Chapter 515: A Letter in the ICU: Vows and Vindication

Zhou Can couldn’t help but feel guilty. He’d never expected he meant so much to Deputy Director Lu.

No wonder Lu’s voice had turned so desolate when Zhou had refused him.

Lu had looked to him with hope, only to be met with Zhou’s cold rejection. It wasn’t hard to imagine how crushed and desperate Lu must have felt.

Right now, everything felt tangled in Zhou’s mind—cutting one thread only brought up more knots.

His emotions were a jumbled mess.

Zhou Can’s principle had always been to never take advantage of others, but he wasn’t a pushover either. When the situation called for it, he could be even more ruthless than a king.

Lu’s suicide attempt had made Zhou, for the first time, question whether his way of handling things had been right.

Back when Dr. Hu Kan was still alive, he’d once spoken to Zhou Can in earnest: life wasn’t easy for anyone.

Only now did Zhou start to grasp the deeper meaning in those words.

“Ms. Lu, which department is Director Lu being treated in at the Provincial People’s Hospital? I’m heading over right now. You can give me the letter when I arrive.”

Watching an old colleague driven to the brink by the Third Hospital, Zhou felt more than grief—he was furious.

Just as Lu had hoped, Zhou was determined to fight for justice on his behalf.

There was more to the world than just morality—there were laws and fairness.

And beyond that, justice and conscience.

“My father is in the ICU of the Critical Care Department at the Provincial People’s Hospital. I’m in the hallway outside, wearing a pale pink wool coat.”

“Alright, I’m on my way.”

After hanging up, Zhou Can didn’t even bother with his meal.

“Qian Qian, you and Wei Fang should go home first. A colleague of mine attempted suicide and is now in emergency care at the Provincial People’s Hospital. I need to get over there,” Zhou explained quickly, handing his lunchbox to Su Qianqian.

She’d been sitting quietly beside him, so she’d heard much of the call.

“Be careful, alright? And don’t try anything reckless.”

Su Qianqian was worried Zhou might cause more trouble standing up for his fallen colleague.

“I know. You two head home.”

Zhou nodded and hurried toward the staff elevator, heading straight for the underground parking garage.

That Mercedes he’d spent hundreds of thousands on was mostly just gathering dust these days.

Zhou sped to the Provincial People’s Hospital and made straight for the Critical Care Department. The place was as big as Tuyu Hospital, nearly equal in beds and staff.

Now, doctors needed at least a master’s degree, and nurses needed at least a bachelor’s to get hired.

They also preferred graduates from reputable universities.

If you had a postgraduate degree from an average college, you might still lose out in interviews due to discrimination.

Tertiary colleges were another story—many just handed out degrees for the sake of it. Some of their graduates weren’t as skilled as top-tier technical school alumni.

Especially in earlier years, technical college grads—and even those from secondary schools—were absolute powerhouses.

With hospitals raising the bar each year, competition at the top was cutthroat. Hospitals everywhere valued their core staff above all.

For Zhou Can to reach his current position with just a bachelor’s degree, that was one-in-a-million.

On his way through the hospital, Zhou saw countless patients clutching exam slips and payment receipts, hurrying to join queues for the next test. Others, armed with all their results, rushed to see their doctor for further consultation.

These days, hospitals usually ran on the same routine: after a simple intake—a brief talk to check symptoms and history—the doctor ordered tests and left patients and families to spend half the day waiting in lines.

Once all the results were in, you’d go back to the intake doctor, who’d then diagnose you, prescribe medications, or admit you.

If you were lucky, sometimes you’d be told nothing was wrong.

Some cases, though, were tricky. If doctors couldn’t figure out the illness and the family was cooperative—and if there was a spare bed—the patient might get admitted for observation.

But observation wasn’t the same as actual treatment.

Some families thought as soon as the patient was admitted, all problems were solved—that simply wasn’t true.

If anything went wrong during the observation period, the hospital wasn’t technically responsible.

Take the Gastroenterology Department at Tuyu Hospital: once, a patient was admitted with abdominal pain and underwent several tests, but no cause was found. A colonoscopy got scheduled for the next day.

