Chapter Ch67.2 - I’ve got this Undercover Agent’s Back (6)
Encouraged by the possibility of leaving the rehab center for the night, Gu Pingming threw himself into the new rehabilitation program with extraordinary enthusiasm even without Dr. Lu’s supervision.
Lu Baiyu’s plan was very detailed and fully suited to Gu Pingming’s physical condition. Each item was designed to make use of every possible minute to completely pull out his body’s potential. Together with the evening massage and medicinal compresses, plus three nutritious meals a day, Gu Pingming himself could clearly feel that his body that had once been seriously injured was becoming more and more responsive.
With the wave of a hand, a week had almost passed by. In the blink of an eye, it was already the day when he was scheduled to be discharged from the center.
Lu Baiyu was on duty today. Today was one of Gu Pingming’s rare days off and he stayed idly in his hospital room, staring at the golden millet in the electric pot, turning it over and over with his spoon.
“Brother Gu!”
Liang Xia peered in and open the door of the room. Seeing him in the room, he happily bounced in, carrying some things in his hand. “You’re finally going to be discharged from the rehab center. Are you happy? I brought you rice dumplings and you’re just in time for the Dragon Boat Festival. Banish the Five Evils, may you have good health and good luck for the entire year…”
“What ‘discharge’? My body hasn’t fully recovered yet.”
Rehabilitation centers weren’t like hospitals. Their main objective was to completely restore a patient’s ability to manage their life. The longer the patient undergoes the center’s physical therapy, the better the patient’s prognosis. At the beginning, Gu Pingming didn’t trust them and insisted on leaving the hospital early. The chief physicians took turns and they finally managed to hold him down for a week.
At first, he was the one being stubborn, insisting on being discharged, now he was the one who changed his mind and had to find an excuse to stay longer.
Gu Pingming was in the middle of thinking about how to apply for an extension of his stay in the rehab center without appearing blunt when Liang Xia’s greeting struck against the very matter he was worrying about. Following the voice, he raised his head and waved his hand. He caught a glimpse of the rice dumplings Liang Xia had brought and raised his eyebrows. “Is it the Dragon Boat Festival already?”
“That’s right. It’s my turn on holiday today!”
The person who a week ago was hell-bent on leaving the rehab center has now gotten addicted to staying in it. Liang Xia couldn’t help being surprised but he sensibly didn’t dare ask. He squatted beside him and eagerly peeled open a rice dumpling. “I see you looking so exhausted these days. Today, we can finally relax. Is the doctor off duty too? How about we—”
“How can the doctor possible have time to take a holiday? I’m on break today and I’m going to see Dr. Lu later. There won’t be any lessons today.”
Liang Xia hadn’t yet finished his invitation when Gu Pingming already interrupted him. He picked two perfectly shaped red jujube dumplings from Liang Xia’s hand and conveniently picked up a small packet of colored threads from the side.
Lu Baiyu preferred sweet things and he liked to eat these. However, if he ate too much, he could easily get a stomachache. Two rice dumplings were just enough for a little snack.
He’s been training and resting in the rehabilitation center day after day and before he knew it, it was already the Dragon Boat Festival. He’d heard that there was a lantern festival nearby and maybe he could take the little doctor out tonight to have a look.
If he didn’t test him on what he taught yesterday, he was going to forget!
Liang Xia wept disconsolately in his heart but didn’t dare remind him. He tried to switch the topic as best he could. “This is a gift from the rice dumplings seller. He said its some-five colored string or something. I don’t really understand. But since it looked good, I brought it along anyway… ”
“This is a custom in the north. It’s used to ward off evil spirits and dispel poison.”
The lump of multi-colored threads evoked some long-ago memories in Gu Pingming. A relaxed look came over his features. He picked a few threads and tried it on his hands. As he tried to recall those, he slowly wove the threads into a string and then from his key ring, he removed a small silver bell and connected it to one of the red strings.
