System Came When the Doctor was Thirty

”Teacher Chen, please have a seat.” When Chen Song drove himself to a countryside restaurant, Lu Cheng quickly stepped forward to greet him politely.

Chen Song, however, didn’t move. He touched his balding head and high forehead with one hand, biting his lip, and looked at Lu Cheng with a playful gaze.

Lu Cheng took a few steps after speaking and only noticed Chen Song hadn’t followed when he turned back, ”Teacher Chen?”

Only then did Chen Song say, ”You’re really something, always causing me trouble!!”

Lu Cheng blinked and smiled broadly, ”Teacher Chen, what happened this time?”

Lu Cheng thought carefully, he couldn’t recall recently causing any trouble for Chen Song.

In fact, Chen Song knew that today’s incident of someone calling to scold wasn’t Lu Cheng’s fault.

It wasn’t Lu Cheng who was in the competition; it was just that Tong Yuan’an had leaked the notion Chen Song used to teach Lu Cheng about ’using competitions to make money’, leading those young people at Xiangya Hospital to use it as a scapegoat.

Chen Song wasn’t angry; after all, only when people become anxious do they resort to insults.

”It’s nothing, let’s have a meal first, I’m a bit hungry.” Chen Song followed Lu Cheng into the private room.

At the moment, Mu Nanshu was scrolling through her phone. When Chen Song entered, she stood up and politely greeted, ”Professor Chen.”

Mu Nanshu had collaborated on projects with Chen Song for some time; they were quite familiar, so naturally, it wasn’t as formal as their first meeting.

Chen Song sat down and lodged a complaint, ”Xiao Mu, you need to manage your Lu Cheng, he’s quite the rascal.”

Mu Nanshu glanced at Lu Cheng and shook her head slightly, ”Teacher Chen, I can’t manage him.”

”You’re the teacher, you should be the one to critique him directly!”

Chen Song thought for a moment and then said, ”Forget it, I can’t handle you two bandits!”

In that brief moment, Chen Song really thought of the titles ’bandit leader’ and ’damsel of the mountain’. Whether it was Lu Cheng or Mu Nanshu, neither was easy to deal with.

Absolutely the rotten apples in a batch.

Mu Nanshu knew Chen Song was just joking and changed the topic, ”Lu Cheng, the issues at Long County People’s Hospital have finally made it into somewhat official news.”

Lu Cheng nodded, ”I saw the article on my way here. It’s hard to imagine, a county hospital director involved in an eighty million case.”

”How much money is that? I probably won’t make that much in my lifetime.”

Currently, Lu Cheng’s annual salary, including all social insurance and housing funds, is at most 150,000 yuan, totaling only 15 million in a hundred years.

Chen Song thought for a moment and replied, ”You speaking like this, you’re underestimating the top end of this industry.”

”Let’s not talk about this anymore.”

”I heard from Xiao Mu that we’ll be welcoming an excellent young partner here tomorrow? Is this true?”

Upon hearing this, Mu Nanshu’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, ”Teacher Chen, there will be an elder brother we’ve visited before coming, but whether he can stay is still uncertain.”

”After all, with the foundation Lu Cheng and I have, we can’t offer him enough treatment; we can’t rely on sentimental reasons to keep someone.”

Zhang Xibei indeed mentioned his itinerary. Mu Nanshu had been tracking Zhang Xibei’s schedule. He has a direct flight to Zhang City on Monday, then from Zhang City, he takes the high-speed train directly to Ji City.

But even if Zhang Xibei is interested in the project, how will we handle his income?

If we expect Zhang Xibei to find a doctor’s job in Ji City and join our team part-time, that’s probably a bit much to ask.

Chen Song then asked, ”Xiao Mu, how much is the typical annual salary for a full-time research talent like this?”

”In general teaching hospitals, the absolute minimum is around forty before tax.”

”Even if I gave him my entire salary, it wouldn’t be enough to reach that figure.”

”And that’s just the minimum. If it’s within a company, an annual salary of a million or even more is possible, because such talent is especially scarce.”

Given Chen Song’s age and life experience, he said, ”Since joining a company offers such a high income, but Xiao Zhang didn’t choose that path, he might still be someone with a certain degree of passion.”

”Perhaps, we really have a chance to keep him.”

Mu Nanshu knows the general salary rates, and Zhang Xibei himself couldn’t be unaware.

Mu Nanshu said, ”Teacher Chen, while that might be true, as adults, having a stable source of income is quite important.”

”The current research team is still far too thin. My current position is too low, and the funds I can allocate aren’t much, making it impossible to carve out a sum at that level.”

Mu Nanshu isn’t even a boss yet; she doesn’t have her own lab, so she can’t provide jobs for others.

And a newly hired research staff couldn’t be equipped with research assistants; even if the hospital were willing, the assistant’s salary wouldn’t match what Zhang Xibei is worth.

”Then why did you invite him over?” Chen Song was somewhat surprised.

Mu Nanshu and Lu Cheng exchanged a glance, and finally, Lu Cheng spoke up, ”Teacher Chen, our need is mutual. We definitely need to meet him first to determine if Brother Zhang can take on our project’s responsibilities.”

”Otherwise, isn’t talking about treatment nonsense?”

Chen Song said, ”When you two went to meet him last time, did you use reverse psychology?”

Lu Cheng shook his head, ”No, we just had a pretty straightforward conversation with Brother Zhang about the current scope and specifics of the project.”

”Brother Zhang evaluated whether he had the ability, and he couldn’t respond directly, saying he needed time to think about it.”

”A few days ago, when we asked again, Brother Zhang said he’d come take a look. Building animal test models isn’t that easy.”

”If Brother Zhang could set it up without even being on-site, then the job would be too simplistic.”