One month of time passed quite easily for Zhang Fan in the gastrointestinal department. The incident where he almost became infected with hepatitis B didn’t cause even a tiny ripple in the hospital, as this was far too ordinary.

Such an incident wouldn’t be surprising at all in a hospital. Originally, Zhang Fan had thought that maybe he would receive a bonus as consolation for the scare, but when the result came out that he was fine, the infectious diseases department director simply left.

Still, Li Hui did come over to console Zhang Fan. “Why would you pick a middle-aged married woman to kiss?”

“Get the hell out, and crawl on all fours! I’m really frustrated right now.”

“I just came over to see how you were. If you’re so angry, you’re probably fine. I’m leaving, then.”

Every day was routine for Zhang Fan as he worked. Chasu City Hospital had many rules which were quite strictly enforced. Back in the much smaller Kuake City Hospital, the superintendent was in charge of all the rules. Although the superintendent was also in charge of all the rules here at Chasu City Hospital, everyone had to obey the rules far more strictly as too many people were watching you to make sure the rules were being followed.

Zhang Fan really missed Kuake City Hospital. He felt that if such an incident had occurred at Kuake City Hospital, the former superintendent Batu definitely would have written him a check, saying, “Here, have 5000 yuan to spend as you like.” At Chasu City Hospital, Li Hui was the only person who even came to check on him after this incident. Not a single other person had even asked him about it. Zhang Fan was now missing home. With his emotions going through such turmoil recently, he suddenly missed his family.

When Zhang Fan finished his rotation in the gastrointestinal department, nobody could sign off on his paperwork, because the director wasn’t around, and all three vice directors had been demoted. Well, Zhang Fan didn’t really care either way.

Hu Zengyang invited Zhang Fan to a meal of beef ribs.

“Bro, you’re truly suited for surgery. Sigh! Back when Huang Yun was still just a vice superintendent, he didn’t approve of me already. He said that I was too slow. Otherwise, I would be a surgeon today as well.”

“Brother Hu, aren’t things fine for you in the internal medicine gastrointestinal department? Apart from the absentee director, you’re now ranking #1 in the department. You’re still not satisfied?” Zhang Fan teased Hu Zengyang as they ate. They had a good relationship with each other, so they both spoke quite casually.

“Sigh! I’m almost 40 years old, but I’m still personally writing my medical reports. Just look at the surgical departments. What veteran attending physician there still has to personally write their medical reports?”

“You probably started taking kickbacks in your very first year as an attending physician. Just try asking any surgeon if they can start taking kickbacks for themselves without working for five or six years first. I bet you came to internal medicine for money. Don’t blame everything on former superintendent Huang Yun.”

“Haha, you little brat. What you say is indeed true. Still, Huang Yun really didn’t approve of me. It’s also true that he complained that I was too slow.”

In internal medicine, the beginning of work would be easy, while it would get more difficult near the end. As long as you weren’t the director, even if you were scheduled to retire tomorrow, you would still have to take care of your patients and write medical reports, analyzing the patient’s condition to the best of your ability. In surgery, the beginning of work would be quite difficult. You would need to cultivate a good relationship with your teaching doctor. Otherwise, it would be far too slow for anyone to learn surgical techniques by themselves. But, after you became an attending physician who could independently perform surgeries later on, you would no longer need to write your own medical reports. Plenty of resident doctors would be willing to write the medical reports for the surgeon attending physicians.

Zhang Fan had been saving his money for two months now. With his salary plus the money from working for other hospitals, he had a decent amount saved up. Zhang Fan visited some hardware stores, and checked the prices of building materials, simultaneously inquiring into what it would cost to hire someone for home renovation services. He was now prepared to finish renovation of his unfinished house.

While normal people would typically finish renovating the home in one go, Zhang Fan had no such intention. He would do things slowly, one step at a time, just like how ants would move home for winter. Two months’ worth of income would be enough to renovate the bathrooms in the house. He would renovate some this month, some more next month, and so on. He would also directly go to hire individuals rather than go to a renovation company. That would save him some money.

