Chapter 47: Chapter 47: Age and Seniority Are a Major Weakness

It was nearly eleven at night when Yan Feifan returned to their house in Zuimo Court. He found his sister sitting cross-legged on the living room sofa, happily watching TV while snacking on nuts.

He sat down next to his sister and leaned his head on her shoulder.

“Tired?”

Yan Feifan hummed listlessly through his nose.

“Hungry?”

Yan Feifan gave another slight nod.

Yan Ziruo patted his thigh and said, “Go take a hot shower. I’ll go boil some dumplings for you.”

Yan Feifan got up with some difficulty and went to the secondary bedroom. He opened the closet and saw a dozen or so articles of clothing hanging neatly inside, with a few sets of clean underwear folded below.

He grabbed a set of pajamas and went to the bathroom…

After his hot shower, Yan Feifan felt much more relaxed. He went to the living room, sat down on the sofa, and looked at the large bowl of dumplings on the coffee table. They were swimming in broth and didn’t have the uniform shape of the frozen kind from the supermarket.

He asked in confusion, “Sis, where did these dumplings come from?”

“Tian Yu gave them to us.”

Recalling the scene, Yan Ziruo couldn’t help but chuckle. “The moment she heard we were moving, her eyes welled up, and the tears started to fall. She even started bawling.”

“She only stopped crying after I told her she could come visit us on the weekends and even have sleepovers.”

“When I was leaving, she brought over a big bag of frozen dumplings from her house. Said her mom had made them by hand and put them in the freezer.”

“Are they good?”

Yan Feifan swallowed the dumpling in his mouth and nodded. “Sanxian filling. They’re delicious.”

“You try one…”

He picked up a dumpling with his chopsticks and put it in his sister’s mouth.

After eating it, Yan Ziruo also nodded. “They really are good. Now that we live here, we’ll have more free time.”

“When I get in the mood, I’ll learn how to make dumplings and wontons for you.”

Yan Feifan rolled his eyes. “Sis, you’d better not attempt such technically demanding dishes.”

“Just stick to steaming rice and making a few simple stir-fries.”

Yan Ziruo shot him a glare and asked, “Why are you so tired today?”

Yan Feifan sighed softly. “After a busy afternoon, Mr. Wang watched me like a hawk all evening while I treated wounds using plastic surgery techniques and standards.”

“A wound that would normally take ten minutes at most ended up taking half an hour, or even a full hour, to finish.”

“Of course I’m tired!”

Yan Ziruo smiled. “Feifan, study hard. After you’ve mastered it, you can do my nose and eyes for me.”

“Oh, what about that little girl from this afternoon who hurt her eye?”

Yan Feifan replied, “The surgery was a success, and we saved the eyeball. But the key now is preventing post-operative inflammation and infection.”

Yan Ziruo said, “Oh,” then suddenly jumped to a new topic.

“Feifan, I saw a Black woman and a Chinese man on the subway today. They were with a four or five-year-old girl, and her skin was dark too.”

“Feifan, if you marry a Black person, are the children always dark-skinned?”

Yan Feifan grunted in affirmation. “Skin color is a dominant trait. The genes for dark skin are stronger than the genes for Asian or Caucasian skin tones, so the children will also have dark skin.”

“If an Asian and a Caucasian person have a child, the child’s skin tone tends to be closer to the Asian parent’s.”

Yan Ziruo said with a flash of understanding, “So it’s like mixing a bottle of ink with a bottle of clear water. The result is still the color of ink.”

“Whoever has the darker skin has the advantage!”

Yan Feifan replied perfunctorily, “I guess you could think of it that way.”

He lifted the bowl and drank a few mouthfuls of the dumpling broth, then heard his sister say excitedly, “Feifan, I found out today that this apartment has two parking spots!”

“When we lived at Happiness Garden, parking was such a headache for me.”

“But now it’s great! With two spots, I can even park sideways and it won’t be a problem.”

Yan Feifan couldn’t resist teasing, “Sis, with your parking skills, even getting the car into one spot is a challenge…”

The next morning, Yan Feifan arrived at the south gate of the Affiliated Hospital a little earlier than the day before, at 6:50.

He found Mr. Wang already standing at the entrance to the emergency hall, waiting.

“Mr. Wang, good morning!”

Wang Chuan nodded in response to Yan Feifan’s greeting and urged, “Hurry upstairs and change. This morning, we’re continuing with wound treatment.”

Yan Feifan tentatively suggested, “Mr. Wang, when I treat a wound in the ER, I only get a stipend of ten to fifty yuan.”

“But a single absorbable cosmetic suture costs over a hundred yuan, and that’s for a cheap one.”

“Not to mention your priceless guidance on the side.”

“Mr. Wang, we can’t be doing business at a loss.”

“Over at the plastic surgery center, there must be plenty of people coming in for scar removal and cosmetic procedures.”

“How about I go practice on them?”

Wang Chuan chuckled. “You brat. You’re not worried about me losing money, you just want to earn a bigger surgical stipend, don’t you?”

“After all, the difference in the surgical stipend between the ER and the plastic surgery center is at least tenfold.”

Yan Feifan gave a sheepish smile. “A win-win! It’s a win-win!”

Wang Chuan laughed. “It’s not a bad idea, but it won’t work.”

“Yan Feifan, even though your skin suturing and cosmetic techniques are, in some ways, no worse than an attending physician’s at the plastic surgery center…”

“…the people who come for plastic surgery will see how young you are, see that you’re just a resident, and they won’t agree to let you be the primary surgeon.”

Yan Feifan said, unconvinced and confident, “I’ll convince them with cold, hard facts.”

Wang Chuan scoffed. “No matter how superb your demonstrated skills are, if they have a choice, they still won’t choose you.”

“Your age and your credentials are a major drawback. Those people will choose the safe bet, not take an unnecessary risk.”

“Yan Feifan, you have to understand their psychology.”

Wang Chuan continued, “Did you know?”

“You could say that we plastic surgeons are the group of doctors with the lowest patient satisfaction ratings.”

He explained, “Before the surgery, their expectation for their appearance might only be a 70 out of 100. We work hard and get them to an 80, maybe even an 85.”

“Do you think they’ll be eternally grateful to us?”

Wang Chuan snorted. “Wrong!”

“Gratitude? Maybe for a moment. But it only lasts a little while, because no one is ever satisfied with their own appearance.”

“Before long, they’ll be looking in the mirror, finding fault.”

’If only my eyes were a little bigger, and my nose a bit more delicate, wouldn’t I be a 90-out-of-100 beauty?’

’That doctor’s skills just weren’t up to snuff.’”

“’Bad review!’”

Wang Chuan looked at Yan Feifan and said, “In the ER, you not only treat their wounds but also go the extra mile to make their scars smaller or even disappear. They will only be grateful to you.”

Seeing that Yan Feifan was about to speak again, Wang Chuan waved his hand dismissively. “Go change. Stop wasting time.”

“Whether we’re losing money isn’t your problem to consider. You just need to focus on constantly improving yourself…”

Yan Feifan’s little scheme was thus crushed. He could only obediently head upstairs to change into his work clothes and start the new day…

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