On the second morning, the patient collapsed and lost consciousness.

Despite resuscitation attempts, he died.

Family members created a huge scene. The autopsy showed the patient died from a small intestine perforation resulting in acute peritonitis. The family sued.

But the court found the hospital had followed proper protocols—and had acted promptly in the emergency.

In the end, the hospital was cleared of all liability.

The patient’s family lost not just because Tuyu’s legal team was top-notch, but also because the hospital had followed procedure. More importantly, observation was not the same as active treatment.

Still, the incident did dent Tuyu Hospital’s reputation.

Afterwards, the hospital met with the family and offered a 50,000 yuan humanitarian payment. The family, realizing they couldn’t win, chose not to appeal or cause further trouble.

Tuyu’s Gastroenterology Department also held a meeting, using the case as a warning and emphasizing better safety training.

Zhou wasn’t familiar with the Provincial People’s Hospital. It was just before 7 PM—close to the end of the workday—so it took him some effort with the hospital map to finally locate the Critical Care Department.

Any hospital large enough to be rated Provincial Tertiary was massive.

You could walk for twenty or thirty minutes and still not see it all.

In the corridor outside the ICU, Zhou quickly spotted a young woman in a pale pink coat, her face full of exhaustion.

She looked about twenty-two or twenty-three.

Tall and striking, she carried herself with an air of talent and intelligence.

‘Like father, like daughter,’ he thought.

If Deputy Director Lu was accomplished in both academics and medicine, it stood to reason his daughter would be just as capable.

“Are you Lu Fen?”

“Yes, I am. Are you Dr. Zhou Can?”

“That’s me,” Zhou nodded. “I’m deeply sorry for what happened to Director Lu. How is he now?”

“He’s still in the ICU. The bleeding in his brain isn’t under control. The doctors told us… it’s not looking good. He could pass at any moment. Even if he pulls through, there’s a chance he’ll be left a vegetable, or suffer severe cognitive impairment.”

Intracranial bleeds from falls were always extremely dangerous.

Most often, the head slammed into the ground or some other hard surface, causing catastrophic damage.

Sometimes a patient seemed fine at first—but over a few hours or even days, their condition could suddenly get much worse and ultimately prove fatal.

Internal organ damage was sometimes invisible at first.

Like with internal bleeding—you often only learned about it from fluid buildup in the chest or abdomen, which meant more tests.

Even with today’s cutting-edge equipment, exploratory surgeries—like opening the abdomen, chest, or skull—were still often necessary in the clinic. What did that say?

It meant even the best machines couldn’t show everything. Sometimes you just couldn’t see the problem.

You only got answers by opening someone up.

“Dr. Zhou, would you mind if I called your number, just to verify your identity?”

Lu Fen was clearly wary.

“Of course!”

Zhou nodded in agreement.

She dialed his number, and Zhou’s phone began buzzing. He showed her the screen.

“Please understand. My father’s life hangs in the balance, and the Third Hospital that pushed him to this point is tremendously powerful. To someone like me… they’re like giants. I have to be careful.”

Lu Fen seemed a bit inexperienced in the way she spoke and acted.

People stayed naive until hardship knocked that out of them.

She was probably still in school. Her outlook and thinking were completely different from Zhou, who’d spent years surviving the grind of working life.

“I get it. It’s smart to be cautious.”

Zhou nodded.

“If you have any trouble paying for medicine, just ask. It pains me to see an old friend brought so low.”

He did what he could to help Lu’s family.

If Lu had been forced to this point, their finances probably weren’t great.

Still, it was just a guess.

After all, back when Lu worked in Cardiothoracic Surgery, his after-tax income was at least 350,000 a year. Don’t trust those online claims about million-yuan average incomes—keyboard warriors just like to brag.

Realistically, if you could clear ten grand a month in China, you were ahead of ninety-five percent of people.

A post-tax income of 350,000 meant the hospital was spending at least half a million to keep you.

There was still a wide income gap between deputy directors and chief physicians.

