Chapter 516: Heartbeat in the Critical Ward

Do your job, fulfill your responsibilities.

As the nurse on duty responsible for the ICU’s family liaison window, she had a duty to strictly minimize visitors—especially family members and unrelated people.

In the end, Lu Fen, still a student, was persuaded by the senior nurse in just a few words.

“Dr. Zhou, thank you for coming all this way to check on my father. The hospital really isn’t letting us visit right now. Maybe it’s better if you wait until he wakes up to come again.” She knew Zhou Can visiting now wouldn’t do much—her father was still unconscious.

“Try to think of something else. I’m a doctor—if I can go in and see him myself, I’ll know exactly how Deputy Director Lu’s doing. With high fall injuries, especially if there are ruptured internal organs or bleeding in the brain, the sooner surgery happens, the better. ICU is a pretty conservative treatment option.”

Zhou Can could only drop a few hints to this sincere young college student.

Some things were better left unsaid.

But as someone inside the industry, he knew the unspoken rules very well.

Deputy Director Lu was still unconscious—his life could end at any moment. No hospital dared risk surgery just yet. First, they’d take every precaution to stabilize his vital signs with conservative treatment.

Only when the patient’s stable enough for surgery would they consider opening up his skull or chest to operate.

“So that’s how it is. Okay, I’ll see if I can convince them somehow.”

She scurried off to negotiate with the senior nurse again.

Zhou Can didn’t intervene.

He just stood quietly in the back, watching without expression.

Just then, three doctors in white coats strode toward them from not far off. The one in front looked over fifty, followed by a young man and woman.

All three wore serious expressions, faces tight with tension.

The young male doctor hurried forward and pressed the intercom to enter the ICU.

Zhou Can was standing at a corner where he could see both the visiting window and the corridor outside the ICU’s main entrance. The trio’s rush and grim faces made it clear—they were here for a crisis.

Unexpected emergencies were common in the Critical Care Department at Tuyu. If the resident on duty couldn’t cope, they’d quickly call for the chief.

The two young doctors sensed Zhou Can’s gaze. The man glanced coldly at Zhou Can then looked away.

The young woman was just as aloof, a hint of arrogance in her eyes.

Hard not to be a little cocky at their age—following a chief doctor everywhere, clearly trusted and valued.

It didn’t bother Zhou Can. His gaze stayed calm and steady.

He’d gone through that headstrong phase long ago and could understand them completely.

Only after meeting truly skilled people and realizing there was always someone better would they become humble over time.

“Chief Xiang, thank goodness you’re here! Bed 13’s patient just went into respiratory failure, blood pressure crashed, we don’t know why. Dr. Zhao and Dr. He are in there now, giving their all to save him.”

The nurse, obviously relieved, quickly updated the man as soon as the door opened.

“Understood.”

Chief Xiang just nodded with authority and strode straight inside.

“You two need to change into sterile gowns—this fight’s going to be tough.”

He addressed the last part to the two young doctors following him.

Once they went in, several family members tried to get closer for information, only to be sternly sent back by a nurse. The ICU doors shut tight again.

Zhou Can couldn’t help but be intrigued. Chief Xiang was a giant in the world of intensive care.

His real name was Xiang Fei, a renowned physician at the Provincial People’s Hospital. Not many patients or relatives might know the name, but in critical care circles, Xiang Fei was a legend—the man even death had to respect.

If someone of this caliber was rushing to save a life, then the situation had to be dire—maybe even worse than it looked.

The ordinary intensivists had likely reached their limits.

“If only I could see Chief Xiang in action for myself.”

Zhou Can had spent his whole career at Tuyu Hospital and knew his coworkers’ capabilities inside out.

But how did the Provincial People’s Hospital truly stack up? He’d never really found out.

That’s just how people are. Once you reach a certain level, you start to crave seeing greater expertise and a wider world.

Early humans might’ve never left a ten-kilometer radius. Modern humans jet all over the planet—to travel, study, work.

