Chapter 223: Chapter 222: Jealousy
At 10:50 PM, after completing the deformity correction surgery on the right leg of a child from the orphanage, Yu Suye returned to the locker room with Yan Feifan.
Having successfully completed the surgery, Yu Suye was clearly a bit excited, humming the tune of "Jasmine."
Yan Feifan had just grabbed a change of clothes and was about to head into the restroom when he realized the little tune echoing through the locker room had stopped. The next moment, a pair of hands wrapped around his waist from behind.
Yan Feifanās body instantly stiffened.
He wasnāt used to such close physical contact with other people.
Even with his older sister and Xiaoyu, the most they ever did was link arms or put an arm around each otherās shoulders.
But now, the person behind him had pressed almost the entire front of her body tightly against his back.
Yan Feifan could clearly feel those two soft, warm mounds...
"Youāre getting your sweat all over me," Yan Feifan said, his voice full of disdain.
In mid-May Binhai, the temperature was still twenty degrees, even late at night.
Wrapped in thick, sterile surgical gowns, both Yan Feifan and Yu Suye had sweated so much during the tense, nearly four-hour-long operation that their short-sleeved scrubs were almost soaked through.
Yu Suye let go of Yan Feifan and gave him a light smack on the back.
"Iām not complaining about you, but youāre complaining about me."
She pouted, then said excitedly, "Feifan, I found the perfect surgical candidate in the files for the new children from the orphanage."
Yan Feifan ignored her and walked straight into the restroom.
Yu Suye followed him right in.
"Born with four fingers on each hand, missing the thumbs. The patient needs thumb reconstruction surgery, as well as corrective hand surgery..."
Staring at Yu Suyeās excited face as if he hadnāt heard her, Yan Feifan cut her off. "Iām going to take a shower."
"So pull the shower curtain. Itās not like Iām going to peek."
As she spoke, she even thoughtfully pulled the shower curtain closed between them.
"Letās do this surgery together. You take the right hand, Iāll take the left..."
Yan Feifan cut her off again. "I canāt shower with you in here."
Yu Suye giggled. "Feifan, you havenāt agreed to my proposal yet. As soon as you agree, Iāll get out."
Yan Feifan was at a loss when faced with her shamelessness.
"Sheās five years old!"
Yan Feifan replied bluntly, "You canāt do it!"
"Why not?" Yu Suye retorted, unconvinced. "I can even suture 0.3-millimeter blood vessels."
"Youāve never even performed finger reimplantation surgery on an adult."
That single sentence from Yan Feifan struck a sore spot for Yu Suye.
She looked aggrieved. "My skills have been more than sufficient for a long time; I just havenāt had the chance to practice."
"You know that, Feifan."
Yan Feifan replied stiffly, "You must first perform finger reimplantation surgery on an adult. Once youāve proven your abilities, then Iāll consider whether to take on this case of the child born with four fingers."
He then added bluntly, "Iām taking a shower now. Get out!"
Yu Suye shook a small fist at Yan Feifan behind the shower curtain, then left the restroom with a pout...
By the time they had both showered and changed, it was already 11:20 PM.
As they walked out of the locker room and left the surgical area, a young nurse with two cute dimples hurried toward them, a look of anxiety on her face.
"Mr. Yan, a good friend of mine from back home got beaten up. His face is injured, could you please treat him?"
Yan Feifan recognized the dimpled nurse. Her name was Xv Shuang, and she had been one of the people following Ye Lin and causing trouble a while back.
Yan Feifan nodded and asked, "Where is he?"
He and Yu Suye followed Xv Shuang to an examination room on the first floor and met the friend she was talking about.
He was a man in his early twenties, dressed like a college student.
Xv Shuang introduced him as a junior from Binhai University.
His face was pretty banged up.
His nose was crooked, there was a laceration above his left eyebrow, and the right corner of his mouth was bruised and bleeding. The most severe injury was his left ear, which was torn at the base.
