"Leila Brown went to my house to help her parents buy furniture, but she gave me a business card. She’s now hustling in the capital too, as a shopkeeper. How about it? Want her card? To reconnect with her? She might not have left yet." Old Xu had a mischievous grin on his face. Leila Brown had dropped out of high school and then ran off with some punk from the streets. Surprisingly, after a few years out and about, she had become a shopkeeper.
"Get lost, you think I would go back to my vomit?" Yusuf Zuck cursed, "I’m afraid of catching diseases!"
"Haha, looks like you’re really done with love!" Old Xu laughed heartily.
"Back then, it was just for fun, everything was fresh and exciting, filled with fantasies, willing to do anything just not what should be done. Leila Brown was like my experiment, I suppose? Of course, I was also hers!" Yusuf Zuck shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
"Us men might be flirty and lecherous, but women can be the same, and she’s one of them," Old Xu chuckled slyly.
"Go, go, go, the more you talk, the less serious you get. Finish this bottle and go to sleep!" Yusuf Zuck cursed again, clinked bottles with Old Xu, and downed the last of the liquor.
Old Xu packed up the convenience bags, the liquor bottles, and staggered downstairs.
However, after just a few steps, he suddenly turned back and asked, "Do you want to go see Luciano?"
"No need to visit, he’ll be out in a few days anyway." Yusuf Zuck shook his head; Luciano was due to be released the following March, no more than half a year away. And now, he really couldn’t afford to leave.
Old Xu nodded, and his footsteps faded into the distance.
Nothing happened overnight. The next day, Felix Zuck’s spirit was noticeably brighter, and when he woke up in the morning, he started nagging Yusuf Zuck. He wanted to drink, claiming without alcohol he would die.
Yusuf Zuck couldn’t be bothered with him, prepared a thin porridge with eggs, then ran off to the nurse’s station to inquire whether it was possible to rent the hospital’s ambulance.
He intended to take Felix Zuck to the capital, so even after seven days, Felix Zuck wouldn’t be able to sit up and would need to lie down, which is why an ambulance was the best transport option.
"It used to be possible, but not anymore," the head nurse whispered, "Just the other day, there was a news report about an ambulance from another province that made a trip to the Sanya scenic area. As a result, the hospital’s use of vehicles is very strict now, and no matter how much money you offer, they won’t go! Of course, if it’s a medical transfer or something like that, then it’s a different story." Follow current novᴇls on novel-fire.ɴet
"If it’s within your means, you could rent a van like a Iveco Daily, fit a bed inside, and the patient can lie on that," the head nurse suggested.
"Oh, I wanted to ask, for my father’s condition, how many days does he need to stay in the hospital? Can he be discharged after seven days?" Yusuf Zuck thought for a moment and then asked.
"Absolutely not in seven days, the patient is seriously injured and will need to be observed for possible infection of the wound and things like catheterization, so he must stay for at least a month or more."
"More than a month?" Yusuf Zuck was taken aback if it were only a few days, it wouldn’t be an issue, but a month or more would cause too much of a holdup.
After thinking for a bit, Yusuf Zuck asked, "Then how do I handle the transfer process?"
"Our hospital will arrange the transfer paperwork for you. However, if you transfer to another hospital, the insurance reimbursement might be less," the head nurse reminded him.
"Hmm, in my father’s case, is it better to transfer now or wait until he’s more stable?"
"If you’re transferring to a big city hospital like the Provincial Medical University, they have more authoritative experts, so of course, the sooner you transfer, the better. A big city hospital is surely much stronger than our county hospital."
"I want to transfer my father to the capital, do you know which hospital in the capital is better?"
"The capital?" The head nurse was stunned for a moment, then suddenly smiled and said, "There are so many good hospitals in the capital, like the military hospital, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, and so on, any of them would be stronger than ours here."
"Then let’s transfer him, I need to arrange the transfer procedures," Yusuf Zuck said somewhat impatiently.
