Path of Medicine With a System
chapter-17

Since Politician Kang didn’t want to drink, Batu also didn’t drink very much. Back on the way to the hospital, Batu asked Zhang Fan, “Do you know how to drive?” Batu had thought over it for quite a while before he asked.

Kang Hua didn’t want to go to the hospital, nor did she want anyone to know that she had health problems. The hotel she lived at was approximately three kilometers away from the hospital. Winters in Kuake City saw darkness arriving extremely early in the evening, so the taxi drivers in the city would have long since stopped working already by the time that Zhang Fan normally got off from work. It would be quite unrealistic to have Zhang Fan walk the entire distance. While Batu would have been more than happy to drive Zhang Fan on a daily basis so that he could also often show up in front of Politician Kang, he knew that would make Politician Kang unhappy as it would be too obvious he was trying to get into her good graces.

“I don’t know how to drive. Superintendent Batu, are you going to give me a car?” Zhang Fan felt that all men would love cars, unless they were too poor to afford one.

“Of course not, little brat. I originally wanted to loan you a car that you could drive, but you don’t know how to drive. In that case, sign up for driving school tomorrow. Learn how to drive as quickly as you can, and I’ll loan you a car once you learn how. I can’t exactly be your personal driver every day.”

“Even at the quickest, it would take me at least one month to graduate from driving school and obtain my driver’s license, wouldn’t it? Besides, isn’t tuition quite expensive?” One of Zhang Fan’s college roommates had previously signed up for driving school. Zhang Fan heard from his roommate that driving school tuition would cost several thousand yuan.

“I can have Old Zhou teach you how to drive. Don’t worry about driving without a license, it’ll be fine as long as you know how to drive ¹ . I think that three days should be enough for you to learn?” Old Zhou was one of the ambulance drivers at Kuake City Hospital.

“Wouldn’t it take at least a week for me to learn?” Zhang Fan was rather nervous because he had never sat behind the steering wheel of a car before.

“It’s really simple. You’ll learn it right away. I didn’t even need to learn, as I figured it out by myself.” Since things had gone so well today, Batu was becoming a bit prideful as he began to brag.

Over the past few days, Li Hui had been quite anxious. Zhang Fan hadn’t been back to the hospital dormitory for a while, so he went back for a visit. He discovered that Li Hui seemed to be quite dejected, so Zhang Fan commented, “Bro, you need to restrain yourself. You’re emptying out your body at such a young age? You’ll be filled with tears a few years down the road.” He then tossed Li Hui a cigarette, and then lay down to rest for a while on his old bed. Zhang Fan’s old bed now belonged to the fatty Li Liang.

“Sigh, I’ve lost face, I’ve lost an incredible amount of face. I don’t have any face to see my parents anymore!” Li Hui really wanted to tell someone about his troubles.

“Haha, then tell me what’s going on so that I can have a good laugh.” Zhang Fan found Li Hui’s troubles funny.

“No way! Go to hell.”

“Oh, aren’t you quite something? I’ll go ask Wang Sha later, then,” Zhang Fan teased Li Hui.

“Stop, I’ll tell you! She’s been really angry at me for the past several days!”

“What exactly happened?”

Li Hui took a long drag on his cigarette before speaking. “I almost made a mistake that any man would make. However, I didn’t even f*cking get the chance to make that mistake when I was discovered.”

Zhang Fan became amused by this. “So you were two-timing your girlfriend? Haha, you deserve it!”

“Are you going to listen or not! If you keep spreading salt on my wound, I’m not going to tell you anymore.”

“I’m listening, please continue. I won’t say anything else.”

“There’s a nurse that works together with me. She comes to chat with me every day. Three days ago, I was working the night shift together with her. So, we sat down together and started chatting in a doctor’s office. I don’t know how, but we started hugging each other. And before I got to do anything, Wang Sha pushed open the door to the office and started looking at me. I was so scared! Even now, Wang Sha is still ignoring me.”

“Don’t you still have that nurse to comfort you then?”

“Don’t even mention it. After Wang Sha left the office without saying anything, the nurse told me that she only viewed me as a friend, yet I tried to touch her without her consent. Damn it all, I was so angry that I was seeing red.”

“Hahaha, this is hilarious!” Zhang Fan rested for a while, and ignored the dejected Li Hui. Some time later, Zhang Fan went to find Old Zhou to begin learning how to drive a car.

Over the next few days, Zhang Fan practiced driving during lunch break, and had to go visit Kang Hua after work each day to give her rehabilitative massages. He was quite busy. One day after he finished his lunchtime driving practice, he saw that every single person in surgical department #2 had gathered together, except for Tu Xun. Even Director Nuar, who hadn’t shown up to work for a long while, was present today. “What’s going on, is today the day that we’re supposed to receive our salary?” Zhang Fan joked.

“Director Gao is returning to his hospital tomorrow. We’re preparing a farewell party for him; we were waiting for you,” Shi Lei explained, smiling. He also knew about Zhang Fan’s secret task of treating Politician Kang, so he told Director Gao about Zhang Fan being busy during lunchtime. Gao Shijun happily obliged, and postponed the farewell party for him until later in the afternoon in order to wait for Zhang Fan.

“Director Gao, why are you leaving so quickly? Wasn’t your stay here supposed to last one month?” Zhang Fan asked in confusion.

“An incident happened at my hospital. They called for me to go back. All of you will be fine here without me. You’ve all really developed this department well.”

Zhang Fan was a bit sad to see Gao Shijun go. Gao Shijun was highly experienced and very patient. He was willing to give detailed explanations about anything that Zhang Fan wanted to ask about. “I see. What a pity. There’s still so many things I wanted to learn from you. When will you come again, Director Gao?”

