Major Heavy Industry: Starting with a Fake Marriage

Factory Director Li called personally, his voice loud and clear, his joy evident even through the phone. "Master Sun is the most responsible engineer we've ever met. Send us any other talent your center has!"

When Sun Deming returned, he had lost weight, his chin was sharper, and his cheekbones were more prominent, but his eyes were bright, as bright as stars on a winter night. He brought back a thank-you letter, handwritten by Director Li, stamped with FAW's large red seal, with the words "Shenyang Promotion Center" written on the envelope in strong, vigorous handwriting.

"Brother Jiang, here you go." He handed the thank-you note to Jiang Cheng, his hand trembling slightly.

Jiang Cheng didn't take it. "Hang it in the conference room. This doesn't just belong to me, it belongs to everyone."

Sun Deming hung the thank-you letter on the meeting room wall and stood below it for a long time. The letter was written on old-fashioned letter paper, with red lines and vertical lines, the characters written with a brush, neat and orderly, stroke by stroke. He read it aloud: "To Comrade Sun Deming of Shenyang Promotion Center: In the technical transformation of our factory's equipment, this comrade demonstrated superb skills and a responsible attitude, solving a major technical problem for our factory. We hereby express our sincere gratitude." After reading it, he turned to Jiang Cheng and said, "Brother Jiang, I have an idea."

"What are your thoughts?"

I want to learn English.

Jiang Cheng was taken aback. Learning English? A fitter learning English? "Learning English? For what?"

"The technical documentation for that equipment in Changchun is mostly in English. It was written by East Germans, but in English. I can't understand it; I can only guess. Director Li said that if I could understand the English documentation, I wouldn't have to figure out many problems myself; I could just look at their solutions. He said that their factory's engineers can read English documentation, and our center's engineers should be able to too." Sun Deming rubbed his hands together; his fingers were short and thick, and there was still grime under his fingernails that he couldn't wash off. "Brother Jiang, do you think I can still learn it at my age? I'm already thirty."

Jiang Cheng looked at him. This young man, who had just returned from Changchun, still bore the weariness of his journey, with dark circles under his eyes, but there was a fire in his eyes—a fire not for others to see, but for himself. "Yes. I can teach you. Start with the alphabet, memorize five words a day, and that'll be 1,800 a year, enough for studying materials."

Sun Deming grinned, revealing a row of neat teeth. "Brother Jiang, then don't think I'm stupid."

"No problem. You're easier to teach than a machine. If a machine can't be taught, you can scold it. If a person can't be taught, you can't scold them."

Sun Deming smiled even more broadly.

Zheng Yanxi's time at the city hospital was harder than she had imagined. It wasn't the technical difficulties, but the difficulties with people.

There are three nurses in the emergency room. One of them is surnamed Wang. She is a veteran nurse in her forties with twenty years of experience. She is skilled but has a bad temper and looks down on everyone. When she speaks, she doesn't look people in the eye and her voice is not loud, but every word she says is like a knife, stabbing people painfully.

A woman surnamed Li, in her early twenties, had just graduated from nursing school. She was clumsy at work but had a sweet tongue and knew how to get along with people. She called everyone "sister," which made people feel sick of it.

Zheng Yanxi was caught in the middle, lacking both Nurse Wang's experience and Nurse Li's quick wit, pleasing neither side.

On her first day at work, Nurse Wang gave her a tough start.

A 47-year-old male patient arrived at the emergency room with pesticide poisoning. He had ingested a bottle of methamidophos and was brought in by his family. The patient was already unconscious, his pupils were constricted, he was foaming at the mouth, and his breathing was rapid. Zheng Yanxi prepared the gastric lavage machine, intubated, and performed the lavage. Her movements were quick and precise; she had practiced countless times during her training at the hospital and could do it with her eyes closed. When intubating, the patient's throat reacted, so she paused, waited for the reaction to subside, and continued. Once the tube was in, she removed the guidewire, secured it, and turned on the gastric lavage machine. The lavage fluid flowed in and out, changing from cloudy to clear.

After finishing the lavage, Nurse Wang came over, looked at the gastric lavage record, flipped through a couple of pages, and pointed to the numbers with her finger. "You lavaged too quickly. Gastric lavage can't be too fast; if it's too fast, the patient can't handle it. If the stomach wall is impacted too violently by the lavage fluid, it's easy for it to bleed."

Zheng Yanxi wanted to say, "The speed of gastric lavage is adjusted according to the patient's tolerance. This patient tolerates it well and has stable blood pressure, so it's fast." She opened her mouth, but didn't say anything. She looked at Nurse Wang's face, which was expressionless, her eyes fixed on the record book, not looking at her. She nodded and said, "Understood."

Nurse Wang glanced at her briefly, like a dragonfly skimming the water, then turned and left.

The hem of her white coat fluttered behind her.

At lunchtime, Nurse Li sat down next to her with her lunchbox and said in a low voice, "Sister Zheng, don't take it to heart. Sister Wang is just like that, she treats everyone the same. She even dares to talk back to the director, let alone you. Last month she had a fight with the director because of a patient's medication plan. She thought the director had prescribed the wrong medication, and she said it in front of the patient. The director's face turned green."

Zheng Yanxi didn't speak, and kept her head down as she ate. The food in the cafeteria was too salty, and she couldn't eat more than a few bites, so she closed her lunchbox. The rice was also hard, with each grain separate, like stale rice.

"Sister Zheng, I heard you were transferred from the factory? The factory is so nice, easy work, no night shifts, no having to deal with these patients. What made you decide to come here?"

"I want to learn something."

Nurse Li curled her lip. "What's the point of learning anything? We're exhausted like dogs here every day, it's useless to learn anything. I'll be transferred after two years to the health care department, where I'll sit in an office. You know the health care department? It's just taking the factory cadres' blood pressure and prescribing cold medicine, very leisurely. And the salary is the same."

Zheng Yanxi didn't reply. She stood up, washed the lunchbox, and put it back in the cupboard. The tap was running, the water was cold, and when it hit her hands, it made her shiver.

What truly allowed her to prove herself was a night shift.

That night, a construction worker in his early thirties arrived at the emergency room. He had fallen from scaffolding and was impaled in the abdomen by a steel bar. The bar had entered from his lower right abdomen and exited from his left side, piercing through his entire abdominal cavity. He was already in shock when he arrived, his face deathly pale, like a sheet of paper, his lips purple as if coated with ink. His blood pressure was only 60, the numbers on the monitor were jumping around, and the alarm was beeping incessantly, like a death knell.

Nurse Wang was off that day. Nurse Li was on duty, and when she saw the wound, she vomited and couldn't get out of the bathroom. You could hear her dry heaving inside, one sound after another.

Zheng Yanxi was alone, facing the patient covered in blood.

She first established intravenous access, two lines, one for balanced electrolyte solution and the other for plasma substitute. The patient's veins had collapsed, and it took two attempts to insert the needle. The first attempt failed to draw blood, so she pulled it out and tried again. The second attempt succeeded, and blood returned—dark red and very thick. Then she put the patient on a monitor; the heart rate was 140, blood pressure 60, and oxygen saturation was 85. She then called for a surgeon, but the phone rang more than a dozen times without being answered.