Bone-Attached Disaster - Chapter 18:

Chapter 18: The Moon

Fu Jia’an accepted the two chicken drumsticks without any psychological burden, then looked at Lu Jie’s plate: “Are the stir-fried shredded bamboo shoots tasty?”

Lu Jie moved the small bowl containing the bamboo shoots to a different spot. “Eat if you want to. No one’s stopping you.”

The few people around them were stunned: Every dog has its day.

The atmosphere at the dining table warmed up again. Niannian pushed up her glasses and finally asked the question she had been curious about for a long time: “Dr. Fu, did you, President Jiang, and President Lu know each other before?”

“Yes, we’re quite familiar.”

“No wonder. President Jiang said you three had the best relationship in high school, practically sworn brothers!”

Fu Jia’an glanced at Lu Jie, not speaking, just smiling.

Lu Jie remained silent with a dark expression. He really wanted to pry open Jiang Yan’s skull and see what the idiot was thinking. How are rumors born? They spread from the mouths of people like him.

“To be honest, I’m a little envious,” someone said in a small voice. “I want to be friends with Dr. Fu too…”

“How about playing ball together sometime?” Fu Jia’an suggested.

This remark stirred up a storm: “!!! Really? I heard from my friends at J University that you’re very famous there, Dr. Fu. Besides basketball, you’re excellent at badminton and tennis, too.”

“He even won a gold medal in the half-marathon!”

“I wouldn’t say excellent,” Fu Jia’an smiled modestly, his eyes curving into an arc. “I often go to Guangqiu Gymnasium recently. If we run into each other there, we can play a few games.”

“Yes, yes!”

“Wow, Dr. Fu leads such a healthy life… is it because his life is already fulfilling enough that he doesn’t date?”

“How can something as mundane as dating be within Dr. Fu’s considerations? Don’t always assume everyone else is as obsessed with romance as you are.”

Lu Jie felt slightly nauseous listening to the comments. The thought of a devious and calculating person being hailed as an aloof, desireless immortal made him feel that his mental well-being was severely compromised.

Fu Jia’an looked a little surprised: “How do you know I’m not dating?”

Everyone looked simultaneously at Lu Jie: “President Lu told us.”

Lu Jie choked a bit: “I didn’t bring it up myself. They were curious, so I just told them.” He cleared his throat and said seriously, “But who said Dr. Fu doesn’t want to date? Jiang Niannian, saying that just puts him on a pedestal! He’s actually desperate to find a partner. As his good friend, I know him best. Jia’an, isn’t that right? Those who want to apply, hurry up, he might be gone soon.”

It’s just spreading rumors. Who can’t do that?

Fu Jia’an didn’t deny it. He looked at Lu Jie and said flatly, “President Lu is right. I am indeed quite keen to date.”

Jiang Xiaoli didn’t notice the strange tension between the two and joked, “Dr. Fu, are you strict about gender? Are men okay? We have more male researchers in our company, you know.”

Fu Jia’an nodded casually, his smile genuine yet hard to read: “That’s fine.”

Lu Jie also smiled faintly: “He accepts all comers. It just depends on who pursues first.”

“Xiao Xun,” Jiang Xiaoli quickly patted Xun Zhuo. “Your chance has come!”

Researcher Xun sat there, knowing they were all joking, but looking at Fu Jia’an’s face across the table, his ears unconsciously turned red.

“Lunch break is over now,” Lu Jie reminded them.

“Ah! I forgot to check the time.”

The sound of clearing dishes immediately rang out at the table. The remaining researchers in the cafeteria walked out with their trays, glancing back every few steps, but quickly returned to their labs.

After the meal, Lu Jie walked Fu Jia’an to the underground parking lot. Before closing the car door, Lu Jie leaned over the car roof to talk to Fu Jia’an.

“I didn’t see that coming,” he said sarcastically. “Someone who used to have such poor stamina can run a half-marathon now.”

Fu Jia’an chuckled softly, his eyelashes drooping like a butterfly folding its wings. “I also didn’t see it coming. The former Lu Jie, who was kind to everyone, is now the company’s ‘Living King of Hell.’ Everyone’s afraid of him.”

“And you’re not afraid?”

Lu Jie licked the tip of his tooth on the side of his tongue, then suddenly raised his hand to cup Fu Jia’an’s chin, gently applying pressure with his thumb and forefinger, making the skin on his neck flush red. Lu Jie leaned closer, “Fu Jia’an, if I were the Living King of Hell, the first person I’d drag to hell would be you.”

Fu Jia’an remained unperturbed, tilting his chin up, and reaching out to grip Lu Jie’s wrist.

Compared to Lu Jie’s force, Fu Jia’an’s grip was light, almost like a soothing gesture.

“Then I’ll wait for you to come for me,” he curled the corner of his mouth. His face was a little flushed, making him look slightly mad. “Anyway, life is boring.”

In the afternoon, Lu Jie felt a bit listless. He probably didn’t digest lunch well, and his stomach started to ache again. The pain, dull and intermittent like a blunt knife cutting flesh, prompted him to take a pill and lie down on the small sofa bed in his office.

Spending time with Fu Jia’an was too draining; he had to be alert every second. Lu Jie had been just coasting for a while. Suddenly having to watch his words, play word games, and engage in back-and-forth banter was quite tiring.

The most important word Lu Jie learned in the process of becoming an adult was: allow.

Allowing himself to do some things without results, allowing rumors and disagreements to exist, allowing himself to be misunderstood, allowing his life to be steered toward the so-called right path.

Becoming a cold boss, an unpopular atmosphere disruptor, was commonplace for Lu Jie. He didn’t even expect Dai Mengshu’s approval, but why did he subconsciously feel that Fu Jia’an could understand him? Just because Fu Jia’an was smart enough?