"Don’t rush, listen to me," the head nurse shook her head, "Our hospital can handle the transfer procedures for you, but have you found a good hospital there in the capital?"
"If you haven’t, and you rashly take the patient over, you might not even get a bed, and even if you do get a bed, everything there requires lining up."
"Your dad can be admitted to a hospital in the capital, but if you don’t pull some strings, his subsequent treatment could be delayed, so if you want to transfer him, it’s best to give the hospital there a heads up and ask around, otherwise don’t rush into transferring."
"That makes sense, if they don’t care about him, and just toss my dad into a ward and ignore him, that would be terrible!" Yusuf Zuck nodded empathetically; the capital was not like his hometown, where scheduling a surgery probably meant waiting for over a week, so without reaching out, he couldn’t let his father go there.
Yusuf Zuck thanked the head nurse and then ran through the list of people he knew in the capital. In the end, he realized the only person who could help him was that Erasmus Cooke.
Indeed, he had saved the life of Erasmus Cooke’s son, the sports car driver, and Cooke had given him his phone number. Although he’d never intended to curry favor with Erasmus Cooke, now, for the sake of his own father, he was willing to call in the favor.
Of course, the Shepherd Family might look down on him, but he didn’t care because for Felix Zuck, everything was worth it.
Yusuf Zuck pondered in the corridor for a full half hour before finally picking up the phone and dialing a number, not Erasmus Cooke’s, as Cooke had taken Yusuf’s number, and the woman in the cheongsam gave hers to Yusuf; it seemed Erasmus Cooke did not carry a mobile phone.
The phone rang three times before it was picked up, and sure enough, it was the lady’s voice, who obviously had saved Yusuf’s number: "Mr. Zuck, hello, I’m Jade’s mother."
"Mrs. Shepherd, hello, I... I have a favor to ask of you," said Yusuf Zuck, his face turning a bit red; after all, this was the very thing he was most reluctant to do.
"Go ahead," said the woman in the cheongsam politely.
"My father has suffered some injuries back in our hometown and is hospitalized, and I want to transfer him to a hospital in the capital, but I’m not familiar with hospitals there, so I was wondering if you or your family know any hospitals or doctors?"
"Oh, that’s the situation? Let me ask around for you, just give me a moment," the lady in the cheongsam hung up, while Yusuf Zuck sighed heavily. Asking for a favor was tough, even if one had saved a life, asking for help still made him incredibly embarrassed.
Meanwhile, the woman in the cheongsam, Erasmus Cooke, and a 17- or 18-year-old girl were also in the hospital room, as Jade had just woken up, and their entire family was basking in the joy of his recovery.
"It was a call from Yusuf Zuck, who saved Jade. He claims his father is hospitalized in their local county and wants to transfer to a hospital in the capital, asking if we can help!" Jade’s mother said to Erasmus Cooke.
"We must help with this," before Erasmus Cooke could say anything, the patient on the bed who had regained consciousness, Jade Cooke himself added, "I still had some consciousness when that man saved me. I could see he was very anxious, trying to pull me out, but I was stuck in the car. He tried kicking, but couldn’t break through, then started punching. I heard and felt it all until he pulled me out—that’s when I completely lost consciousness."
"Dad, mom, once I’m a bit better, I must thank him in person. And my sister said he’s also a young man? Young people like him are rare these days! I admit if it were me, I couldn’t have done what he did!" said Jade Cooke, his tone reflecting guilt.
"I heard from the young nurse that when they were bandaging Yusuf Zuck, his hands were so mangled, the bones were showing," the young girl of 17 or 18 nodded vigorously.
"Hehe, it’s good that you and your sister have this sense of gratitude and the willingness to repay kindness. I’ll go arrange it for him," laughed Erasmus Cooke, proud that his children understood the importance of repaying a kind deed.
PS: Second update. Can we get a few more monthly tickets, classmates? Thank you all! Uncle’s book fan group: 24173796