Chapter 12 Cutting an Apple
After work, Jiang Han did as instructed by the chief and came to inpatient ward no.23 patient room 001, Jiang Peiqi’s room. When Jiang Peiqi saw Jiang Han knocked and enter the room, immediately a smile lit up all over her face. Her previous insomnia and constant pain was torturous, not to mention all the piled up work made her quite dishearten.
After such a long time she was finally able to sleep peaceful because of Jiang Han’s ma.s.sage last night. Furthermore, when she woke up, she notice that her vision had improved and therefore felt nothing but grat.i.tude for Jiang Han. Now that he was here, she wanted to get off the bed to personally greet him.
Although Jiang Han was now aware of her ident.i.ty and status, but even if he was not, he would still not allow a patient to get up just to greet him, thus he promptly approached the bed side before she could managed to get up.
“Auntie, I saw that you were sound asleep last night, so I left without saying a word. Did you sleep well?” Jiang Han was always polite and courteous with others, his tone and mannerism did not change even after he learn of Jiang Peiqi’s ident.i.ty.
Jiang Peiqi knew deep down, that Jiang Han came after she sent her men out to look for him. He should know her ident.i.ty by now, and yet he did not act any differently than usual. A young man like him that was neither servile nor overbearing was hard to come by these days.
“Good, very good. I haven’t sleep this well in a very long time. Young man, I’m truly grateful for what you’ve done.” Jiang Peiqi’s face was full of smiles, she looked at Jiang Han and said, “What’s your name, young man?”
“Auntie, I am called Jiang Han. The Jiang River flows east, and the cold comes when the heat leaves. (1)” Jiang Han gently replied, his face was smiling too. His inherent pleasant and inviting personality was such that anyone Jiang Han came into contact with would inexplicable find it hard not to like him.
“Jiang Han, good, I’ll keep that in mind. Do you mind if auntie here troubled you for another ma.s.sage, it wouldn’t take up too much of your time now, would it?” It had to be mentioned, that those with a high social status usually have better self-restraint. With the manner in which Jiang Peiqi made her request, it would only make Jiang Han feel better even though he couldn’t actually really refuse.
“Of course not, I’m a resident doctor after all. I heard from the chief that the ma.s.sage was really effective for Auntie, so in the future I should be able to come by every day. At any rate, our biggest desire as doctors is to see the patient’s condition improve.” Jiang Han said.
Similar to the previous night, Jiang Han naturally applied his spiritual power as he gave Jiang Peiqi a ma.s.sage. Its effectiveness was undoubtedly just as phenomenal, however this time, Jiang Peiqi did not fall asleep. After the ma.s.sage, she laid on the bad, while Jiang Han sat by her side to converse with her.
“Little Jiang, would you cut an apple for me.” Jiang Peiqi who was leaning on the bedside asked of Jiang Han.
Jiang Han was caught off-guard, “Ah, cut…… cut an apple?”
“That’s right. What’s wrong, can’t a diabetic have an apple?” looking at Jiang Han’s reaction, Jiang Peiqi was similarly startled.
“That’s not it, it’s good to eat a green apple before going to bed. It could to a certain degree, stimulate the insulin within your body, it would not be harmful to your current condition in any way.” Jiang Han hastily said waving his hands.
It wasn’t that Jiang Peiqi could not eat an apple, on the contrary it was he who, did not know how to cut an apple.
When he was little, he would eat the apple’s skin and core without wasting any of it.
He had cut apples before, but when he was done, there was barely even any core left. How was he supposed to serve the apple at this standard, this was why he hesitated.
Naturally, Jiang Peiqi wasn’t aware of any of this. Jiang Han looked into her eyes, and saw her child-like antic.i.p.ation, after which he promptly and hurriedly grab an apple and the fruit knife atop the table.
With one hand on the knife and the other on the apple, in Jiang Han’s eyes it was akin to a fierce battle. If he had a choice, he would rather gnaw on a steam bun while dissecting a corpse then try and murder this apple. This was too difficult, his nervous hand holding the fruit knife was actually slightly trembling.
