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

The background noise of the elevator dinging as it reached its floor could be heard on the phone, along with the low voices of security guards dispersing the crowd. A family member in a blue sun-protective jacket pushed a wheelchair to one side of the elevator lobby, repeatedly muttering that he wanted to go upstairs to see his son's report.

Qin Hai took the receiver: "Stop them first, don't let them onto the elevator, and don't let them into the general emergency room lobby. Give patients and their families new masks, have the triage staff keep an eye on them, and have security maintain order to prevent crowding. Notify the fever clinic to pick them up at the outer triage point, and we'll collect their travel history information here."

After hanging up the phone, he looked at Lin Ye: "Don't get into the diagnosis yet. First, find out who accompanied them, their contact number, which route they took after leaving the CT room, and whether they went into the inpatient department along the way. Find out everything."

Lin Ye turned to a new page in the register and wrote down Shao Dequan's name first.

A few minutes later, the triage staff accompanied the security guard back from the inpatient department corridor. The elderly man in the wheelchair was hunched over, coughing so hard his shoulders twitched. The woman beside him wore a blue sun-protective shirt, holding an old cell phone and a crumpled X-ray slip. As they approached the triage point, her steps unconsciously slowed by a beat.

"Doctor, we really didn't wander off," she said first. "We just wanted to go upstairs to ask my son. He can read the report on his phone, but I can't understand the words on the report."

Nurse Zhu led her to a chair: "Sit here first, don't block the aisle. What's your name? What's your relationship with the patient?"

"Chen Xiulan, I'm his wife." She quickly took out her ID card from her small bag, then looked back at the person in the wheelchair. "His name is Shao Dequan, and he's sixty-nine years old."

Shao Dequan coughed twice, his voice hoarse: "I told her not to wander around, but she insisted on going upstairs."

"With your cough like this, who else can I turn to if not my son?" Chen Xiulan was exasperated by his words. "There are so many words on the report, I can't understand a single one."

Lin Ye entered their identification numbers, contact numbers, and kinship details into the registration book, then gently pushed the old cell phone back into her hands: "What's your son's name? Which department is he in now?"

"Shao Kai, orthopedics ward on the eighth floor of the inpatient department," Chen Xiulan replied quickly. "My grandson fractured his leg, and the discharge procedures weren't completed during the day, so he's overseeing things there. I just called him, and he told me to come up and help me look at the CT report."

Lin Ye looked up at Qin Hai.

Qin Hai had already picked up the landline and asked the switchboard operator to transfer to the orthopedic ward nurses' station on the eighth floor: "Find Shao Kai. Tell him to stay in the ward and not go downstairs or to the elevator. Don't make a fuss. Just tell him to wait for a call."

Upon hearing this, Chen Xiulan leaned forward and placed her hand on the bandage on her knee: "Doctor, why can't my son move? He doesn't have a cough or fever."

"I didn't say he was sick." Qin Hai switched the receiver to his other hand. "You just came out of the CT waiting area and were at the inpatient department elevator. If he came down to pick you up, the contact history would be even more complicated."

Chen Xiulan was stunned for a while before slowly letting go and putting the phone back on her lap.

Lin Ye steered the conversation back to the main points: "After leaving the CT room, what specific places did you go? Did you enter the ward building? Did the wheelchair leave your hands at any point?"

Chen Xiulan frowned and thought hard: "After the X-ray, we stopped for a while at the entrance of the radiology department. He was coughing badly, so I opened the water bottle and let him drink a couple of sips. Later, I saw a sign pointing to the inpatient department, so I pushed him there. Just as we got to the elevator, this young lady stopped us. I've always pushed the wheelchair; I haven't let anyone else use it."

Shao Dequan added from the side, "The elevator didn't go up. The door opened once, but there were too many people, so I couldn't squeeze in."

The triage staff nodded in agreement: "When I arrived, the elevator doors had just opened, and they hadn't stepped inside yet. The security guard asked the people next to them to step back, preventing them from getting on."

Lin Ye noted down that "no one entered the elevator, no one went upstairs, and no one lent out their wheelchair," and then asked the triage staff, "How many people were at the elevator entrance at that time?"

"Four or five, I guess." The triage clerk thought for a moment. "One was pushing a stroller, one was bringing food, and two others were wearing hospital gowns. Security can access the security footage; I had them note down the time, roughly between 8:27 and 8:31."

