DSMIS CH79

Chapter 79: Extra 9—Captain Jiang Moved to Tears by the Samoyed

Inside the office, Shen Xing was poring over the newly issued diagnostic reports for Jiang Lin’s leg, his demeanor far more solemn and meticulous than when reviewing academic treatises. The clinical condition was not overwhelmingly complex, yet he was terrified of missing even the slightest detail. In the end, rather than merely evaluating it himself, he shamelessly brought the scans before his department director.

Wei Changhe, head director of Orthopedics, was in his fifties and had been Shen Xing’s clinical mentor when he first joined the hospital. Over the past couple of years, he had genuinely enjoyed the exhilarating sensation of riding the coattails of a clinical prodigy like Shen Xing, accumulating corresponding-author credits to his heart’s content. Holding his thermos, he reviewed the paperwork before glancing up at Shen Xing:

“There are previous injuries, but his underlying physical constitution is solid. These results indicate a recovery that is well within ideal parameters.”

Given how standard and unremarkable the findings were, he couldn’t comprehend why Shen Xing had made a special trip just to show him.

“Right? No other hidden complications, correct, Director?”

That single, anxious query startled Wei Changhe so thoroughly he almost wondered if the person standing before him had been body-swapped. For a fleeting instant, he felt as if he were looking at the green, fresh-out-of-med-school Shen Xing from years ago.

Pushing up his glasses, he gave an affirmative nod:

“Correct. Everything else looks very good.”

He then watched the most promising associate director in their entire department, looking for all the world like a patient’s relieved family member who had just received a calming pill, clutch the charts with a lingering grin and turn to leave.

Taking a sip of hot water, Wei Changhe couldn’t help but mentally sift through the roster of doctors in their department. Every single one had an emotional track record wilder and more dramatic than unofficial historical gossip; in the end, only Shen Xing—the one who had seemed the most aloof and improbable—had actually ended up with a relationship that genuinely looked like true love.

Before reaching the door, Shen Xing spun back around:

“Director, when would you suggest scheduling his surgery?”

“How about next Monday?”

“Sounds great. Thank you for your trouble.”

Jiang Lin truly couldn’t endure the monotony of being confined to a hospital bed all day. He was still in the stabilization phase for the hairline fracture, and with the knee arthroplasty pending, even basic rehabilitation exercises were out of the question. Glancing out at the bright, clear weather, he deliberated for a moment before fishing out his phone to text Shen Xing:

Director Shen, I want to go downstairs for some fresh air.

(Little bear pushing open door.jpg)

Shen Xing wasn’t running outpatient clinic today; his scheduled surgeries were in the afternoon. At that moment, he was in his office consulting with a patient’s family. Glancing at his phone, he finished briefing the family, stood up, and headed straight for Jiang Lin’s ward.

The moment he walked in, he was greeted by the pitiful sight of Captain Jiang propped up against the pillows, gazing longingly out the window. Jiang Lin turned his head only when footsteps drew close:

“Not busy right now?”

Crossing his arms, Shen Xing looked down at him with an amused smile:

“Captain Jiang is my patient too. Carving out a few minutes to check in on a patient is well within my clinical duties. Want to go outside?”

“Yeah. It’s too stifling in here.”

There was nothing overtly unusual about his tone, yet for some reason, Shen Xing could distinctly sense that Captain Jiang was acting spoiled.

“Fine. Twenty minutes maximum. It’s quite chilly out there today; stay out too long and your leg won’t handle it. I’ll help you get dressed.”

Jiang Lin smiled:

“I know how to dress myself.”

“You know jack shit.”

Ten minutes later, Director Shen had personally bundled his designated patient into what could only be described as a giant, spherical roll atop a wheelchair.

Jiang Lin was fitted with a surgical mask, a knit beanie, and a thick, chunky wool scarf. Over his long down parka, two separate blankets were tightly swaddled, the outermost being a fleece coral-velvet Action Kamen nap blanket that Director Shen had specifically fetched from the staff lounge.

Jiang Lin kept his eyes squeezed shut for several long seconds before speaking, caught between laughter and tears:

“Director Shen, does Action Kamen absolutely have to be on the outside?”

