Chapter 13
Two hours later, old Mrs. Shen sat on her bed while ‘clicking’ and eating chips, squinting her eyes and smiling, “Soft skin, well-proportioned body and good-looking, and most of all, very caring.”
“Why do you think that Lim Toby does not like her at all?” The old lady said as she shoved a chip into Zhang Jane’s mouth.
“Man, what you can’t have is the best.” Zhang Jane surreptitiously shoved the chips into a nearby trash can and said with a smile, “Looks like you’re happy with that, old lady.”
“It’s quite satisfactory so far.” The old woman smiled a thief’s smile.
There was a knock on the door outside the ward and the old lady returned to her wheelchair as she tucked the chips under the covers. Cheng Lydia, dressed in white, came in and asked with concern, “Do you feel unwell, old lady?”
“Please call me Grandma.” The old woman said with an expressionless face.
Cheng Lydia froze and then smiled, “Grandma, may I ask if you feel uncomfortable anywhere?”
“Not yet, still trying to get a feel for it.” The old woman looked up at her, “Can I get a glass of water?”
Cheng Lydia nodded a little and walked over to the bedside table to pour a glass of water.
“Help me blow cool.”
Cheng Lydia blew gently, and when it was well cooled, the old woman frowned when she took a sip, “Why is it so bland, it’s better to have coffee, give me a cup of coffee.”
Behind Cheng Lydia, Doctor Song had clenched his fists.
Cheng Lydia glanced at the glass of water and patiently advised, “Grandma, too much coffee is bad for your health, especially at your age you should drink less of it.”
“I said I wanted coffee, why are you so long-winded? Watch out if I complain about you!”
“But this is a hospital, there’s no coffee.” Cheng Lydia forced herself to hold back.
“I don’t care, I want my coffee, I … want my coffee.” The old woman’s heart began to rise and fall when she got excited.
Cheng Lydia, worried that she might convulse and faint again from the overexcitement, turned around and rushed to Doctor Song, “Doctor Song, Wendy has instant coffee, go ask her for one.”
“Doctor Cheng …” Doctor Song expressed outrage. She knew Cheng Lydia had a good heart and knew that as a healthcare professional she had to put up with her patients, but she couldn’t fight back when she was bullied like this, right?
Cheng Lydia gave her a wink and she had to turn away.
Five minutes later, the coffee was delivered.
Along with the coffee came a stack of sheets, all of the old lady’s test reports.
Cheng Lydia looked at page after page, and when she turned to the last page, lifted her eyelids to look at the old lady who was complaining about the bad instant coffee while drinking it. With that, she threw the slip in her hand towards the bed and looked at the old lady with an instant fetish of annoyance.
The old lady was startled by her sudden movement and looked up at her in a daze, not understanding for a moment what had happened.
Cheng Lydia took a deep breath, gritted her teeth and said, “Grandma, I saw a cockroach working its way under your butt, so don’t move …”
The end of her words were still in her mouth when the old woman had thrown the cup away with a ‘maaaaan’ and jumped up from the wheelchair and climbed onto the bed.
Sure enough …
The annoyance on Cheng Lydia’s face intensified, and the old woman, realizing she was wearing out her welcome, hemmed and hawed dryly in embarrassment while trying to salvage it, “I … didn’t say I was paralyzed either, I just felt more comfortable in a wheelchair… …”
“This lady.” Cheng Lydia interrupted her, staring at her with a pale cold seriousness, “If you feel that life is boring, you can go to the park and have some fun to pass the time, this is a hospital, a place to save lives, and I have more patients than I can see every day. The testing department downstairs is also overcrowded every day, and I have opened a green channel for you in order to find out the cause of the disease as soon as possible, but what is this?”
Cheng Lydia grabbed the stack of bolus test sheets on the bed and raised them at her, “All indicators are normal.”
Not only were all the indicators normal, but she also suddenly rushed from the wheelchair to the bed with the agility of her legs. Thinking of the way she fainted and woke up just now, Cheng Lydia found it hard to believe that this old lady was not here to crash the party.
Cheng Lydia finished and turned around to take out her cell phone and make a call.
“Is she calling me names?” The old woman, who had shrugged her head at the criticism, pointed to the tip of her nose.
Zhang Jane nodded, “Yes, she’s cursing you.”
“But why do I get a particularly good feeling?”
“Because it’s been too long since you’ve been scolded.”
“What do you think she wanted to call?”
“I don’t know.”Exclusive content © by Nô(v)el/Dr/ama.Org.
“Weren’t you just saying she’s gentle?”
“Yeah, it’s really turning over faster than a book.”
A minute later, two floor security guards walked in, scanned the ward and asked solemnly, “Doctor Cheng, what’s going on?”
“Please take these two old ladies to the first floor for discharge.” Cheng Lydia threw down this sentence and then copied the examination report on the bed and left.
Another minute later, the entire nurses’ station saw two old ladies caw and caw.
And Cheng Lydia hadn’t looked at them again since the beginning, her head lowered as she studied the examination reports of other patients with a serious face.
A young nurse leaned over another nurse’s ear and taunted, “Before, you were acting like you didn’t think anything of it, smiling at everyone, and look, you can’t pretend anymore, can you? How can you be so rude to two old ladies?”
“Yeah, after such a scandal, how can you possibly get over it after only three days of rest?”
“So anxious to come to work, to present herself, of course, but I reckon the dean won’t care her at all, and she will leave for sure.”
Another nurse lady came over, “I heard that she was kicked out of her house by that rich husband of hers and is now living in a rented house over in the west side of town.”
“Look at her usual condescending face, cold to everyone, as if she married the dean’s son, now she knows it’s not easy to be a young grandmother of a luxurious family.”
The doctor’s office was right next door to the nurse’s desk, and Cheng Lydia heard every word of the nurse ladies’ chatter; she didn’t respond, and pretended not to hear it.
There are more and more people who hate the rich these days, so how much could she care?
Cheng Lydia is a kind and amiable person, but she has her own principles, like the old lady just now, and she can be gentle and considerate to her, but of course she can also be stern and decisive when the bottom line is touched.
Most of her colleagues still respected and loved her, but there was no shortage of those who always had their eyes on her status as a wife of a wealthy family.
The newspaper with her kissing and hugging a man was on her desk, put there by an unsuspecting little nurse this morning, and it was a good thing Lim Toby had some conscience and didn’t print where she worked, or she would have been sacked from the hospital for sure.
A young nurse who had just finished answering the phone raised her voice and called out, “Doctor Cheng, the dean wants you to come to him.”
Cheng Lydia’s fingers tightened as she gripped her quill; it seemed she had imagined things too well for herself.
She heard those few more nurses ladies cross their fingers, “See, the dean must be up to no good to see her.”
“How pathetic.”
“…”
Quite pathetic indeed, Cheng Lydia laughed bitterly in her mind.
Having just lost The Lim Family as her backbone, she would not be able to sustain herself if she lost her job again.