DSMIS CH2

Chapter 2: Could I Borrow a Pack of Tissues?

The pack of tissues lying helpless in the pit silently proclaimed that Shen Xing’s bad luck didn’t stop at the landslide up ahead—it also extended to having no toilet paper when he had diarrhea.

He scanned his surroundings, but didn’t see any phone numbers posted for emergency toilet paper delivery. His only option was to knock on the stall door and try asking anyone who came in for help. Unfortunately, the entire restroom was dead silent. Empty.

This was a small service area. When he had driven in earlier, there were barely any cars parked outside. Squatting over the pit, his legs had gone completely numb. No way… am I really going to be trapped in a toilet stall?

Just as he was preparing to throw his pride out the window and shout at the top of his lungs for a staff member, life-saving footsteps echoed from a distance, approaching steadily. He prayed fervently in his heart: Please let it be a guy entering the men’s room, please let it be a guy.

Perhaps the Buddha had finally heard the desperate prayers of a jinx, because the footsteps actually walked straight in. Shen Xing hurriedly knocked on the door and called out:

“Brother, could I borrow a pack of tissues?”

The moment Jiang Lin stepped inside, he heard someone asking for tissues. Looking down, he saw a hand reaching out from beneath one of the stall doors. As if worried he wouldn’t notice, the hand’s fingers were twitching continuously. Jiang Lin fell silent for a moment. If this scene were played out at night, it would be genuinely terrifying.

Slightly bending down, he pulled out a pack of tissues and nudged the person’s hand. In a flash, the hand shot back into the stall like a startled mouse, pulling the tissues inside.

Shen Xing was moved to tears by the tissues in his hand. His voice of gratitude practically brimmed with joy:

“Thank you, thank you, thank you so much! May good people live a peaceful life!”

A low, slightly amused voice came from outside the stall:

“Serving the people.”

Shortly after, Shen Xing heard the sound of flushing, followed by footsteps fading into the distance. By the time he walked out, the restroom was indeed completely empty.

Stepping out of the bathroom, Shen Xing stamped his pins-and-needles-numb feet and poked his head out, furtively scanning the parking lot with a heavy sense of stealth. There were a few more cars than before, making it impossible to tell which good Samaritan had given him the tissues.

Pretending nothing awkward had just happened, he strolled back toward his vehicle. After taking a couple of steps, he noticed a black Land Cruiser parked right beside his car.

When Shen Xing was shopping for a car, he had actually test-driven this exact model. However, the vehicle was an absolute gas-guzzler. Driving it for his daily commute would have been an ongoing bloodbath for his wallet, contributing far too generously to the nation’s petroleum industry. Every single minute spent stuck in traffic would have been pure financial agony. Still, that didn’t diminish the high status this kind of hardcore off-roader held in his heart—especially considering the one right in front of him was a heavily modified build.

The front bumper of the Land Cruiser was completely transformed. What used to be a sleek front end now resembled the ferocious face of a steel beast, with a significantly lifted chassis. At a glance, the cost of the modifications alone probably exceeded the price of the car itself. The all-black rims, in particular, instantly mesmerized him, keeping his eyes glued to them.

As his gaze involuntarily drifted to the right, a pair of black tactical combat boots came into view, topped with a pair of long, straight legs. In his estimation, the ratio of the femur to the tibia was mathematically flawless. He subconsciously praised in his head: Now those are some great legs.

Unable to resist looking up, the owner of those great legs turned out to be quite tall with a perfectly proportioned physique. Dressed in a black windbreaker and tactical boots, he was leaning against his car door wearing sunglasses, smoking a cigarette to wake himself up. Even with most of his face covered by the shades, his looks were more than enough to be pleasing to the eye.

Yet, even more eye-catching than the car owner was the massive dog sitting at his side. It looked like a German Shepherd, its fur sleek and shiny, sitting upright with a razor-sharp posture. Tsk tsk, look at that superior jawline—360 degrees without a single flaw. Unlike my family’s Samoyed, who is 360 degrees without a single sharp edge.

This was the very first time Shen Xing had seen the word “majestic” embodied so perfectly by a dog. He couldn’t help but recall the useless little coward back at his friend’s place, who got scared into folding its ears flat like an airplane every time it thundered. As expected, comparison is the thief of joy.

Because of the sunglasses, Shen Xing couldn’t tell if the guy was looking back at him. Staring at someone’s car and dog for so long felt pretty rude, so Shen Xing offered a friendly grin and complimented:

“Your dog looks seriously badass.”

The man nodded slightly toward him, his voice sounding vaguely familiar:

“Thanks.”

After that brief exchange, Shen Xing resumed his journey. After driving for another two hours, he was finally approaching the exit of the highway section. Traffic began to slow down, and checking his GPS, it seemed they were approaching a border checkpoint.

As the traffic backed up, he rolled down his window and rested his arm on the door to catch some fresh air, gazing at the mist-shrouded mountain peaks far off in the clouds. Speaking of which, he had wanted to travel to Yunnan back in his student days, but missed out several times due to various reasons. He never expected his first visit to Yunnan would come in the form of exile.

Hearing a car horn behind him, he snapped out of his thoughts and crawled forward like a snail with the traffic flow. Glancing to the side, a vibrant red banner posted on the fence at the foot of the mountain caught his eye: “As long as drugs exist, anti-narcotics efforts will never cease.”

He mused silently that Yunnan truly lived up to its reputation as the frontline of anti-drug operations. He remembered the banner at the checkpoint just outside Jin City had read: “Lightning is scary, but speeding makes you history!”