Two lines of light blue text appeared at the edge of my field of vision.

[Risk Area: Continued Outward Expansion of In-Hospital Contact Routes]

[Key gaps: People lingering at the inpatient department elevator entrance, the contact area of ​​Shao Kai's ward, wheelchair numbers, CT scan waiting list at the same time, and the whereabouts of those who have left the hospital]

Lin Ye didn't pause for long, but broke down these gaps into actionable items, those that could be asked, checked, and handed over to the next stage, and filled them in the register one by one.

Nurse Zhu clipped Shao Dequan's pulse oximeter finger; the number jumped a few times before finally settling between 94 and 95. The thermometer buzzer then sounded; she pulled it out and glanced at it—39.1 degrees Celsius.

Chen Xiulan looked at the numbers: "His temperature was over 38 degrees Celsius at home this afternoon. I thought that taking a fever reducer would bring it down."

"Do you remember the name of the medicine?" Lin Ye asked.

"Ibuprofen." She pulled a strip of pills from her bag. "I took one around 2 p.m. After that, I kept coughing. I didn't have much phlegm, but I was having trouble breathing."

Qin Hai glanced at the medicine board and only asked Lin Ye to take a photo to file the name of the medicine and the time of administration, without asking the emergency room to do anything else.

The nurses from the fever clinic had arrived at the triage point. They took the temporary registration forms handed to them by Nurse Zhu, first checked the information of Shao Dequan and Chen Xiulan, and then collected the forms from several other people waiting nearby.

"Everyone, please stay here for now," said a nurse at the fever clinic. "We'll take you over according to the initial screening procedure. The scans and reports will be retrieved from the workstation, so you don't need to run back and forth. Accompanying family members will also register together."

Chen Xiulan stared down at the old phone in her hand, her fingers tracing the screen a couple of times. The screen lit up and then dimmed again, but she ultimately didn't make a call. Instead, she handed the retrieval slip to the nurse: "What about my son...?"

"The ward will wait for further notice," Qin Hai interrupted crisply. "You should follow the fever clinic first."

Chen Xiulan nodded, and while pushing the wheelchair, she couldn't help but look back at the direction of the elevator.

The landline rang again shortly afterward.

Nurse Zhu listened for a couple of sentences and then handed the receiver to Qin Hai: "It's from the orthopedics department on the eighth floor."

Qin Hai took it: "You found the person?"

The nurse on the other end of the phone spoke in a low voice, deliberately avoiding the people in the ward: "We found him. Shao Kai is right next to the nurses' station. He did answer a call from home just now and was about to go downstairs, but we stopped him. We're making him wait where he is now; we didn't let him go to the elevator."

"The ward should first note down his activity area and who he came into contact with," Qin Hai said. "Don't make a fuss, and don't let him run to the emergency room on his own. We need to coordinate with the infection control or fever clinic later, and then follow the procedures."

A response came from the other end.

After Qin Hai hung up, Lin Ye added a line under Shao Kai's name: "Next to the orthopedic nurses' station on the eighth floor, he has been notified to wait where he is and has not come downstairs."

At this moment, the waiting list from the CT room was transmitted to the workstation. The first few lines were marked with a red pen by Nurse Zhu, and the examination time, registered phone number, and accompanying relationship were all matched up.

At the bottom of the list was a note: wheelchair number C-17, borrowed by Shao Dequan's family at 8:02, and brought back by the triage staff at 8:34.

The wheelchair connection has been temporarily established.

Lin Ye continued scrolling down, but the last line was missing information.

The patient, Xu Wenliang, is 57 years old. His chest CT scan was completed at 8:18 AM. The report has not been signed, and the section for the person accompanying him is blank.

He dialed the registered mobile number, the receiver rang a few times, and then went directly to an unanswered line.

Qin Hai took the list and glanced at it: "Have the triage staff check the self-service machines and payment records, and have security check the surveillance footage at the emergency room entrance. Find the person first."

Lin Ye dialed the number again.

This time it went through.

The person who answered the phone was not Xu Wenliang; a strange man's voice came through the noise of traffic on the street.

"Who are you looking for? I just left this phone in my taxi, and the person who took it got out a long time ago."