Chapter 120: Chapter 120: Connections

A little after 5:30 in the evening, a nervous Yeu Quan arrived at Chen Yu’s office.

“Professor, I was wrong.”

“First thing tomorrow morning, I will personally apologize to Mr. Yan.”

Chen Yu, who was working at his desk, didn’t even raise his head. In a flat tone, he said, “One month. You have one month to find another hospital.”

Yeu Quan shuddered, asking in disbelief, “Professor, are you… kicking me out?”

“Just because I talked back to Mr. Yan a few times?”

“A few times?”

Chen Yu looked up, his gaze cold as he stared at Yeu Quan. “Have you failed to realize your own mistake? Or are you just playing dumb on purpose?”

“I watched the surgical video.”

“Your performance during those few minutes… did you think I was a fool who wouldn’t notice?”

Yeu Quan hurriedly explained, “Professor, Professor, I just lost my temper for a moment. I let my anger get the better of my hands.”

“Please give me another chance, Professor. Just one more chance.”

Chen Yu sighed softly. “Me not letting this matter get out *is* me giving you a chance.”

“Defying the lead surgeon’s authority, performing a ’spite surgery’… Do you have any idea how serious of a mistake that is?”

Chen Yu slammed his hand on the desk, saying angrily, “You didn’t spare a single thought for the patient! You have no reverence for this profession.”

“With an attitude like yours—doing whatever you want, letting your emotions rule you—no hospital will ever trust you to lead a surgery again.”

After a pause, Chen Yu’s tone softened. “Yeu Quan, I hope that after this, you’ll finally mature a little.”

“I don’t want to see your name on an internal medical incident report someday in the future.”

Seeing that his professor had made his position so clear, Yeu Quan knew that no amount of pleading would do any good.

At that moment, his heart felt as if it had been plunged into an ice cellar. An indescribable chill permeated him, inside and out.

Yeu Quan gave Chen Yu a deep, ninety-degree bow. After straightening up, he walked out in a daze.

When he reached the door and was about to pull it open, he turned back, unwilling to let it go.

“Professor, can you tell me why you chose Yan Feifan back then, and not me?”

“You should know I have the ability.”

Chen Yu met Yeu Quan’s gaze and said slowly, “You have the ability, but you lack the guts.”

“In that situation, you didn’t even have the courage to speak up, agree, and ease my worries.”

Chen Yu said, his voice tinged with the frustration of unmet expectations, “As a surgeon, being steady and cautious is necessary. But in a critical moment, you also need that domineering spirit of ’if not me, then who?’”

“During surgery, we often encounter unexpected situations and emergencies.”

“There are times when the condition is unclear, and you have to make a high-stakes gamble—choose between two options, or even three.”

“Faced with such a situation, if it were Yan Feifan, he would make a choice decisively.”

“He might make the wrong choice, but there’s no denying he also has a significant chance of success!”

“As for you…”

Chen Yu shook his head. “There’s a high probability that you would hesitate and miss the window of opportunity to make a choice at all.”

“So, at that moment, I gave up on you and chose Yan Feifan, who is more responsible, more confident, and has more potential worth cultivating.”

“And the results proved that my choice was not wrong.”

Yeu Quan nodded as if he had come to a realization. “Professor, I understand. I suppose this is what they mean by ’character is destiny’…”

At this very moment, Yan Feifan was gorging himself in the employee cafeteria.

He’d eaten little for lunch, not even enough to feel half-full.

The surgery that afternoon, which had lasted over four hours, had taken an unusually heavy toll on Yan Feifan’s energy and stamina.

Yan Feifan ordered a few of his favorite dishes. He had just taken a few large bites when his phone began to ring.

For a doctor, a phone ringing unexpectedly was a common occurrence.

Yan Feifan was more or less used to it.

He took out his phone and saw it was a video call from Tian Yu.

Yan Feifan answered the call. Before the video even appeared, a voice came through. “WAAAH… Mr. Yan… Mr. Yan… WAAAH…”

Hearing Tian Yu suddenly burst into tears on the phone, Yan Feifan grew tense and asked with concern, “Xiaoyu, what’s wrong?”

“Did your parents scold you? Or did your teacher criticize you?”

“Whatever it is, just tell me!”

