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

Bed five wasn't quiet for two minutes.

As soon as Ma Hao pushed the stretcher into the observation area, the man leaned against the bed rail and looked toward the nurses' station.

"Doctor, how much longer will the orthopedic surgery take?"

Ma Hao pressed the brake pedal and glanced down at his feet.

"You've only been lying down for less than three minutes."

"Three minutes is still time," the man said, wincing in pain but refusing to back down. "My leg is twitching like someone's hammering inside."

Nurse Zhao looked up from beside the treatment cart.

"If it hurts, don't move it too much. Your foot isn't a foot anymore, it's a patriarch, you have to treat it with respect."

The man was speechless at her words and looked down at his legs, which were being propped up.

Lin Ye walked over and took another look at the color and temperature of the toes.

"Move your toes again."

The man gritted his teeth and moved slightly.

"active."

"Does it feel numb?"

"It's not numb, it just hurts."

"Don't step on anything recklessly. The orthopedic department is coming soon, and if you get on your feet now, it will only make things more complicated."

The man's lips moved, but he swallowed his words. He took out his phone; the screen was cracked, with a white line running horizontally from top to bottom.

"I'll call the team leader. If he doesn't know I'm in the hospital, he'll think I skipped work tomorrow."

Nurse Zhao took the blood pressure monitor away from the side and casually added a comment.

"You've already broken a bone, and you're still thinking about skipping work?"

"I can't help but think about it." The man looked down and dialed a number. "Every day I don't go, I lose money."

The call was answered quickly.

He tried to hold on in his first sentence.

"Captain, I'm fine, I just twisted my ankle."

There was a pause on the other end of the phone, and the captain's voice seemed louder even through the receiver.

Ma Hao almost burst out laughing.

Lin Ye placed the film bag by the bedside.

"If your bone is broken, don't tell people you just sprained it."

The man glared at him, then changed his story on the other end of the phone.

"Okay, okay, it's not a sprain, the doctor said it's broken. I definitely can't go tomorrow, so have Lao Zhao take over for me. I had Xiao Liu lock up the toolbox, and don't let me lose the welding torch."

He lowered his voice a little as he said something on the other end of the phone.

"Tell me about the workplace injury tomorrow. My head is spinning from the pain."

Nurse Zhao unscrewed the thermos and took a sip when the orthopedic doctor on duty arrived.

The young male doctor wore a wrinkled jacket over his white coat, and his name tag was turned upside down. He entered the room, first looking at the films on the lightbox, and then walked to the foot of bed five.

"Fell from over two meters?"

"A little over two meters."

"Where's the safety rope?"

The man paused for a moment.

"I just went upstairs to get something, I didn't expect it to be slippery."

The orthopedic surgeon looked down at his ankle, and before touching the most swollen part, he first felt for the dorsalis pedis artery and then asked him to move his toes.

"It hurts, but I can still feel it, and my blood circulation is okay."

The man quickly asked, "Then does that mean I don't need surgery?"

The orthopedic surgeon picked up the bag of films, took out the films, and pointed them out to him.

"Don't ask about surgery first. The lateral malleolus is broken and displaced. I'm also worried about the medial malleolus."

He lifted the film under the light.

"Don't get out of bed tonight. Get an ankle CT scan first. Check if the joint surfaces are strained before deciding on further treatment. If necessary, go to the hospital. Don't go back to the construction site on your own."

"Hospitalized?" The man sat up a little straighter, then gasped in pain as he moved. "Isn't everything already immobilized?"

"Fixing it is to prevent it from going further astray, not to say that you can walk on it now."

The orthopedic surgeon put the X-ray back in the bag and turned to look at Sun Zhiqiang.

"Keep her under observation for now, and get a follow-up CT scan. I'll take another look at the images after they're taken. Her skin seems okay now, just don't let the swelling get too bad. Do you have ice packs?"

Nurse Zhao had already taken an ice pack from the cabinet.

"Yes. Your orthopedics department finally remembered that there are still survivors in the emergency room?"

The orthopedic surgeon raised his hand and turned the name tag right side up.

"I just came downstairs, and the elevator stopped at two floors. Sister Zhao, you can scold the elevator, but don't scold me."

"If you can't understand the elevator, I can only curse at you."

Ma Hao was trying so hard not to laugh that his shoulders were shaking.

Lin Ye completed the CT scan application and handed it to Ma Hao.

"Take the pain medication as prescribed by the doctor first, and then move him once the pain subsides a bit. Avoid twisting his ankle when moving him."

"Okay."

The man in bed five looked at the application form, still not quite satisfied.

"Doctor, could I stay here for a while? My wife and children are in my hometown, and it's too much trouble for them to come all the way here."

Sun Zhiqiang raised his head this time.

