Chapter 479: Haunting Ultrasound: The Mystery of the Pregnant Trauma Patient

“Dr. Zhou, does my brother need open-chest surgery?”

The patient’s younger sister hovered nearby, only half-understanding the conversation, her face troubled with worry about her brother’s treatment.

Their family wasn’t well-off. She’d just graduated and was interning at a company.

She hadn’t even passed the probation period yet. Her monthly salary was pitifully low. Most exploitative bosses now set internships at three months or longer—sometimes over a year.

Interns don’t get bonuses. Each month they only bring home the basic minimum wage. Everyone accepts that as normal.

Because interns are so much cheaper than regular staff, hospitals and other workplaces love stretching out these internship periods.

Hospitals are the worst offenders—one year as an intern means a year of unpaid labor.

Some even have to pay the hospital out of their own pockets.

The next three years as a resident only earn you the lowest base salary.

Countless undergraduate and graduate students end up as cheap labor for over four years straight.

“Judging by your brother’s current condition after surgery, things seem pretty optimistic. But as for the final outcome, nobody can say for sure.” Zhou Can answered with the standard doctor’s response.

You give the patient and their family some hope first, then remind them that nobody knows how it’ll truly end.

…

After checking on that patient in Cardiothoracic Surgery, Zhou Can returned to the Emergency Department. He had just reached the main hall when Dr. Xie at triage called him over.

“Dr. Zhou, Dr. Zhou! This pregnant woman’s been in a car accident—her injuries are very serious. Can you take a look and help us figure out what to do?”

Zhou Can looked over and realized that while he’d been gone, several car accident victims had arrived. Medical staff rushed in and out of the resuscitation room. The most critical cases must have been sent in for emergency care already.

Pregnant trauma cases are notoriously tough.

This woman looked pretty bad—blood on her body, a belly that stuck out high and round, at least eight or nine months along.

Zhou Can wasn’t an expert in obstetrics.

Deciding whether the baby needed to be delivered immediately had to be left to an OB specialist.

“Did you check her vital signs?”

“Temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and breathing—all checked. Her blood pressure’s a bit high, heart rate’s fast, breathing shallow—the rest is pretty normal. After a quick exam, it looks like her right leg is likely broken, there’s bleeding below, scrapes on her back, right shoulder, and arm, and a nasty bruise and hematoma on her forehead.”

Dr. Xie had done only the most basic exam.

That’s a common rookie habit—just following textbook steps.

Experienced physicians always tailor their questions and exams for each patient.

“Did you measure the fetal heart rate?”

“No, but I used a stethoscope and it sounded normal.”

Dr. Xie hesitated a few seconds, then added.

“Let’s get an abdominal ultrasound first. Draw some blood now. Her right leg definitely needs an X-ray, and if she has dizziness, headaches, or strange behavior, best do a head CT too.”

Zhou Can quickly laid out a plan for Dr. Xie.

“She’s bleeding below—shouldn’t we check that right away?”

Dr. Xie looked worried about the baby as well.

“We need the ultrasound first to know what’s going on inside her belly before we can decide on treatment. The blood draw has to happen right away. Next time you get a patient like this, take blood first—if she has something like syphilis, you’ll catch it quickly. Also, if she’s bleeding and needs a transfusion, we need to know her blood type fast.”

When Zhou Can mentioned syphilis, he meant exactly that.

Clinical nurses on the front line fear syphilis and HIV infections most.

Whenever patients are present, medical staff use code words for those conditions.

It avoids upsetting patients and helps prevent doctor-patient tension.

“And call an OB specialist in for a consult—quick!”

With that, Zhou Can headed straight for the Operating Room.

Thanks to his chief-level Hemostasis skill, he’d already noticed while examining the patient that the bleeding wasn’t as bad as it looked—she shouldn’t be in major danger, at least for now.

But something else about her really bugged him.

When he looked at the pregnant woman’s face, it didn’t have the typical pregnancy features. Most women look plainer after getting pregnant, due to hormonal changes. There’s a certain pregnancy ‘look.’

But this woman lacked all those signs.

Another reason he told Dr. Xie to run a blood test was because his experience—powered by chief-level Hemostasis and Level 5 Pathology Diagnosis—made him suspect she was no ordinary case.

