun finally returned to the hospital from the conference he was attending. He immediately learned about the recent military request surgery incident, and hurriedly summoned Zhang Fan to his office. “I heard that you’re leaving to pursue a master’s degree graduate program?”

“Not at all! Whom did you hear that from?”

“Don’t mind whom I heard it from. My opinion is, if you really do want to improve your academic credentials in the future, you should at least wait about one more year before you go. Wait for your rotations to be over and for you to join my orthopedic department. I’ll allow you to be your own team leader here. You have incredible potential for development in the future. However, you shouldn’t take the standard path. It will be far better for you to have experience leading your own medical team before you start to pursue a master’s degree graduate program. Please think about it yourself.”

“Alright, thank you, Director. See you later, then.”

“Yep, see you. Study more textbooks. I also want to see just how far you can go in the future.”