TYSUF – Chapter 49 The Southern Goose Returns Home (2)

At 4:10 p.m., a train pulled into the station.

But it wasn’t the one they were waiting for—it was the one from Nanjing.

In truth, both Fu Tongwen and Shen Xi were mentally prepared for delays. Trains had always been known to run late, and they had come ready to wait until sunset. He watched the passengers disembark and disperse from the platform. The train eventually rolled to a stop at the end of the tracks, where it would remain until returning to Nanjing the next day.

“When the railway first opened, no one dared to travel at night,” he said with a laugh. “Everyone thought nighttime travel would offend mountain gods and water spirits, and there’d be accidents.”

Whenever Fu Tongwen spoke of the past, she always felt like an onlooker—like a child watching from the sidelines.

Many questions lined up in her heart, waiting their turn: “Did you come to Shanghai by train too?”

He leaned toward her with a smile and whispered, “I left the capital on my own accord. I couldn’t take the train—I was afraid someone would find me and drag me back.”

She was surprised. “Then… what about Fourth Master?”

Hadn’t Mr. Tan always said that Fourth Master went abroad with him? If both sons of the Fu family had run away, surely it would have caused a great uproar, right? How had they managed to pull it off? Her mind was full of questions.

On ordinary days, Shen Xi avoided talking to him about Fu Tonghuan, worried it might stir painful memories.

There was also a subtle, unspoken reason: she had once bowed to heaven and earth with Fu Tonghuan in a wedding ceremony. Whenever his name was brought up, she couldn’t help but remember the ancestral tablet that bore those three characters—Fu Tonghuan. She had heard that it was Fu Tongwen himself who had written them and had them engraved.

“Want to ask something about Tonghuan?” he asked, smiling.

“I want to know—how did he escape the Fu family with you?”

“He came… after me,” Fu Tongwen recalled, a smile touching his lips. “After I left, Father tightened his grip on him. At that time, the old man was trying to marry a courtesan, and to win her favor, he even held a banquet at Tianrui Residence next to Guanghe House. Tonghuan used that as a pretext—he put an ad in the newspaper publicly declaring he wouldn’t accept a woman from the Eight Alleys as part of the Fu family. He didn’t stop there, either—he bought over a thousand copies of the paper and spread them all over the capital. He was promptly kicked out of the house. But just three days later, Father came to his senses—by then, he was gone and couldn’t be found again.”

When Fu Tonghuan acted out, he was no less outrageous than his third brother.

“He didn’t know the address of my apartment in Shanghai and didn’t dare go to the main residence, so he had no choice but to hire a few people to stake out the docks day and night,” Fu Tongwen continued. “I was staying in my apartment, waiting for a ship, while he holed up in a cheap inn, waiting like a hunter for his prey. He had the body of a young master, but unfortunately, he hadn’t brought much money with him when he fled. So he had to stay in that dingy inn and suffered quite a bit.”

Though Fu Tonghuan’s mother held a low status, he had never suffered hardship in the Fu household, nor had he ever lived in such squalor. The inns of that era were filled with all sorts—gamblers in one room, opium smokers in another, and cheap prostitutes laughing outside the doors. A few girls with folded arms loitered from room to room, humming tunes, waiting for some shirtless man to drag them in for a one-night stand.

At night, Fu Tonghuan couldn’t sleep—he was bitten all over by something, his skin dotted red and itching with no relief. When he questioned the innkeeper about the bugs in his room, the owner and staff mocked his ignorance and informed this little master that the biting bugs were called fleas—the most common pests in inns.

Angered by the ridicule, he brought his own water to boil and scald the sheets, even tried to air out the blankets.

But the alley outside the window of the inn reeked with the stench of urine built up over the years. Forget drying blankets—just opening the window made him gag and vomit his last meal…

Fu Tongwen laughed aloud at this point: “When I finally saw him again, I almost didn’t recognize him—his hair was a mess, face pale, and his body was covered in fleas. It took a lot of money and greasing of palms before the foreigners let him aboard the ship. We booked him a private room, and twenty days later, he was finally clean—but his head had been shaved, and he refused to take off his hat, becoming a spectacle on the cruise ship.”