Clinical medicine is full of weird and unexpected patients.

Syphilis and HIV are among the most common.

Even the pros sometimes can’t spot them by appearance alone.

…

In the Operating Room, Zhou Can had just finished three surgeries when Dr. Xie stopped by Ma Xiaolan to relay a message: tell Zhou Can that the pregnant woman had both syphilis and HIV.

Three of the victims brought in with her turned out to have both diseases too.

The medics in the resuscitation room broke out in cold sweat.

One of the cases they’d worked on was one of those three.

Blood contact is always one of the riskiest exposure routes.

During emergencies, nobody thinks much about it—everybody just dives in to save lives. In the rush, it’s hard to avoid blood contact. Not one of them had proper protection—not even rubber gloves.

The three other infected were men: the woman’s boss, her current boyfriend, and a male coworker.

Apparently, when her boyfriend heard the news, his face turned green.

He wasn’t angry about catching syphilis and HIV himself, but the fact that the boss and coworker also tested positive. After all, neither of those diseases spreads by casual contact.

It’s body fluids, not handshakes, that carry these things.

Even if fluid splashes on your skin, as long as you don’t have any cuts, infection is unlikely. The skin is the human immune system’s first line of defense—much tougher than people think.

Almost 99.9% of bacteria and viruses can’t get past this barrier.

So for both the boss and the other coworker to be infected too—it was definitely no accident. The most likely source was the pregnant woman.

Anyone with half a brain could work out how they got infected.

A few minutes later, someone called for Zhou Can to come out for a consult.

He quickly finished the patient’s wound cleaning and hemostasis on the table, then asked surgical assistant Yang Zhi to handle suturing.

During many surgeries, Zhou Can would deliberately leave part of the operation to Yang Zhi for practice.

Sometimes he’d also give Yang Zhi pointers on mistakes or areas to improve—always after the patient left the OR, of course.

Thanks to his guidance, Yang Zhi had progressed fast. He’d always had a solid foundation, and now he could really share Zhou Can’s workload.

Leaving the patient in Yang Zhi’s hands, Zhou Can went out to help with the consult.

“Where’s the patient? What’s going on?”

He asked the nurse while hurrying along.

“It’s the pregnant woman who tested positive for syphilis and HIV. The OB department’s Dr. Yang wants you to take a look at her abdominal ultrasound results.”

Soon, the two of them reached the main hall.

There, Zhou Can spotted a strikingly pretty woman waiting—it was none other than his old college classmate, Yang Chan.

Just like Zhou Can, she was now a fully licensed resident doctor.

“Hello, Class Monitor!”

Zhou Can forced himself to greet her.

Honestly, he always felt awkward around Yang Chan. The way she looked at him was a bit too passionate.

That wasn’t a good thing.

If Zhou Can were single, it’d be another story.

Yang Chan was beautiful and highly skilled. Word was, she’d even gotten into a graduate program while working.

In terms of academic advancement, she’d pulled ahead of him.

“Zhou Can, this pregnant woman’s ultrasound is really strange—can you help me take a look?”

She almost always called him by name.

Compared to everyone else calling him Dr. Zhou, it clearly meant they were closer.

Taking the test results, Zhou Can froze for a moment.

The ultrasound showed a large blurry gestational sac—but no sign of a fetus. With such a big belly, even the worst machine should be able to show the baby clearly.

Back when he’d first seen her, Zhou Can had already noticed she lacked the usual ‘pregnancy look.’

But there were clear stretch marks on her abdomen.

He didn’t check her thighs or groin for more stretch marks.

You had to be very cautious when examining female patients.

Wandering eyes could easily get you in trouble with the family.

“Can you hear me clearly?”

Zhou Can spoke to the pregnant woman.

“Yes!”

Her voice was sweet and soft enough to tug at any man’s heartstrings.

No wonder her boss and colleague couldn’t resist. Without serious willpower, any man would have a hard time staying out of trouble if she acted even a little friendly at work.

“How far along are you?”

“Um… a bit over eight months, I think!”

“It should be nine months and two days,” said a nearby middle-aged man lying on a flat bed, looking annoyed—he must’ve hurt his spine, since he couldn’t move.