There were two blankets; the inner one was a tailored grey cashmere throw brought from home. He reasoned that displaying the grey cashmere on the exterior would look significantly more dignified.

Shen Xing squatted down, tucking in the corners around his legs:

“The inner layer is pure cashmere, which provides far superior thermal insulation directly against your legs. What, looking down on my Action Kamen? That blanket has seen me through half my medical career! I wouldn’t lend it to anyone else—stop acting aggrieved while reaping all the perks.”

Not daring to complain further, Captain Jiang—proudly sporting Action Kamen across his lap—was wheeled out by the orderly, collecting an uninterrupted gauntlet of fond, knowing looks from the orthopedic nursing staff along the corridor.

Watching Action Kamen descend via the elevator, Shen Xing returned to his office with a broad grin.

Only upon reaching the outdoors did Jiang Lin feel as though he had returned to the land of the living. However, the crisp winter air irritated his airway, provoking a dry, shallow cough. Not daring to pull down his mask, he let the orderly push him on a slow circuit around the grounds.

“Let’s head toward the east gate. There are food stalls setting up out there.”

The orderly wheeled him toward the east gate. Just outside lay a revitalized food street. The area had previously been a cluster of low-rise brick houses, but municipal redevelopment had converted it into a lively row of street-level storefronts.

Several permanent stalls right outside the gate happened to be Director Shen’s absolute favorites. Executing a brazen “jailbreak,” Jiang Lin returned a dozen minutes later fully laden—a precarious stack of bags balanced across his lap, with several more dangling from the wheelchair’s handles.

He made it back to the ward right around lunch hour. Director Shen was already inside, having shed his white coat and preparing to slip into his overcoat. Spotting Jiang Lin, his hands paused:

“Ran wild out there, did you? I was just about to go hunt you down. Wait… what smells so good?”

Leaning in, he began sniffing like a bloodhound, his eyes lighting up the moment he spotted the paper bag Jiang Lin was shielding against his chest:

“Donkey burger (lùròu huǒshāo) from the east gate stall, isn’t it?!”

“Nose like a dog.”

That donkey burger stall was wildly popular, with long queues of residents from surrounding neighborhoods forming every noon. Delivery was notoriously slow, and by the time an order arrived, the flaky pastry had gone completely cold.

Director Shen had a notoriously picky palate; reheating it in a microwave ruined the crisp, layered crunch of the outer crust, leaving him complaining that it wasn’t flaky anymore. He always planned to drop by after work, but leaving straight from the underground garage left him tangled in gridlock along that street. As a result, he was constantly craving it yet rarely getting to eat it.

Later on, whenever Jiang Lin came to visit him, he would stand in line to buy them fresh, tucking them inside his coat to bring them in hot. This time, he had used the Action Kamen blanket to insulate the bag all the way back; it was still steaming.

“Captain Jiang, you’re in this state and you still went to buy me donkey burgers? This is downright moving.”

Jiang Lin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Shen Xing dismissed the orderly for lunch. Jiang Lin spoke up:

“Hold on.”

Reaching into one of the bags hanging from the wheelchair frame, he pulled out a stick of candied hawthorns wrapped in brown kraft paper and handed it over. Shen Xing leaned over the side of the chair, peering into the bag:

“Whoa, Captain Jiang, are you running a candied-fruit smuggling ring?”

“Bought them for your colleagues. Take them out and pass them around.”

Carrying a hefty bag of candied hawthorns, Shen Xing made the rounds at the nurses’ station and doctors’ offices, telling everyone within earshot that his partner had bought them. After distributing the haul, he kept two for himself and hurried back to the ward, devouring two donkey burgers in record time.

Jiang Lin had bought an extensive assortment of street snacks, nearly all of them items requiring lengthy noon queues: beyond the donkey burgers, there were the savory scallion-oil pancake rolls Shen Xing loved, a bowl of beef offal soup, and roasted honey sweet potatoes.

A colorful array of street food covered the table, while Jiang Lin quietly opened a single takeout container of millet porridge and began sipping it.

