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

The nickname "Night Shift King of Hell" first spread from the emergency room nurses' station.

Nurse Zhao firmly denied that she had given the name.

She wiped the treatment tray without looking up: "My original words were that Lin Ye was on the night shift. Even if the real King of Hell came, he'd have to register and wait in line first. Who changed that?"

When the message reached the residency training group, it was simplified to "Night Shift King of Hell".

When it was then passed on to the department heads' groups, it gave rise to nine characters: "When the King of Hell calls roll, the department head answers the phone."

When Qin Hai saw the group message, the lid of his stainless steel thermos cup clicked loudly, almost deforming it.

"Who sent it?"

No one in the office responded.

Ma Hao buried his head in the medical record folder, Jiang Peng pretended to fumble for a pen in his white coat pocket, and Nurse Zhao, carrying a stack of IV patches, turned around and slipped away to the treatment room.

Lin Ye sat in front of the computer, his ears burning.

He moved the mouse to the side, but the cursor on the screen was still flashing in the "Chief Complaint" column.

The nickname makes it sound like he's hoping something bad will happen to his patients.

Ma Hao's shoulders trembled as he suppressed a laugh: "The nickname is quite catchy and easily recognizable."

Lin Ye glanced at him: "The patient won't feel comfortable hearing that."

Ma Hao's laughter caught in his throat.

Jiang Peng clicked the pen cap shut: "That's true. Nobody wants to come to the emergency room and encounter the words 'King of Hell'."

Nurse Zhao walked by carrying a freshly prepared IV bag, her tone icy: "If you know the truth, don't spread it around. Jokes in the emergency room are unacceptable; using patients' lives as a joke is just immoral."

But the patient's family doesn't think that way.

This morning, an elderly patient's family member came to deliver a copy of their discharge summary and casually asked, "Which day is Dr. Lin on night shift? My dad said that if he feels dizzy or has chest tightness again, he'll come when he's on duty."

Qin Hai happened to be passing by carrying his rounds kit, and his face immediately darkened: "The emergency room isn't a restaurant; we don't accept doctors being scheduled."

The family members laughed awkwardly, "We only feel at ease when Dr. Lin is around, not because we need to order a doctor."

"Even if you feel at ease, it's not allowed." Qin Hai's tone was firm. "If there's a real emergency, call 120 immediately. Don't pick and choose a day to wait for a doctor."

The family members nodded repeatedly and left.

Nurse Zhao leaned closer and whispered, "Director, this is the patients' word of mouth."

Qin Hai glared at her: "Can reputation replace the readings on a monitor?"

Nurse Zhao smiled and slipped away.

On the other hand, complaints from department heads have piled up in the department head group chat.

Tang Zhendong, director of the cardiology department, spoke up first: "Last night my phone vibrated, and my wife sat up immediately, asking if Lin Ye was looking for you."

Dr. Zhou Mingyuan, Director of Cardiac and Vascular Surgery, replied: "The first thing I do before bed now is check the emergency room schedule."

Pediatrics Director Liang Xiulan: [Our nurses have already posted Lin Ye's night shift dates on the duty room door.]

Dr. Jiang Shumin, Director of the Department of Otolaryngology: [Our department recommends that the emergency department send a night shift warning message to all departments 24 hours in advance.]

Qin Hai finally couldn't resist and typed a message in reply.

[Further discussion on our department's resident trainees: From now on, all consultation forms in the emergency room will have the remarks column stating "Recommended by the chief physician and his team."]

The group was silent for a full three minutes.

Then, Shen Ruomei, the head of obstetrics, posted a single word: 【Ruthless.】

The phone screen went dark, and the waiting chairs outside the nurses' station were already full.

The night shift didn't stay quiet like the group messages.

At 10 p.m., the emergency room was packed with people. The temperature had dropped after the rain, and the room was filled with children with fever and cough, elderly people who had fallen and bumped into things, and young people who had drunk too much and had stomach aches.

Lin Ye saw more than a dozen patients in a row. The system didn't give any warning, but he didn't dare to relax for a second. He listened to the lungs of children, checked the pupils of the elderly, and asked each young person with stomach pain if they had chest tightness or black stools. The system didn't give any warnings, and he didn't skip any of the necessary physical examinations.

