Six for five (63) changing the dressing

Tan Yang was flustered—partly out of surprise, but more so because she was well aware of Xu Zhizhong’s former affections for her.

Xu Zhizhong, however, opened with an air of nonchalance. “Surprised to see an old classmate, aren’t you? I’m truly sorry to trouble you. There was no other way—I was injured, and since I’ve only just arrived in Shanghai, I couldn’t find a reliable doctor in time. I had no choice but to call on you. My life may not be precious, but there are a few people who care about it, so I have to be cautious.”

With this opening, he clarified their relationship—neither too close nor too distant—putting Tan Yang at ease. After all, for a doctor, trust is everything. With trust, crossing thousands of miles is no burden; even risking fire and water would not be too much to ask. Xu Zhizhong’s words were impressive, for the years of battle and political maneuvering had long since transformed him from the flustered student who once lost his composure at a single remark from Bi Qingtang.

“You’re injured? What kind of injury?” Tan Yang asked with concern, noting his pale face and awkward posture.

Xu Zhizhong smiled, “I was shot a week ago,” and casually pointed to his right chest.

Her worry deepened. “A gunshot wound? I’m a pediatrician, not a surgeon. I’d hate to delay your treatment.”

He leaned forward, gentle in his reassurance. “It’s nothing serious. The bullet was removed right away. The conditions at the field hospital weren’t great, so the wound isn’t healing well. I just need you to change the dressing and tend the wound.”

Relieved, Tan Yang remembered she happened to have gauze and iodine in her kit. “Let me take a look at your wound and change the dressing,” she said, putting on a mask.

Xu Zhizhong watched as she opened her medical kit, his curiosity piqued. He pointed to the item on top. “What’s this?”

“A stethoscope.”

“What’s it for?”

“To listen to the heart, the lungs, sometimes the sounds of the abdomen.”

“And this?”

“A tongue depressor, to check for throat inflammation…”

He asked about each item in turn until Tan Yang, a little exasperated, asked, “Don’t your field hospitals have these?”

Xu Zhizhong smiled modestly. “They do, but I’d be embarrassed to ask so many questions. They’d think I’m foolish.”

Tan Yang couldn’t help but laugh. Just then, Xu Zhizhong, like a child discovering a new world, pulled out a wooden stick strung with bells from the lower compartment of her kit and shook it, producing a bright, cheerful sound. He cocked his head. “Now, this, the field hospital doesn’t have! The locals call it a flower-bell stick. What do you Western doctors call it?”

Tan Yang snatched it back, half amused, half exasperated. “We call it a flower-bell stick too. It’s for coaxing unruly children who are afraid of the doctor.”

Moved, Xu Zhizhong said, “Being a doctor must be wonderful. If it were peacetime, I’d want to be a doctor too.”

Hearing the wistfulness in his voice, Tan Yang lowered her head and said softly, “But we still need people like you. Without you, we wouldn’t have the peace to be doctors, even in these times.”

Xu Zhizhong fell silent for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Yangyang, you always understand me—just as you did when we were students.”

She did not reply. Having loved and married before, Tan Yang could sense the stirrings of intimacy, and so she busied herself preparing gauze and swabs. Once everything was ready, she put on her gloves. “Major Xu, let’s change your dressing.”

“Must you be so formal? Just call me Zhizhong, as you did in school.”

She withdrew her hands, smiling in gentle protest. “Only the boys called you Zhizhong. I always called you Xu Zhizhong. All right then, Xu Zhizhong, shall we change your dressing now?”

He nodded, a little helplessly. “All right, let’s do it.”

When he made no move, she had to prompt him. “You need to undress.”

He stared at her, baffled.

She added, “How can I change your dressing if you don’t take off your shirt?”

He hesitated, cleared his throat, and finally shrugged off his jacket but stopped there.

She prompted, “And the shirt too—all of it.”

As soon as she said it, his already pale face flushed red. She said matter-of-factly, “Don’t think of me as your classmate—think of me as the field hospital doctor. In medicine, gender doesn’t matter.”

Taking a deep breath, Xu Zhizhong closed his eyes and unbuttoned his shirt, one button at a time. When he took it off, baring his upper body, he did so with an air of grim resolve, as if heading for execution, making Tan Yang want to laugh and cry at once.

He had seemed thin in his shirt, but now she could see the defined muscles on his torso, his skin darker than his face, giving him a rugged strength. He was no longer the gentle youth she remembered; the battlefield had honed him into a man of resolve and reliability.