“Let’s do this’” In the end, Jiang Han still managed to accomplish the task and cut the apple. The fruit knife came alive in his hands as it switch between difference angles, and with one hand rotating the apple while the other was pressing on the apple’s skin with the knife. His actions were like floating clouds and flowing water, gentle and smooth and he was quick beyond compare.
Within seconds, a beautifully peeled apple appeared in Jiang Han’s hand. The skin was one long unbroken strip, and the apple was smooth without any edges and any blemish. He gently removed the apple’s skin and threw it into the bin. The clumped up apple skin in the trash bin looked as if a fresh whole apple was thrown in instead.
Jiang Peiqi was a little dumbfounded, it wasn’t like it was her first time seeing someone skillfully peel an apple, but she had never seen anyone peel an apple with this level of finesse. It was quite unbelievable, how did he manage to do this. Now she thought she understood why Jiang Han hesitated before, it must have been because he was afraid of intimidating others with his skills and therefore reluctant to do so in front of others.
Unfortunately, Jiang Han was completely misunderstood. He immediately held up the apple, his eyes were blinking incessantly, in complete disbelieve at what he had just accomplish. Could it be that it wasn’t that he couldn’t cut an apple, but instead was actually a genius apple cutter and this was the delayed awakening of his true talents?
What a load of nonsense, it must have been the shaman’s legacy as he had previously successfully absorbed Qi into his body. He had experience this before, where the various capabilities of his body was strengthen and improved. His coordination and control were now incomparable to before, this was the actual reason for his surprising skill.
This wasn’t the time to daze off, Jiang Han quickly placed the sliced apple onto a plate and brought the plate before Jiang Peiqi who was still bewildered. She apparently did not even notice Jiang Han in a daze from before, and only woke up when she saw the plate of apples in front of her.
They both sat in silence as Jiang Peiqi ate the apple. When she was done, Jiang Han told her that he had done some research on diabetes and that recently he had some interesting findings. Even though it wasn’t possible to completely cure the disease, but it would greatly alleviate the disease’s symptoms. When his research was complete then they could begin to administer the treatment.
Jiang Peiqi did not take what he said to heart. Diabetes has essentially been established as an incurable disease, and barring any unforeseen circ.u.mstances, she would have to live the rest of her life with this disease. Jiang Han’s words were merely to comfort her, these were an immutable approach that all doctors used with their patients. She could see that Jiang Han was young and ambitious, and which ambitious young doctor hadn’t thought of one day conquering these incurable diseases?
When he was done, Jiang Han returned to his dormitory. He had been quite busy lately, and he only had time to cultivate late at night. He discovered that the Heavenly Mystic Abyss Sutra was actually quite obscure and hard to understand. If he did not reference Tao Te Ching and cultivate the both of them together, he wouldn’t be able to progress forward.
Even if he was able to understand the methods, Jiang Han’s progression speed was still quite slow. He was still unable to absorb and acc.u.mulate sufficient spiritual power. He was still far from entering the Qi refining stage, but he could not rush the issue. Cultivation was a step by step process and not a single step can be skipped.
Fortunately, it would be the countries golden week in a couple of days, and he welcomed the vacation. During this vacation, he could enter a short closed door cultivation session, then maybe he would be able to have a breakthrough. It would be great if he could ascend one level higher, then he would be able to increase his knowledge and learn even more technique and skills. He would also accomplish a lot more if he increased his spiritual power then he would also be able to efficiently treat a lot more different kinds of sickness and diseases.
t/s notes:
Jiang Han (江寒). The Jiang River flows east, and the cold comes when the heat leavesThis is one of the typical way a Chinese person would introduce themselves. This is because in the Chinese language different words and meaning may share the same sound. To differentiate and clarify which character makes up their name, they tend to use a metaphor or an example to do so.In this case, Jiang Han explained that the ‘Jiang’ 江 in his name is the same character with the ‘Jiang’ from Jiang River or as it is more commonly known,the Yangtze river.The ‘Han’ 寒 character actually means “cold”