Winter Returns

Chapter 115 Courage (Part 1)

"..."

Are you kidding me?
Why is Lao Song here?
Glass shards flew everywhere, and the sudden, sharp sound made him the center of attention. Countless eyes were on him, and time seemed to freeze, enveloping everyone in a thick atmosphere. Zhang Shutong could feel the muscles at the corners of his eyes stretching little by little until he struggled to break free from this frozen state.

"What happened to him?" Zhang Shutong asked anxiously. "What happened? He's my homeroom teacher, a teacher at Yingcai Middle School..."

But the lead male nurse clearly didn't have time to pay attention to him; instead, he was startled by the broken IV drip.
"You've broken your head and lost a lot of blood. Be careful, there are so many people in the hallway. We can talk about it later!"

Before the other person could finish speaking, the bed's wheels continued rolling, like rapid drumbeats pounding on the heart. Nurses weaved through the crowded corridor, only managing to hear a few hurried words exchanged:

"I just arrived. Xiao Li and Xiao Hu, you went with the car. What's going on?"

"Hemorrhagic shock, unstable vital signs, weak breathing, heart rate 105, currently unconscious..."

"Head trauma, no bleeding from the ears, nose, or external auditory canal, contusions to the chest and abdomen. Initial suspicion is a ruptured spleen; internal bleeding would be serious..."

"The bleeding wasn't too serious, but he had been losing blood for too long and was already unconscious when he was found."

"Level 2 critical condition, quick..."

Critical condition...

However, the emergency room door slammed shut.

Zhang Shutong then realized that he had followed her all the way to the door.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye. A huge wave of dizziness washed over him. He desperately wanted to rush over and ask what exactly "level two critical condition" meant, whether the man was on the verge of death, and what he had been through... But now, the cold metal door shut everything out. Zhang Shutong stood in front of the door until the young nurse ran out in response to his call.
"What happened?"

She came to Zhang Shutong's side and noticed the syringe in his hand; the blood had flowed backward, spreading out a faint red line.

"You should remove the needle right away!"

Without a word, she took Zhang Shutong's hand and calmly removed the needle:
"Press it yourself, don't just stand there."

Zhang Shutong subconsciously pressed his hand against the wound.

The young nurse wanted to say something more, but someone in the ward called out, "Nurse, change the dressing—"

"I heard you! Coming, coming!" she called back, then turned and ran back to the ward. "You should go back now, someone's cleaning outside. I'll clean it again for you when I'm done. Don't just stand there..."

Everyone was extremely busy.

Zhang Shutong stared at the emergency room door without moving.

The green light at the entrance had turned a shocking red, and the earlier commotion had vanished like a pebble thrown into a wave, leaving no trace.

This is a hospital, where birth, aging, illness, and death happen all the time. It's no wonder that bystanders are indifferent. The crowd only glanced at them for a moment before going about their own business: some bought food, some went to the toilet, and some smoked. He paced anxiously outside the door, forcing himself to calm down.

In the end what happened?
Didn't we just have lunch?
Ruoping said that Lao Song suddenly had an emergency and couldn't take them home;
This means he must have driven there...

So it was a car accident?

But if it was a traffic accident, why did the nurse say that the person was already unconscious when they were found?

Where did the homeroom teacher drive off to?
Zhang Shutong took a deep breath; everyone who knew was in the emergency room, and there wasn't a single person she could ask.

For the first time, he realized that all he could do was wait. Anxiety, like countless tentacles, crawled up his heart, making it hard to breathe. He was already dizzy, and now the pain intensified. Zhang Shutong slumped onto a chair opposite the emergency room and subconsciously searched for the symptoms of a ruptured spleen.

The network connection here is poor; the data bar at the top of the browser takes forever to load. Finally, the screen refreshes, and a string of data floods into view:
"...True rupture can lead to abdominal bleeding, with a mortality rate of up to 90%, while the overall cure rate is about 50% with timely treatment..."

Zhang Shutong cursed under his breath and turned off his phone.

It's said that going online to see a doctor is the first step to treating terminal illnesses, and that's absolutely true. What a load of nonsense! He knew he shouldn't have searched for those things, but as he scratched his head, that string of cold data seemed to be branded into his mind.

too suddenly
It happened suddenly, without the slightest warning.

How can someone be dying?
Gu Qiu Mian's matter is not over yet. He is still receiving an IV drip in the hospital, waiting for everything to come to light tonight so that he can finally breathe a sigh of relief. But now his teacher has suddenly entered the hospital, just one door away from him, and his life or death is unknown.