Although the hospital hadn’t praised or rewarded Zhang Fan for finishing his rotation in the gastrointestinal department, he was the only rotation doctor who was given three full days of vacation. However, when Zhang Fan received his next rotation assignment, he almost wanted to cry! He was assigned to orthopedic surgery department #2, his previous orthopedic surgery department #1’s biggest competitor! Zhang Fan had antagonized the entire orthopedic department #2 with how overboard he’d gone in staying in the emergency department and taking every emergency patient he could. What went around would come around.

It was now time for him to pay what he owed to orthopedic department #2. He had taken as many patients as he possibly could back then in order to maximize the number of surgeries he could grind. He’d never expected that he would one day be transferred to orthopedic department #2.

At the time, the doctors in orthopedic department #2 really hated Zhang Fan. This was only natural since he was reducing their income by taking so many patients for himself. However, he had no choice but to go there. Zhang Fan felt conflicted for quite a while, but then decided to stop thinking about it. He would finish his three-day vacation first.

He just happened to talk to the director of general surgery at Kuake City Hospital. They had received several commissions for gall bladder surgeries, so they were going to go together to finish them all in one day. Then, Zhang Fan would go and visit Kuake City. He hadn’t seen Chen Qifa and Li Liang in quite a while, so he wanted to visit them. Kuake City Hospital had been performing very few surgeries recently, so Zhang Fan wanted to see how things were. Kuake City was now basically Zhang Fan’s backup base.

The third round of massage treatments for Li Xiao was intermittent rather than on a daily basis, so Zhang Fan didn’t need to inform her this time that he was going to Kuake City. Zhang Fan simply drove his car to Chark City to perform the gall bladder surgeries there.

He stayed in Chark City for the night because that city was too far away from Kuake City, and he didn’t want to drive late at night unless it was absolutely necessary.

The next morning, when Zhang Fan arrived in Kuake City, he found that Chen Qifa had his wife cook a good meal for Zhang Fan. Chen Qifa knew that Zhang Fan wasn’t very fond of restaurant food, which was why he and Li Liang treated Zhang Fan at home. The relationship between them all was rather messy as Chen Qifa called Zhang Fan teacher, Li Liang called Chen Qifa teacher, while Li Liang called Zhang Fan brother.

“Teacher, back when I didn’t have a medical license, I hoped to receive as few patients as possible, but now that I have a medical license, patients aren’t coming at all. We haven’t performed any surgeries at Kuake City Hospital for almost two weeks now! Sigh!” Chen Qifa complained about his frustrations to Zhang Fan.

“Yeah, transportation is easier than ever. It’s so easy to take a bus to a bigger city—it will take only slightly more than an hour. We’re losing too many patients to bigger city hospitals,” Li Liang interjected.

“Isn’t Kuake City Hospital not supposed to transfer surgery patients to other hospitals unless absolutely necessary?” Zhang Fan asked, confused.

“Sigh! That Zou Pingshan doesn’t care at all. He’s almost about to retire, so he’s daring to take all the illicit money he can. He’ll charge 300 yuan to transfer a patient to another hospital. No matter what type of surgery it is, he’ll sign the paperwork for a hospital transfer as long as he gets paid. He’s been transferring every single one of our surgery patients away because other hospitals are paying him to.”

“Isn’t that too outrageous of him? The superintendent really dares to act so brazenly?” Zhang Fan was quite mystified.

“Of course he does. All of us in surgical department #1 have nothing to do every day.”

“Shi Lei isn’t doing anything at all?” Zhang Fan asked.

“I don’t know. It’s impossible to know what Shi Lei is thinking. He’s the type to never show his real thoughts. I’ve known him for more than 10 years. He’s been like this since young; he’s really ambitious.” There was nothing that Zhang Fan could do about Zou Pingshan wanting to make some extra illicit money before retirement. The superintendent had plenty of ways to abuse his authority. As long as the governmental higher-ups didn’t care, this small amount of illicit money wouldn’t cause any trouble.

“If either of you two want to join a study program, just tell me. As long as Kuake City Hospital agrees, I’ll arrange it for you right away. It will be no problem for me to get you into a study program at Chasu City Hospital’s orthopedic department #1.” Zhang Fan saw how helpless Chen Qifa and Li Liang were feeling, so he gave them this idea.