The contrast struck Shen Xing with sudden, acute sympathy. Wiping his glistening, oily lips, he leaned over and planted a greasy kiss on Jiang Lin’s cheek:

“Why are you looking as pitiful as an abandoned cabbage?”

Jiang Lin instinctively wrapped an arm around him, slipping effortlessly into coaxing mode:

“Then you’ll have to treat me better.”

“You make it sound like I treat you poorly now. Do you miss Qianjin and Black Panther? Tomorrow’s Saturday; I’ll have Xu Chun drive both dogs over so you can see them outside.”

During Jiang Lin’s hospitalization, Shen Xing had barely set foot at home, entrusting the two furballs to their resident animal enthusiast, Comrade Xu Chun.

Jiang Lin’s eyes brightened slightly:

“Has Qianjin adjusted well at Xu Chun’s place this time?”

“Yeah. With Black Panther around, he adjusts anywhere. Black Panther is basically his mobile doghouse; he’s probably gained weight over the past few days.”

Sure enough, Xu Chun drove over with both dogs on Saturday. Shen Xing wheeled Jiang Lin outside. Between the previous cross-provincial business trip and the subsequent crash and hospitalization, Jiang Lin hadn’t laid eyes on the two furballs in nearly a month.

Even Black Panther, normally as stoic and disciplined as an elite soldier, was wagging his tail like a pinwheel as he bounded over—to say nothing of the naturally clingy Samoyed.

The two dogs swarmed the wheelchair. Qianjin tilted his head back, nuzzling frantically beneath Jiang Lin’s open palm and licking his fingers, while Black Panther nudged his good right leg with restrained affection.

After ten minutes of play, “Warden” Shen Xing called time on the heartwarming family reunion due to a rising breeze, prompting Xu Chun to herd the dogs back toward the car.

Black Panther was obedient to hand signals, turning back under Jiang Lin’s gesture. But Qianjin refused, taking two steps forward and glancing back three times at Jiang Lin seated in the wheelchair.

Catching everyone off guard, the Samoyed broke into a trot, rushing back to Jiang Lin. His fluffy, fan-like tail swayed gently, as if asking why Jiang Lin wasn’t standing up to play with him.

Then, as if catching the sharp medicinal scent clinging to Jiang Lin’s frame, the dog suddenly grew restless. He licked Jiang Lin’s fingers, rubbing his plump, fluffy body against him, tilting his round, dark eyes upward before pressing his snout insistently against Jiang Lin’s injured leg.

Suddenly, the dog spun around and sprinted straight into Xu Chun’s car, returning seconds later carrying something clamped in his jaws, trotting back to drop it directly onto Jiang Lin’s lap. Jiang Lin looked down: it was half a savory ham sausage.

The white furball looked intensely anxious, nudging the sausage onto Jiang Lin’s lap with his snout before prodding Jiang Lin’s hand, his pink-lined ears quivering as he stared up intently, his expression practically pleading: Eat it, hurry.

Getting a gluttonous Samoyed to part with food already in its mouth was a minor miracle—in Shen Xing’s eyes, the difficulty was on par with the perennial underachiever in his surgical research group producing a paper that met his exacting standards.

Watching the dog act like this completely breached the veteran officer’s emotional defenses. Staring at that half-eaten sausage, Jiang Lin’s eyes stung with heat. He applied a firmer, affectionate stroke across the white furball’s broad head.

Watching him, Shen Xing was genuinely terrified that the indulgent Captain Jiang might actually take a bite out of that half-eaten sausage to humor the dog.

He walked over, affectionately ruffling the silly dog’s ears. The dog might not be the brightest bulb on the tree, but Qianjin possessed an undeniably pure, golden heart.

“Looks like you little rascal actually have some filial piety in you. Your Daddy Jiang didn’t feed you all those gourmet cans for nothing.”

With that, Shen Xing bent down, looking at Captain Jiang with an amused grin:

“Captain Jiang, you’re not actually about to cry from being moved by our Qianjin, are you?”

Jiang Lin jerked his head away, averting his gaze. That single reaction left Shen Xing completely dumbfounded.

Wait… no way? Did our Captain Jiang actually cry?!