Chapter 73
Excerpts from Ye Songming's Diary (Part 1)
I still remember the first time I met Xiang Siling, it was late one summer night. The clinic closed early that day, and my master and I lived in the clinic. He had a bedroom, and I slept in the utility room near the door, which had a 1.2-meter single bed. Sun Zhilan secretly got me a palm-sized, thin-necked vase, put a few wild chrysanthemums in it, and placed it on the windowsill. Although half of the utility room is filled with items and equipment, every time I look up and see the flowers on the windowsill, and sometimes even the moon, I feel that this kind of life is actually not bad.
I was sleeping so soundly that day, when I was woken up by someone knocking on the door. I put on my clothes and got up, and saw my master also wearing his white coat and coming downstairs. "There's an emergency patient," he said to me.
I said "Oh" in a daze. His eyes looked a little strange at that time, as if he hesitated for a moment, but didn't say anything.
I went to open the door and saw Master already sitting in front of the computer. At that time, our diagnosis and treatment system had just been installed, and my master was actually a little uncomfortable with it, but he also knew that this was the trend, so he simply became a hands-off boss and left everything to me. I ran around for three months and finally built the system and got it running smoothly. I felt a great sense of accomplishment.
A very beautiful woman and a girl who looked like a student came in.
It was only after a while that I realized that Xiang Siling was actually very strange when I first met her. She was wearing a fluffy white gauze dress with short sleeves that only reached her knees. Her long hair looked like it had been blown recently, making it fluffy, and her bangs were pinned up with two colorful transparent hairpins, revealing a face with deep features. She has a small face and big eyes, which makes her look like a doll.
But the doll, looking lifeless and pale-lipped at the moment, like a dead fish, allowed her mother to drag her and stumble into the clinic. I noticed that the hem of her white gauze skirt was stained with blood and there were some bruises on her calves.
Li Meiling seemed to be very familiar with the master. She said with a smile, "Sorry to bother you so late." Although the master was a little unhappy, he still asked, "What's wrong with the child?"
I actually wanted to say to Master that it looked like this child must have encountered something. But Li Meiling looked at me and asked the master if they could talk in private. The master then told me to go back to my room and get some sleep and would call me if there was anything.
How can I accept that? The utility room was nearby and the door was thin, so I leaned against the door and listened secretly.
Li Meiling said: "Please check it out. The child has been bleeding from below for two days."
The master asked, "Why don't you go to the hospital?"
Li Meiling whispered something, which I couldn’t hear clearly, but Master didn’t ask any more questions.
Later, I heard Li Meiling mumbling that the child had a boyfriend and was disobedient, but she couldn't do anything about it and as long as nothing serious happened it would be fine. The master said, you can’t let it be like this, having sex too frequently, you’ve hurt him, he’s still a child.
I felt something was wrong when I heard it. How could a mother say that to her child? If the child really was disobedient and had a boyfriend, and things turned out like this, wouldn’t the mother have to rush to the boy’s house with a knife? How could he go to a small clinic late at night, away from anyone, and cause injuries in order to cover up the facts? I even suspected that Li Meiling was not Xiang Siling's biological mother, and whether she was using the child's body for personal gain. But from what the master said, Li Meiling had worked in the clinic for many years, and when the child was born, the master even gave a gift.
Full of doubts, I secretly opened the door a crack and saw Li Meiling holding a stack of banknotes and stuffing it into the master's hand, saying, "Don't ask too many questions. Just help the child get well and stop the bleeding." The master didn't even push it away and just took it.
When they made the deal, the girl was lying on the bed next to them, maintaining the gynecological examination posture with her legs propped up, her skirt lifted to her waist, and her underwear hanging at one ankle. Her arms were like two slender bamboo poles, placed straight on both sides of her body. Her face was blocked by the cabinet and I couldn't see her expression, but I felt that she was very depressed and uncomfortable.
I sat on my bed feeling a little dazed. Before this, Sun Yuanan had always been known far and wide as an honest and good doctor, and I came here to work through someone’s introduction. Normally, he is very serious and always says to me, how can a doctor not be rigorous? Not meticulous? Even if we run a clinic, patients come to you out of trust and convenience. Only if you do your best can you do long-term business. I followed him for more than a year and learned a lot.
But what happened tonight made me feel like I didn’t know him. I seemed to see another person. After seeing his sanctimonious exterior collapse, I saw his true side.
After they left, Master opened my door and handed me two hundred yuan: "Here, this is from the patient's family."
"I don't want it!"
"Why are you arguing? Just take it when I tell you to. Keep your mouth shut and don't tell anyone about the patient's privacy. Do you hear me?"
I was furious and stood up and said, "Master, she is still a child! How could you take money? How could you help them hide it?"
"What else can I do? She's her biological mother. If she doesn't care, how can we? Nowadays, little girls are not uncommon for renting rooms with other people and having affairs. There are small hotels in Chaoyang Garden every day. You can go and see. You won't be surprised if you don't see anything unusual!"
"But she looks... looks..."
"She's not too young, she's 15. If she's really unhappy, her mother didn't tie her hands and feet, so she won't call the police. Well, we are doctors, and what we have to do is to cure diseases and save lives. Now
I couldn't refute what Sun Yuanan said. I just looked at the two red bills he casually threw on the bedside and felt that they were very eye-catching. For several days, Xiang Siling's big, empty eyes kept wandering in my mind.
