Evening Stars Chapter 17
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 17
Here's what happened:
Xu Nanheng usually arrived at the classroom at 7:20 AM. Before the first period began, he would sit on the podium, just as he did in Beijing when he was observing the morning reading, and greet any students who came in with a ‘good morning.’
But today, it was already 7:30 and everyone had arrived, yet Xu Nanheng was still nowhere to be seen. So the class suggested that Dasang Choedon, the student with the best grades, go look for him.
Choedon knew that Teacher Xu lived in the teacher dormitory, right next to Teacher Tsering's room. She went upstairs and knocked on the door. She knocked for a good while, and a few of the knocks became as heavy as someone demanding a debt, yet there was still no response. Choedon went back down to the classroom and told her classmates that no one answered, and that she had knocked very hard.
The students suddenly panicked. Some worried that something might have happened, and others wondered if Teacher Xu had fallen ill inside.
This impulsive group of junior high schoolers forgot to first ask Teacher Dawa in Class 1 for help. Zhou Yang, who was sitting with his legs crossed, waved to the boys in the back row and bolted up to the second floor.
Zhou Yang thought Choedon hadn't knocked hard enough. Even though she was certain she had, he still doubted that a girl could have much strength.
He hammered the door until the panels shook, but inside, Xu Nanheng still didn't move.
Choedon was nearly in tears. Zhou Yang spat out the melon seed shell in his mouth, and with a single explosive kick, the door slammed open. Several students rushed in and found Xu Nanheng unconscious on the bed. Zhou Yang shouted urgently, “Go call a doctor!”
The noise finally caught the attention of Teacher Dawa in Class 1. When he ran upstairs, Choedon was just coming down. He grabbed Dasang Choedon and asked what had happened. Flustered, she blurted out, “Teacher Xu has fainted!” and then dashed down the stairs toward the hospital.
It wasn't until Fang Shiyou arrived that Teacher Dawa relaxed. He shooed the children who were blocking the hallway and trying to peer into Xu Nanheng's room downstairs, telling them to return to their classroom for self-study.
Fang Shiyou held the oxygen mask over Xu Nanheng again. “You're confused from altitude sickness. You didn't just finish class. It's already noon.”
Xu Nanheng leaned against him, breathing through the mask, listening to Fang Shiyou speak.
Fang Shiyou removed the pulse oximeter from Xu Nanheng's finger. “Your oxygen level is too low. You need to go to the hospital.”
Xu Nanheng lifted a hand. Fang Shiyou thought he was about to speak, so he lowered his head. But Xu Nanheng pointed to Dasang Choedon. She came over and looked at him.
Weakly, Xu Nanheng spoke in broken words, “You, on the coordinate systems…… all t-three parabolas, you drew them correctly…… I asked how a affects the opening of a parabola, and you even drew the graphs correctly, but…… you wrote the character backwards for me.”
Dasang Choedon was speechless. She had done the placement exam and was one of the top math students across both classes. Xu Nanheng had high hopes for her, but she ended up making a rookie mistake.
Fang Shiyou turned to Choedon. “Go downstairs for self-study. Don't go upsetting him again and make him faint. He can barely breathe as it is.”
Choedon hummed in acknowledgment, turned, and slipped away.
Fang Shiyou sighed, then smoothed Xu Nanheng's back. “Take a couple more breaths and see if you can walk. If not, I'll carry you to the hospital.”
“Dr. Fang.” Xu Nanheng had been leaning against Fang Shiyou's arm moments ago. He struggled to sit up straight and, despite being so breathless he could barely gasp, stubbornly began crawling towards the foot of the bed. “D-Dr. Fang……”
Fang Shiyou thought he was trying to preserve his dignity, not wanting the students to see him carried. His determined gaze while crawling seemed to say, ‘I'll crawl to the hospital myself if I have to.’ Just as Fang Shiyou was about to suggest helping him walk……
Xu Nanheng reached the foot of the bed and grabbed his coat. “I'm counting on you.”
Well, a fine example of a people's teacher who was always kind to himself.
