The Intern Memorized the Surgeon's Schedule novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Eight Minutes

Tong Yu earns eight minutes at the canteen table, finds a typo in Han's own paper, and is handed a pen; then Lu announces that Dr Tong will present at grand rounds with the chief's approval, which Han never gave.

On Wednesday at 12:50 Han Zhiyuan sat down at the corner table by the canteen window with a bowl of plain noodles.

He ate them in eight minutes, every Wednesday, with a pair of chopsticks and a medical journal propped against the soup.

Tong Yu knew this because he had watched it for three years from two tables away.

Today he carried his tray across the room and set it down in the opposite chair.

Han looked at the tray.

"This seat is taken," he said.

"By whom, Director?"

"By me, in a minute. I told you not to bring me anything."

"I haven't brought anything," said Tong Yu. "I brought myself. Eight minutes. I promise to use six."

Han lifted a pair of chopsticks and put them down again.

"Sit," he said, and went back to his journal.

Tong Yu sat, and ate three mouthfuls of rice in perfect silence.

It was the most difficult thing he had done all week.

"Director," he said at last. "May I raise a correction?"

"To what?"

"Your 2019 paper on the inflow clamp. Table two, page seven."

Han's eyes came up from the journal.

"The text says eighty-six percent. The table says sixty-eight. The digits are swapped."

Tong Yu kept his voice level.

"Two later papers copied the table and not the text."

Han sat back. "You read my 2019 paper."

"I read all of them, Director. Eleven of them. That's the only error."

Han said nothing for a moment.

Then he took a pen from his coat pocket.

He slid it across the table with his left hand, to the paper napkin next to Tong Yu's bowl.

"Write the right figure," he said. "I'll send the journal an erratum."

"You could write it yourself."

"I could. You have the table in your head, and I would like it correct."

Tong Yu wrote *86%* on the napkin in his blocky student hand and slid it back.

Han took it and folded it into his top pocket without looking at it.

"There is a dinner on the twenty-fourth," he said, after a while. "The Surgical Society. I am asked to give a short speech."

"I know, Director. It's on the board in the office."

"Then you will also know I leave after the soup."

"Yes. You always leave after the soup," said Tong Yu. "And you hold the glass in both hands."

The chopsticks stopped.

Han's face went quite still, and his left hand moved to cover his right on the table.

"Poor circulation," he said. "My hands are cold."

"I'm sorry, Director. I didn't mean to be rude."

"You are never rude. That is what troubles me about you."

He picked the chopsticks up again and finished the bowl.

It was 12:57, and Tong Yu was only halfway through the rice.

He had never in his life been so happy to be at a table.

He was about to say so, or something equally stupid, when a warm voice came from behind his shoulder.

"Director Han! I hoped I'd find you here."

Deputy Director Lu had a thin file in one hand and Jiang Tao hovering at his elbow with another.

Jiang Tao was twenty-nine, narrow-shouldered, in a creased white coat, and he looked at the floor.

"Deputy Director," said Han.

"Grand rounds are a week from tomorrow." Lu smiled at the table.

"I'd like to give the interns a taste of the real thing," he said. "Dr Tong, I've put you down to present case seven."

Tong Yu put his spoon down.

"I've been here three days, Deputy Director."

"Which is why it will be educational. Director Han approved it, of course. Dr Jiang took his word in the corridor on Monday."

Han turned his head slowly and looked at Jiang Tao.

Jiang Tao kept looking at the floor.

"I do not remember approving anything," said Han.

"Don't you?" Lu's eyebrows went up in perfect concern.

"We can withdraw it, if it's too much for him. I wouldn't want the boy embarrassed."

He smiled.

"I would only have thought that after Monday's tea, you'd back him."

There was a long, uncomfortable pause, and three tables had stopped chewing to listen.

Han could say that he had never approved it.

Then Lu would tell the whole canteen that the chief had no confidence in the young man he had just let sit at his table.

Tong Yu watched him do the sum, and watched the answer arrive.

"Dr Tong will present," said Han, coolly.

"Wonderful." Lu handed over the thin file with a flourish. "Thursday week, half past seven, the main lecture hall. Everyone will be there."

He went away with Jiang Tao behind him.

Tong Yu opened the file and read the first page, and a cold weight settled in his stomach.

*Case 7. Left lateral segment tumour. Resection under continuous inflow clamp.*

Han stood up and looked at the title over his shoulder.

"That is the 2018 technique," he said, very low. "I stopped teaching it three years ago."

"I know, Director."

"Then he has chosen it on purpose. Whatever you say about it, you will be wrong in front of me."

"Yes," said Tong Yu.

Han picked up his thermos and his journal.

"Your eight minutes are over," he said, and he walked out.

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