In 1992, a small village owner became the richest man in the village by owning a car.

Chapter 647 Old Xu's Diagnosis: The Body's Functions Were Running Out of Energy
"Do you need me to go to the hospital with you? I know a few people at the county hospital." Mi Yao looked at Yu Dawei, somewhat worried about whether these grown men could safely deliver the patient.

"No need, you can go back first. I'll let you know when the results are in." Yu Dawei waved his hand, not having time to say anything more, and drove straight to the county hospital.

After being safely transported to the hospital and undergoing a series of treatments, Mr. Xu was finally out of danger. He woke up twice during the treatment, both times fully conscious, before falling into a deep sleep.

By the time Attorney Xu arrived at Qingxian County Hospital, it was almost noon.

It takes at least four or five hours to drive from Harbin to their county town. If they can arrive before noon, you could say the car is flying.

The moment Xu Younian opened the ward door and saw his father lying quietly on the hospital bed, his heart immediately jumped.

"Brother Xu, the old man is asleep. Let's talk outside." Seeing that Xu Younian was about to speak, Yu Dawei quickly stopped him and led him to the door before saying, "Although Old Master Xu is fine now, the doctor said his condition is not good. The doctor said that after you arrived, he asked me to take him there. Let's go."

"Okay, why did my dad go back to your place?" Xu Younian nodded heavily, then asked again.

"Sigh, I heard it from Lao Ji. Old Xu must have taken a taxi overnight. And according to the doctor's analysis, the long journey must have made his already poor health even more exhausted. He fell asleep in the car and then had problems when he woke up."

As Yu Dawei walked, he spoke again: "I guess there shouldn't have been any problems when we got out of the car. After all, if there were any problems, the taxi driver wouldn't just turn around and leave; he would have taken the money before leaving."

“That makes sense.” Xu Younian extended this line of thought as well. “It must have been because he was moved by the sight of the factory after arriving.”

“You may not know, but in the past two years, after my father went back home, he has always been thinking about Fanfan’s repair shop. He wanted to come back and visit several times, but I and your sister-in-law were both too busy, so he didn’t agree.” Xu Younian’s tone was tinged with guilt as he spoke.

My dad must have thought that he and his wife were both busy, so he came back to the repair shop by himself to take a look.

Xu Younian was not angry because his father had run away from home and he had searched for him all night. Instead, he fell into deep self-doubt. At this moment, he wondered if he had really taken good care of his father after taking him back.

It seems that the caregiver has always been the one taking care of the old man, and the caregiver's care was so poor that they didn't even know the old man was missing, which shows that the daily care is not very comprehensive.

"Dong dong dong."

The two arrived at the attending physician's office one after the other. Yu Dawei knocked on the door and only went in after hearing a "come in" from inside.

In the office, a man in a white coat was discussing the patient's condition with an elderly woman. After gesturing to Yu Dawei and the other man, he continued to advise the woman: "You should maintain a good attitude in your daily life. Only with a good attitude can your condition gradually improve. Otherwise, no matter what Chinese or Western medicine you take, it won't work."

"Also, you need to drink more water. Look at your lips, they're so chapped. It's dry up north, so make sure you drink about four cups of water a day, like this big cup." The man in the white coat said, lifting up his small teacup next to the table to show the old woman.

"Okay, Dr. Zhu, thank you!" The old woman was very grateful, with tears even welling up in her eyes, clearly because her words of comfort had been effective.

After the old woman left, Yu Dawei and Xu Younian went up to talk to Doctor Chu.

"Hello Dr. Chu, I am Xu Guozhu's son. What is my father's condition?" Xu Younian sat nervously opposite the doctor.

"You knew the patient had Alzheimer's disease, right?"

"I know, we found out about it a couple of years ago. For the first two years it was okay, I just couldn't remember some trivial things, but recently, around the Lunar New Year, my memory has gotten really bad." Xu Younian placed his hands on his thighs and clenched his fists in frustration.