Just then, the video feed cleared, and Yan Feifan saw a tear-streaked face, mouth wide open in a sob.

“Mr. Yan… WAH… look at my finger…”

On the phone screen, Yan Feifan saw a right middle finger, its second knuckle bent backward at a sixty-degree angle.

“Mr. Yan, WAH… It hurts! Is my finger broken?”

“It’s not broken. That’s a dislocated joint caused by excessive force.”

Yan Feifan explained, then quickly followed up, “First, tell me how it happened.”

On the screen, Tian Yu stopped crying. Pouting her lips, she said pitifully, “That boy in my class is always bullying me. I told the teacher today, and he got a scolding.”

“After school, that guy came to block my way.”

Yan Feifan’s expression turned cold. “Did he do that to your finger?”

Tian Yu shook her little head and said timidly, “I was reminded of how heroic Ruoruo is.”

“In that moment, I was possessed by the spirit of Ruoruo.”

“I beat him up.”

Tian Yu’s lips puckered again, and she said in a tearful voice, “I didn’t use the right force, and my finger ended up like this.”

Tian Yu wiped her eyes and said with great bravado, “Mr. Yan, I didn’t cry then. I just walked away with a nonchalant look on my face.”

“It scared him half to death.”

“Mr. Yan, it hurts…”

And Tian Yu started crying again, this time delicately…

Hearing that she hadn’t been bullied but had instead beaten someone else up, Yan Feifan relaxed.

“Take a taxi to the hospital. I’ll reset your finger for you…”

At 6:20 in the evening, Yan Feifan was waiting for Tian Yu at the south entrance of the hospital.

Dressed in her middle school uniform and carrying a backpack, she got out of the taxi and even flaunted her dislocated middle finger at Yan Feifan.

Yan Feifan didn’t say much. He simply reached out, gave her finger a pull, and with a CRACK, reset it.

The little rascal froze for a second, then her mouth twisted and she started crying again.

“It hurts! WAH… Mr. Yan, why didn’t you give me a warning?”

Yan Feifan held back a laugh and said, “Warning or not, wouldn’t the result be the same? You couldn’t have avoided that.”

Tian Yu stopped crying but angrily punched Yan Feifan in the chest.

“If you’d said something, I could have prepared myself!”

Yan Feifan reached out and patted her head. “Your finger is fine now, so don’t be so petty.”

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Do you want to go home?”

Tian Yu shook her head. “Only my finger was hurt.”

“I already told Mom I was coming here and that I’ll go straight to school from here tomorrow morning.”

Then she said pitifully, “Mr. Yan, I’m hungry…”

Yan Feifan took Tian Yu to the hospital’s Cafeteria Number One, gave her his card, and let her get whatever she wanted to eat.

When he saw the dishes she brought back, Yan Feifan was a little speechless.

A large clay pot of braised pig’s trotters with soybeans, a serving of braised pork belly, and two crab roe “lion’s head” meatballs.

The only vegetable was the free, self-serve winter melon soup from the cafeteria.

Yan Feifan said helplessly, “Xiaoyu, I already told you, I’ve eaten! And I ate a lot!”

Tian Yu rolled her eyes at him and huffed, “I remember. These dishes are all mine. None for you.”

“I got in a fight and got injured today. I need to replenish my strength.”

Yan Feifan teased, “You’d better replenish yourself into a little fatty.”

Tian Yu ignored him and buried her head in her food.

It had to be said, the fighting power of a foodie was formidable.

In Yan Feifan’s eyes, what looked like enough food for at least two adults was nearly polished off by the little rascal in just over ten minutes.

Her mood having improved, she picked at the soybeans in the clay pot and said with a grin, “Mr. Yan, our homeroom teacher held a class meeting for us today.”

“He said that to get into a good high school, besides relying on your own abilities and solid scores, there’s another way.”

Tian Yu picked up a soybean with her chopsticks and tried to feed it to Yan Feifan.

Yan Feifan dodged with a look of disdain, so Tian Yu ate it herself.

“The teacher said the other way is through connections, where everyone uses their own special tricks to get ahead.”

“The teacher said that if you have connections, you need to start planning now.”

Tian Yu said sweetly, “Mr. Yan, you’re so amazing and well-connected. Do you have any strings to pull in this area?”

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