System Came When the Doctor was Thirty

In the private room of the tea house inside the hotel, sandalwood incense drifted faintly, and soft zither music floated in the background.

Right at this moment the water was being boiled again; steam gurgled from the kettle, rising and dispersing into the air.

There were five people in the private room, but apart from Lu Mang, Lu Cheng wasn’t familiar with any of them.

Lu Cheng hadn’t seen Professor Gu for many years; he couldn’t even remember the details of Professor Gu’s face…

The private room was utterly silent.

It was another person about the same age as Professor Lu Mang who broke the awkwardness: ”About why Dr. Lu never went on to further his degree, Professor Gu probably knows a thing or two?”

Professor Gu nodded slowly. ”Strictly speaking, this matter does have something to do with me, more or less.”

”Someone specifically reported the situation from back then to me recently. Originally, Dr. Lu Cheng applied for the professional master’s program under Dong Qilang in our hospital’s trauma surgery department.”

”When we did the re-interviews, the people in the department specifically discussed this matter.”

”Before the re-interview started, Dong Qilang had already agreed to Lu Cheng, saying he would take him on as a student, but just before the re-interview, Dong Qilang unexpectedly passed away…”

”Later, when we revisited the selection of that year’s students, I said we’d have to switch to someone else.”

”And that’s how it came about that Dr. Lu went back to his alma mater, Han City University, to sit for the combined master–doctorate program again.”

”You could say there was fate, but no chance to fulfill it.”

Professor Gu’s phrasing was very rigorous; at the very least, he was trying to patch things up.

For Lu Cheng to still be stuck with only a bachelor’s degree now was clearly inappropriate, and if you were going to patch it, you couldn’t leave too many loopholes.

Otherwise, if this ever got exposed, or was turned into a traffic gimmick online, even for him it would be hard to give a proper account to the outside world.

It had been many years since it happened, and now that Lu Cheng had set out on a different path, he wasn’t as angry as before: ”Professor Gu, all of that was a long time ago.”

”Affinity has to be mutual; maybe I just didn’t have the affinity.”

After speaking, Lu Cheng turned sideways and said, ”Book Bag, go find a waiter and have a few more cups of tea brought in, and then on your way down buy some fruit.”

Mu Nanshu answered softly and then turned to leave.

Professor Gu raised a hand to stop him. ”Lu Cheng, this won’t affect your wedding, will it?”

”It won’t, Professor Gu. My wedding starts at precisely eight minutes past one this afternoon. It’s only a little after ten now; we’ve still got time.”

Mu Nanshu continued out the door.

”Professor Lu, Professor Gu, I don’t know how to address the other teachers here?” Lu Cheng didn’t know the others, so he had no choice but to ask.

So Lu Mang began introducing them to Lu Cheng.

In fact, even after the introductions, Lu Cheng still didn’t recognize them, but he could roughly guess they were all heavyweights in the field.

Once the introductions and greetings were done, Lu Mang didn’t tactlessly bring up the past again, but instead said lightly, ”Lu Cheng, actually the reason we came to find you this time is that we do have something to discuss.”

”Though it’s not some especially major matter, so it’s not urgent either.”

Lu Cheng smiled. ”I’m certainly in no rush; I’m just afraid it’ll disrupt your original schedule, Professor Lu.”

”That’s why my wife and I insisted on coming to pay our respects in person.”

”I’m sure there will be many things we haven’t managed to host you properly with.”

The opportunities that Lu Mang had fought for on Lu Cheng’s behalf had indeed brought Lu Cheng considerable benefits.

To Lu Mang, these benefits were barely worth mentioning, but to Lu Cheng, seizing them was a chance to take off.

A man called Professor Che then said, ”Director Lu, today is a major life event for you, and we actually didn’t want to disturb you!”

”So let’s just keep it brief.”

”You know as well as we do that medical devices have always been our weak link.”

”Every year, the national health insurance has to pay out enormous sums because of this.”

”As a doctor, you should know that once those funds are paid, that’s all they do—get paid out.”

”If they could be used on other patients, they could actually save more lives.”

”On a macro level, funding is resources, and resources are directly tied to whether patients live or die.”

”Medical device R&D generally goes hand in hand with new treatment modalities for disease. We’re here this time to discuss with you, Director Lu, matters related to medical device research and development…”

”Including, but not limited to, those suturing techniques you developed and certain new technologies.”

”Following the principle that one must first sharpen one’s tools, we really ought to be streamlining and lightening the load for the kinds of surgeries we already can and do perform…”

Professor Che’s full name was Che Xuan.

Lu Cheng didn’t know whether, back when he was in school, people used to call him Che Che Gan, but that was irrelevant.

What this Professor Che was saying was, in fact, rather realistic.

Lesser doctors only treat individual people.

If a doctor truly wants to fulfill a vision of redemption, it can’t be one-to-one, point-to-point.

Whether it’s developing new treatment techniques, cutting medical costs, or earning some revenue for the country, they are all forms of saving lives.

In the medical field, many people’s illnesses ultimately boil down to a question of resource allocation.

It can be converted directly into money…

In Hua Country, far too many people are pushed back into poverty by illness, or simply stop treatment once the disease reaches a certain stage. It’s not just about the health insurance system; it’s also deeply tied to social incomes and the relative cost of medical care.

Professor Gu then picked up the thread. ”Lu Cheng, to be more specific, it’s the upgrading and iteration of medical devices that provides the biggest push for the development of medicine.”

”And it’s more accessible to ordinary people.”

”Only techniques with no threshold for operation can bring treatment to the most ordinary people.”

”Any technique that has an operational threshold is, in reality, of limited relevance to very ordinary folks.”

”By sheer numbers, ordinary people still make up the overwhelming majority of the population.”