Xu Zhizhong turned his face away, gripping the chair so tightly that sweat beaded on his brow. Tan Yang realized his embarrassment and tension had reached their peak. She knew that those who first met her as Tan Yang, then as Doctor Tan, always found it hard to see her as a real doctor. To break the awkwardness, she shook the flower-bell stick and placed it by his hand. “Why, even General Xu is afraid of the doctor? Still the same as when you were a child?”

He laughed, picked up the stick, and gave it a solemn shake.

His wound was indeed healing poorly, and the bullet extraction had been rough, but the gauze dressing was done with expert skill—certainly the work of an experienced surgeon, not something Tan Yang herself could match. When she finished changing the dressing, she asked, “Who changed it for you last time?”

“The resident medical officer here.”

“You could have had him do it again. His technique is much better than mine.”

Xu Zhizhong didn’t answer. After putting on his shirt, he confided softly, “You have no idea. I’ve just been assigned here as Chief of Staff and don’t know the division commanders at all. To be honest, we’re not even on the same side! Until I have my own people in place, I dare not leave the compound. If I step out, the adjutant and aides might be reassigned and I’d be left alone. So, tell me, can I trust the medical officer here?”

Tan Yang shook her head. “You really have it hard.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Yangyang, this is the greatest torment of my ten years in the military. I joined the army to serve my country, but half my energy is spent dealing with my own side! Parties, factions, people—endless scheming and suspicion. Is this what wearing a uniform is about? It’s a mockery—a cruel mockery.”

It was midday, an Indian summer sun warming the autumn day. As Tan Yang tidied her medical kit, she spoke with quiet resignation, “This is how people are, in any society. The powerful fight fiercely, but for ordinary people, even the smallest benefit is worth fighting over. They’ll cheat for a little money, kill for a lot. In time, you come to accept it.”

He nodded, looking at her for a moment before smiling. “Let’s not talk about this. Ah, you’ll be staying here for a while, and I was afraid you’d be bored in the barracks, so I asked them to find a few books for you.” His gaze shifted to a camphorwood chest beside the table, which he opened with a smile. “See if any of them meet the approval of Director Tan.”

Tan Yang knelt to look through the books—they were all Western medical texts on pediatrics, in English, German, and some in other languages with translated summaries at the back. Her interest was piqued at once.

Xu Zhizhong brought over a small stool. “No hurry, take your time.”

She was immersed in the books when she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! I tried to order this one so many times from the Heidelberg bookshop, but they never had it in stock!”

Xu Zhizhong, fiddling with his cufflinks, smiled quietly and said nothing.

She opened the cover and saw, on the title page, written: “1932, purchased in New York, USA,” with a fragment of redwood leaf attached. She closed the book slowly, feeling the weight of the gesture, doubting she could accept such a gift.

He, noticing her expression, explained lightly, “Xiangning asked me to buy her some architecture books in America, and I happened to see some pediatric texts in the shop, so I brought a few for you too.”

At that moment, Adjutant Lin came in to say a subordinate wished to see him. Tan Yang rose to leave. Xu Zhizhong watched her until she disappeared from sight, then turned back to Lin, impatiently, “Do you know how many times a wound can be dressed in a day?”

Lin, startled, snapped to attention with a salute. “Understood, Chief of Staff, it won’t happen again!”

Adjutant Li showed Tan Yang to her room on the fourth floor, grinning as he said, “Miss Tan, Chief of Staff lives right next door.”

She shot him a displeased look, prompting him to quickly add, “That way, it’s easier for you to tend to his injury.”

He then brought in a young woman in uniform, a recent graduate of the military academy, to look after Tan Yang. “No need,” Tan Yang said, “I can look after myself. She joined the academy to serve her country, not to do chores.”

Li was taken aback, growing uncharacteristically solemn. “Miss Tan, when I was assigned as adjutant to the chief of staff, fresh out of the academy, he said the same thing to me.”

Tan Yang was not surprised. She had long known how much she and Xu Zhizhong had in common—their upbringing, education, outlook, ways of handling the world, even their taste in music and poetry. He had once said she was his lost soul, left behind at the River of Forgetfulness, a metaphor that seemed trite at first but, on reflection, was fitting.

The next morning, while changing Xu Zhizhong’s dressing, they talked for a long time. When Tan Yang left the room, she saw a line of officers waiting outside. She glanced questioningly at Adjutant Lin, who explained, “They’re all waiting to report to the Chief of Staff.” She stood in thought for a moment before walking away.

The following day, she changed the dressing efficiently and made to leave without delay, explaining that it was Saturday and she needed to return home to spend the weekend with her daughter.