“Okay, Teacher. I’ll see how things are for a while longer. If things truly aren’t working here anymore, I’ll have Li Liang go first after he gets his medical license. I’ll go after he finishes his study program. I can’t just leave nobody capable of surgery in the department here.”

Chasu City Hospital’s orthopedic department #2 also learned that Zhang Fan was being assigned to their department. Although Zhang Fan had been in orthopedic department #1, the operating rooms were shared by both departments. Everyone in orthopedic department #2 knew that this newcomer named Zhang Fan had been personally brought over to Chasu City Hospital by Director Gao Shijun, and that Zhang Fan was ridiculously skilled at surgery. It was easy to tell that Gao Shijun’s recruitment requirements had been customized so that only Zhang Fan would get the job opening. Plus, the attending physicians in Zhang Fan’s team, Li Hongtu and Cui Pingjun, weren’t the type to do much work. Basically, it was obvious that they were there to sign off on everything and take responsibility, protecting Zhang Fan’s future.

Orthopedic department #2’s director was Wang Dehua, who was Gao Shijun’s senior and disciple under the same teacher. However, Wang Dehua was far more skilled than he and Gao Shijun’s fellow junior under the same teacher, Cui Pingjun. Wang Dehua was highly skilled at both joints and spine surgery. After the previous orthopedic department director retired, Wang Dehua and Gao Shijun were now the best orthopedic surgeons of Chasu City Hospital. However, Wang Dehua had a few advantages over Gao Shijun—Wang Dehua was in better physical shape, and was more skilled in all areas, while Gao Shijun was in poorer physical condition, and specialized more in spine surgeries. Back in the day, former superintendent Huang Yun had really approved of Wang Dehua’s abilities, and established orthopedic department #2, split off from orthopedic department #1, just for Wang Dehua.

Although orthopedic department #2 had only been split off a few years ago, they were just as well developed as orthopedic department #1. Not only that, Wang Dehua personally taught just about every doctor in his department, so it was quite easy for him to manage orthopedic department #2. Back in the day, he had constantly competed against Gao Shijun. Although he didn’t have a bad relationship with Gao Shijun, he was the ultra-competitive type who just had to compete over everything.

Back when Zhang Fan was monopolizing all the emergency department patients by staying there at all times, Wang Dehua had been quite angered. However, his anger wasn’t because of Zhang Fan’s actions, but rather because none of the young doctors in his department were as hardworking as Zhang Fan.

“I hear that Gao Shijun’s best disciple is joining our department?” Wang Dehua and the others in his department were all under the mistaken impression that Zhang Fan had learned all of his skills from Gao Shijun. Out of all the younger doctors in orthopedic department #1, it was indeed true that Zhang Fan could be considered the most skilled doctor among them.

“Yeah, he’s so hard on himself, he even practically lived in the emergency department.” The vice director of orthopedic department #2 was Chen Qi. He was a loyal follower of Wang Dehua, and had joined orthopedic department #2 with Wang Dehua right when it was formed.

“Haha, he’s really hardworking. What do you think, will Gao Shijun faint out of anger if we keep that young brat in our department?”

“Haha, he definitely will, though I think it will be difficult to keep Zhang Fan in our department.” Chen Qi couldn’t help but laugh at imagining Gao Shijun fainting from anger.

“Since Zhang Fan is coming, let’s not make things difficult for him. Let’s observe his skills first. We shouldn’t just listen to all those exaggerated rumors. Who knows what his actual skills are like?”

“I bet that he really is quite skilled. Zhang Fan has taken over all of the joints surgeries in their department. On his team are Li Hongtu and Cui Pingjun. Li Hongtu is in very poor physical condition, while Cui Pingjun is a lazy slacker. Zhang Fan is the real team leader despite not being so in name.”

“Let’s test his abilities first. Luo Jin and Yuan Tao are still unable to independently perform joints surgeries. The younger doctors in our department are feeling severely aggrieved because of Zhang Fan’s previous patient monopolization. Tell them that they’re not to bully Zhang Fan. We must win against Zhang Fan with our medical skills, fair and square, rather than through bullying him.” Luo Jin and Yuan Tao were two attending physicians in orthopedic department #2, and were more skilled than the other attending physicians.