He was foolish enough to overestimate the empathy of his former nemesis. That’s why he got angry when he was called the “Living King of Hell.”

Twelve years, and everyone had changed so much. Lu Jie became the unlikable, unfeeling President Lu, and Fu Jia’an became the composed crowd-pleaser.

Even if Lu Jie believed they were once kindred spirits, their circumstances were now vastly different.

He thought he could seize the opportunity to recapture the feeling of the past, but he decided against it.

Outside the window, tree shadows swayed. The bright green buds had unknowingly turned into lush leaves. Nothing could stop the arrival of spring, just as nothing could stop the passing of time.

Lu Jie closed his eyes amidst the throbbing pain. Perhaps in the blink of an eye, another twelve years would pass.

Fu Jia’an was called into the director’s office for a talk that lasted over an hour. When he pushed the door open to leave, he saw Chu Yanchuan standing outside, looking like a high school student who had been punished to stand in the hallway.

“Dr. Fu,” Chu Yanchuan raised his previously lowered head, looking downcast. “I…”

Fu Jia’an asked as if nothing had happened, “Why are you waiting here?”

Chu Yanchuan was a second-year neurosurgery resident. He stammered due to his work mistake that morning, “I’m sorry. I thought I was very proficient in the lumbar puncture procedure, but for some reason, I couldn’t find the insertion point today. If I had known, I wouldn’t have volunteered to do it for you. Now I’m being complained about, and you have to take the blame…”

If a post-craniotomy patient develops a high fever, a lumbar puncture is immediately required to withdraw cerebrospinal fluid for white bl00d cell and bacterial examinations. Aunt Huang, in bed 29 of the general ward, showed signs of fever that morning. The main surgeon, Fu Jia’an, was absent, so Chu Yanchuan volunteered to perform the puncture for him. Unexpectedly, he failed to insert the needle successfully multiple times, then panicked, and was directly scolded by the patient and complained about to the director.

“What about the next surgery?”

“Huh?”

Fu Jia’an raised his phone to show the message he had just received. “There’s a subarachnoid hemorrhage patient in the emergency room. The operating room has been scheduled. We need to operate quickly. I’ll go check the X-rays to rule out an aneurysm first. You’ll be my assistant later.”

Chu Yanchuan watched Dr. Fu’s receding back, his heart swelling with more bitterness and self-reproach.

He might as well have just yelled at me…

In fact, when he first entered neurosurgery, he came with an admiration for Fu Jia’an.

From the memory of a breathtaking glimpse during his rotation to entering neurosurgery, step by step from assistant to first surgeon, his position had moved from the corner by the door to the surgical front line, where he could hear the slight metallic clinking of clamps and scalpels.

But Fu Jia’an was somewhat different from the flawless image he had imagined. The longer he worked with him, the more distant he felt. Fu Jia’an wouldn’t scold his assistants for surgical mistakes, nor would he lose sleep over operations that failed despite their best efforts to save the patient. Perhaps this was the difference between an ordinary person and a genius. He seemed born to be a doctor—intelligent, rigorous, courageous, technically skilled, and… emotionless.

Everyone looked up to Dr. Fu, but when they got close to him, the emptiness and sense of defeat made them feel helpless. Like the moon, brilliant as it is, when you actually touch it, you find it’s just a beautiful corpse.

When will I ever grow a heart of steel like that? Chu Yanchuan sighed and followed Fu Jia’an.

The surgery lasted ten hours. When they emerged from the operating room, it was five in the morning on the next day. Fu Jia’an took off his scrubs and informed the patient’s family that the operation was safe. His shoulders were stiff. He rubbed the muscles on the side of his neck, feeling waves of soreness.

During a rare moment of respite, Fu Jia’an bought an instant Americano at the hospital convenience store. As he walked toward the hospital lobby, he recalled being called into the director’s office and reprimanded.

The reason for the scolding was “abandoning the patient and leaving the hospital.” Although yesterday morning was supposed to be Fu Jia’an’s day off, he had planned to rush back immediately upon hearing about the patient’s fever but entrusted the examination to Chu Yanchuan out of trust.

He couldn’t comfort Chu Yanchuan, nor was he blaming him. Rather, he couldn’t speak the words “it’s okay” on behalf of the patient.

Then came the rehashing of old business: two months ago, Fu Jia’an had unilaterally accepted a patient that the Municipal Second Hospital was reluctant to admit. His decision defied the director’s opinion but miraculously saved the patient’s life. The incident caused a stir in the hospital, and Fu Jia’an was labeled the “genius neurosurgeon,” but it further made him a thorn in the director’s side.

Sometimes he hated that his memory was too good. As soon as he let down his guard, all kinds of voices would flood his mind, making him repeatedly experience those not-so-pleasant scenes.

—Dr. Fu, we rescued this person from the highway. We went to many hospitals, and they all refused to admit this patient. What do you think?

—Who gave you permission to accept such a high-risk patient? We can’t reach his family. Who will be responsible if the surgery fails?

—Thank you, Dr. Fu. If Xiao Qi hadn’t made it, I don’t know how I would live…

—You admire Dr. Fu? You’re still young, and you haven’t worked with him, have you? Although his talent is top-notch, as a doctor, he still lacks humanity. This kind of genius can only be admired from afar. Once you get close, the filter shatters.

Fu Jia’an yawned, inadvertently looking at the people passing back and forth. He unexpectedly spotted a familiar figure among them.

The sun rose, the morning light was brilliant, and the rosy glow shone through the transparent glass roof of the lobby onto the floor. The person he missed was standing in the center of the crowd.