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

"Please don't hang up yet."

Lin Ye brought the receiver back to his ear: "Driver, has the car come to a complete stop?"

"It's still parked on the auxiliary road outside the north gate of Jinhua Garden, with its hazard lights on." The man's voice was still filled with the noise of passing traffic. "Are you looking for your phone or the person who just got in the car? I just picked up another fare, and the person is still waiting up ahead."

"Find the person first. Give me their name and license plate number. Leave their phone in the car for now, don't bring it to the hospital. Also, tell me about the passenger's situation from when they got on the bus to when they got off, including the time, the location, and whether they were traveling with anyone else."

The man paused for two seconds before speaking: "My surname is Liao, Liao Yongcheng. I'll give you the license plate number. This phone was indeed left behind by the passenger; it has nothing to do with me."

After Liao Yongcheng finished reading the license plate, he rolled up the window next to him a little, which reduced the wind noise in the receiver.

"Around 8:20, I picked him up at the taxi stand on the east side of the First Municipal Hospital. He got into the car alone, wearing a gray short-sleeved shirt, carrying a bag of hospital documents, and sat in the back right seat. He was coughing the whole way. I asked if he wanted to go back to the emergency room, and he said that the tests were done and his family was waiting for him."

He paused, then pulled up the trip record on the platform: "He was dropped off at the north gate of Jinhua Garden. The fare was 23 yuan, paid by scanning a QR code at 8:39. After getting off the bus, a woman greeted him at the gate. She looked to be around 30 years old. He was walking a little unsteadily, and the woman helped him and took the document bag from him."

Liao Yongcheng took a screenshot of the platform's itinerary page and sent it to the emergency room using the duty number Lin Ye had provided.

The starting point, destination, travel time, and payment amount were all listed, with no additional stops along the way. After receiving the picture, Nurse Zhu checked her contact history; a countdown timer for her next order was displayed in the lower right corner.

Lin Ye added the boarding point, alighting point, and payment time to the register: "How long were you on the bus? What was the situation with your mask and the windows?"

"About fifteen minutes. I was wearing a mask the whole time, and he was too. He coughed a lot in the middle and pulled it down to wipe his mouth once. The air conditioning was on in the car, but he felt stuffy, so I cracked open the back window." Liao Yongcheng's speech quickened a bit at this point. "Doctor, could he possibly have some kind of infectious disease?"

"It's still uncertain. You were in the same carriage for more than ten minutes; this contact needs to be assessed for infection control."

"Should I still run or not?"

Liao Yongcheng then added, "If this order is canceled, it's canceled, but the car needs to be handed over to my coworker at 10 PM. He's waiting to work the late hours, and if I suddenly don't go, I have to give him an explanation."

Qin Hai took the receiver from Lin Ye: "This is Qin Hai from the ER. Cancel the next call, and don't bring any more patients. Don't rush to the hospital either. Leave your number; the infection control center will contact you soon."

After he finished speaking, he handed the receiver back to Lin Ye.

"I'll cancel it right now." Liao Yongcheng's agreement wasn't very quick. "But the platform will record this as a offense, and the people working with me will have to be reassigned. Once you've reached a conclusion, someone needs to let me know."

After giving his phone number, he recalled another incident: "The woman picking him up called out 'Dad.' After paying the fare, the passenger put his phone on the back seat and reached for his document bag. His daughter helped him up, and he followed her off the bus. I later heard his phone ringing continuously and realized he hadn't taken it. His daughter swiped her access card to enter the residential area and walked to the right. The row of buildings inside blocked my view, so I couldn't see which building they ultimately entered."

Lin Ye added "daughter picked up at the north gate of Jinhua Garden" to the accompanying examination information, and reported Xu Wenliang's name and ID number to the reception desk: "Check his medical records, focusing on finding the family's phone number, and get back to me as soon as you find it."

The triage staff began reviewing old records, while Lin Ye continued to verify the driver's condition: "Do you currently have a fever, cough, chest tightness, or significant fatigue?"

"No. My throat is dry after driving all day, but I don't feel anything else." Liao Yongcheng paused for a moment. "What about my phone? I can't keep carrying it with me all the time."

"Don't hand it over to anyone else yet. The infection control department will verify this contact with you first, and then we'll follow the arrangements made by the hospital and the local authorities."