Fang Shiyou realized that Xu Nanheng had crawled to the foot of the bed not just to get his jacket, but also to grab an iPad. He checked to make sure the stylus was in the iPad case and then took hold of it.
Then Fang Shiyou lifted him onto his back. Xu Nanheng was relatively slim. As he usually sat hunched over writing, his only form of exercise was swimming, which helped maintain his cervical and lumbar spine health. Despite having a yearly gym membership, he hadn't developed particularly impressive muscles nor achieved a significantly low body fat percentage. This was mainly because Teacher Xu knew all too well how to take it easy on himself. The moment he felt slightly tired, he'd just shower and go home.
By the time they reached the first floor, Fang Shiyou realized Xu Nanheng genuinely didn't care if students saw him in such a frail state. Leaning on his shoulder, he patted him and whispered hoarsely, “Carry me to the back door. I want to peek at those little rascals in the back row.”
“……” Fang Shiyou almost laughed. “When I was a student, I feared teachers like you the most.”
“Ah, right,” Xu Nanheng said. “Teacher Xu specializes in dealing with people like you.”
From the back door window, Xu Nanheng squinted and scanned the room. Today, the kids were all doing pretty well. They were either reciting Chinese or English. Mostly satisfied, he said, “Alright, let's go.”
The commotion today had softened the hearts of many students. Zhou Yang, for example, was lying there studying Tibetan and Chinese. Teacher Dawa from Class 1 had said that Teacher Xu had come all the way from Beijing, and despite his poor health, he still insisted on remedial classes and evening self-study. They absolutely mustn't let him down.
Come to think of it, the teacher looked so skinny and only ever ate one bowl of food. Zhou Yang was still young after all. He was just a bit mischievous, not ungrateful.
Fang Shiyou helped Xu Nanheng onto the hospital bed and turned on the oxygen at the head. “Breathe first. I'm going to take your temperature. Are you on an empty stomach?”
Xu Nanheng nodded.
“Good,” Fang Shiyou said. “I'll call the nurse to draw blood. It's probably just altitude sickness, but you'll stay here for observation tonight.”
“That won't do. I have to go over the test papers this afternoon,” Xu Nanheng said.
Fang Shiyou glanced at him, picked up the rounds sheet on the bedside table, and signed it. “If you want to go over the papers, I'll call the students here so they can sit around the bed while you teach.”
Xu Nanheng grinned cheekily. “Really?”
“……” Fang Shiyou gave him a sidelong look, saying nothing.
After signing the rounds sheet, he also signed the attending physician's name on the chart at the head of the bed, and wrote ‘Xu Nanheng’ in the patient field.
“I'll go get a thermometer,” Fang Shiyou said.
A moment later, Fang Shiyou came in with the nurse. She carried the blood-drawing kit, while Fang Shiyou was holding an ear thermometer and a stethoscope.
“Ah, isn't this Teacher Xu?” the nurse recognized him. “What's wrong? Where does it hurt?”
“Altitude sickness,” Fang Shiyou said. He leaned down and took his temperature — no fever. He then used the stethoscope to listen to his heart and lungs. It seemed to be purely altitude sickness.
The nurse smiled softly and moved to the other side of the bed. She tied a tourniquet on his arm and pressed on a vein.
Xu Nanheng was quite afraid of needles, and at that moment Fang Shiyou's stethoscope was pressed against his chest. When the nurse brought out the blood collection tube, his heart suddenly raced. Fang Shiyou looked at his face, noticing a slight tension in his expression.
“Teacher Xu,” Fang Shiyou straightened and asked, “how were the scores on this recent placement exam?”
At the mention of this, Xu Nanheng perked up a little. “Just as I expected. Too few students have the basics from the first and second years of junior high. Dasang Choedon did fairly well. On a 150-point math test, she scored ninety-eight, the high—hiss—highest in the class!”
It hurt. Xu Nanheng glanced at his left arm.
The nurse knew he was a teacher, so she drew blood from his left arm. Since some people's arms get sore afterwards, this would leave his right hand free for writing.