“This is a rare day-off for you. You should go back to relax. There’s no need to always come looking for me. The exam can wait until after the Dragon Boat Festival holiday.”
…
Liang Xia was reduced to a crying lump, head in his arms, next to the electric pot.
The colorful threads were used to send well-wishes, with the implied meaning to ward off evil and dispel poison. In the blink of an eye, Gu Pingming had already woven them into a narrow band. He held it up against his wrist. He was planning to adjust the length according to Lu Baiyu’s wrist before closing the loop. Suddenly, there was a strange noise in the corridor.
Gu Pingming’s expression suddenly changed and he immediately got up.
“I’m going to go see!”
Liang Xia instinctively jumped up, but before he could even raise his leg, he was pressed back down by Gu Pingming. “Your identity is too eye-catching. Don’t go causing trouble for me. — Look after the rice porridge. I’ll go take a look.”
The noise came from the direction of the duty room. Gu Pingming didn’t dare to delay in the slightest. He hurried out the door and towards the direction of the gathering crowd.
Lu Baiyu was being blocked in the duty room.
＊
When Gu Pingming parted the crowd and rushed in, the man armed with the knife, red-eyed, was still terrorizing at the door of the duty room.
The duty room was in a mess. Several iron cabinets containing documents had fallen to the ground. all skewed and slanted. Lu Baiyu was guarding the two interns behind him. He had already retreated to the corner, with his right hand hanging to his side. His face was slightly pale but his eyes were still calm.
The nurse frantically called the security guards. The onlookers were all patients and their families. No one dared to rashly step forward.
“The patient’s condition was inherently risky. I understand your feelings. If you really want an explanation, please let the students out first and I will explain for you.”
Lu Deng kept his voice calm. He shielded the two students behind him and set his eyes on the man.
The one creating this ruckus just happened to be a family member of the patient who had gotten sick when he had been on duty last time. He did emergency treatment on that same day. Later, when he found that the patient’s sickness had recurred, the patient was immediately sent to a higher-level hospital for treatment.
It was originally a treatment process that couldn’t be more standard but unexpectedly, after the patient’s condition deteriorated, the family member believed that it was the rehabilitation center’s responsibility and suddenly rushed to the center to demand an explanation.
He had already asked the system to adjust his body data back to his original levels but he still couldn’t be making any rash moves. The other party had a knife in his hands and there were too many onlookers. He was certain of being able to escape unscathed but there was no way to guarantee that the two students and the onlookers would also be safe.
“Explanation? I heard that you handled it that day. You must have deliberately worsened his condition in order to scam more money out of us!”
The man wasn’t listening to him at all. He roared and waving the knife in his hand, was about to jump in.
There was no use talking this out.
He once again found himself in a familiar situation. Lu Deng took a deep breath, a sharp light flashed under his eyes. He was about to risk it but a familiar figure had already broken in.
This was the first time he was seeing Gu Pingming’s fighting skills.
His moves were simple and neat, leaving no room for allowances. If he hadn’t held his strength back a little bit, it would have been a swift and fierce killing blow. No one saw it clearly but the machete in the man’s hand dropped to the floor. And with a cry of pain, the man himself was firmly pressed to the ground.
“I am a patient of Dr. Lu’s and I know that patient in your family.”
Gu Pingming kept him pinned down. His tone was cold and he continued in a deep voice, “No. 5205, he’s called Li Ping, right? Dr. Lu went the whole night with hardly any sleep for your patient. For the next few days, he worked with your attending physician to stabilize his condition. Just counting the times I’ve seen it, I counted no less than four or five times that I’ve seen him holding his medical record, preparing for reports and discussions.”
This was not originally Lu Baiyu’s responsibility but because he happened to deal with the patient that night and was familiar with the situation, he kept working hard on this case and didn’t get much rest during those days. It was after the patient was transferred to the hospital that Gu Pingming had half-detained Lu Baiyu in his hospital room to get half a day’s rest to catch up on sleep.
These things were done by Lu Baiyu in private and no one knew of it. Gu Pingming only occasionally caught glimpses of what he was holding to gauge just how busy he was.
