It was nearly seven in the evening. After the female patient in her twenties was led away by the police, Yan Feifan was so exhausted he collapsed right into his chair.
He had been working nonstop since one in the afternoon.
Today was, perhaps, an unlucky day for many people.
A continuous stream of trauma patients, injured from accidents, fights, and other incidents, had been sent to the cubicle Yan Feifan was in charge of.
The female patient who was just taken away by the police had not only slit her throat but also cut open the veins in her left wrist.
Fortunately, the wound on her neck hadn't severed her carotid artery.
Otherwise, she wouldn't have even made it to the hospital doors before it was all over.
As for the severed blood vessels in her wrist, Yan Feifan was still able to treat them.
Just then, the door curtain was pushed aside, and the young nurse, Ye Lin, walked in.
Seeing that she was alone, Yan Feifan, who had been about to get up, sat back down in his chair.
"No more patients?"
"Yep, this wave of patients has finally cleared out. The day-shift doctors and nurses are all starting to get ready to go home!"
Ye Lin replied, pulling a bar of dark chocolate from the pocket of her white coat and handing it over.
"Mr. Yan, you should get some energy back first."
Yan Feifan took off his mask, unwrapped the chocolate, and popped it into his mouth.
He picked up his tablet again and sighed, "There are no more patients, but I still have to write up the medical records and today's work report..."
As Yan Feifan was writing the medical records, he heard Ye Lin's voice again. "Mr. Yan, about that woman who was taken away by the police earlier..."
Ye Lin said with a gossipy look on her face, "I heard from someone that she got into a huge fight with her boyfriend on the nearby Houli Snack Street."
"She was totally wild. She ran straight into a Turkish kebab shop next door, grabbed a knife, and stabbed her boyfriend—not just once, either."
"After that, she tried to slit her own throat and wrists, but a bunch of passersby rushed over and wrestled the knife away from her."
Ye Lin added with great interest, "Mr. Yan, Mr. Wan is still in surgery trying to save the guy right now."
Yan Feifan swallowed the chocolate in his mouth, glanced at the young nurse, and said, "It pays to know a little medical science."
"You could stab your boyfriend twenty or thirty times and still have it classified as a minor injury."
"If you were really determined to kill someone, one stab would be enough."
Ye Lin giggled and said, "With your skills, Mr. Yan, you could probably perform death by a thousand cuts on someone and it would still just be a minor injury."
Yan Feifan waved a hand at her. "Stop fooling around. Go hand off your work to the night shift."
"It's time to get off work..."
By the time Yan Feifan finished his electronic medical records and work summary and went to the office to change his clothes, it was already past eight in the evening.
He had just stepped out of the emergency building when he heard a crisp, clear voice call out, "Mr. Yan!"
He stopped and saw a petite beauty with shoulder-length hair, wearing a small purple top and slim-fit jeans, skipping over to him.
"Mr. Yan, let's go to Houli Snack Street for dinner! My treat!"
Yan Feifan declined, "Thanks, Ye Lin, but I have to catch the subway and the bus!"
"Next time..."
Before he could finish, Ye Lin grabbed him by the sleeve.
"Mr. Yan, it's rude to turn down a girl's invitation, you know."
Ye Lin pulled Yan Feifan toward the east gate. "Don't worry about getting home, Mr. Yan."
"Your place, the Tourism Road Xingfu Garden District, is more or less in the same direction as my house. I'll drive you."
Yan Feifan asked curiously, "Where do you live, Ye Lin?"
"Jiahe District, south of Zhongshan Park."
Yan Feifan let out a soft "oh."
Zhongshan Park was roughly halfway between his home and the Affiliated Hospital, a little closer to his place.
Yan Feifan tugged his sleeve free with a slight effort and said politely, "Since you're going to the trouble of driving me, let me treat you to dinner."
Ye Lin smiled and insisted, "I said it's my treat, so it's my treat. Mr. Yan, if you feel bad about it, you can treat me next time."
Yan Feifan said, a little frustrated, "Alright then. Next time, it's on me!"
Houli Snack Street was a ten-minute-or-so walk from the hospital.
It was more convenient to walk than to drive.
The two had just left the hospital's east gate when Ye Lin suddenly exclaimed, "Oh! I go to the snack street so often, I just assumed you'd like it too."
"Mr. Yan, the snack street can be a little unhygienic. If you don't like it, we can go somewhere else?"
Yan Feifan waved his hand. "My sister and I have been to that snack street plenty of times."
"I'm a doctor, but I'm not that picky about food."
Ye Lin clapped her hands happily and smiled. "That's great! We have something in common then."
"I often run into colleagues from the hospital at the snack street."
"I also know plenty of doctors and nurses who look down on eating at the snack street."
