Chapter 54 How to Stop Doctors from Going Crazy
In Meng Weishen's shaking pupils, Jiang Ranxu vaguely foresaw the end of the world.
Light bulbs shattered, walls collapsed, and water pipes burst. He still lay on the tiled floor amidst the ruins, the sewage gradually filling his nostrils. He suffocated, feeling powerless, and could only watch Meng Weishen walk away with the dog.
Damn it, why couldn't he be a stinky beagle? A beagle could brazenly reveal its own abominations, and Meng Weishen would still praise it as cute!
The horrific delusions in his mind grew rapidly, threatening to consume his entire will. Jiang Ranxu, like a corpse injected with the T virus, suddenly stood up, fell to the bathroom, turned on the shower head, and cold water poured down from above his head.
Even in summer, the shower water flowing from the metal pipes still carried a thorny chill, like a dose of paraquat sprinkled on his mind, gradually withering his wildly growing delusions.
His blood vessels constricted, his heart rate slowed down, and he gradually regained his sanity.
But Meng Weishen followed closely, trapped with him in the heavy rain created by the shower. He hugged him and said, "Jiang Ranxu, what's wrong with you? What do you want to do?"
Jiang Ranxu said as a matter of course: "I'm taking a shower."
"Don't you take off your clothes when you take a shower?"
Jiang Ranxu woke up as if from a dream. He broke free from Meng Weishen's embrace and, under his increasingly frightened gaze, he took off all his clothes one by one and rinsed his naked skin under cold water, pretending to take a normal shower.
Meng Weishen, without consulting him, turned off the shower head without authorization. The sound of water dripping died down, and in the silence, Meng Weishen looked at him. His voice echoed back and forth in the bathroom wall:
"You are too tired now, you need to rest."
"I... yes, I'm too tired now. It's like I was dreaming just now and I don't remember anything. Don't take it to heart."
Jiang Ranxu was still frightened by the rude words he had blurted out. He was afraid to catch any trace of disgust on the other person's face. Fortunately, the cold water calmed Meng Weishen down. The other person didn't question him, but simply squeezed his arm gently. "Let me help you bathe. After that, go to bed early. We can sleep together."
This time, Meng Weishen turned on the faucet next to the bathtub. A long wait followed, as the water slowly filled the tub. Meng Weishen also removed his cold-soaked T-shirt and dipped half his arm into the water to test the temperature. The water quickly heated up, and the steaming heat pounded against Meng Weishen's body, his back like a silent, steep reef.
Jiang Ranxu stood there, stunned, with nothing to do. He felt like he was back in the evening after elementary school, with no homework or evening study, just waiting for his mother to heat up the noodle soup. The narrow room was also filled with heat.
The water surface climbed to two-thirds of the bathtub, and Meng Weishen asked him to lie down in and try it out.
The hot water just covered his chest. Jiang Ranxu felt a slight suffocation, yet also a full warmth. Meng Weishen still sat on the edge of the tub, squeezing out two tubes of shampoo, rubbing the transparent mucus into foam in his palms, and stroking his wet hair.
Meng Weishen probably scrubbed the puppy frequently, so his technique was expert and his strength was just right. His fingertips traversed his hair, forehead, and the back of his neck, and the knotted nerves within him relaxed.
The smell of disinfectant in the clinic and the leather from the car were diluted in the hot water. The ginger-and-rosewood scent of shampoo replaced it, filling his chest with the heat. Everything was clean inside and out.
Jiang Ranxu tasted the relief of having survived a catastrophe, and even his fatigue turned to satisfaction. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against Meng Weishen's legs. The warm light from the bathroom penetrated his eyelids, leaving a layer of faded red.
——
While Meng Weishen was fast asleep, Jiang Ranxu lowered the air conditioning temperature by a few degrees and then hugged him tightly from behind. The cold room trick worked quite well; Meng Weishen instinctively clung to the warmth of the human body and didn't struggle.
Even with Meng Weishen acting as his personal Abebe, Jiang Ranxu still couldn't sleep peacefully. He was still worried about the hidden dangers in his home that hadn't been completely cleared up. It felt like a time bomb was strapped to his chest, and every beat of his heart was like a countdown.
As the sky gradually brightened, Jiang Ranxu could no longer suppress the restlessness in his heart. He confirmed that the person in his arms was breathing evenly as usual, quietly lifted the quilt, and went to the living room to look for the tiles he had slept on last night.
He sprayed the original location with dense disinfectant and then wiped it repeatedly with a mop to ensure that any bacteria that had entered the house with him last night were completely destroyed.
The mop was covered in a few strands of brown dog hair—presumably because Meng Weishen's knitted coat had given the hair a chance to hide. In a rush of activity, Jiang Ranxu immediately extended his cleaning to the entire living room. This is what people with obsessive-compulsive disorder do, a pathological desire for a sense of control over their environment.
The more panicked a person is, the more likely they are to reveal their flaws. While he was cleaning the mop, Meng Weishen suddenly appeared in the bathroom mirror, groping for his electric toothbrush:
"Get up early in the morning and mop the floor."
Water splashed onto his arm. Jiang Ranxu shook his shoulders slightly and said calmly, "I only have time in the morning. I haven't mopped the house in a few days. I should have done it on the weekend."
"Several days? I remember you dragging it out last Friday."
He couldn't go on. He turned off the water, hung the mop back where it belonged, and explained stiffly, "Besides, I didn't get up early just to mop the floor. I was making sour plum soup and oatmeal. The panini I brought back yesterday is in the refrigerator. You can heat it up later and eat it."
