Free Web NovelChapter 51: Chapter 51: What Window on Earth Did Heaven Close for Him?
Yangcheng, arrivals gate.
The first thing Jiang He did when he met up with Chen Hao was hand him his phone.
"Kid, here, look at the wallpaper."
Chen Hao: "?"
He took the phone and looked.
In the photo, Jiang He was standing ramrod straight... but that wasn’t important.
What was important was the girl next to him, her shoulder pressed tightly against his. She was smiling so wide her eyes curved into crescents, her hands playfully forming the shape of pistols.
The corners of the girl’s eyes were still a little red, but that couldn’t hide the vibrant, bone-deep beauty and liveliness radiating from her.
Chen Hao was stunned at first.
He blinked, a trace of confusion flashing in his eyes.
’Which celebrity is this? Didn’t Old Jiang go to the Capital City to meet his online girlfriend? How did he end up meeting a celebrity and changing his phone wallpaper?’
Then, it slowly dawned on him, and his confusion quickly morphed into shock.
He brought the phone a little closer, staring intently at the girl’s face on the screen.
’Holy shit! This... this fucking... can’t be Old Jiang’s online girlfriend, can it? Huh? What? Ugh!’
After the shock, a wave of envy washed over him.
And after that, it was just pure jealousy...
’How is this fair?! We’re all miserable bachelors from the Medical School. How come this kid is not only a genius at his studies but also finds a girlfriend who’s so unreasonably beautiful?!’
’What door did God ever close for him?’
"So? Come on, give me your review," Jiang He said, looking at Chen Hao with a teasing smile.
Chen Hao took a deep breath, shoved the phone back into Jiang He’s hand, and landed a playful punch on his shoulder. "You lucky bastard, you did it again!"
Jealousy aside, his brother was finally off the market. Chen Hao broke into a wide grin. "Congrats, man. Your girl is gorgeous."
Jiang He slung an arm around his shoulder and asked, "So, was buying those clothes a waste of money?"
Chen Hao: "It was a total steal."
Jiang He: "Should I have gone to meet her?"
Chen Hao: "You had to! Hey, are there any more like her? Where do I go to sign up?"
Jiang He: "Her roommate, Xu Juan, is a nice person and comes from a good family. I can introduce you two if I get the chance."
Chen Hao snatched the suitcase and said, "What are we waiting for then? C’mon, Daddy, let’s go eat. Everyone’s waiting for you." ƒгeewёbnovel.com
"Now?" Jiang He glanced at the time. It was already almost eleven at night. "It’s so late. Aren’t you guys tired?"
"Tired my ass! We’ve been pulling all-nighters for days. Our biological clocks are shattered to pieces. There’s no way we can sleep now."
Jiang He patted Chen Hao’s shoulder. "You guys have worked hard."
"Cut the crap." Chen Hao’s face was dead serious. "Do not forget about the roommate matter."
"You got it, bro."
...
Southern Medical University Back Street, at Old Wang’s Barbecue Stall.
Aside from his roommates, Cheng Xiyao was also there.
She was wearing a simple white knit sweater and holding a cup of original-flavor milk tea.
As the only girl in the project group, she had also been pulling all-nighters with the guys to organize data, and now she had faint dark circles under her eyes.
"Welcome back to the team, Old Jiang!" Li Zijian said, raising his glass for a toast.
"Thanks for all your hard work." Jiang He took the beer and downed it in one go.
"It’s not hard work. As long as the data we run can actually get published in a core journal, I’d stay up for another three nights straight," Wang Bo said, full of anticipation for the results.
"Let’s not talk about data for a second!" Chen Hao had big news to announce. "Guys, I’ve got something to say."
Li Zijian asked, "What’s up?"
Chen Hao: "I just saw Old Jiang’s phone screen. His long-distance girlfriend... she’s invincible, okay?"
Li Zijian: "?"
Wang Bo: "?"
The two of them snatched Jiang He’s phone and began passing it around with grave expressions.
Cheng Xiyao also leaned over, curious to take a look.
In the end, everyone’s conclusion was surprisingly unanimous:
Jiang He had hit the jackpot!
Li Zijian had always fancied himself the Don Juan of dorm room 402, but now...
He sighed heavily and said, "Old Jiang, are you secretly a master? That... that method you mentioned last time, the ’win her back with a roasted sweet potato’ one, is it real? Should I go buy one and try it tonight?"
Jiang He laughed. "Go on, give it a try."
Beside them, Wang Bo was already numb.
If he still had the confidence to try and catch up to Jiang He academically, when it came to finding a partner, he had to admit complete defeat...
Wang Bo put his hands together and bowed to Jiang He. "Bro, I’m begging you, please teach me. My standards aren’t high. Just getting out of singlehood is enough."
Jiang He chuckled and clinked his glass against his. "It’ll happen naturally when fate decides. Besides, I suggest you focus on your studies first."
Rushing into a relationship isn’t a good thing.