"You can sign the papers yourself now, and you can decide whether or not to stay. But let me be clear from the start, a fracture and displacement is not like a sprained ankle. If you go back and walk around tonight, the repositioning will be more complicated, and it will cost more money."

The man held his phone, remaining silent for a long time.

My phone vibrated; the contact name was "Wife".

He looked at it for two seconds, and when he answered, the volume was much lower.

"It's nothing, really nothing. I just slipped and fell."

The voice on the other end of the phone was very shrill; you could hear a few words even through the receiver.

The man moved his phone a little further away.

"My bone is broken. The doctor wants me to be hospitalized."

This time, there was silence on the other end of the phone.

After a few seconds, his shoulders relaxed.

"Okay, I'll listen to the doctor. Don't travel at night, we'll talk about it tomorrow."

He hung up the phone after he finished speaking and leaned back on the pillow.

"My wife said if I keep arguing, she'll buy a ticket and come over to yell at me."

Nurse Zhao placed the ice pack next to his calf.

"So whose opinion are you going to listen to now?"

"Listen to the doctor."

"This guy is quite good at speaking human language."

The man smiled even though he was in pain.

The landline at the nurses' station rang at that moment.

Nurse Zhao answered the phone, and after saying "feed" once, her pen stopped on the nursing record.

"Wu Deming? Hmm, go ahead."

Lin Ye looked up.

When the name was mentioned, Ma Hao stopped smiling.

The voice on the other end of the phone wasn't loud. As Nurse Zhao listened, she wrote a few lines next to her handover log.

"It's from the ICU. It's still the same stuff after the colon resection. The blood pressure still needs to be managed with medication, and the patient is still under observation in the ICU. The lactate level is a little lower than before, but the vasopressors can't be discontinued. The ICU says they need to keep a close eye on him."

She repeated the sentence, as if afraid the nurses at the station might misunderstand.

Lin Ye stood to the side without saying a word.

Lin Ye had heard about that piece of intestine before, but when he heard the words "blood pressure still needs to be managed with medication," his finger paused for a moment.

He pressed the medical record into his palm, the corner of the paper digging into his thumb.

Wu Deming has been admitted to the intensive care unit. The only things that can be kept in the emergency room are the timeline from last night, today's test results, and the newly posted piece of paper on the wall.

Nurse Zhao hung up the phone and put the pen cap back on.

"This person has a lucky fate, but also suffers greatly."

Ma Hao looked down at the handover log.

"Wouldn't it be even more troublesome if it were any later?"

"Don't talk nonsense." Sun Zhiqiang looked up from his computer. "Write the facts in the records, not 'what ifs'."

Ma Hao immediately shut up.

Lin Ye glanced at him.

"Thinking about that won't help. Don't forget about the CT scan you did in bed five."

"I haven't forgotten."

Ma Hao clipped the application form together and pushed the fifth bed towards the imaging department. Before leaving, the man, still worried, unlocked his phone and pressed the voice call button.

"Xiao Liu, remember to lock the toolbox!"

A voice message quickly came back from the other end of the phone.

"Okay, bro, locked!"

Nurse Zhao rolled her eyes.

"His toolbox is more precious than his feet."

"There are welding torches inside," Sun Zhiqiang said. "They're the tools of the trade for the people on the construction site."

After those words were spoken, the nurses' station fell silent for a few seconds.

Night fell outside the emergency room, casting shadows of a row of waiting chairs on the glass doors. A few numbers remained in the general ward; at the triage desk, someone was dozing off while holding a child, the child's head drooping slightly before being lifted up by the mother.

Nurse Zhao picked up her thermos and finally got to take her second sip.

She had just swallowed when she suddenly put down the cup.

"What about the fourth bed?"

Lin Ye was looking at the temperature record of the patient with a high fever in bed two when he heard the sound and looked up.

"The one in bed four who's experiencing chest tightness?"

"Yes. I was just wearing my reading glasses while looking at my phone."

The two of them walked together toward the observation area.

The bedside lamps on the fourth bed were still on.

The blanket was half-lifted, one of the slippers by the bed was missing, the reading glasses were next to the pillow, and the glass of water on the bedside table was only slightly damp.

The person is not here.

Nurse Zhao frowned, turned around and called out.

"Did anyone see the person in bed four leave?"

The on-duty nurse peeked out from beside the treatment cart.

"I think you just said you were going to make a phone call from the door."

"How long has it been?"

"I didn't check the time."

Nurse Zhao didn't say anything more and turned to look at the handover log.

The column next to bed four has no estimated return time.

Because he didn't get checked.

Lin Ye looked at the newly posted paper on the wall of the nurses' station.

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

The words were freshly pasted, with the tape still slightly curled up at the edges.

Lin Ye's throat felt a little dry.

The person was just here, saying they were going to make a phone call, but in the blink of an eye, all that's left are their reading glasses and a slipper.

His hand was already on the landline.

"Call his cell phone first."