Give it another hundred, two hundred years, maybe we’ll use the moon as our backyard.

Heck, humans might already have colonized other planets by then.

Zhou Can had already reached chief surgeon level with several medical specialties. Admittedly, just the beginner rank, but now he was desperate to see what lay beyond Tuyu Hospital.

To meet more medical masters.

Lu Fen was still deep in negotiations with the duty nurse.

If you don’t know anyone, you’re stuck with red tape—getting in to see a patient becomes a drawn-out ordeal.

If they were at Tuyu, Zhou Can would sail right in without a hitch.

But here, he could only wait obediently outside.

Lu Fen was stubborn, just like her father. Once Zhou Can told her seeing her father in person would give the truth, she was dead set on getting him in.

No matter how the senior nurse tried to push her away or make things more difficult, Lu Fen wouldn’t give in.

In the end, the nurse was the one who caved.

She had Lu Fen write a short authorization letter on the spot, then took Zhou Can’s ID and phone number, ready to let him in.

Lu Fen finally exhaled in relief when everything was sorted.

“Just wait for me out here.”

Zhou Can left those words for Lu Fen.

Then he slipped in through the side door.

Family visits and staff passages weren’t the same. A proper ICU usually had at least three channels. The main entrance for staff and patients. The side door for visiting family or sometimes deliveries.

The back door? That place was considered bad luck. Best to stay away.

It was what people called the ‘corpse door’—meant only for the deceased and the mortuary staff.

Past that door, you’d usually see a freight elevator not far off—Elevator No. 5.

No one really wanted to ride that elevator.

Even the hospital porters avoided it, preferring a detour over stepping into it. It was the one elevator meant for transporting the dead.

No one wrote that anywhere, of course, and to avoid scaring people, they’d even stick a big STAFF ONLY sign at the entrance.

But no hospital worker ever touched it if they didn’t have to.

Everyone thought it was just too unlucky.

And if something supernatural really did happen in there—that’d be even worse.

Even without ghosts, there’s a real risk in gloomy places—low magnetic fields, or ‘weak magnetic fields,’ can make you uneasy. Also, transporting bodies, even in bags, there’s always a risk of infection.

So unless you worked in mortuary services, no staff member would dare take that elevator.

Once inside, Zhou Can was told to put on disposable protective gear, as required.

The sterile kind.

You had to pay for it—it’d be deducted from the patient’s bill.

Even at public hospitals nearly everything was itemized and billed. People had to make a living, after all.

That wasn’t hard to understand.

To run a hospital properly, it couldn’t afford to keep losing money. If it did, the director would be called up for a scolding by the higher-ups.

Afterwards, the director would come back and yell at department heads.

The pressure would filter down, and no one—doctors, nurses, or billing staff—dared be generous with hospital property.

Sometimes, even the smallest bandage was billed. Please try to understand.

It wasn’t that the staff were stingy—they just couldn’t afford to be generous.

“Bed 13 is being resuscitated right now—no visits allowed. You can either wait, or come back another time.”

A nurse inside heard someone wanted to visit the patient in Bed 13 and came out to stop them.

Lu Fen, waiting outside the window, tensed up again.

But Zhou Can, on the other hand, seemed perfectly calm.

“It’s alright. I’ll just stand by and take a look. I won’t get in your way.”

“I’m afraid that won’t do! It’s against hospital policy…”

“Look, I’m already wearing the gown. All my paperwork’s done. You can’t just tell me I can’t go in now because the patient’s getting emergency treatment.”

Zhou Can’s tone was firm.

After all, it was Chief Xiang and his team working on Lu, so this was his chance to see their skills up close.

And if there was anything he could do to help, he just might lend a hand at a critical moment.

“Alright, just wait here. I’ll go check with them!”

The nurse hesitated, unable to out-argue him.

It was mainly Zhou Can’s presence—his confidence, his tone, his look—she just couldn’t say no.