"It's probably not just a matter of poor memory," Dr. Chu said, tearing away Xu Younian's pretense. "He probably remembers very few people or things now. Is your mother still alive?"

"She's gone. She passed away a few years ago."

"Then he won't be able to remember much. If I'm not mistaken, he might forget about you sometimes during this period as well."

“This…yes.” Xu Younian recalled the scene in his mind where his own father didn’t even recognize him. It was at the beginning of the year when he insisted on going to the August 1st Farm. All he could think about was the August 1st Farm.

"Sigh," Dr. Chu took off his glasses, got up and closed the white office door that wasn't closed, and then said to Xu Younian, "To tell you the truth, judging from the test results, your old man's condition is not just Alzheimer's disease, but mainly due to the severe decline in various bodily functions."

"In layman's terms, he's like a lamp running out of oil, and could die at any moment..." Dr. Chu paused here, noticing that Xu Younian, sitting in the chair, had a blank expression, indicating that he had suffered a great shock.

He dared not continue speaking, and first calmed the patient's family down.

Thinking about it, he took out two disposable cups and poured a cup of water for each of them.

"Impossible! My dad is still in good health. He can walk, climb stairs, and even go to the market to buy groceries when he's lucid!" Xu Younian couldn't believe that his father, who was once as strong as an ox, was suddenly said to be on his deathbed!
"Sigh, have a glass of water." Dr. Chu didn't know what to say, so he could only let the patient's family accept it themselves.

Yu Dawei sat on the chair next to him, holding a cup in both hands and looking down. His mood was extremely complicated. Dr. Chu had not told him before that Old Xu's condition had become this serious.

"No! I want to take my dad to Kyoto to see a doctor, right now." Xu Younian didn't trust the medical standards of the county hospital; he wanted to take his father to Kyoto immediately to find the best doctor!

“Okay, but I need to remind you of two things.” Dr. Chu sat back down, his expression unchanged. “First, whether your father’s health can hold out until Kyoto is a serious question. Second, I myself retired from the Kyoto Military Hospital and am a specialist in neurology.”

"Although this may sound a bit boastful, I have participated in leading clinical and drug research on Alzheimer's disease in China, and I have even received a national award for outstanding individual achievement." Dr. Chu said this with a very calm expression, as if he were talking about something very ordinary.

Xu Younian and Yu Dawei were still incredibly shocked, wondering when such a formidable figure had appeared in the county hospital. His experience working at a military hospital in China already spoke volumes, especially considering he was a specialist in neurology.

Yu Dawei just couldn't understand why such a person would come to their remote and dilapidated county town for no reason.

Could it be a fellow villager?

"Doctor, what do you think I should do..." Xu Younian gradually recovered from his irrational state. He planned to see what advice Dr. Chu had first, and then check later to see if this person was really as capable as he claimed.

Anyway, the second son is in Tianjin, so we can just have him check it out.

"My advice is to keep the patient from moving around too much." Dr. Chu rubbed his eyes and put his glasses back on. "During the treatment, I found that even when the elderly patient was conscious, his memory was already very impaired. He could only remember who he was, his son, his daughter, and the city he lived in."

"What surprised me, however, was that the patient had an exceptionally good memory of the repair shop." Dr. Chu looked at Yu Dawei with a glint in his eyes. "From the clinical presentation, he had a very deep impression of the time he spent at the repair shop, and it even made him feel happy and comfortable."

"This... is probably unlikely." Yu Dawei put down his cup, his tone uncertain. "A few years ago, the living facilities in my small factory were very inadequate. Occasionally, we had to go outside to work, and the house was cold in the middle of the night even with the stove and heated kang in winter."

"Anyway, I feel that the living conditions were incomparable to those of Xu Lao when he was with Zeng Guangzhi in Qiqihar."

“No, Dawei, I think Dr. Chu is right about this.” Xu Younian said with certainty, turning his gaze to Dawei. “The old man had a tough life when he was young, so those conditions are nothing to him. They can even evoke a lot of feelings and emotions in him.”

"Furthermore, ever since my dad came to live with me, he has always been thinking about your repair shop. There's a reason why he remembers you and your repair shop."