There was nothing I could do but wait outside the door.

A sense of powerlessness washed over him until the metal door in front of him opened, and Zhang Shutong suddenly looked up.

"That student, yes, it's you!"

It turned out to be the male nurse who had been leading the group earlier. He walked over in a few steps.
"What's your teacher's name?"

“Song Nanshan.” Zhang Shutong quickly stood up. “Nan as in southeast, northwest, and mountain as in high mountain.”

The other person was holding a cell phone, which he recognized as Old Song's.

"His family members—his parents, his spouse, anyone will do. Do you know how to contact them?"

"No."

"Do you not know, or do you not know?"

“No, there isn’t one.” Zhang Shutong suddenly became speechless. “His parents are out of town and can’t come back, and his spouse… my teacher is single.”

As for Lao Song's colleagues and friends... he tried to recall them, but there was nothing to remember.

Zhang Shutong was taken aback, only then realizing that he didn't really know this man. The man was a carefree and easygoing guy, loyal and unconcerned with details. Such a person should have no shortage of friends, but he had never seen the man be very sociable. Even when drinking, he would buy beer and drink it back in the dormitory. Usually, only a few of them, the kids, would hang around him.

"Not a single one?" the male nurse confirmed again.

"No." Zhang Shutong pressed on, "How is he now? I heard you say he had internal bleeding, so..."

"It's not just this problem now."

The other person anxiously interrupted him:
“Your teacher has lost a lot of blood and urgently needs a blood transfusion, but his blood type has not been tested yet, so we cannot perform surgery. We can only do some simple hemostatic measures and medication to maintain his condition.”

Even though it was winter, Zhang Shutong saw the other person wipe the sweat from their forehead, and the male nurse quickly said:

“It’s not just you who’s anxious, we’re all anxious. Everyone’s waiting for the test results, which will be out soon. But we’re a small hospital, and our blood bank doesn’t have that many blood types. If he has one of the common ones, that’s fine; he’ll get through the toughest part and we can schedule surgery right away. But if…”

But if it's a rare blood type, then it's a complete disaster. Zhang Shutong silently finished this sentence, a sense of foreboding creeping into his heart. But this foreboding didn't linger for long before it transformed into a flash of blades and slashed down—

Because the lights in the emergency room were already off.

The door opened, and the nurses and doctors hurriedly pushed the bed out, with various medical instruments hanging at the head of the bed.

"It's out, type O," an older doctor instructed. "Xiao Hu, go call the city hospitals now and ask if anyone has any blood bags. Then tell the ambulance to get ready to leave. We can't afford to waste any more time!"
"You guys, get the patient into the car now. Keep a close eye on his heart rate and be ready to give him an injection at any time. It's five o'clock now, we can still catch the boat... Xiao Li!"

The man shouted again.

"Coming!" the male nurse replied immediately.

"Xiao Li! How's the patient's family member I asked you to contact? Where are they? Tell them to go to the ferry terminal and not come to the hospital. Hurry up!"

Xiao Li hesitated and said:
"We haven't been able to contact the patient's family yet. His phone is password protected. I just asked one of his students, and they said his parents live in another city, he's single, and doesn't have any friends..."

"Is it a teacher? Then quickly contact their school leaders. I don't care who it is, just send anyone. There must be someone on the ambulance to the city later!"

"I can't get through to the school by phone, and today is Saturday..."

"Who called 120 in the first place, and where is he now?"

"They didn't come along..."

"Didn't I emphasize that the first person to report a crime must bring their phone?"

"But that person..."

Both of them became impatient.

“I’ll go.” Zhang Shutong stood up, struggling against the dizziness. “Don’t delay any longer. I can go with you. Let’s get in the ambulance now.”

"You..." The doctor saw that he was a child and instinctively wanted to reject him.

“My parents live in the city, I can contact them to help take care of me.” Zhang Shutong looked into the other person’s eyes and took out his phone to send a text message.

"Alright then." The doctor gritted his teeth. "We can't delay any longer. Xiao Li, you take this child with you. Get in the car now, quick, the patient's heart rate is dropping again..."

Nurse Li quickly ran to the bedside to clear a path, saying, "Make way!"