If you meet the right person, start a family first; if you meet a benefactor, establish your career first. Unfortunately, most people you meet are just weirdos.
Amidst the noisy banter, Cheng Xiyao sat quietly.
Girls tend to be more observant.
She noticed Jiang He’s left hand. freewёbnoνel.com
So she asked, "Are you engaged?"
"Yeah," Jiang He replied crisply.
Although he and Teacher Shen hadn’t officially confirmed their relationship, he felt it was very important to label himself as ’taken’.
Whether in his social circles at school or in a future lab, it would save him from all sorts of unnecessary trouble and advances.
He had neither the time nor the energy to deal with any emotional entanglements outside of his academic pursuits.
Hearing Jiang He’s straightforward admission, Cheng Xiyao gently took a sip of her milk tea.
It would be a lie to say she didn’t feel a little disappointed.
After all, for the past two years, Jiang He had been the boy who would silently cast a few extra glances her way in the library.
As an outstanding girl, it was only natural to feel someone’s affection and derive a sliver of superiority from it.
At first, she didn’t like Jiang He at all. However, after finding out he was the internet cafe legend, the one who submitted a perfect paper in the pathological thinking competition, and was even running his own project...
...her resolve had actually wavered.
But during the National Day holiday, through endless sessions of data verification, she gradually stripped away those vague feelings of fondness and began to clearly recognize one thing:
Her feelings for Jiang He were more a form of admiration for the strong.
Not love.
So now, seeing the ring, that tiny bit of disappointment lasted for only a moment before vanishing without a trace, like a breeze rippling across water.
In its place was a sense of relief.
She put down her milk tea, picked up the glass in front of her with a shallow layer of beer, and raised it to Jiang He from across the table full of barbecue skewers.
"Congratulations. I wish you two a long and happy life together."
Her tone was perfectly sincere.
Jiang He looked at her, nodded, and raised his glass in return. "Thanks."
This little interlude was quickly over.
After three rounds of drinks, Chen Hao brought the conversation back on track.
"Old Jiang, as for Affiliated Hospital No. 1, there are a total of three hundred and seventy-two postoperative medical records for pancreaticoduodenectomies from the past five years... It’s only at a major center like our Affiliated Hospital No. 1 that you can find this many. A city-level hospital wouldn’t even have fifty cases in five years."
"Anyway, we’ve already entered all of them into the system as you requested. The problem is, a large portion of these patients have incomplete postoperative follow-up records. With just this data, if you want to run the numbers for the independent prognostic impact of lymph node metastasis rate... honestly, the sample size and persuasive power aren’t quite enough."
Wang Bo also chimed in, "That’s right. There’s little research on this topic in the country right now. If we can’t produce long-term, detailed survival tracking data, even if we write the paper, it’ll easily be rejected by reviewers at any core journal."
Although Cheng Xiyao didn’t speak, she also looked at Jiang He. This was the issue that had worried her most over the past few days.
Facing his team’s doubts, Jiang He took an Aigo brand external hard drive out of his bag and said:
"You’re right. Missing data would indeed be a bit troublesome. But I had some unexpected gains on this trip to the Capital City."
He pointed to the hard drive on the table.
"In here is the postoperative pathological tracking for pancreatic head cancer and cholangiocarcinoma from Peking Union Medical College Hospital’s General Surgery department, as well as patient survival follow-up data for at least five years."
Chen Hao, Wang Bo, Li Zijian, and Cheng Xiyao were all stunned to hear this.
In 2008, medical data silos were impenetrable. Sharing data between hospitals was next to impossible.
Never mind an ordinary undergraduate team—even a professor from Southern Medical University would need to go through a long and complicated approval process to get their hands on core clinical tracking data from Peking Union Medical College Hospital General Surgery.
And Jiang He had just casually gotten it?
"Your... online girlfriend... she isn’t the daughter of the Director of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, is she?" Chen Hao asked.
"Uh, she isn’t, but her roommate is," Jiang He said. "Anyway, with the data from Peking Union Medical College Hospital as a supplement, we can conduct a multi-center, large-sample joint analysis. Once we merge these two datasets and run the Cox regression curves, the current TNM staging system will have to take our proposed revisions seriously."
"Wait," Chen Hao interrupted Jiang He. "You mean to say, the roommate you said was a nice person and were planning to introduce to me... is the daughter of the Director of Peking Union Medical College Hospital?"
Jiang He: "Yeah."
Chen Hao: "?!!"
While he stood there dumbfounded, the other two boys went crazy when they heard this.
Especially Wang Bo, who exclaimed frantically, "Old Jiang, you have to introduce us too! You can’t play favorites!"
The scene immediately descended into chaos, with Cheng Xiyao covering her mouth to stifle her laughter.
Amidst all the pulling and tugging, Jiang He unhurriedly picked up a glass of alcohol and said:
"No problem. You’ve all worked hard these past few days. Get some rest. You can leave the rest to me."