Although the situation was chaotic, the young doctor handled it calmly. Obviously, he wasn’t letting the man’s unreasonable accusations affect him and he had no intention to defend himself in the slightest.
However, Gu Pingming couldn’t stand hearing this.
With the dubious gazes around him, Gu Pingming’s eyes darkened. When he finally finished relaying everything he knew, this thread of discourse finally stopped.
Whether Lu Baiyu himself cared or not, he shouldn’t be slandered like this.
The man was hearing none of it. He was struggling desperately against being pressed to the ground. Gu Pingming bent his knees and slammed it against his waist, telling him to behave himself.
The security guards finally arrived. Seeing that the situation was under control, they couldn’t help being stunned: “Doctor Lu, this is—”
“He’s a family member of the transferred patient. If possible, please have Dr. Li immediately come down here.”
Lu Baiyu took the knife far away. After the light caught the welts on Gu Pingming’s hand when he forcibly grabbed the blade, he quickly walked over to hold Gu Pingming’s elbow. He said softly, “Pingming, I’m fine.”
His words were gentle and calm and the security guards immediately came up to restrain the man. Gu Pingming let him pull his arm and he withdrew his hand. With a slight frown, he turned to him protectively. “Are you injured?”
Lu Baiyu smiled and shook his head slightly. He motioned for the two students to go back to the office upstairs first and nodded to the security guards. “Thanks for your hard work, please maintain order first and I will notify the director.”
He took the phone on the table with his left hand, his right hand still hanging by his side.
Gu Pingming frowned and he walked over, wanting to check his right arm. But Lu Baiyu turned sideways to avoid him and shook his head slightly. “It’s okay…”
If you say it’s okay again – I’ll kiss you.
Gu Pingming’s figure drew in close and his eyes seemed to stop on his lips.
There were too many people around. Lu Baiyu couldn’t help lightly pursing the corners of his lips. His earlobes turned imperceptibly red. He was forced to change his words, “I was knocked into by a cabinet. I can’t summon a lot of strength in my right arm. It’ll be fine in a while.”
At that time, the filing cabinet was pushed down and it almost slammed a student to the ground. In his hurry to save the student, the corner of the cabinet hit his shoulder. Up to now, half of his arm was still half-numb.
The iron cabinet filled with documents was terribly heavy and even his body adjusted back to its original value could not resist against it. If the system had been a little bit slow in its adjustment might have been completely rendered useless.
Gu Pingming had undoubtedly quickly realized this. The light in his eyes quickly dimmed as soon as his eyes swept through the heavy iron cabinet.
He’d finished his call and the director and the doctor in charge of the patient in question quickly rushed to the scene.
Lu Baiyu had nothing to do with the whole thing and he didn’t intend to explain more. He briefly explained the situation and was about to send Gu Pingming back to his room, when suddenly, there was an ear-piercing exclamation behind him.
In any case, everyone firmly believed that it must have been ghost distubed by the people of the rehab center, just when the situation was all under control, the man who had been remaining silent suddenly broke free from the hold of the security guard and picked up the huge vase that was placed to the side as decoration. He then threw it at people.
Noticing the stumbling steps and heavy swoosh of something quickly approaching, Lu Baiyu resolutely pushed away the doctors in front of him. He turned around swiftly and he was already instinctively raising his hand to pull Gu Pingming behind him.
Gu Pingming’s eyes were already filled with dark light. His arms suddenly looped him around him. He twisted his body and grabbed the man’s arm with a turn of his elbow, slamming the vase to the ground.
The sound of breaking accompanied by the splash of water shook everyone’s ears.
Silence instantly descended upon the duty room.
Gu Pingming was calm. He pulled an infusion tube to tie the man up and then threw him to the security guard. He pulled over Lu Baiyu to check if he had any injuries. Still dripping wet in places, he walked over in front of the director. “Director, I pulled my arm during that fight, can I extend my stay at the rehab center?”