Chapter 86: Melon-Eating Club
Chi Chaoshen gave him quick-acting heart pills, finally helping him breathe again.
The man suddenly looked a decade older. Weakly waving his hand, he asked the secretary to call his daughter in for testing.
Sure enough, only the daughter was his biological child.
Tears streamed down Mr. He’s face. “What kind of sin did I commit? After carefully raising those sons, not a single one was mine.”
Chi Qian consoled him: “Uncle, you should look at the bright side. Sure, the sons aren’t yours, but the green hat [1] is!”
Mr. He nearly spat out blood.
Chaoshen pinched her arm, signaling her to stop poking him before the poor man really keeled over.
But clearly, the He family’s sky was about to change.
Then Chaoshen took Chi Qian into the second ward.
This one held the matriarch of a certain financial group. She wasn’t hospitalized because she was sick either.
No—her daughter-in-law had angered her. To force her son to divorce, she was faking illness.
“Dean Chi, I might need to stay here a while longer.” The old lady had a sharp face, and her tone was just as harsh.
“My useless daughter-in-law still hasn’t come to kneel and admit her mistake. If I don’t teach her a lesson this time, she’ll never learn who runs this family.”
“Five years of marriage, and not a single egg laid. I only said a couple words, and she dared argue with me and even asked for a divorce! Tell me, what kind of wife acts like that?”
“My son marrying her was already her greatest blessing. She should see whether she’s worthy of him. Divorce is the best outcome…”
The daughter-in-law was from an ordinary family. Her only adopted son had married her after graduation, ignoring the family’s objections.
Naturally, the old lady resented her and often tormented her afterward.
Chaoshen only smiled faintly, saying nothing.
The old woman glanced at Chi Qian behind him, frowned. “Dean Chi, did you change secretaries? What’s her name, where did she graduate from, what skills does she have?”
Chi Qian grinned, showing four teeth. “Granny, my specialty is life expectancy.”
The old lady choked.
“By the way, Granny, is your son divorced yet?” Chi Qian asked.
“You’re quite the nosy little girl…”
Speak of the devil—the son called right then, saying he had just walked out of the Civil Affairs Bureau with divorce papers.
Hanging up, the old lady smugly said, “My son has already divorced her. See? Oppose me, and that’s the result.”
Chi Qian: “Didn’t you once lose a daughter?”
The old lady froze. “How do you know that?”
When she was young, she gave birth to a daughter, but the girl went missing at one year old and was never found.
Later, unable to bear more children, she had adopted a son.
No one knew this except her late husband.
Sensing something off, Chaoshen turned to Chi Qian.
Chi Qian: “Congratulations, the daughter-in-law you just drove out is your long-lost biological daughter. Aren’t you happy?”
Old Lady: “……”
“You son has long known about this but never told you, letting your conflict with your daughter-in-law grow until you agreed to their divorce.”
The old lady: “……”
She clutched her chest, looking suffocated. “That divorce certificate… can it be returned?”
This time it was Chi Chaosheng who was left speechless. Did she think the civil affairs bureau was a marketplace? Divorce certificates could be refunded?
Chi Qian comforted her: “Don’t be sad. Your daughter is actually very happy to be rid of a mama’s boy and a vicious mother-in-law. She’s already on her way to live a free and carefree life.”
“From now on, you and your son can live together.”
The old lady rolled her eyes and fainted.
Chi Qian: “Uncle, quick, call an ambulance!”
Chi Chaoshen: “…This is already a hospital.”
After being resuscitated, the old lady trembled as she ordered someone to call her son, to bring her daughter-in-law… no, her daughter back.
But news came back that her daughter had already boarded a plane abroad—just half an hour earlier.
The old lady regretted it so much she nearly cried herself dry.
When they left the ward, Chi Chaoshen glanced at his notebook. “The next… victim is—”
He stopped mid-sentence. “Why did I just say victim?”
Chi Qian stuffed her hands in her sleeves. “Uncle, you could rename this VIP ward. Just call it the Melon-Eating Club.”
Eat melons until you’re full.
Chi Chaoshen: “Where on earth do you hear all this?”
Chi Qian pulled out a tortoise shell from her sleeve. “Uncle, do you believe a tortoise shell has spiritual power?”
Of course he didn’t, but after seeing her expose so many shocking things, he almost couldn’t help but believe.
He nodded.
But Chi Qian looked at him with deep disappointment: “I stopped believing in this when I was three and a half. Uncle, you’re worse than me! Out there, people will scam you!”
“We must always believe in science!”
Chi Chaoshen: “…Throw away the tortoise shell before you say that.”
“No.”
Calling this floor the Melon-Eating Club wasn’t wrong. Chi Qian had eaten melons nonstop, each juicier than the last, until her belly was full.
Even Chi Chaoshen felt stuffed. “How did I never know our VIP patients were this… unusual?”
“Uncle, you meant to say bizarre, right?” Chi Qian chewed on a candy ball. “Don’t worry, it’s not just the patients who are bizarre—the doctors too.”
“Hm?”
“For example, that attending surgeon—his private life is a mess. His wife’s at home but he still keeps mistresses outside. To get promoted, he sabotages colleagues and bribes superiors.”
Chi Chaoshen instinctively pulled out pen and paper.
Chi Qian rubbed the tortoise shell: “And that associate chief in internal medicine—ever wonder why he’s been mediocre for years? Lazy? No. He got into med school by stealing someone’s exam scores, and his brother-in-law, a department head, covered for him.”
Chi Chaoshen scribbled furiously.
Chi Qian: “The director in charge of drug procurement too, lining his pockets…”
Chi Chaoshen’s pen flew faster and faster.
Chi Qian: “And blah blah blah…”
By the time she finished, Chi Chaoshen’s hand was completely numb.
These were the kind of secrets you couldn’t know without planting a bug in people’s homes.
He hadn’t been at First Hospital for long, but he was shocked to find so many rotten people under him.
No—that wasn’t right. The more shocking one was sitting right beside him.
Had she bugged their houses?
Chi Qian didn’t know, but because of her “melons,” a massive cleanup soon swept through First Hospital.
Once Chi Chaoshen decided to act, he never left room for retreat. He waited until he had full evidence, then cut out the parasites.
This time, the hospital was purged from top to bottom, the atmosphere transformed.
But what worried him more than the corruption was: how could Chi Qian possibly know all this? Could probing into fate harm her own lifespan?
Wasn’t that always the plot in dramas?
Chi Qian just shrugged: “I work hard to stay healthy! I balance my diet, I never pull all-nighters, just until 3 a.m. I don’t go bungee jumping 800 meters in the air, don’t dive 20,000 leagues under the sea. I watch more health programs than anyone! If this doesn’t make me immortal, what else will?”
Chi Chaoshen couldn’t help laughing.
Her version of “health” was just drinking from a thermos while staying up until dawn.
She didn’t skip bungee jumping because of health—it was because they didn’t allow minors.
And the health shows? She took notes like crazy, but doing it? Different story.
Sometimes Chaoshen really couldn’t tell—was she afraid of death, or looking for it?
Speaking of fear of death…
That freak came to mind. He was even more terrified of death than Chi Qian. Which was why, in the end, he chose… to make others die.
Footnotes:
[1] Green Hats: In China “wearing a green hat” (dài lǜ mào zǐ) is an expression that Chinese use when a woman cheats on her husband or boyfriend because the phrase sounds similar to the word for cuckold.
