Half an hour later, at a private obstetrics and gynecology hospital in City A.
Tang Ke was yawning as he prepared the ultrasound equipment, his eyes barely open. “Why are you up so late in the night?”
Tang Ke was a former classmate of Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu; he switched to imaging when he graduated and later jumped ship from a public hospital to a private one, which was said to have an easier life. He had a strong relationship with Jiang Xu, so even though he was called up in the middle of the night, he just complained a few times.
“I might be terminally ill.”
Tang Ke was a little confused: “Huh?”
Jiang Xu handed the phone to him; on the page were the test results he’d just been sent.
“Fuck, such a high hcg value, is it for your girlfriend?” Tang Ke said unexpectedly, “I didn’t hear you say you were in a relationship, you’re moving really fast, you’ve even got a kid on the way.”
Jiang Xu was silent for a brief moment, then said to Tang Ke, “Mine.”
“Of course I know the baby is yours, I mean-”
“The test results,” Jiang Xu interrupted Tang Ke, his face expressionless, “are mine.”
Tang Ke instantly woke up and grabbed Jiang Xu’s arm in disbelief, “What did you say?” The tone of his voice also went up a few notches. “Such a high value, this… this.. ” he stammered for a while and couldn’t come up with an answer, and finally he could only look at Jiang Xu with a dumbfounded expression as he lay down on the examination bed.
Tang Ke reached for the ultrasound gel and said in a low voice, “You don’t really have cancer, do you?”
Jiang Xu directly grabbed the gel from him, unbuckled his belt, lifted the hem of his shirt, and quickly finished applying it before looking at Tang Ke.
The latter was staring at Jiang Xu with an ultrasound probe, a shocked expression on his face, and looking as if his soul had flown away and he forgot how to move. Jiang Xu impatiently brought the disinfected probe over and put it on the skin of his belly.
Although he was not a professional imaging doctor, he was still skilled in basic abdominal ultrasound. Tang Ke also knew he could do it, so he didn’t bother him. His mind was still on that abnormal test result, and while he was worried that Jiang Xu’s life would not be long, he didn’t even dare to look at the screen of the scan.
After a long time of mental construction, he covered his eyes with his hand, revealing a slit, and carefully glanced at the screen of the scanner.
One look, and he was dumbfounded.
“Fuck!”
“Shut up!”
Jiang Xu tensed his jaw and averted his gaze from the black-and-white interlaced screen. After a long time, he stiffly lowered his head and looked at his still-flat belly.
Because he hadn’t been exposed to the sun much, his waist and stomach were all white.
Because of regular exercise, he always had abs, but perhaps it was an illusion; he actually felt as if the lines of his abs had faded a bit.
His lower abdomen still had gel on, it was sticky and slippery, cold and chilly, stimulating Jiang Xu’s senses and brain.
Jiang Xu’s extremely steady surgical hands, which had been honed through years of surgery, were trembling imperceptibly, revealing his restless inner self.
It was as if something had fallen to the ground in his heart. No, it was as if all the tall buildings in his heart, his worldview for so many years, and all the experience he had accumulated from all the books he had memorized, had collapsed into rubble at the same time.
It wasn��t a tumor; it wasn’t cancer.
The gestational sac, the fetal heart, and the fetal buds were all intact; none of them were missing. It was like a textbook-level imaging result of early pregnancy.
Jiang Xu was only mildly myopic, but now he thought he might be blind.
“Jiang Xu…” Tang Ke’s jaw almost dropped in shock as he held up the tissue box and stammered, “You, you give me an explanation.”
Jiang Xu picked a few sheets of tissue to wipe off the residual gel, then adjusted his clothes and sat up while buckling his belt, “I rather want you to give me an explanation.”
Tang Ke specialized in scientific research in reproductive medicine and developmental biology.
He held out his hand to Tang Ke and said, “Pen and paper.”
Tang Ke quickly fished out a pen and a sticky note from his pocket and handed them to him. Jiang Xu scribbled on the paper and quickly wrote a string of tests, “I have surgeries these two days, but I’ll be coming over for tests on Sunday. You can arrange these tests for me, preferably in one morning. I’ll pay an additional fee.”
“Hey, hey, you ……” Tang Ke looked at the instruments and then at Jiang Xu, “You still have the heart to go to work after all this?”
Jiang Xu gave him a look.
“I know, I know, it’s the usual chant: if Shen Fangyu does not rest, you won’t rest. It’s been years since you graduated, why are you two still so childish?” As Jiang Xu and Tang Ke’s former classmate, he knew a lot about the feud between those two.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to shake hands and make up?” Tang Ke said, “I still remember that third place in the class before. She was quite a pretty girl but couldn’t handle competing with the two, so she decided to just lay down and stay in third place in peace, never to compete for first place.”
He didn’t know how to face the results on the ultrasound machine and could only frantically change the topic to avoid the embarrassment of having nothing to say, “At that time she even joked, saying that it would be great if you fell in love with Shen Fangyu, so that the time you used to spend reading is taken up by your affection, then she would have a chance to get first place in the exam.”
“Haha…ha.” He finished with a deliberate laugh, but Jiang Xu’s face remained expressionless, he even became worried that Jiang Xu was shocked stupid.
“Brother Xu, you have to be strong,” Tang Ke held his arm and decided to stimulate him with what the man cared about most, “If you go crazy, it will make things easier for Shen Fangyu. Think about it, the obstetrics and gynecology department of Jihua Hospital will be his world alone, can you stand him strutting around your territory every day?”
When he heard Shen Fangyu’s name, Jiang Xu’s eyelids finally twitched, and there was a faint reaction.
“Thank God.” While Tang Ke was thankful that Jiang Xu hadn’t been stimulated to the point of losing his mind, the latter suddenly popped one word out: “Stupid.”
Tang Ke: “?”
“I’m not talking about you.” Jiang Xu handed the sticky note back to Tang Ke along with the pen and said, “You’ve worked hard today; I’ll treat you to dinner after the examination on Sunday.”
He slipped on his jacket and added with a dazed expression, “Don’t ask anything until the final full set of test results are out.”