Xu Zhizhong was startled, then, forgetting his half-buttoned shirt, rushed to block her way. “Yangyang, will you be back next week?” His earnest, anxious expression unsettled her, and she turned away. Adjutant Li, witnessing this, chimed in helpfully, “Of course she’ll be back—your wound isn’t healed yet! Miss Tan, who’ll change your dressing if you don’t come?”

Xu Zhizhong gazed at Tan Yang’s profile, hesitant and vulnerable. At length, he asked, “Then, may I send someone to fetch you from the hospital on Monday?” She hesitated, then nodded reluctantly.

Xu Zhizhong stood in the doorway, watching her go, as if she might vanish from the world forever.

Adjutant Li, unable to bear it, said, “Chief, you and Miss Tan—such shy and gentle lovers, always holding back. If you don’t want her to go, just say so! Be a man, show some resolve! If you’d had half the courage in love as you do on the battlefield, you’d have married her long ago and not wasted ten years. We all thought your sweetheart was dead, with you sighing over her picture every day. Wasted ten years! Otherwise, your child would already…”

Xu Zhizhong cut him off with a resigned pat on the shoulder, then buttoned his shirt in silence. Li rolled his eyes in exasperation, muttering, “Pathetic—getting your clothes stripped off by her!” Xu Zhizhong glared at him, and Li snapped to attention. “If I ever hear any of you make crude jokes about Miss Tan, I’ll have your hides!”

That night, a cool autumn breeze drifted in. Tan Yang, hair freshly washed, sat in bed reading. Now and then, the sentry’s whistle sounded from outside, making the night seem all the clearer. Near midnight, as she dozed with her book, a flute sounded from the next room—a plaintive melody that cast a mournful tone over the brisk military camp.

She recognized the tune as “Autumn Lake in Moonlight,” its notes echoing the chill of the season, followed by “Song of Suzhou,” evoking the misty landscapes of the south. Sleep eluded her, and after pacing her room, she finally opened her door, only to see Adjutant Li across the hall, smoking in the doorway. He stood when he saw her, grumbling, “No one can sleep with all this music at midnight. Miss Tan, you should ask the Chief of Staff what he’s thinking!”

She smiled, “I was just coming to ask you to remind him that he needs rest for his recovery.” She turned to close her door, but Li suddenly called after her, “Miss Tan…”

On Saturday morning, after changing Xu Zhizhong’s dressing, Tan Yang hurried to leave, and Xu Zhizhong sent Adjutant Lin to make arrangements. When Adjutant Li returned from sending a telegram, he found Xu Zhizhong gazing mournfully out the window. Downstairs, Adjutant Lin was holding the car door for Tan Yang as she got in.

Li grinned slyly. “Chief, she’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Why the long face?”

Xu Zhizhong murmured, “She just said she’s having Zhang Xiangning’s boyfriend change the dressing next week—she’s not coming back.”

Li was aghast. “What? That can’t be! I told her last night, ever since Miss Zhang wrote to say she’d opened a hospital in Shanghai, your heart’s been here. You took a bullet, gave up a promotion at the front just to come to Shanghai as Chief of Staff—all for her! She’s your whole future!”

Xu Zhizhong leapt from his chair, furious, and seized Li by the collar, barking, “Idiot! Meddling fool! I wanted to settle things here before seeing her—now look, she’ll avoid me like the plague again!” He released Li, despairing. “Am I so unworthy, that even when she’s alone, she won’t look back at me?”

As he lowered his head, his gaze fell on the corner of the desk, where the flower-bell stick peeked out from beneath some papers. His eyes lit up; he grabbed it and dashed out. Reaching the courtyard, he saw the car already leaving and sprinted after it, soldiers and officers staring in shock, while Adjutant Li shouted, “Stop the car!”

Though Xu Zhizhong had always kept up with athletics, no mortal could outrun a car. Soldiers called out, but inside, no one heard. Adjutant Lin, typically taciturn, acted swiftly; he fired his pistol into the air. With a crack, the car screeched to a halt.

Tan Yang, stepping out, saw Xu Zhizhong breathless and unsteady. He thrust the flower-bell stick into her hands, gasping, “Yangyang, you forgot…” Then he gripped the car door, head bowed.

She took the flower-bell stick and placed it in her bag. Looking up, she saw sweat pouring from his brow, his shirt soaked through at the back, and him clutching his chest, shivering. She rushed to steady him. “Xu Zhizhong, what’s wrong?”

He forced a smile. “Nothing, I’m fine…” He tried to slip his hand casually into his pocket, but as he moved it from his chest, she saw the right side of his white shirt drenched in blood, a vivid red blossom spreading across the fabric…

Author’s note: I’m sorry, I have exams next week and need to take a break…

End of Chapter 63: Changing the Dressing.