Meng Weishen nodded, holding the toothbrush in his mouth, shaking out a few small bubbles like a goldfish. The electric toothbrush was still working diligently. Meng Weishen said vaguely: "I have never met anyone who loves cleanliness more than you."
Jiang Ranxu's heart rate soared to the top, and cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck: "Really? It might be because of my upbringing..."
"Loving cleanliness is a good habit." Meng Weishen yawned repeatedly, his voice lazy and unprepared, as if he had no defense against him. "My mother always scolded me for being lazy. The floor of the rental house hadn't been mopped once in eight hundred years. I've become much cleaner since I was with you."
...Fortunately, Meng Weishen's thinking process is still so weird, and he always makes up for it without authorization.
Jiang Ranxu secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He thought Meng Weishen was the most suitable person to work at Happy Valley because he was so good at riding roller coasters that he almost made him vomit.
The main ingredients of sour plum soup are black plum and hawthorn, and it has a refreshing light brown color when cooked. Jiang Ranxu was anxiously stepping on the edge of life and death, so he only had time to put the hot drink in the refrigerator. He asked Meng Weishen to take it out before work, add ice cubes, and store it in a thermos so that he could take it to the company.
The professional title review itself wasn't cause for concern. Compared to the rigid quotas in public hospitals, competition for professional titles in private hospitals was much more moderate. Furthermore, he was a direct servant of the top leader, Director Tan. Their relationship was closer than Empress Jianqiu's, and he had long been willing to support his promotion. As long as he compiled a comprehensive set of materials, including clinical cases and academic achievements, the medical group that would subsequently support his outpatient clinic would nominate him.
But under the pretext of evaluating his professional title, the old man seemed to have gotten the upper hand over him, and stuffed all kinds of private work into his hands, causing him to feel nauseous when he saw the red rose emoji in the dialog box.
By Wednesday evening, Director Tan had finished revising his article.
[A doctor's heart is compassionate. Tan] My beloved disciple, I've read your article in detail. Overall, it's excellent, practically up to the standard of journal publication, but the details still need polishing. The yellowed sections require further revision. I also have some comments. Please give me feedback tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Your teacher. (Rose)
[R Jiang] Received. Thank you, Director Tan. I will revise it carefully.
[A doctor's heart is compassionate. Tan] I've been helping you revise your article these days, but I still don't have time to review it. I've got another batch of submissions in my mailbox, but there's no rush for this one. Please reply to the review comments next week. Your teacher. (Rose)
I have to chew the garbage carefully and write a review for it. Jiang Ranxu frowned and deliberately delayed for half an hour before replying:
[R Jiang] OK, got it.
Director Tan was recently invited to join the editorial board of a core dental journal, a truly prestigious position. However, the veteran doctor's busy schedule, juggling multiple roles, naturally left him with no time to personally review papers. Therefore, the reviewing work fell to his students.
Jiang Ranxu was busy with clinical work during the day, so he had to deal with the academic garbage at night. He felt a sense of despair that he would be haunted by the nightmare of doctoral studies for the rest of his life.
He could only comfort himself that reviewing journal submissions was better than reviewing master's theses. At least he could use the name of a supervisor to make precise and harsh comments on bad manuscripts.
He had previously helped Director Tan blindly review master's theses. Even though the theses were incredibly bad, he still showed kindness and tolerance, fearing they would cause a bungee-jumping incident for his alma mater.
Because he came home so late every day, even the programmers at the big companies couldn't stand it. Meng Weishen had enough work hours, so he simply ran to the clinic to find him and slipped in through the side door that was never locked.
Jiang Ranxu was still revising his article (version V3), sitting in front of the laptop screen, like a stiff dead tree.
Meng Weishen leaned against the back of his chair, leaned in closer, and looked at his face carefully. The breath that hit his ear was especially warm. "Go home and rest first. We'll talk about the paper tomorrow morning. You have dark circles under your eyes now. It makes you look ugly."
Jiang Ranxu's resentment was even darker than the dark circles under his eyes. "I didn't invite you to see it, so just go and see what you think is good."
Meng Weishen hugged his neck and kissed him: "I just want to see you."
Meng Weishen fed him two buttered rice cakes, which supplied ample sugar and carbohydrates to his blood vessels, reviving his sluggish brain cells. He then massaged his shoulders and, while doing so, came over to look at his screen, where they were both bombarded with Director Tan's comments:
"There's something wrong with the thinking in this section. It can't be so divergent. Think carefully about how to rewrite it."
"Delete this whole paragraph of nonsense and rewrite it."
"What is this argument trying to say? I don't understand it."
"What's the conclusion? Are you going to leave me in suspense, expecting me to look forward to your next 'work'?"
Meng Weishen was rarely angry. "What kind of nonsense is this? All you do is deny it, and you don't even offer any direction for revisions. What kind of thesis guidance is this?"
Jiang Ranxu nearly cursed along with the other person. Fortunately, he braked in time and didn't make another mistake, maintaining his good image of diligence and ambition.
"You're a great academic, but you can't communicate with mere mortals like me. You can figure it out on your own."
"Your advisor is such an idiot. I thought he was so kind, but he's such a good fake. Do you really want to hang yourself on him? Can you please quit once you get your title?"
Jiang Ranxu pushed the other person away: "Go play over there for a while, I'll clean up."
Meng Weishen was so bored that he could only study the structure of the dental chair. Jiang Ranxu finally finished revising his conclusion and closed the laptop screen, then heard Meng Weishen say:
"Jiang Ranxu, I've decided what to give you."
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