Zhang Shutong followed at the end of the hospital bed. This was the first time he had seen Lao Song's face. Zhang Shutong glanced at him and saw that the man was frowning and half of his face was wrapped in bandages. His condition was not optimistic. He might not even make it to the hospital. He would stop breathing halfway there. He didn't look again. Instead, he quickly made a calculation in his mind.

It's five o'clock now.

Let's say it takes ten minutes to get to the port on the road, and twenty minutes by boat to the city one way. That would be 5:30. Today is Saturday, and the city traffic is congested. Let's say it takes another twenty minutes to get to the hospital, and that would be 5:40.

The last ship departs at 6 p.m., meaning that if he cannot reach the port before 6 p.m., he will be left in the city for the night.

Mathematics told him not to go, but his heart told him he had to.

While making his decision, Zhang Shutong had already run downstairs. He helped the nurse lift the stretcher and carefully put Lao Song into the car. Then he turned and ran.

"Aren't you going with them?"

Xiao Li yelled.

"I'll ride a bike!"

Zhang Shutong also shouted. He quickly jumped onto his motorcycle, started the engine, and knew that if he went by ambulance, he would not be able to make it back in time. Only by riding a motorcycle could he race against time.

Zhang Shutong twisted the accelerator and sped off. He was much faster than the ambulance, reaching the port in just seven minutes. It was peak time, and a ferry was docked at the shore. Staff were slowly retracting the pier, the horn sounded, and the engine roared. Just as the ferry was about to leave, Zhang Shutong suddenly accelerated, the rear of the car drawing an arc on the ground. He quickly stopped the car, saying:
"Wait! There's an emergency patient. The ambulance will be here in three minutes. I'm clearing the way!"

He made the right choice to come along.

No one would joke about something like this, and the staff didn't suspect anything. Zhang Shutong rode his bicycle onto the boat, which was almost full. He then asked the staff to move aside to make room for the ambulance.

After he finished doing all this, he could faintly hear sirens. He breathed a sigh of relief and waited for the ambulance to come to a smooth stop on the deck before running to the back door.
"how's it going?"

"Thank goodness, I just got a saline injection," Xiao Li said. "The city hospital replied, the First People's Hospital, you know where that is, right?"

Zhang Shutong nodded and took the opportunity to call her mother. She and her father were having dinner at a restaurant when they received the text message, so they dropped their chopsticks and drove over.

"Then we'll wait for you and your teacher at the hospital?" Mom said seriously.

"Yes, I'll be there by 5:30."

"Okay, I happen to have a classmate in the emergency room. I'll call and ask, and get back to you in a bit..."

My mom always believes in herself in crucial moments.

After hanging up the phone, Zhang Shutong didn't intend to stay on the boat enjoying the lake breeze. Instead, he went to sit down in the ambulance.

Now he finally had time to ask Xiao Li where Lao Song was found.

“In the western suburbs, when we went there, the car had already gone off the road, all the airbags had deployed, and your teacher was already unconscious at the time.”

"What did you bump into?" Zhang Shutong was taken aback.

"It's probably a tree, or maybe the driver was fatigued or the car skidded," Xiao Li muttered. "These kinds of accidents happen every time it snows, and nobody can say for sure. There are no security cameras there. Let me give you another example. There was a patient who tried to avoid a child who darted out from the side of the road, and he hit the car and killed the child, who then passed out. The child realized he had caused trouble and ran away without a word. It was only discovered by a passerby. Who can you complain to in this situation?"

"Are there any other traces at the scene? My teacher shouldn't be driving while fatigued, nor should he have lost control of the car." Zhang Shutong knew Song Nanshan's driving skills.

"That's hard to say. Experienced drivers are the most likely to cause accidents. Besides, we're not the police or an insurance company. We're only focused on getting people out of the car and don't have time to investigate the scene. But I did take some photos, take a look."

Zhang Shutong took the phone and zoomed in on the picture. The front half of the Ford Focus was dented in the middle, and the driver's side window had a hole. Old Song was lucky to be alive; if the car had been in a slightly different spot, he probably wouldn't have had the chance to be rescued at the hospital.

According to regulations, ambulances will only take pictures of the accident scene, so the pictures only show the car and there will be no further clues. Zhang Shutong looked at the phone again and again and then returned it.

He had been circling the island all afternoon. If Lao Song had been in a car accident in the western suburbs, there was no reason why he wouldn't have seen the other car. But he didn't see it, which at least proves that the accident happened on his way back.

"Where is the person who called the ambulance? Why didn't they come along?"

(End of this chapter)