“What’s your relationship with her?”

“I’m her boyfriend!”

So this unlucky guy was the pregnant woman’s boyfriend.

“You remember the date pretty well. Judging by your back, you’ve hurt your spine pretty badly—you need to get to Orthopedics for treatment fast.”

Zhou Can felt a bit sorry for the man.

Being able to recall her pregnancy timeline so clearly showed he really cared about her.

Still, seeing him with a figurative green hat probably felt awful.

“We’ve already contacted Orthopedics, but he refuses to go—he wants to stay with his girlfriend.” The nurse explained.

“You need to get that spine treated fast. If you wait too long, you could end up paralyzed.”

Zhou Can gave the boyfriend a word of advice.

“I can only go once I know she and the baby are safe. You don’t need to worry about me—just focus on helping her!”

He was, if nothing else, a man who cared deeply.

Zhou Can didn’t press further. He turned back to the pregnant woman.

“Class Monitor, did you check the fetal heart rate?”

He asked Yang Chan.

Dr. Xie had checked it before, but it wasn’t rigorous.

Zhou Can never quite trusted rookie doctors.

Especially with such a strange case—a visible gestational sac but no fetus on the scan.

“That’s what gets me! The fetal heartbeat is clear and normal.”

Yang Chan herself had never seen something so bizarre.

The hairs on Zhou Can’s neck stood up. He was never superstitious, but this was weird enough to make him wonder if ghost babies really existed.

Old myths and stories even mentioned things like Nezha births.

No fetus on the ultrasound, yet there’s a clear heartbeat, and her belly is as big as any at eight or nine months.

“Nurse Lu, give me a pair of rubber gloves.”

“Right here!”

They’d already prepared some.

After all, everyone knew by now she had both syphilis and HIV—no one wanted to take risks.

Honestly, if she just had one of those diseases, maybe she just had bad luck—a cheating partner or a risky affair.

But catching both at once screamed a messy personal life.

Whatever adults do privately is up to them, but for people who ignore self-care, HIV and syphilis are nightmares they can’t escape.

Zhou Can put on the gloves and carefully lifted the woman’s shirt to reveal her rounded belly.

He placed his hand on her abdomen.

He had two goals: see if he could feel the baby and check for fetal movement.

“Hmm…”

When he pressed down, he distinctly felt something move under his hand—it was like a mouse zipped by underneath.

She had fetal movement and a heartbeat, but still no fetus on ultrasound.

Could the ultrasound be faulty?

He couldn’t rule it out, but Tuyu’s imaging department ran tight procedures. If the machine was broken, they’d have caught it way earlier.

So what on earth was going on?

For now, Zhou Can couldn’t figure it out.

Softly pressing on her belly, he noticed how mushy it was—he couldn’t feel the outline of a baby at all.

In late pregnancy, you can always feel the baby’s shape through the belly.

“What’s the fetal heart rate?”

He asked Yang Chan.

“109 beats per minute.”

Zhou Can was taken aback, then checked the woman’s medical record. Dr. Xie had previously measured the mother’s own heart rate at 110 bpm. Now the fetal rate was nearly identical.

Was it a coincidence, or were the two somehow linked?

Normal adult heart rate is 60–100 bpm. Some monks and Daoists can keep theirs much lower.

This woman’s own heart rate was 110—it was clearly high.

A fetus is usually 110–160 beats per minute. 109 was just barely passable.

“Class Monitor, let’s check both rates again at the same time. I’ll do the mother’s heart rate, you check the fetus. Nurse Lu, could you give us a countdown?”

“Ah—okay, no problem!”

Nurse Lu looked a little confused, but agreed.

Yang Chan didn’t quite understand why at first, but she instinctively nodded.

“Go!”

The two lined up, and Nurse Lu gave the signal.

Anyone watching might have thought they were running a race.

Yang Chan measured the fetal heartbeat and guessed Zhou Can’s intention as she counted. Her eyes lit up as she caught on.

Soon, the measurements were finished.

The mother’s heart rate: 112 bpm. The fetal heart rate: also 112 bpm.

Everyone present was shocked at the results.