Hell's Floor

It's tiresome.

But someone's gotta do it.

That's my motto in life.

***

My name is Wen Jia.

And I'm a doctor.

My heels clicked crisply on the hospital tile floors as I walked through the rows of patients, making my daily rounds to check on the ones assigned to me.

Hair tied up high in a ponytail with a white coat over a crisp white shirt and sleek chic black ankle silk pants, sensible black glass and a clipboard at hand, I looked the perfect role model of a doctor.

As I walked past, nurses I knew greeted me.

"Good morning, Dr Fu!"

"Morning, Dr Fu!"

I smiled at them and nodded in acknowledgement every once in a while but did not slow my pace down.

The life of a doctor is busy and if I wanted to end on time today, I needed to be brisk.

As I walked down past the rooms with selected patients, I hear once more the typical roar of a dog blood drama* that happens so often in hospitals.

*Dog Blood Drama: '狗血' is used to refer to 'absurd/exaggerated cliché'

You would think that in a hospital, where one goes to seek for help for their various ailments, that the study of science would rule.

That was my rookie mistake too.

I slowed down as I heard the sounds of glasses being shattered and shouts emerging from a ward.

I glanced at a nurse.

She sighed and shook her head.

"Third one today."

Another nurse at the counter popped her head up.

"Ah it's Dr Fu! Could you please intervene??  It's seriously... This patient has been doing this for a while now and it's really getting on our nerves!"

One would think my nurses to be entirely incompetent.

You might even wonder: why were they not running into the room despite the shouts and cries and screams?

I ruefully looked at then.

"Which type is she?"

The nurses collectively sighed.

"Lost memory. Got swapped as a baby. Found out that the foster father was the real murderer of the real parents."

Even I, as a mature and experienced doctor of 5 years was slightly surprised. The typical Holy Grail of Asian drama tropes all in one patient? What were the odds??

"And... He's a guy."

I raised my brows in surprise.

What a plot twist.

I looked at the nurses with pity.

"Look out for the foster family. There's bound to be some lawyers with them this time."

The nurses sighed once more, tearfully looking at me.

I couldn't do anything. Plus, this case was not under my purview.

I knocked the table gently.

"Get a cup of coffee on me. Just tell the cafeteria lady to add to my tab."

The nurses looked at me in joy and chorused, "Thank you, Dr Fu!"

You would think that the stuff of dramas do not happen in real life.

Perhaps the fengshui in this hospital was bad.

Or that I happen to be unlucky.

But exactly at this very floor, I can list a few patients who:

1) miscarried due to a jealous foe

2) lost his/ her memory from a suspicious car accident

3) just got admitted to pump out a strong aphrodisiac placed inconspicuously in drinks at parties for noble families

4) lost his/ her memory for some odd reason

The worse were those who thought they were reborn or thought they had transmigrated into a novel.

You'll know who they are.

They'll ask the typical questions.

'Who am I?'

Cue bizarre observation of their skin. Some even grabbing their breasts as if to confirmed something. What that think was, I'm not too sure.

'What's my name?'

For the transmigrators, they would either looked alarmed or shocked. The rebirth ones would generally looked pleased or gleeful.

And finally,

'How old am I?'

Cue a sense of dawning of realisation of their circumstances as if they knew what was to happen in the future.

And cue my rolled eyes.

Luckily, I don't take this floor. That's left to Dr Chen Fuo De, my esteemed colleague. I call him "esteemed" even though he was not a great nor famous doctor, simply because of his great ability to handle difficult patients (and their equally, if not more, difficult relatives) while also remaining in the background, evading all cannon balls aimed at the main characters.

Even if he was not a great doctor, he was definitely a decent one and the superiors were willing to plaster decorations on him just to get the relatives to deal with him rather than them.

After all, not everyone had a lackluster presence like Dr Chen.

As I walked away, I heard a scream from another patient.

"Get out! I don't want to see you!"

Cue crashing sounds.

Our hospital intentionally buys cheap glasses due to how many glasses were smashed daily. In fact, I heard our budget for glassware was quite high.

We did try to switch to plastic glasses. But patients had sent feedback that it looked too cheap. Plus, those irate patients would find something else to throw.

One of our VVIP patient threw an antique vase in the VVIP room in a fit of anger.

Of course, one could question why was there an antique vase in the room in the first place? Well, it was the VVIP room.

The patient's family or estranged husband or suitor compensated our hospital for the loss. But our hospital director was an avid collector of antique Ming Dynasty vases. His heartbreak could be heard throughout the hospital that day. No Ming vases were displayed anymore in the hospital. He displayed Qing Dynasty vases instead.

I walked away but could not escape hearing a manly low voice shouting back.

"Even if that child is mine, I want a paternity test done!"

Rolls eye. 

And that would make the female feel oh-so-much love from you.

Braindead man.

I made my way to the last room of the floor.