The next day I asked my master how to record yesterday's equipment consumption and medical expenses into the system, and he said not to record it. I said no, now all inventory is linked to the system. If I don’t record it, the data will not match at the end of the month, which is very troublesome.
In fact, I lied to him. I just made up some data and wrote it into the system, but I didn't want to help them cover up in this way. Sun Yuanan didn't understand the system and didn't care. He told me impatiently to remember to catch a cold. I had no choice but to record in the system that Xiang Siling came to the clinic that day to treat a cold.
Later, Xiang Siling came to the clinic twice more, both times after the clinic closed in the evening. The master did not ask me to avoid it anymore. Li Meiling had some complaints at first, but I don’t know what the master said to her. Probably he said that I also took the money, so Li Meiling didn’t say anything else.
Once, Xiang Siling suffered from unbearable menstrual cramps. After the master examined her, he had no good solution and prescribed painkillers for her.
Another time, there was a problem down there, which was even worse than the first time. I remember it very clearly. She was wearing a skirt that day, a short goose yellow skirt that made her skin look very white. She still had long hair, as if she had just gotten out of bed. Her face was extremely pale and there was blood between her legs.
Her vagina was stuffed with all kinds of things, including fruits, ping-pong balls, red wine, and even corks. I helped the master and it took a lot of effort to clean it up and apply medicine to her.
In fact, I used to have relatively few clinical visits and even less gynecological visits. Under normal circumstances, if such a beautiful girl lay in front of me without pants, I would be a little shy and embarrassed. But that day, I didn't feel that way at all.
I just feel sick, depressed and uncomfortable.
That was also the first time I saw Xiang Siling cry. While my master and I were operating in silence, her mother, for some reason, probably thinking out of sight, out of mind, simply left in the middle of the process. When the operation was halfway through, I looked up inadvertently and saw two lines of tears on that beautiful face. My nose feels sore.
I told my master that I would take care of the rest of the application of medicine and bandaging. My master was probably feeling sleepy and tired in the middle of the night, so he went to the back.
We were the only two left in the clinic. I continued to operate, using the most gentle and delicate movements I could. But my tears still blurred my vision. I put down my tools, straightened up, pulled out a tissue, and wiped my tears.
I looked down at her and she looked at me, her eyes still filled with a child's confusion, as if she didn't understand why I was crying.
A child who had just been tortured by a wild beast.
I said, "If that man really liked you, he wouldn't treat you like this. Do you understand?"
She said, "Are you ready? I want to go home. I haven't finished my paper yet."
I didn't expect that the last time I saw Xiang Siling was when she came to have an abortion.
But I actually had a premonition - this irresponsible mother and the man who wantonly vented his desires on her would lead to this day sooner or later.
But when I saw her lying on the operating table in a daze and her mother and Sun Yuanan bargaining outside, I still felt it was unreal. Is there really another life in the belly of such a slender and tender girl? And now, I have to clear this obstacle for her myself?
Master actually doesn’t like to perform curettage and she hasn’t done it for a long time. But this time, the money they gave was enough that I got two thousand too. The master helped Xiang Siling clean up the mess with delicate techniques, and asked me to finish it as usual.
Li Meiling seems to have always lacked patience with her daughter. Abortion is such a serious matter, but she went out to make a phone call halfway through. I don't know what she was talking about in the dark.
There were only Xiang Siling and I left in the operating room.
This time, I was calmer than any other time. I didn't cry or get angry. I lowered my voice and asked her, "Are you doing this voluntarily? If not, I'll call the police for you. They'll be here soon. Don't be afraid of your mother."
Her face was as white as paper, and she finally looked at me. I had a feeling that this was the first time she really saw me, her little assistant.
She moved her lips and said, "Don't bother me. It has nothing to do with you."
I was anxious, my eyes were hot, and I said, "Have you really thought it through? Don't be afraid, there is always a place for reason in this world!"
She shook her head weakly and stopped talking.
Just like Master said, I have no idea what’s going on between her and her mother. I don’t even know what kind of girl Xiang Siling is. If she doesn't speak up, I can't help her.
I had no choice but to continue working in silence.
"Can I see...it?" she asked suddenly.
It took me a moment to realize what she was saying. I hesitated and said, "Let's not watch it."
"Please."
I had no choice but to put the food on a plate, hand it to her and show her. She struggled to sit up and took it with both hands despite my objections. She didn't look sad at all. After looking at it for a while, she handed it back to me and lay down again.
"Where would you drop it?"
I don't want to answer.
"A trash can?"
I can't deny it.
She added: "I will be 16 in 2 months. It's over 2 months old now, it's amazing."
I felt very surprised when I heard this, and my nose was sore. I said, "Don't worry, the operation was done very cleanly. In the future...when you grow up and become a woman, you can have children if you want. But in the future, you must pay attention to protecting your body. For one month, no, two months, you must not have sex. I will also let Master and your mother emphasize this repeatedly."
She looked at me.
I don’t know how to describe that look. The girl’s pupils were very, very dark, but they gave people a bone-chilling feeling. Just being stared at by her made me feel cold all over.
She said: "Why do you think I want a child? What if it's a girl? How terrible it would be. What if she becomes a man's toy like me? She might as well be thrown into the trash can."
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