The nurse smiled. “Stings a little, right? All done.”
Afterwards, she pressed a cotton swab on the puncture site. Then, she remembered. “Oh, I should use the adhesive bandage. You don't have the strength to press it yourself, right?”
“I'll do it.” Fang Shiyou moved around and took over pressing the cotton from the nurse, holding it down for Xu Nanheng. He settled onto the stool by the bedside.
Xu Nanheng tilted his head to look at him. “Just put some tape on it for me.”
“You need to press a little,” Fang Shiyou said. “It's fine, just three or five minutes.”
“Are you sure you don't have anything else to do today?” Xu Nanheng asked. “Don't let this hold up your consultations.”
Fang Shiyou shook his head. “No patients today. If someone comes, the nurse will call me.”
“Thanks,” Xu Nanheng said, smiling faintly. “I've been in Tibet for so long and I've only been causing you trouble.”
“No trouble,” Fang Shiyou replied with a smile.
Xu Nanheng frowned, realizing something. “Right, I've been here for almost a month, so why am I only getting altitude sickness now? I didn't get it when I drove over the Kunlun Mountains via the Qinghai-Tibet Highway either.”
Fang Shiyou licked his lips. “Altitude sickness varies from person to person. There's no set pattern. Many people take Rhodiola for a long time before going to the plateau. They might drive there slowly like you did, gradually gaining altitude, but they can still get altitude sickness. Generally speaking, symptoms can appear anytime within the first month or so after arriving on the plateau.”
“Oh……” Xu Nanheng understood. “I thought I was some kind of chosen one.”
Fang Shiyou nodded in agreement. “You really are remarkable. I rarely see someone who is not only free of altitude sickness after arriving in Tibet, but can also handle smoking.”
“Is that so?” Xu Nanheng's voice was still weak, but that didn't stop him from sounding proud. “It's probably not me who's remarkable. It's the human body that's remarkable.”
Fang Shiyou, trained in medicine, agreed. Holding Xu Nanheng's left arm and pressing the cotton to stop the bleeding, he looked at his face and said, “The most remarkable part of the human body is the brain. The human brain has over a hundred billion neurons. Coincidentally, the Milky Way has over a hundred billion stars. Medicine has put in as much effort to understand the brain as astronomy has to understand the galaxy.”
Xu Nanheng still felt a little lightheaded from the altitude sickness.
It wasn't the kind of lightheadedness that made one confused, but a floating, drifting sensation. Perhaps it was because the other two beds in the hospital room were empty, creating a space just for the two of them, or perhaps it was because he had dreamed of Fang Shiyou, and now looking at him felt like reality and dream were overlapping.
Xu Nanheng asked, “Will I get altitude sickness again?”
“Not necessarily,” Fang Shiyou said. “This time you were just lightheaded. Actually, even if Choedon hadn't come to call me, you would have woken up on your own after a while. No need to be too afraid.”
Xu Nanheng nodded. “I scared Choedon half to death.”
“What probably scared her the most was that, even after you fainted like that, you still remembered the mistakes she made on the test,” Fang Shiyou commented.
Xu Nanheng pressed his lips together and looked down. He admitted that seeing Dasang Choedon's face that morning had upset him. “If she hadn't made that mistake, she'd have scored 101.”
“Then just consider it 101,” Fang Shiyou said.
He moved the cotton swab aside and checked. The puncture site was already fine. He stood up, tossed the cotton into the trash, and asked, “Your driver's license is in the car, right?”
“Yes, why?”
“I'm going to register you for an appointment and get a blood test requisition form. I need your ID number, so I'll copy it from your license,” Fang Shiyou said. “You'd better sleep a bit more. I'll come back after the routine blood results are ready.”
“Mhm.” Xu Nanheng nodded.
“Call me if you need anything,” Fang Shiyou said.
“Dr. Fang.”
“Yeah?”
Xu Nanheng: “When we get back to Beijing, we really need to find a place and have a proper meal.”
“Absolutely,” Fang Shiyou replied.