Evening Stars Chapter 10
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 10
On his first weekend of volunteer teaching, Xu Nanheng slept until 1:15 in the afternoon. His mother had called five times and sent three one-minute voice messages. The moment he opened his eyes and saw his phone, he jerked upright with a start, so abruptly that he almost blacked out.
He quickly called her back.
“I almost called the police!” his mother said angrily on the other end. “Xu Nanheng! If you don't answer your phone, I'll have it sent back to Beijing! Do you have any idea how scary it is when you don't pick up the phone and you're over 3,000 kilometers away?!”
Xu Nanheng scratched his head. “Mom, I was sleeping……”
“Aren't you supposed to be in class?!”
“It's Saturday.”
His mother's tone only became demanding. “Junior high schoolers don't have remedial classes on Saturday?!”
“Hm?” Xu Nanheng squinted.
That…… actually made some sense. By now he was fully awake. His mother had enlightened him.
Of course, she asked because back when Xu Nanheng was in junior high, the law prohibiting remedial classes hadn't been implemented yet. After he graduated, she stopped paying attention to education policies, so naturally, she asked.
“Don't you ‘hm’ me,” his mother said. “I'm calling to tell you that your Ran Fei-jie had her baby this morning. Remember to send her a congratulatory message on WeChat today.”
Ran Fei was Xu Nanheng's older cousin on his eldest aunt's side. Xu Nanheng said, “Okay, I'll send it in a bit.”
He usually kept his phone on silent and non-vibrate while sleeping. Short of the sky literally falling, he was completely unreachable once he was asleep. One person who hadn't been able to contact him that morning was Fang Shiyou.
Dr. Fang had agreed to go to the county town on Sunday to check out the place for custom-made school uniforms. He had asked some local colleagues, and one happened to be free on Saturday. Coincidentally, that colleague also needed to go to the tailor that day to have a pant leg altered, so Fang Shiyou went along with them.
He had intended to show Xu Nanheng the color schemes, fabrics, and so on, and sent everything to him on WeChat. But Xu Nanheng hadn't replied to a single message and didn't answer his calls. Fang Shiyou, having seen him sleep for three uninterrupted hours in his consultation room, probably guessed that Xu Nanheng was simply asleep.
That was at nine o'clock in the morning. Fang Shiyou felt caught in a dilemma. He couldn't make decisions for Xu Nanheng, but the store owner needed to leave for the city by noon. Fortunately, the owner agreed that once he reached the market in Shannan, he would help purchase everything immediately, as long as Xu Nanheng picked out the fabrics and colors and sent them via WeChat.
Xu Nanheng immediately called him.
“Hello?” Fang Shiyou answered, his tone tinged with a smile. “Finally awake.”
“Sorry…… I'm really sorry,” Xu Nanheng said. “I remembered you said you'd check out the tailor in the county on Sunday, so I just felt safe sleeping in today……”
“It's fine, no need to apologize. It was my schedule that changed last minute anyway.” Fang Shiyou put his pen back into the pocket of his white coat. He was at the inpatient department of the county hospital that day. “I sent you the store owner's WeChat contact. I might not be able to reply promptly, so add him and discuss the details with him directly.”
“Okay, Dr. Fang.”
“Talk to you later, Teacher Xu.”
After hanging up, Fang Shiyou sat in his office, took a sip of tea, and began reviewing the pathology and imaging results of several patients.
Not long ago, when Fang Shiyou was giving a summary of his aid work in Tibet during an online meeting, the director of the hospital's cardiothoracic department subtly asked him about his publication record and whether he held a doctorate. Fang Shiyou's own mentor, upon hearing this, suggested that he had a good chance of being promoted to associate director in the next couple of years.
However, there was another saying within Grade-A tertiary hospitals. Even if the entire department recognized your skill and surgical ability, it didn't guarantee promotion. Cure rates and surgical success alone weren't considered authoritative criteria. Medicine was a rigorous science, so academic achievements were required. And the most direct measure of this was the number of published papers.
Fang Shiyou sighed and decided not to think too much for the time being.
Last night, he had been in the emergency room when a car accident victim was brought in. The patient, who was covered in penetrating wounds from car fragments and glass, was bleeding so profusely that it flustered the anesthesiologist. The assessment concluded that a CT scan couldn't be done. The patient had to go straight into surgery. Fortunately, Fang Shiyou quickly located the bleeding points and completed the surgery in cooperation with Dr. Wangyal from the emergency department.