Lin Ye moved the receiver away and reported the license plate, phone number, and drop-off location that he had just verified to Nurse Zhu.

She dialed the emergency contact number of the hospital infection control department and reported the situation of the driver and vehicle.

The person on the other end of the phone wrote down the number and said they would contact the person immediately to verify.

The information desk quickly returned the first round of results. The same number was used for registration, payment, and CT scan registration; the backup contact number was still blank, and earlier hospitalization records were still being flipped through.

Liao Yongcheng's order notification went off twice more.

He clicked cancel first, and the platform immediately displayed the reason option.

He looked at the options "vehicle malfunction" and "driver's fault" for a few seconds, then finally clicked "driver's fault," apologized to the passenger waiting on the roadside, closed the app, and continued accepting orders.

The driver who was supposed to pick him up at 10 a.m. also received his location and kept asking what had happened to the car. He didn't have time to explain in detail, and only replied, "Wait for the hospital to call," telling the driver not to approach the vehicle for the time being. He then put his phone on ring and stayed by the roadside to wait for the hospital's infection control team to contact him.

Less than half a minute later, another cell phone rang on Liao Yongcheng's end.

"It was a call from your hospital."

"Pick this one first, and leave the passenger's phone in the car."

"Okay. But you need to give me a definite answer as soon as possible. I can't leave the car on the side of the road overnight."

Liao Yongcheng ended the call and went to answer his own cell phone.

The emergency room line had just become available when the surveillance footage from the security office arrived.

The scene stops at 8:25 AM. A man in a gray short-sleeved shirt emerges from the east entrance of the emergency room, a transparent file folder dangling beside his legs. He stands at the parking spot for less than two minutes before opening the back door of a taxi.

The license plate matched exactly what Liao Yongcheng had reported. Nurse Zhu pulled up the photo of the ID card saved during registration, checked it twice against the image, and confirmed that the man in the gray short-sleeved shirt was indeed Xu Wenliang. He had no one accompanying him from the east gate to the parking spot.

Seven minutes after the CT scan ended, Xu Wenliang had already left the hospital. The triage service retrieved the registration and payment information; the registered number was the same as the cell phone in the taxi, and there was no other number listed as the contact person.

The infection control department called back at this time. The driver had not continued to pick up passengers after canceling the order, and the other driver had not yet come into contact with the vehicle. Liao Yongcheng stayed where he was. The sampling and treatment location were arranged by the on-duty staff in contact with the local authorities, and the vehicle was handed over to the taxi company for handling as required.

A staff member from the infection control department added, "Tell the driver to pay attention to his condition. If he experiences significant difficulty breathing, persistent chest pain, or loss of consciousness, call 120 immediately."

Qin Hai agreed and then asked Nurse Zhu to report Liao Yongcheng's contact information, license plate number, and the location of the north gate of Jinhua Garden to the duty officer.

Nurse Zhu glanced at the triage area on the outside. The people who had stayed behind earlier had already been taken away by the nurses from the fever clinic. The yellow tape was still in place, and several empty chairs were waiting for the cleaning staff to clean and disinfect them according to infection control requirements. She then turned around and took over a patient who had just arrived at the triage station.

Lin Ye called the CT room: "Xu Wenliang has been discharged from the hospital and we can't contact him now. There were several other patients with fever and cough at the same time. I'll give you their names and examination numbers, and I'd like the on-duty doctor to review these chest CT scans together."

He read out the names and inspection numbers in order from the list.

"The images were sent a while ago, but the official report hasn't been signed yet." The radiology staff member who answered the phone typed a few words on the keyboard. "I'll ask the on-call doctor to take a look first, please wait a moment."

The receiver was temporarily set aside.

Lin Ye could hear someone pulling a chair over there and then whispering Xu Wenliang's check-up number.

The keyboard and mouse rang intermittently for four or five minutes before the phone was picked up again, this time by the radiology department's on-call doctor.

"Is Dr. Qin from the emergency department in?"

Lin Ye handed the receiver over.

Qin Hai had just given his name when the other party spoke up: "Don't wait for the official report for Xu Wenliang's examination. The chest CT scans of the other two patients on the list also show multiple ground-glass opacities in both lungs, and the distribution of the lesions is similar to Xu Wenliang's imaging findings."