When I'm on the night shift, all the department heads can't sleep.

When Lin Ye walked back into the emergency room on Thursday evening, there was a piece of paper on the wall of the nurses' station.

An A4 sheet of paper was taped to the side of the original high-risk warning list. It contained only one line of handwritten text, in Zhou Min's handwriting.

"If a patient under observation/examination does not return on time after leaving, their whereabouts must be confirmed within fifteen minutes."

Lin Ye stood there and stared for two seconds.

He hasn't come to the hospital these past two days, but this piece of paper lets him know that Wu Deming's case has become a system.

Nurse Zhao walked past him from behind and glanced at the paper in the direction of his gaze.

"You saw it? It was added after you left the day before yesterday."

"What about Wu Deming?"

"Yes. Zhou Min posted it, saying that from now on, if anyone goes out for a check-up and comes back, someone has to keep an eye on them. If they don't come back, they have to look for them, and if they can't find them, they have to report it. It's just a matter of taking another look."

Lin Ye nodded.

"What happened to him afterward?"

Nurse Zhao unscrewed the thermos and took a sip.

"The blood vessels are partially open, but a section of the intestine couldn't be saved and had to be removed. The patient is still in the ICU and hasn't fully recovered."

A section of intestine was cut off.

Seeing that he didn't look well, Nurse Zhao said something else.

"By the way, his wife came to the nurses' station looking for you, saying she wanted to thank you in person. The day shift nurse told her you were off duty, but she left her phone number on the last page of the handover log."

"What are you thanking me for?"

"Didn't you rush back that day to help push it a bit?" Nurse Zhao screwed the lid back on. "The old lady only cares about this; she feels her husband was alright only because you came. Explaining it to her is useless."

He didn't feel he had done anything worthy of thanks. Ma Hao was the one who found the person, Ma Hao was the one who measured the blood sugar, Zhou Min was the one who ordered the blood sugar supplementation, and the enhanced CT scan was ordered by his supervisor on the day shift. All he did was provide a point in time and help push the stretcher for a short while.

But he also knew that if Zhou Min hadn't made that call that day, if he hadn't run back, things might have dragged on for even longer.

I can't figure it out. I don't want to think about it anymore.

Seeing that he was standing there motionless, Nurse Zhao touched his arm with the bottom of her thermos.

"What are you daydreaming about? Are you going to work tonight?"

"superior."

"Then hurry up and change your clothes. Director Qin isn't here today; he's in a meeting. Sun Zhiqiang will be showing you around. Don't dawdle and he'll catch you arguing."

Lin Ye turned and walked towards the locker room.

When Lin Ye pushed open the locker room door, Ma Hao was inside buttoning his white coat. He grinned when he saw Lin Ye come in.

"Brother Ye! It's my turn to work the night shift today. You've heard about Wu Deming's incident, right? He cut off a piece of his intestine."

"Yes, Sister Zhao just said that."

"Let me tell you, now every time I see someone going for a check-up in the observation area, I take a second look to see if they've come back." Ma Hao buttoned up the last button, his fingers still rubbing against it. "Even though it's not my job, I just feel uneasy if I don't check. Don't you think there's something wrong with me?"

"It's not a problem." Lin Ye took the white coat out of the cabinet, the collar still folded the same way it was when he tucked it in last time. "It's right to take a look. But don't take on everything yourself. Hand over what needs to be handed over to the shift, and have the nurses confirm what needs to be confirmed."

"Alright." Ma Hao patted a speck of dust off his name tag. "Let's go, let's take over the shift."

The two walked out of the changing room and headed towards the nurses' station.

The corridor already smelled of the night shift. The lights were switched to a warm yellow, and the day shift nurses were packing up to leave, while the on-call nurse was refilling medication on the treatment cart. An older man had just finished mopping the corridor, and the floor was still wet, reflecting the light. Ma Hao took a step too fast and almost slipped, quickly grabbing the wall for support.

"Slow down, the ground is wet," Lin Ye said from behind.

Nurse Zhao was sitting at the nurses' station flipping through her shift handover log when she saw the two of them coming over, so she pushed the log forward a little.

"Two beds in the red zone. One is an elderly man with heart disease. He received an extra diuretic today. His oxygen saturation is 94, and he's on 3 liters of oxygen. He's doing okay for now. The second bed is a young man with a high fever of 39.2 degrees Celsius. His blood culture has been sent and is pending. He's on empirical antibiotics given during the day shift."

She turned a page.

"Beds three and four in the observation area are in use. Bed three is for a woman with diarrhea, who is on an IV drip and her husband is with her. Bed four is for an elderly person with chest tightness; two ECGs were done and nothing was found, so she'll be seen at the outpatient clinic tomorrow. Bed five just became available because the patient on the day shift who had a gastroscopy left. There are still about a dozen appointments left in the general outpatient area on the day shift, so you can continue seeing patients."

Lin Ye took the handover log and flipped through it page by page. Behind each bed in the observation area, there was a note indicating the type of examination and the estimated return time. This hadn't been there before. Previously, only the bed number, name, chief complaint, and medication were listed. Now, there was an additional column.

It was that piece of paper that brought about the change.

Sun Zhiqiang came out of the office, holding a work schedule. He nodded when he saw Lin Ye.

"You're with me tonight. Director Qin isn't here; let me know first if anything happens."

"it is good."

Sun Zhiqiang stuffed the shift schedule into his pocket, walked to the entrance of the red zone, glanced at the monitoring screen, and then came back to sit in front of the computer to start going through the medical orders left by the day shift.

He flipped through two pages without even looking up and said a word.

"The patient in bed two with a high fever is on cephalosporin during the day. If the fever is still high tonight, or if the blood pressure or heart rate is abnormal, I will decide on the next course of treatment. Just keep an eye on the temperature and blood pressure, and don't change the medication yourself."

"understood."

"There's still that elderly man with heart disease in bed. Make sure his oxygen saturation doesn't drop below 90. If it does, increase the oxygen flow rate immediately and call me right away."

Lin Ye nodded.

Although Sun Zhiqiang is a man of few words, he never misses a thing when it comes to what needs to be said. Working with him is not easy, but you don't have to worry about having no one to back you up.

Lin Ye put the handover log back on the table, got up and walked around the red zone and the observation area.

An old man was leaning against the rocking headboard. His oxygen mask was a little crooked, so he straightened it for him. The old man opened his eyes, glanced at him, and then closed them again.

The young man in the second bed had his eyes closed but wasn't asleep; a fever-reducing patch was on his forehead, and the IV bag was almost empty. Lin Ye glanced at the drip rate; it was normal.

The woman in bed three with diarrhea was already asleep, and her husband was also asleep beside her, both of their phones face down on the blanket.

The elderly man in bed four, who was experiencing chest tightness, seemed to be in good spirits and was looking at his phone while wearing his reading glasses. Seeing Lin Ye approach, he took off his glasses and asked, "Doctor, can I leave tomorrow morning?"

"If nothing changes tonight, you can leave after your outpatient appointment tomorrow."

"That's good. My wife lives alone. She has bad legs, so she has to cook for herself every time I go out."

Lin Ye nodded and returned to the nurses' station to sit down.

Nurse Zhao flipped through a page of the nursing record and casually remarked, "Things should be a bit quieter tonight, right?"

No sooner had he finished speaking than the automatic door at the end of the corridor rattled loudly.

Someone rushed in carrying something.