[No CP] "Moonlighting Surgery: I'm a Doctor in a Small Town" Author: Uncle Liu San [Completed]
Synopsis:
The comeback story of a small-town doctor and his life philosophy, based on 15+ real medical cases. Allows ordinary readers to learn medical knowledge while giving professional doctors new perspectives. A tribute to "The Good Doctor" and "Grey's Anatomy" - different doctor stories, same medical compassion.
Beijing-based doctor Liu Zhengliang was fired from his hospital after a moonlighting surgery went wrong, forcing him to return to his hometown in Northeast China. As a doctor who had made mistakes, he was assigned to the emergency department by the Seventh Hospital director who valued talent.
In this slow-paced town where people support each other yet undercurrents run deep, everyone seems to have untold stories from the past. They witnessed the city's glory days and now taste the bitterness of its decline, yet none remain stagnant. Initially out of place, Liu Zhengliang gradually integrates into this environment... This is both the comeback story of an erring doctor and the tragicomedy of ordinary Northeastern people's lives. Through numerous medical diagnoses blending worry and joy, the protagonist fulfills his original intention of treating illnesses effectively with minimal costs, while conveying the life philosophy that sometimes the second-best solution is what we need.
Chapter 1
Fushun lies east of Liaoning Province, about forty kilometers from the provincial capital Shenyang, similar to the distance between Shaoxing and Hangzhou. Shaoxing has historically produced legal advisors and scholars since ancient times. For instance, during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, when "all virtuous gathered, both young and old" at the Orchid Pavilion in Shaoxing for a gathering where they wrote essays and boasted, exhibiting great elegance. Later immortalized by Wang Xizhi's calligraphy, this became cultural memory.
Fushun is different - Fushun is a place to toughen one's nerves. Since ancient times, this place never emphasized cultural refinement, had no established aristocratic families, nor practiced gentleness and courtesy. Every dynasty made it a contested strategic location. Anyone wanting to develop here had to seriously toughen their nerves.
The first person to come toughen his nerves was Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin. According to "Yongle Encyclopedia," Xue Rengui found the route through Panjin wetlands to conquer Liaodong too muddy, so he prepared to board a ship from Qinhuangdao and cross the sea directly to Yingkou. Li Shimin suffered from seasickness, so Xue Rengui tricked him onto a ship decorated like a pavilion and got him drunk. When he sobered up, they were already on the Bohai Sea. This incident later spawned the idiom: "Crossing the sea under camouflage."
The second person to come toughen his nerves was Xu Maogong, later known as Xu Shiji, whom Li Shimin renamed Li Ji - the same figure from Wagang Fort in "Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties." Beneath Fushun's Gaoshan City, he charged repeatedly through over two hundred thousand Goguryeo troops. Later, Tang Ao, the protagonist in "Flowers in the Mirror," became sworn brothers with Li Ji's grandson Xu Jingye. When Xu Jingye and Luo Binwang rebelled, Tang Ao had his scholarly rank revoked by Wu Zetian, forcing him to go overseas to toughen his nerves. See, after visiting Fushun once, not only did one toughen their own nerves, but their grandson also became bold enough to rebel. Even the grandson's friend became brave enough to venture to Black Teeth Country, Two-Faced Country, and Dog-Snout Country like the pirate king Luffy.The third person to test his courage was Xiong Tingbi, Right Vice-Minister of the Ming Ministry of War. During the Battle of Sarhu, Qing Taizu Nurhaci annihilated three Ming armies east of Fushun City, leaving no organized Ming forces within hundreds of miles. Panic spread everywhere as officials of all ranks began relocating to Shanhaiguan. Riding through a heavy snowstorm along what would later become the Shenyang-Fushun Expressway route, Xiong Tingbi arrived leisurely at Fushun's city walls with just two companions. Finding Fushun still holding out, he ordered suona horns to be blown and conducted a memorial ceremony for fallen soldiers before withdrawing unhurriedly. Nurhaci watched from the mountain but dared not descend to confront him.
The fourth courage-tester was Japanese national Yamaguchi Fumio. Unlike the militarists in the Kwantung Army, this fellow was quite righteous. Working at the West Open-Pit Mine of the South Manchuria Railway Company, he had a beautiful daughter with an exceptional voice who was often invited to sing at the Happy Garden Dance Hall in Xinfu District. He deeply resented such attempts to whitewash the aggression. Later, when a Volunteer Army unit attacked the Laohutai Coal Mine where he worked, Japanese troops unable to locate the resistance fighters massacred over 3,000 villagers in Pingdingshan Village along the Volunteer Army's route. Suspected of collaborating with Chinese anti-Japanese forces, Yamaguchi was detained before eventually being released. After his imprisonment, he abandoned his Fushun job—perhaps feeling he had failed his courage test—and took his daughter to Shenyang.
His daughter was Li Xianglan, who sang the famous song "Night Blooming Jasmine." Later, Jacky Cheung would also release a song titled "Li Xianglan"—referring to this very Li Xianglan.