After a pause, Ye Lin said with a mock-serious tone, "Actually, given the current state of food safety in our country, we can't afford to be too picky."
"Contaminated food is impossible to avoid completely."
"In our daily lives, eating a little street food now and then, or vegetables with pesticide residues, can help our bodies adapt to the deteriorating food environment and boost our immunity."
"Doesn't that make sense, Mr. Yan?"
Yan Feifan grunted in agreement and said casually, "Adaptation and evolution."
Ye Lin continued, "Right! It's like chickenpox—you get it once and you're immune."
"Once our bodies adapt to all sorts of food additives and pesticide residues, these toxic substances won't be able to harm us anymore."
"It's a form of adaptation and evolution."
"Hey, Mr. Yan..."
Ye Lin said with a new burst of excitement, "I once heard a theory that for the last one or two hundred years, the human body has been stagnating, or even regressing, from an evolutionary perspective."
"The reason this is happening is that we've treated and corrected every emerging sign of evolution in humans, mistaking them for diseases."
"Is that true, Mr. Yan?"
"Well..."
Yan Feifan pondered for a moment before saying, "There's some logic to that theory, but I can't prove or disprove it."
"You're so precise with your words, Mr. Yan!"
Ye Lin praised him, then, like a curious child, she asked cautiously, "Mr. Yan, I heard Mr. Qin is really fierce."
"Is that true?"
Yan Feifan gave a simple reply: "He's not fierce. The rumors are wrong."
The two chatted as they walked, with Ye Lin doing most of the talking and Yan Feifan just chiming in here and there.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the bustling Houli Snack Street.
As they followed the crowd halfway through the snack street, their professional instincts as medical workers kicked in.
They didn't buy any of the greasy-smelling grilled snacks, nor did they get any of the cold-tossed or raw dishes.
Yan Feifan and Ye Lin bought four shrimp shumai and an order of pan-fried buns, then walked into a clean and tidy-looking Qianli Xiang Wonton shop and ordered two bowls of wontons.
The wonton shop was tiny, divided into two sections: an inner room for the kitchen and prep area, and an outer room with just four small dining tables.
Every table was occupied, so Yan Feifan and Ye Lin had to share a table with other customers.
Yan Feifan gave two of the shumai to Ye Lin.
"These shumai are pretty good. My sister and I always buy a few whenever we come here."
Ye Lin took the shumai and smiled. "I love these shumai too..."
She was just about to take a bite...
Suddenly, a thick, foul, sickening stench of rotten eggs assaulted their nostrils.
The next moment, Yan Feifan, Ye Lin, and the dozen or so other customers in the little shop all fled outside, covering their mouths and noses.
Even the husband and wife who owned the shop, who had been busy in the inner room, ran out.
Once outside, Ye Lin gasped for fresh air, fighting the urge to vomit, and shouted angrily, "Who let out such a stinky..."
Before she could finish, she saw a woman in business attire with her hair in a bun and a lot of powder on her face, carrying a briefcase and walking briskly out of the shop.
Ye Lin pointed at her and said furiously, "How can you have no public decency? A fart that smelly, and you couldn't even hold it in..."
The woman's face darkened. She demanded, "Little girl, there are so many people here. What makes you so sure it was my fart?"
Ye Lin got angry and shouted, "Just look at how calm and composed you are! You've clearly been sitting in a fish market for so long you've gotten used to your own stink."
"If it wasn't you, who else could it be?"
A flash of embarrassment crossed the woman's face. Seeing the dozen or so people around her looking at her with disgust, she said, flustered and angry, "It wasn't me! I just have a higher tolerance than you all. I'm not a poser like the rest of you!"
She scanned the crowd with a contemptuous tone and scoffed, "You can't even handle a single fart. What could any of you possibly accomplish?"
"Besides, everyone eats, so everyone farts. Who doesn't?"
The woman with the bun looked at Ye Lin again. "Little girl, don't tell me you never fart."
"And even if you do, I suppose they smell like roses?"
"You..."
Ye Lin's face flushed red with anger. Just as she was about to retort, Yan Feifan stopped her with a wave of his hand.
"It's not worth arguing over a fart."
Yan Feifan said this with a straight face, then turned to the woman with the bun and said slowly, "The average person farts fourteen times a day, releasing about 500 milliliters of gas."
"Farts usually have an odor, but for one to smell this bad is unusual. It's typically caused by a pathological reason."
The woman with the bun snorted and said with a disdainful sneer, "You're not one of those health supplement salesmen, are you? Trying to scam people?"
"I'm not some retired old man or woman who can be fooled by a few empty words."
Yan Feifan ignored her attitude and said, deadpan, "When a person's farts are persistently and abnormally foul-smelling, it can be an important sign of a medical condition..."