“No need to check. The doctors are busy saving a life. If you go bother them now, you’ll just get yelled at. Trust me, I know the rules—I won’t make trouble for anyone.”

Zhou Can said all this in a gentle voice.

As a billionaire and a respected figure at Tuyu Hospital, Zhou Can couldn’t help but command the upper hand in exchanges like this, even without trying.

“Okay then! Just don’t get me in trouble!”

The nurse agreed at last.

“I’ll be careful.”

Looking at this nurse, who seemed twenty-seven or twenty-eight, Zhou Can realized nurses were the same everywhere—strained by heavy workloads, treading cautiously to avoid mistakes and blame.

He followed behind her into the ward.

There were around forty beds inside—a pretty decent number. Tuyu’s ICU was about the same size.

But Tuyu was planning to expand its ICU, possibly adding thirty beds soon.

That decision stemmed directly from Zhou Can’s influence.

His live-streamed clinical success had earned him fame and sent critically ill patients from all over the country pouring in. With just the Emergency Department and Cardiothoracic Surgery’s small ICU, they could never handle such numbers.

Besides, there was still a big gap between the small ICU and the Critical Care Department’s serious-case ward.

When it came down to real life-and-death emergencies, the Critical Care Department’s ICU was unmatched.

Take Zhengzhou University’s affiliated hospital—their critical care team was legendary. Patients given up on elsewhere often pulled through after being sent to them.

Still, some were simply too frail. Even if they survived the rescue and stabilized after treatment,

problems could come back for other reasons.

And then they’d be sent back for yet another round of rescue.

Because most other hospitals just couldn’t handle it.

ICU care was also astonishingly expensive—massing a hospital’s best doctors and nurses, buying state-of-the-art equipment, all out to save the most critical cases, with no thought to cost.

Despite daily ICU fees averaging anywhere from ten to forty thousand, hospital critical care units still ran at a loss.

But their presence did more for a hospital’s rescue rates than anything else.

Hospital leaders loved and hated their ICUs in equal measure.

Sweeping his gaze over the bustling unit, Zhou Can felt as if he were back in training again—long hours, huge pressure, and a constant battle to save lives when even one or two difficult cases could keep everyone’s nerves on edge.

But there was so much to learn here.

He’d learned to fully integrate knowledge, and use it flexibly in the clinic.

Months spent in ICU training had transformed his skills. On any department rotation, when faced with a critical patient or an emergency crash, he could stay calm and handle it.

Really, those few months in critical care had done more for him than he could say.

Even after Chief Hu Kan passed, whenever a surgery went wrong in the OR, Zhou Can kept a steady head and handled the crisis like a leader. That was how he’d earned the hidden chief role in the cardiothoracic OR.

Now, whenever there was a high-risk cardiothoracic surgery, Zhou Can was always called to oversee or take charge.

And as long as he was there, everyone felt at ease.

After taking in the ward, Zhou Can got a rough sense of the equipment in the Provincial People’s Hospital ICU. Some machines were pretty old, meaning upgrades lagged behind.

Tuyu Hospital’s hardware had probably already surpassed Provincial People’s Hospital.

In the end, a hospital could only develop by admitting more patients—especially those who could pay.

Money made growth possible.

You couldn’t just rely on government funding to build everything.

Even if their gear was aging, the staff’s care and rescue skills were top notch—like a crack military unit.

In this, Tuyu might lag just a bit.

“Old, established hospitals always have hidden depth.”

Of the four hospitals Zhou Can had experience with, the County People’s Hospital in his hometown was far below Tuyu or the Provincial People’s Hospital.

And then there was Xinxiang Hospital.

He wasn’t sure what shape Xinxiang Hospital was in now. A couple years ago, when Zhou Can did some consulting there, Xinxiang was leagues behind Tuyu on every front.

It wasn’t just a matter of size—it was gaps in every possible area.

Skill of its staff, equipment, buildings, discipline, work ethic, and more—all fell short.