“I’ll have fewer chances to come over in the future. When I go back, I’ll be preparing for the highest-level orthopedic surgery certification exam. How about you come along with me to my hospital? I’ll train you personally. That way, you’ll be able to ask me anything you want on a daily basis. How about it?” Gao Shijun said this as if he was joking.

Everyone was surprised by this, but they then all felt it was only natural. Yang Chengming was the only one who looked at Zhang Fan with an expression that said he wanted to kill him. All the others were simply envious. Zhang Fan had gained so much face just from receiving such an invitation from a director at a much larger hospital.

“Haha, I’ll go over to visit you when I have a vacation. I’m worried that you’ll be annoyed with me.” Zhang Fan didn’t want to go, if only for the time being. He had previously interned at a much larger hospital during his medical school studies. He knew that as long as he didn’t have a medical license, it would be impossible for him to do what he wanted even with a director’s favor. And as time went on, it would become troublesome for Gao Shijun if he was seen as favoring Zhang Fan too much.

Gao Shijun still wanted to say something, but Shi Lei interrupted first. “Director Gao, let’s go over to the wine tables. Look, our Director Nuar is no longer able to suppress his alcoholism. We can chat slowly over drinks.” With that said, Gao Shijun was no longer able to continue on this topic as he had to go with everyone to drink.

“All of you should start drinking without me. I’m going to grab two bottles of excellent wine to send off Director Gao with.” Shi Lei had everyone drink first without him. He then swiftly ran to the superintendent’s office. Shi Lei visited the superintendent quite often, hoping to make his presence known so that he could receive a promotion. Now that Gao Shijun was making it so obvious that he wanted to headhunt Zhang Fan, and Shi Lei knew that Superintendent Batu favored Zhang Fan, of course he would report this matter to Batu.

“Such a thing happened!?” Batu even stood up in astonishment and anger. It was obvious to him that Zhang Fan was a highly skilled doctor. And, it would be only natural for young doctors to want to go work at bigger and better city hospitals instead. Otherwise, Batu wouldn’t have had such an expression.

Over the past few days, Politician Kang had been highly satisfied with Zhang Fan’s massages. But if Zhang Fan ended up going to a bigger city hospital instead, what was Batu supposed to tell Politician Kang? Superintendent Batu would be unable to handle the rage of his city’s head politician if she became angry and wanted to make life difficult for him. Even though Kang Hua was a low-ranking politician since she was only the head politician of a tiny city like Kuake City, she would still be more powerful than Batu was.

“You’ve done really well. Hurry back and don’t give them any opportunities to chat about this subject. It will become really troublesome if Zhang Fan makes any verbal agreements. When the eating begins, make sure to interrupt them as much as you can if they start talking to each other. I’ll call Zhang Fan and summon him to my office. We can’t make it too obvious, because we also can’t afford to antagonize Director Gao.”

Shi Lei kept thinking to himself as he walked back to the farewell party. ‘Superintendent Batu really places so much importance on Zhang Fan. This means that Batu definitely has some sort of scheme. Just what could it be?’

Director Nuar was currently giving a speech as the head director of surgery department #2. Zhang Fan only drank one glass out of the three he was supposed to as per the local custom. He knew that he would become completely drunk after the third glass. Zhang Fan was about to explain this to Gao Shijun, when Zhang Fan’s cell phone suddenly rang. He saw from the caller ID that the call was from Superintendent Batu.

“Zhang Fan, where are you right now? Come over to my office.”

“Superintendent Batu, our department is currently hosting a farewell party for Director Gao.” Zhang Fan hinted that it would be improper of him to leave this party unless there was an emergency.

“Oh, a farewell party for Director Gao? Could you please hand your phone over to Director Gao?”

Zhang Fan had no clue what Batu then said to Director Gao. All he saw was Gao Shijun laughing and saying “no need, no need.”

Gao Shijun then hung up and returned Zhang Fan’s cell phone, saying, “You should go see what your Superintendent Batu wants now. We can always talk about what I mentioned in the future. Make sure to contact me.”

“Director Gao, I apologize for having to leave your farewell party early. I’ll go visit you when I’m free.”

Meanwhile, Batu sat down in his grand superintendent chair and contemplated after hanging up the phone call. He knew that Zhang Fan was quite young, so it was unlikely for him to know how powerful a city’s head politician could be, and what benefits he could have from cultivating a good relationship with Kang Hua, even if the she was only the leader of a small city. But if Zhang Fan really was the type who only wanted to go to a better hospital, he wouldn’t care about maintaining a good relationship with Kuake City’s head politician regardless. Besides, it would be Batu who would have to bear the brunt of Kang Hua’s anger. So, Batu would have to try to spoil Zhang Fan some more so that he wouldn’t leave. Batu was unsure what Zhang Fan truly wanted in life.

Batu was uncertain whether Zhang Fan would leave or not. However, Batu had already been a superintendent for more than ten years. His experience told him that it seemed very likely for Zhang Fan to want to leave. In that case, he would need to do something major to make Zhang Fan really want to stay here.

To be honest, Zhang Fan would have left Kuake City Hospital regardless of anything else if it weren’t for him receiving his System. He was the type who would immediately suck up to the person in power above him, and he would have an easy life there with the director’s favor. But since he had his System, Zhang Fan now thought in a different way. Since he would have more opportunities to grind medical experience at Kuake City Hospital when compared to a bigger city hospital, until he could take his medical license exam one year after his medical school graduation, Zhang Fan would never leave Kuake City Hospital. Old Batu was worrying for nothing.