This morning, after the patient was admitted to the surgical inpatient department, Fang Shiyou added a CT order. The patient received two IV drips before heading to the CT room. When Fang Shiyou reviewed the results, he frowned. There was extensive infection in the lungs along with fluid accumulation.
This was something he could handle on his own, but as his hand hovered over the keyboard to prescribe medication, he paused and decided it was safer to call his mentor first.
Meanwhile, Xu Nanheng tried calling Fang Shiyou, but the call didn't go through because the line was busy, so he sent a WeChat message instead.
After adding the tailor shop owner on WeChat, Xu Nanheng realized that Fang Shiyou had already paid a deposit of 500 yuan for 130 sets of autumn school uniforms. Xu Nanheng transferred the 500 yuan back and added a message: ‘No need to call me back if you're busy. Thank you for covering the upfront cost, Dr. Fang.’
After sending it, Xu Nanheng held his phone, wondering if his wording sounded too distant. It should be fine…… He thought it over for a moment, then put the phone away. Since it was Saturday and he was still unfamiliar with the village, he decided to go out, wander around, and buy some food.
Surrounded by mountains along a hundred-kilometer stretch of border, at the northern foot of the Himalayas, Xu Nanheng considered wearing his sunglasses. But fearing he might run into students, he chose to keep a low profile with a baseball cap to shield himself from the sun.
He didn't know the village's permanent population. The county town had about twenty thousand people, fewer than a residential block in Beijing. The village was quiet, with gravel roads. Large black yaks stood by the roadside staring blankly, while the occasional auto rickshaw rumbled past and dogs barked intermittently. Most houses were mud-and-tile, and Xu Nanheng could smell the livestock in the air.
“Hey, Teacher Xu?”
Xu Nanheng turned around and smiled. “Teacher Dawa!”
The man was Dawa Gyatso. Xu Nanheng walked toward him, saying as he went, “What a coincidence.”
He shook his hand and asked, “How come you're free to come to the village today?”
Dawa Gyatso was carrying a shoulder bag that looked quite heavy. “Oh, my family lives here. My father has trouble with his legs, and since the county school is on holiday, I came back to check on him.”
“I see!” Xu Nanheng nodded. “That must be hard on you.”
Dawa Gyatso's home was on a small gentle slope in the village. Xu Nanheng offered to carry the fairly heavy bag for him, but Dawa Gyatso waved him off repeatedly.
Xu Nanheng wasn't naturally sociable. Back in Beijing, his home life involved constantly entertaining and meeting the children of wealthy families, where interactions inevitably involved some commercial interests. There was even less need to mention his school days. His parents were busy, so the parent-teacher meetings were usually attended by a project manager. It was easy to imagine Xu Nanheng feeling out of place among his classmates.
But here, none of that mattered. He could chat comfortably with Teacher Dawa.
“Hey, Teacher Dawa, do you also teach third-year junior high in the county?” Xu Nanheng asked as they walked side by side.
Dawa Gyatso shook his head. “I'm teaching first year this year. Actually, now that you're here, I feel relieved. There's no math teacher here, so before you arrived, I had to come over two days a week to teach math. That's why the kids here have a really weak foundation in it.”
“I see,” Xu Nanheng said.
His question had been a bit of a probe. If Teacher Dawa taught third-year junior high, then his visit in the village today would indirectly confirm that there were no remedial classes for third-years on Saturdays in the county. But since Dawa taught first-year, it didn't clarify anything.
As they approached the house, Xu Nanheng decided to just ask directly. It was just a question about whether or not they should offer remedial classes.
Just as he was about to speak, Dawa Gyatso suddenly shouted “Hey!” loudly. He called toward someone on the slope, “Dad!” Then came a sentence in Tibetan that Xu Nanheng didn't understand, but he could tell from the tone that Dawa Gyatso was anxious.
“Oh no!” Dawa Gyatso desperately wanted to rush over, but the bag was too heavy and cumbersome.
Xu Nanheng reached out and grabbed the strap. “Give it to me. I'll carry it.”
“Okay!” Dawa Gyatso quickly hunched over to hand him the shoulder bag, then took off running toward the slope, urgently shouting something in Tibetan as he ran.
Xu Nanheng guessed roughly what was happening. Teacher Dawa had mentioned that his father's legs were weak, and now the old man was busy doing something up on the slope, using a stick for support. Teacher Dawa was probably worried he might fall or get hurt.