The border checkpoint had a total of four inspection lanes: two for large vehicles and two for passenger cars. Each lane was manned by one or two officers. Inside the monitoring room, officers stared at screens, tracking every passing vehicle. Suddenly, an officer’s eyes sharpened, and he immediately radioed through his headset:

“Captain Yang, the orange Audi A6 ending in 35 has entered lane two on the left for inspection.”

A low, decisive voice transmitted through the headset into every officer’s earpiece:

“Team One, prepare to search.”

“Copy that.”

Several officers instantly locked their eyes onto the orange Audi, while simultaneously zeroing in on the driver, who was looking around curiosity-driven.

Two officers walked straight toward Shen Xing’s car, saluted, and gestured for him to pull forward. The car ahead cleared inspection quickly, and Shen Xing dutifully pulled his car up to the station. Just as he leaned down to grab his vehicle registration from the compartment, he heard a stern voice from outside the door:

“Step out of the vehicle. Place both hands above the window where we can see them, and don’t touch anything.”

Shen Xing was startled by the loud, authoritative voice. Thinking that strict border checks were completely understandable, he obediently raised both hands above the window, even wiggling his fingers to show he wasn’t holding a thing, before stepping out as the officer opened the door.

The moment he got out, he was immediately surrounded by three police officers. Uniforms simply carried an inexplicable aura of intimidation—just like how little kids cry when they see doctors in white coats, Dr. Shen felt a wave of anxiety being surrounded by stern-faced police officers, even though he considered himself a law-abiding, hardworking citizen.

The officer in front of him presented his badge and spoke:

“Where are you coming from? Where are you heading?”

“Uh, I left Jin City three days ago. I’m heading to Fulan County.”

An officer scanned him with a device Shen Xing didn’t recognize:

“According to border inspection regulations, we need to inspect your vehicle in accordance with the law. Please cooperate.”

Shen Xing nodded rapidly:

“Of course, happy to cooperate. Go right ahead.”

“Step inside for a moment.”

Shen Xing was led into the checkpoint guard post. Inside, a young officer who looked fiercely vigilant brought out a plastic cup. Shen Xing was intimately familiar with this object—wasn’t this the exact same measuring cup used for urine samples in hospitals?

“I need a drug test?”

The moment those words left his mouth, the young officer’s gaze turned even more guarded. If the officer weren’t looking straight at him, Shen Xing would have suspected he was standing across from a hardened criminal suspect.

A wave of confusion rose within him: Does a routine inspection require a urine test? But Shen Xing quickly pushed the doubt down. After all, this was a Yunnan border checkpoint; they were probably just being extra thorough because his car had out-of-province license plates.

“The restroom is inside. You two, go in with him.”

As a doctor, Shen Xing had zero psychological burden when it came to examining any part of a patient’s body. However, when the roles were reversed—and the people watching him were two stern, highly intimidating police officers—he felt a slight burden. In fact, it took him two tries just to pull his zipper down.

Shen Xing hardly dared to look at the officers’ expressions. Would acting like this make them suspect something was wrong with me? As he thought this, he felt secretly relieved that he didn’t suffer from any urinary issues; otherwise, being stared at like this would definitely have given him shy bladder syndrome.

After handing over the urine sample to the officers, Shen Xing was left waiting inside the guard post. Through the window, he watched four officers surrounding his car, thoroughly inspecting every nook and cranny, including the gaps between the tires and the chassis.

One young officer even lay flat on the ground underneath his car, inspecting the undercarriage with a spotlight. Seeing such meticulous rigor, Shen Xing finally realized something was off. They hadn’t searched the cars ahead of him like this!

Wait… did the officers misunderstand something?

Just as he was about to ask, an officer searching outside opened his trunk and carried out his three suitcases:

“We need to search your personal luggage. Please cooperate.”

Shen Xing swallowed hard, not daring to be anything less than cooperative.

The three suitcases were opened one by one. The first two contained clothes and daily necessities, but the third suitcase looked distinctly different—it was a metallic-finish carrying case with refined latches and a combination lock. It clearly didn’t look like ordinary luggage. An officer scanned it with a detector, which immediately let out a sharp, piercing alarm. The officer’s expression tightened:

“Captain Yang, this appears to contain controlled hazardous materials.”

Shen Xing instantly felt several sharp gazes lock onto him. He hurriedly explained:

“Officers, that’s not controlled dangerous equipment! That’s my surgical toolkit!”

He quickly opened the case. Inside the box laid on the ground were two power drills—one large, one small—alongside a hammer and scalpels. The metallic glint of the tools looked undeniably sinister. The man addressed as Captain Yang stepped closer:

“Surgical?”

“Yes! I’m a doctor—an orthopedic surgeon!”

He hurriedly pointed at the two devices that looked suspiciously like power drills and clarified:

“This one is an oscillating saw, and this one is a medullary canal drill. They’re used for cutting and drilling bone. Neurosurgeons use them for craniotomies, too!”

The officers in front of him visibly froze in shock for a second. The man called Captain Yang spoke up:

“Which hospital are you from? Where are your credentials?”

Sensing the tense atmosphere, Shen Xing quickly explained:

“I’m from Yuetan Hospital in Jin City! Our hospital has a targeted assistance program with Fulan County People’s Hospital. I’m a doctor stationed in Yunnan for support. My credentials are in the car!”

The young officer who had conducted the urine test blinked, immediately turning around to search the car in the location Shen Xing indicated.

Yang Cheng cross-checked the medical credentials with his ID card, while the young officer beside him quickly logged onto the official hospital website. Sure enough, Shen Xing’s photo was clearly listed under the Orthopedics Department of Yuetan Hospital.