The fifth courage-tester was Liu Zhengliang, a Neurosurgery doctor from Beijing Heping Hospital who returned to his hometown to perform a challenging surgery.Liu Zhengliang was truly an odd character, the kind of well-behaved "model child" everyone praised since childhood. Growing up poor, he'd heat leftover rice with boiling water and pair it with a single salted duck egg for breakfast, never complaining to his parents. After starting work, he remained frugal with his own money—every morning without fail, he'd have milk with boiled eggs, claiming he never tired of it after years of repetition. Lunch was a bowl of rice with Shanghai greens, only splurging on minced pork with string beans during holidays. Dinner was either porridge or boiled corn. His wardrobe consisted solely of black and white items; he'd buy four or five identical pieces from Uniqlo and rotate them. The rare day he wore a colorful scarf, the hospital nurses would gossip about it for hours. He showered morning and night, hung four sets of bedsheets punctually at 8 AM every Sunday in the staff dormitory's drying area, and even labeled his water bottles with opening times using a permanent marker—a habit carried over from his nursing profession. He had no friends, largely because he didn't know how to make them, clashing with the typical Northeasterner's sociable nature. His life seemed to require nothing from others, thus needing no friends. Friendship, to him, was merely emotional maintenance during specific periods of mutual need. From high school to his doctorate, then through competitive selection into China's top hospital, Liu had bulldozed past all competitors like a marathoner in the final stretch—where could one find energy to make friends mid-race?
Having lived in Fushun for twenty years, Liu's return now made his heart flutter with unfamiliarity after a decade away. Fushun was a peculiar place: you missed it from afar, yet upon returning, you'd want to slam the car door shut and leave immediately after stepping out.
Take the local sense of loyalty. Liu's neighbors had a husband bedridden by a stroke at thirty, yet his tall, beautiful wife never faced harassment from the local ruffians—even they considered bullying her shameful. Thirty years later, aged and faded, she'd never been publicly disrespected. When Liu's grandfather had his pension stolen by knife-wielding teens, the old man fumed privately but refused to report it: "I recognized one kid—Old Tongtou's grandson, a good-for-nothing like his father. I'm not scared; I'm saving face for Old Tongtou. He's gone now, but when I first migrated to the Northeast alone, that winter when icicles hung from eaves to doorsteps, he gave me his only pair of padded trousers. That brat who robbed me? Just like his dad—worthless. Old Tongtou had a wretched life, with neither son nor grandson amounting to anything." Then the grandfather simply let the robbery fade from memory.You say the people in this place are awful. In the middle of the night, clothes hung on window grilles—they’d steal everything except underwear. Last summer, Liu Zhengliang’s mother went back to her factory, which was quite far from home, to handle her retirement paperwork. Without bringing a change of clothes, she washed the ones she was wearing and hung them on the grille. She planned to stay overnight at her parents’ old house and leave the next day, but at daybreak, she discovered that her clothes, the hangers, and even the metal clips had been stolen. Liu Zhengliang’s mother was furious and immediately called his father to bring her some clothes.
You say the people in this place are tough. The year Liu Zhengliang left for college coincided with the massive layoffs. Factories along the road from west to east—carbon plants, chemical plants, asphalt felt factories, machinery plants, forklift factories, steel mills, and the West Open-Pit Mine—were all letting people go. At night, Liu Zhengliang’s father and his fellow workers would visit each other’s homes, discussing how much each had received for buying out their years of service. In the market, men squatted by the roadside, holding rows of small rectangular wooden boards strung together like shutters. Each board listed skills like bricklaying, carpentry, plumbing, or manual labor. The more skills they had, the longer the row of boards. In the dead of winter, spit would freeze within a minute. The ice under their feet wasn’t from melted snow but from frozen spit. Groups of ten or eight gathered in circles, waiting by the roadside from morning till night. They could build heated brick beds, make cabinets, fix plumbing, and carry 200-pound sacks—impressive skills, by any measure. After freezing all day, instead of going home at night, a few would head to a small restaurant for a drink. Three men would dare to order five lamb skewers, two plates of cold dishes, one plate of stir-fried green peppers with dried tofu, and twelve bottles of beer. When poverty becomes a tradition, it even develops a sense of ritual. Take the stir-fried green peppers with dried tofu, for example. If the sauce didn’t cling to the plate, it meant no starch had been added, and the working class wouldn’t stand for it. They’d start yelling, “Boss, can you run this business properly or not? We’ve never cooked state banquet dishes, and we can’t afford them, so we won’t complain. But is this how you make stir-fried peppers with dried tofu? No thickening at all? The tofu should be tender and springy, like the cheeks of a young girl, but you’ve cooked it into something worn-out and tough.”
After putting on this show, they’d spot two acquaintances at the next table and invite them over to drink together. When the bill came, it was five yuan for the lamb skewers, six for the two cold dishes, six for the stir-fried peppers with dried tofu, and fourteen yuan and forty cents for the twelve bottles of Tianhu Beer—thirty-one yuan and forty cents in total. Then there were the two cold dishes and one Grilled Chicken Rack from the other table, which came to seven yuan and fifty cents. But since those two had joined them for drinks and later ordered ten more bottles of beer for twelve yuan, there was a big disagreement over who had consumed what. After digging in their pockets for a while, no one wanted to foot the bill. One cursed at his companion, “You’re always freeloading, mooching every day. When have I ever seen you pay?”
The other shot back, “We were eating just fine, and you called us over to join your table. Now you won’t even treat us after we’ve finished.”
Over a meal totaling fifty yuan and ninety cents, a fight broke out. Beer bottles flew everywhere, leaving two with minor injuries and two with slight injuries. Meanwhile, Liu Zhengliang’s father, who had organized the gathering, had slipped away to the bathroom halfway through to avoid paying. When the police took statements and asked why only four out of the five had been fighting, the guys realized that the bastard had skipped out on the bill.
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