Sure enough, Dawa Gyatso grabbed his father's arm and, in a voice that was both anxious and slightly aggrieved, launched into a flurry of words. Xu Nanheng followed up the slope with Dawa Gyatso's bag on his back. Carrying it left Xu Nanheng so breathless he almost suffered altitude sickness.
“Ah, Teacher Xu, thank you so much. Give it back to me.” Dawa Gyatso took the bag and explained, “My father fractured a bone in his left leg. Dr. Fang instructed him to rest completely these days. The fracture isn't severe, and he said it could heal on its own. But the old man just can't sit still.”
Seeing his bitter smile, Xu Nanheng patted him on the shoulder, turned, and greeted Teacher Dawa's father. “Hello, Uncle!”
Dawa Gyatso quickly translated into Tibetan, and the old man smiled and shook Xu Nanheng's hand warmly.
“He wanted to check on the barley fertilizer,” Dawa Gyatso said. “See, if you look beyond the slope, our fields are over there. By the end of the month, this season's barley will be fully grown.”
Xu Nanheng looked in the direction he pointed and saw a strip of green spilling over the mountainside. Dawa Gyatso chuckled, supporting his father and gently urging him in Tibetan to return home and rest.
Seeing this, Xu Nanheng reached out and took the bag from Dawa Gyatso's shoulder. “You focus on supporting Uncle properly.”
“Thank you.” Dawa Gyatso nodded.
However, on this small slope, a shallow but uneven ditch suddenly appeared. Dawa Gyatso had walked this path countless times, but the unexpected dip caught both father and son off guard, and they fell hard.
“Ahh—” Xu Nanheng didn't even have time to help. He watched helplessly as the father and son tumbled down together.
There was nothing else to do now, so Xu Nanheng quickly joined Dawa Gyatso to check on the old man.
“No, wait, don't lift him yet!”
“Oh, right.” Dawa Gyatso also realized that he shouldn't rush to help the old man up at this moment. If he were to lift him in the wrong way, it could make the fractured bone even worse.
Xu Nanheng thought for a moment and asked, “Teacher Dawa, did you drive back from the county?”
“I don't have a car. Last time I picked you up, I drove the director's car. This time I came back on a tractor,” Dawa Gyatso said helplessly.
“That won't do. Tractors are too bumpy,” Xu Nanheng said. He didn't know much about medicine, but he understood that serious treatment needed to be sought in higher-level hospitals. Otherwise, why would hundreds of thousands of non-locals travel to Beijing every day just to see a doctor?
He thought the old man's face had already gone pale from the pain. They had to get him to the county hospital. Xu Nanheng looked up and said, “Wait here, I'll drive my car over, and we'll take your father to the county together.”
At this point, there was no need for Dawa Gyatso to be polite. He nodded firmly. “Thank you so much!”
Xu Nanheng nodded, set the bag on the ground, and ran to the small hospital on the side of the village. Ten minutes later, he drove back to the slope. He and Dawa Gyatso carefully helped the old man into the back seat and fastened his seatbelt.
It was the same twenty-plus-kilometer mountain road. By the time Xu Nanheng followed the navigation to the county hospital, dusk had already fallen. The regular clinic hours were over, so he parked directly at the emergency entrance.
When Dawa Gyatso tried to help his father out of the car, Xu Nanheng stopped him. “Don't move him. Go find a nurse to bring a gurney, or a wheelchair.”
“Oh, right, right!” Dawa Gyatso hurried to follow him inside. When the nurses heard it was a fracture from a fall, they nodded and brought out a gurney.
Dawa Gyatso sighed repeatedly, apologizing and thanking Xu Nanheng for all the trouble today. Xu Nanheng smiled and said it was nothing, falsely claiming he had planned to stroll around the county this weekend anyway.
Dawa Gyatso relaxed a little, then added, “By the way, Dr. Fang is also at this hospital.”
“Really?” Xu Nanheng asked.
The next moment, his phone rang. He took it out and froze slightly when he saw the caller. Seeing that he had a call, Dawa Gyatso pointed toward the clinic, saying he would go check on his father first. Xu Nanheng waved him off, urging him to go.
He looked down again, still a little bewildered.
What a coincidence. The call was from Fang Shiyou.
“Hello, Dr. Fang,” Xu Nanheng said as he answered.
On the other end, Fang Shiyou's voice carried a smile. “Teacher Xu, your car is blocking the way. Come out and move it.”