Sun Zhiqiang saw this but didn't praise him. He simply pushed a fully written medical record to Jiang Peng and said, "Write it like this. Don't just write 'no obvious abnormalities' and call it a day."

Jiang Peng had just finished writing an electrocardiogram request form for a patient with chest tightness and muttered in a low voice, "Now everyone looks like they're hiding a high-risk condition."

Sun Zhiqiang leaned against the nurses' station: "This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that you dare not miss a diagnosis, the bad thing is that it is easy to order excessive tests. We need to be vigilant in the emergency room, and even more importantly, we need to rely on evidence."

Lin Ye listened from the side and silently kept these words in mind.

At 1:30 a.m., someone outside the nurses' station suddenly shouted at the top of their lungs, "Doctor! Someone outside has vomited and passed out!"

Lin Ye rushed out quickly.

On a bench outside the emergency room, a middle-aged woman was bent over, vomiting so badly she couldn't straighten up. Several takeout boxes with night market logos were at her feet. Her husband, supporting her, looked helpless: "She ate something bad. She ate barbecue at the night market and has vomited three times already."

Nurse Zhao squatted down to take blood pressure and casually asked, "Is anyone else who ate with us feeling unwell?"

The man pointed outside the door: "There are a few more friends here, they all have diarrhea."

No sooner had he finished speaking than two young men, each clutching their aches and pains, staggered in: "Doctor, there are six of us at our table, and we've all vomited and had diarrhea."

Sun Zhiqiang frowned immediately: "A mass food poisoning?"

The crowd in the emergency room lobby instantly became a little restless.

One, two, three.

Within ten minutes, all six people at the table had arrived, complaining of vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain—their symptoms seemed to match perfectly. Some complained that the grilled oysters weren't fresh, others said there was something wrong with the cold dishes, and still others were already searching on their phones for "how to claim compensation for food poisoning." As they compared symptoms, the more they talked, the more it seemed like they had the same problem.

Lin Ye scanned each one in turn, his heart pounding even harder.

While the symptoms of poisoning from the same pathogen can vary in severity, people eating at the same table may also be at risk of death from completely unrelated causes.

Upon receiving the news, Qin Hai rushed to the front desk and immediately gave the order: "Immediately triage patients. Those with mild symptoms should go to the observation area for intravenous fluids, while those showing signs of worsening should be taken directly to the emergency room."

Lin Ye checked each person's vital signs one by one.

Although the first five people were making a lot of noise, they were conscious and their blood pressure and heart rate were stable.

When he reached the sixth man sitting in the corner, he first caught a faint, almost undetectable whiff of pesticide. The man hadn't vomited much, but he was covered in sweat, his pupils were shrunk to pinpoints, and saliva was dripping from the corners of his mouth, which he didn't even have the strength to wipe away.

A light blue system notification popped up.

[Emergency room alert activated.]

Patient: Deng Jun, male, 42 years old.

[Symptom: Mass food poisoning at a night market.]

High risk: Acute organophosphate poisoning.

[Probability of misdiagnosis: 87%]

[Key abnormalities: pinpoint pupils, profuse sweating, drooling, and muscle fasciculations; symptoms completely different from those of the other five people at the table.]

[Countdown to respiratory failure: 41 minutes and 03 seconds.]

Lin Ye's gaze was fixed on the man.

Everyone around him was complaining of stomach aches and needing IV fluids, but he remained quietly huddled in the corner, not uttering a single sound.

"This person is being taken to the emergency room."

The first man to arrive was stunned: "He was eating at the same table as us, he must have gotten sick too, right?"

Lin Ye reached out and supported Deng Jun's shoulder. The clothes on Deng Jun's shoulder were so wet they could be wrung out, but they didn't look like they had just been pulled out of the water. When Lin Ye's fingertips touched Deng Jun's arm, he could feel the muscles under the skin trembling slightly.

This person didn't cry out in pain, didn't try to grab a seat, and didn't even have the energy to explain what they had done during the day.

It is this excessive quiet that is most dangerous.

He is not.