After an examination, Yan Feifan discovered that, luckily, his nasal bone wasnāt fractured, just dislocated.
After resetting his nose, Yan Feifan began to clean the wounds on the manās eyebrow and left ear.
In the process, Yan Feifan astutely noticed that the kidās eyes werenāt behaving; he kept stealing glances at Yu Suye, who was waiting to the side.
Once the debridement was complete, Yan Feifan picked up a needle holder and surgical forceps, preparing to suture the wounds.
Seeing this, Xv Shuang cautiously reminded him, "Mr. Yan, arenāt you going to use an anesthetic?"
"Itās just a minor injury," Yan Feifan said lightly. "Giving him an anesthetic would be more trouble than itās worth, and it isnāt conducive to rapid healing."
"I assume this young man can endure it, right?"
The student glanced at Yu Suye again, nodded forcefully, and said with an air of machismo, "Doctor, in ancient times, the great general Guan Yu had his bone scraped clean to treat a wound. Whatās a little injury like this?"
"Iām not afraid of the pain. I can handle it."
"Go ahead, Doctor."
The moment Yan Feifan started suturing, the muscles on the young manās face began to twitch violently.
But to his credit, he was tough. He just gritted his teeth and didnāt make a sound.
Cosmetic-grade suturing is all about meticulous detail; itās slow, deliberate work that yields fine results.
Even though Yan Feifan didnāt deliberately slow his suturing speed, it still took him a good eleven or twelve minutes to close the laceration on the eyebrow and the tear at the base of the left ear.
By the time Yan Feifan placed his suturing instruments into the tray, the tough young man was already drenched in sweat from the pain.
The nurse, Xv Shuang, was perfectly capable of handling the subsequent disinfection and bandaging, so Yan Feifan left the examination room.
The moment they stepped out of the Plastic Surgery Center, Yu Suye linked her arm through Yan Feifanās, her face a picture of bliss.
"So, you get jealous too!"
Yan Feifan scoffed lightly. "How am I jealous?"
Yu Suye giggled. "No anesthetic for the eyebrow laceration? I guess you could argue for that."
"But the tear at the base of his ear needed eleven stitches. Not giving the guy an anesthetic for that was a bit much."
She pressed on, "And Iām positive you noticed the way that kid was sneaking glances at me."
"You deliberately withheld the anesthetic to punish him, didnāt you?"
Yan Feifan said with a perfectly straight face, "I did withhold the anesthetic on purpose, but it had nothing to do with you."
"Lose a fight, you go to the hospital; win a fight, you go to jail. I was just making sure he remembers that fighting is wrong, so there wonāt be a next time."
Yu Suye hummed a couple of times and hugged Yan Feifanās arm with both hands, cooing, "Whatever. Iām just going to believe you were jealous..."
The two of them walked to the bicycle shed near the Emergency Department, retrieved their respective bikes, and pushed them out of the hospital grounds...
What they didnāt know was that a tall figure had started watching them the moment they left the Plastic Surgery Center.
This person tailed Yu Suye and Yan Feifan all the way to the hospitalās south gate, then stood there, watching as they rode their bicycles away and disappeared from view.
A moment later, a middle-aged man in a suit and tie approached him and asked cautiously, "Mr. Lu?"
Lu Yao wiped the pained expression from his face and said irritably, "Cancel the arrangements. Weāre going back to the hotel..."
At 5:30 in the morning, Yan Feifan was jolted awake by the insistent ringing of his cell phone.
It was a call from Wang Chuan.
"Feifan, your method worked! Jio Xinās awake."
Wang Chuanās voice was jubilant. "Whatās more, sheās conscious and lucid, and I canāt find any specific neurological after-effects from the brain damage."
After a slight pause, Wang Chuan added sheepishly, "Sheās awake, but, well... she couldnāt hold it in..."
"The nurse just finished changing her bedding."
"I told her it was all your idea..."