If you were a chief physician with solid surgical skills in Cardiothoracic Surgery, after-tax you brought in at least half a million. At Tuyu, the typical range was six hundred thousand to 1.2 million.

And that referred to cash-in-hand, post-tax earnings.

That rumor about chief physicians earning two million a year was a stretch.

At least, Zhou hadn’t seen any chief physicians who struck it truly rich—at most they were just upper-middle class.

“Thank you, thank you so much! My dad left you this letter, and insisted I deliver it to you personally. I don’t know what’s inside, but I’m guessing it explains why he jumped.”

Lu Fen pulled a thick envelope from inside her coat.

Honestly, it looked more like a mailer pouch.

The flap was sealed—no one had opened it. It was hefty, not just a page or two.

Zhou guessed it probably contained evidence of all the shady things the Third Hospital had done to push out staff like Lu.

To become an associate chief physician, you had to be sharp and knowledgeable.

Naturally, he would try to gather evidence against the Third Hospital, hoping one day someone would hold them accountable.

Zhou didn’t open the envelope on the spot. He just put it carefully away.

“Dr. Zhou, if the worst happens to my father, please help us. I need to find justice for him.”

Lu Fen bit her lip, her eyes welling with tears.

Her gaze and expression were both fiercely determined.

“As long as it’s within my power, I won’t just stand by. What about the rest of your family?”

No other relatives had come by while Zhou and Lu Fen were talking.

That caught Zhou off guard.

“It’s just me and my dad now. The rest are uncles and aunts—my father’s siblings or my mom’s family.”

She pointed at several groups waiting anxiously around the ICU door.

There were a handful of families like hers outside, all anxious, hoping for good news from the ICU.

“Is there any way I could go in and see Director Lu myself? I want to check on his condition.”

Zhou hadn’t just come for the letter—he wanted to see if he could lend a hand with Lu’s treatment.

It wasn’t that he doubted the hospital’s skill.

He just wanted to do what he could.

“If we talk to the medical staff, maybe they’ll let us. I’ll ask.”

As she turned away, Lu Fen wiped her tears quickly.

Then she hurried to a small window beside the ICU.

The main doors never opened for families. That’s just how ICUs worked everywhere.

Food and personal items were always passed through this side window.

They called it the ‘visiting window.’

If you wanted to visit, you had to ask the worker at the window first.

There was usually a dedicated nurse managing this spot.

Most of them were older nurses, semi-retired from frontline ICU work.

After a certain age, you couldn’t physically handle the intensity of ICU care anymore. But with their experience, if you had connections, you might land an easier window job.

It was one of the cushier gigs around the ICU.

“Excuse me, can we see my dad for a moment?”

“What’s the patient’s name?”

The senior nurse asked coldly, sizing up Lu Fen and Zhou with an indifferent glance.

“Lu Xiangbei!”

“And you are?”

“His daughter!”

“Who wants to go in for the visit?”

“He does!”

Lu Fen pointed at Zhou.

“And who is he to the patient? Son, son-in-law?”

“I’m his colleague.”

Zhou answered directly.

Lu Fen blushed at the question about son-in-law. She was clearly a bit embarrassed.

“Colleagues aren’t direct family. As a rule, we can’t let you in. If the family agrees, though, you can write an authorization note. Also, the ICU is under sterile management. Visits are limited to once a day. Right now, Lu Xiangbei is still comatose. Even if you went in, you couldn’t talk to him. My advice is to wait until he wakes up.”

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Veteran nurses were tough—they had staff, patients, and families all wrapped around their fingers.

That kind of skill only came from years on the clinical frontlines.

“How do I write an authorization? I can do it now if that’s what you need.”

Lu Fen knew Zhou was busy, and already grateful he’d come by. She didn’t want to take up more of his time.

“If you don’t know how, you can look up an example online or ask someone for help. The patient’s in a coma and he’s only a colleague. I’d suggest waiting a bit before visiting.”

Clearly, the senior nurse’s job was to limit visitations as much as possible.

With strict sterile protocols in the ICU, it’s likely her supervisors had given her those instructions.