He was my last patient of the day but since he was my first case in a while on this floor, I allocated more time for his case, hoping it won't drag past my working hours. I just completed a 30-hour shift and had an appointment to get to right after this. Hence, I could only pray my three hours I allocated for the patient would be enough.

I usually don't appear on this floor but the case had something to do with what I was good at: Orthopaedics. I usually deal with spinal cord injuries or worse.

But apparently this patient insisted that his lumbar sprain was a spinal cord injury. Hence, I needed to do a customary check.

I made my way quickly, not wanting to stay on this floor much longer.

As I walked in, I crisply made my arrival known by knocking on the open door as the nurse pulled the hospital curtains back.

"Good morning, my name is Dr Fu and I'm your orthopaedic surgeon."

I smiled as I looked at the patient, holding my clipboard with all the patient's information.

Not to my surprise, the patient was a well-mannered, rather handsome man in his mid-thirties. Most of the patients here, for some odd reason, were handsome with male lead actor-standards looks,  or frail-looking female pushovers or villainess-looking women.

No matter how handsome or beautiful they were, everyone on this floor knew better than to dally with these "unlucky" people especially if you don't want to die a sudden death.

There was a nurse who unfortunately fell for a patient. Despite warnings, she was absolutely smitten with the sweet talker. She was gushing and saying how she was going to be engaged to him even though her colleagues tried to knock some sense into her.

Unfortunately for her, on the day he was about to be discharged, the man's real fiancée appeared and the poor nurse was gone before we knew it.

Sigh.

This floor was really worthy of its nickname: Hell's Floor.

All the different levels of hell: jealousy, scheming, poisoning... You could find all these in this floor and more.

Sigh. What has our decent hospital come to these days?

Hence when I saw the well-mannered handsome face with a pleasant smile, giving off a warm vibe, I felt totally disgusted.

This was a typical conman face.

I kept a cold professional-looking expression on my face and briskly walked over as I flipped my clipboard.

"Mr Lin Han Ming?"

I brusquely walked over and glanced at his charts while the nurse filled me in on the medication given as well as updates on his treatments as advised by Dr Chen.

I ignored the man on the bed, not wanting to speak up unnecessarily.

So I missed the expression of shock and surprise that flitted past his face when he saw mine.

I turned the pages and smiled professionally at the patient who was looking curiously at me.

"All is well, Sir. Dr Chen's diagnosis is accurate so far. But I'll do a quick check to confirm."

"Thank you... Dr Fu."

It was a remarkably attractive and pleasant voice.

I frowned imperceptibly, even more convicted to leave here as soon as possible.

I went over, adjusting the bed so that he was propped up.

"I apologise for the discourtesy."

I placed clean sterile gloves on my hand and lifted his hospital gown from the back.

Slowly, I went through the typical procedure, checking the spine with my fingers while I carefully asked him several questions.

He replied clearly, at some moments needing to think before replying.

When my fingers shifter over to the lower lumbar area, he jolted slightly.

"Painful?"

He smiled apologetically but the sweat that dropped from his forehead clearly told of the pain he felt.

Moving over, I grazed the area, feeling a slight swelling.

I shifted his posture a little while also checking his lower area.

He didn't seem embarrassed despite me touching his hip bone and thigh, simply looking calm.

After the analysis, I removed the gloves.

I glanced at the nurse, who turned to prop the bed back to a more relaxed position, while I quickly filled the data on his patient sheet.

I smiled at the man.

"Mr Lin, since your lower body still has some feeling to it, we will rule out paralysis. I'll assign someone to bring you for an X-ray once again but your past X-ray as well as my physical check indicates no huge injury to the spinal cord. At most, the swelling could be a concern but we would need to observe further. However, I can guarantee that there is no spinal cord injury warranting great worries. The diagnosis still stands. A lumbar sprain is most likely what happened due to the car accident."

I looked at him to see him still smiling pleasantly back at me.

Feeling irked, I quickly tied up all loose ends.

"If the X-ray comes back negative once more, we can clear your stay at the hospital. The sprain will take a month or more to heal so do ensure you avoid strenuous exercise."

I signed my name on his patient card and gave some instructions to the nurse.

I smiled professionally at the man before me.

"If there's no other questions, I'll take my leave."

The man smiled and nodded amicably.

"Thank you, Dr Fu. I feel greatly assuaged by your words."

"Just that..."

I raised my eyebrows.

Here it comes. I knew that the three hours allocated here would be needed.

Would he say that I was his first love?

Or that I looked like his white moonlight from ages ago?

I knew I was pretty pleasant to look at. But not worthy of being a first love character.

Perhaps he would say I was his long lost sister?

Or that he had lost his memory? Although I doubt that. The nurse said he was well aware of what was happening so far.

I cocked my eyebrows as a signal for him to continue.

"Why would my wife be acting so estranged from me now despite seeing me all injured?"