Dr. Chu nodded in agreement: "That's right, but there's another major reason: the number of brain cells in a person is fixed."

"As the body's functions decline, brain cells also die. This is why distant memories become more blurred the longer they are away. If we don't think about them for a long time, the information from the cells can't be transmitted to the end, and we will forget them completely."

"The reason your father can still remember Master Yu and his repair shop even though he has forgotten most things is largely because he once felt comfortable and satisfied, which deepened his memory. Also, the time since he forgot was very short."

"You can think of it as the last cells in his brain being focused on this matter, so that he remembers it and doesn't lose it like other distant memories."

Yu Dawei sat in the chair, nodding silently. He appeared calm on the surface, but his heart was filled with confusion.

During the time Mr. Xu was there, Yu Dawei was always busy and rarely returned to the repair shop, so he didn't know that Mr. Xu had developed such a deep affection for his small repair shop.

"Doctor, do you mean to let my dad spend his final days at the repair shop?" Xu Younian guessed what Dr. Chu meant, but couldn't make up his mind for a moment, and subconsciously asked to confirm again.

"Yes." This time, Dr. Chu didn't look at Xu Younian, but instead turned his gaze to Yu Dawei. "In the patient's current condition, he could easily get stuck in a few memories from the past and never be able to get out of them again."

"Over the years, I have seen many Alzheimer's patients. In the end, they all spent their lives in the memories of the past. Of course, in the last few seconds or minutes, the patient will be lucid for a period of time, but this is the pattern for most of this disease."

Seeing that Yu Dawei did not show any aversion or refusal, Dr. Chu spoke to him again: "For someone like your Elder Xu, I suggest that he should not be stimulated. If he is caught up in his memories, let him stay in them. If we interrupt his state again, there will only be two outcomes."

"Either you'll fall into a permanent coma after regaining consciousness, or..." Doctor Chu stopped talking.

Xu Younian sat opposite him, unsure of what to do. Fanfan Repair Shop was where Yu Dawei made money repairing cars, and it wouldn't be good to put the other party in a difficult position because of his father's situation.

Just as Xu Younian was hesitating, hurried footsteps suddenly came from outside the door, and then the office door was pushed open by a pair of rough hands.

"Doctor! Boss! Something's happened! Old Xu has woken up!" Old Ji's expression was extremely tense. "But he's smashing things like crazy and keeps shouting 'No, no,'"

"Go take a look quickly!" Dr. Chu hurriedly grabbed his medical equipment and led a few people to room 402 on the same floor.

In the ward, Old Xu was like an aged war god, throwing blankets, pillows, and fruit from the table all over the floor!
He gasped for breath and weakly cried out, "No! No! I should be giving a lecture at the repair shop, how did I end up in the hospital? How did I end up wearing a hospital gown!"

When Xu Younian stood at the door and saw his father go mad, his eyes were red and tears welled up in his eyes.

Such a father, who could walk and throw things around, could leave him at any moment. If you looked closely at the bulging veins on his arms, it was like having thin needles stuck to dry tree bark. It was heartbreaking to see.

Yes, Xu Younian suddenly realized that, without knowing when, the towering, all-powerful father in his memory had really grown old, and was just holding on to his last breath so that others wouldn't see that he was too weak.

"Dawei! You're in the hospital too! Why are you in the hospital too? Is your dad's back pain acting up again?" Old Xu slowly and shakily walked up to Yu Dawei, panting heavily, his voice extremely hoarse.

Dr. Chu stood to the side, carefully observing Old Xu's mental state, and finally turned to give Yu Dawei a wink.

Yu Dawei understood immediately and quickly helped Xu Lao up, slowly moving him to the bedside: "Xu Lao, look at your memory! It must be that my dad's back pain has flared up again. I was worried that you might also have health problems, so I stopped your lecture and brought you to the hospital for a checkup."

After a few seconds of bewilderment, Old Xu unconsciously sat down on the bed with Yu Dawei's help.

(End of this chapter)