Chapter 859: Listen to the Heartbeat Chapter 859: Listen to the Heartbeat “Oh right, the hospital is going to our village for a free clinic.” Several people turned around when they heard this, seeing Fan Yunyun speaking.
“Where is your home?” Luo Yanfen asked the rookie.
“It’s in Bazhuang,” Fan Yunyun said. “It’s more than three hours away from here by bus from the Capital Bus Station, and I need to change buses in the county town. I attended high school in that county town before I got into Guoxie.”
“Are you from a rural area?”
“That’s not easy,” Luo Yanfen’s hand rested on Fan Yunyun’s shoulder, her tone carrying a hint of admiration. For a child from a rural area to get into Guoxie was unimaginably tough.
“I’m from a rural area, so my English isn’t very good; I’ve been catching up with others all the way,” Fan Yunyun said ashamedly. Even after rural children enter a university, their foundation is still relatively weaker compared to city children.
“If you want to go home over the weekend, you can hitch a ride with the hospital’s free clinic car and go back with them and even help measure the blood pressure of the folks back home,” Luo Yanfen joked.
Fan Yunyun took her seriously and said, “I can help with that. Sometimes I go home on weekends.”
“Bazhuang.” Wu Lixuan, who was lying in bed, spoke up.
Yin Fengchun and Xie Wanying immediately went over to the bedside and asked, “Are you awake?”
Wu Lixuan opened her eyes and said, “I’m fine.” Then, looking at her friend, she asked, “Yingying, are you going on a business trip?”
“I don’t know; the teacher hasn’t said,” Xie Wanying answered.
“If you’re going out, be careful on the road,” Wu Lixuan said.
Hearing these words from her childhood friend made Xie Wanying want to smile. She sat down and said, “You first take care of yourself. You don’t need to worry about anything else.”
“I should be able to leave the hospital in a few days. The hospital doesn’t let people stay long,” Wu Lixuan casually told her friend, reassuring her not to worry about her.
Seeing that her friend was in good spirits, Xie Wanying felt a huge weight lift off her shoulders.
Standing opposite her, Yin Fengchun took a stethoscope out from his lab coat pocket.
Wu Lixuan appeared to eye the stethoscope diaphragm ‘warily.’
“Why? Scared I’ll hear your heartbeat?” Yin Fengchun understood her look and smiled faintly, “Your friend is here, let her tell you. Doctors don’t just listen to heartbeats.”
“Not just heartbeats?” Wu Lixuan, who didn’t study medicine, asked her friend.
“What we specifically listen for are heart rates and heart sounds,” Xie Wanying didn’t deny the medical terminology Yin Fengchun wanted to express and explained, “Broadly speaking, what laypeople refer to as ‘heartbeat’ corresponds to heart rate. A doctor listens with a stethoscope to make a record of data, not just randomly listen. Moreover, it’s not only heart activity that we listen to but also lung activity.”
As he put the earpieces of the stethoscope on, Yin Fengchun placed the diaphragm over the middle line of her clavicle area through her clothes, instructing her, “Take a breath, a deep one.” Listening to his voice, Wu Lixuan breathed in and out, indeed slightly panicking as his diaphragm pressed against the area over her heart.
Having to return to work in the afternoon, Xie Wanying unhesitatingly opened her lunchbox to eat and spend more time with her friend–they were very close after all. Scooping rice with a plastic spoon while watching someone else perform a stethoscope examination on her close friend. If an outsider, particularly a doctor, were to watch, they might think the duration of this stethoscope exam seemed excessively long, and infer her friend had some serious heart or lung disease.
Taking breaths to calm her own racing heart, Wu Lixuan asked her friend, “Has Dr. Cao done this for you?”
“Senior Cao?” Xie Wanying recalled the last time Senior Cao had performed a stethoscope examination on her. She might’ve been slightly nervous then and didn’t notice how long it took, but she admired his serious demeanor during the exam, reflecting his professional attitude.