Shen Xi gently fanned him with a folding fan.

“In England, Tonghuan grew very close to a girl from a Chinese émigré family,” he continued, as if determined to spill all the past on this train platform, under the setting sun. “He brought her to meet me twice. After returning to China, he kept corresponding with her, and they were even discussing wedding plans. Since our family didn’t quite accept émigré Chinese, they had essentially pledged themselves privately.”

Fu Tongwen lightly touched the pearl necklace around Shen Xi’s neck, feeling each bead with the size of a fingernail, glimmering with a soft pink hue.

“Later, that girl sent a pair of mourning couplets.”

The girl came from a Chinese émigré family and had never studied classical literature. She picked lines from ready-made poetry:

‘Whether in heaven above or the yellow springs below, In both places, I find you nowhere.’

Most of the mourning couplets at the memorial hall were filled with flowery praise—either to curry favor with the Fu family or display literary brilliance. Some were exquisite, others gut-wrenching, some tear-jerking. But only this pair seemed perfunctory—who sends couplets copied from a random poem?

Only Fu Tongwen understood it on behalf of Tonghuan. When the rest of the couplets were removed and burned after the funeral, he took that one down himself and placed it inside Tonghuan’s coffin. In that moment of sorrow and regret, he found resonance with a girl he had never truly known.

Half of his life had passed; he was approaching forty.

This old man had long since hardened his heart—few people could touch it now.

But that day, the incident with Gu Yiren still pierced him to the core. “Devoting one’s life to serve the nation”— similar words had been spoken by Tonghuan, and also by Tonglin, yet none had come to a good end…

From the horizon, the train emerged on the tracks like a blade cutting the sky and earth in two.

A single whistle pierced the vast sky.

“Third Master, that’s the one.” The privately hired train bore a special signal flag, easily recognizable.

Fu Tongwen and Shen Xi immediately stepped onto the platform.

By now, passengers from the previous train had long left, and all trains departing Shanghai earlier that day had already gone. There were no more onlookers around the station. The sleepers trembled beneath their feet as the train slowed early and coasted gently into the station on braking momentum.

The sunlight shining directly on their eyelids was suddenly blocked.

Before the train even came to a full stop, Fu Tongwen had already grasped the metal handrail by the door and boarded.

Shen Xi followed right behind.

The privately chartered train had one engine car and two carriages. No one in the first carriage had met Fu Tongwen before, so when a man suddenly barged in, several of them reached for their pistols. It wasn’t until someone called out “Third Master” that everyone finally relaxed.

After guarding their way from Shanghai, they had finally seen their employer.

“How’s the patient?” Fu Tongwen asked as he walked forward, not glancing at the people seated on either side of the aisle. He directed his question to the man standing outside the second carriage.

“It’s not looking very good,” the man bowed slightly and spoke in a low voice, “He started burning up last night. He’s barely conscious now.”

“Is there a doctor with him?” Shen Xi interrupted.

“No… No doctor dares to take the case—”

No doctor dares to take it? Shen Xi sensed something was wrong. “Let me take a look.”

The man wasn’t medical staff, so further questions were pointless.

Fu Tongwen supported her arm and moved her in front of him, letting her board the train car first.

The curtains in the compartment were all drawn to block out the sun.

Though a few young girls were fanning themselves to ventilate the space, it was still suffocatingly hot. Traveling in such extreme summer heat was unbearable even for a healthy person, let alone an injured one. Shen Xi brushed past one of the girls and saw Fu Tonglin lying on a hard sleeper bed. The compartment was very quiet. Shen Xi breathed slowly as she reached out to touch that familiar face. His facial features hadn’t changed, but every tiny contour had been reshaped by time.

Weakened, weathered, his complexion waxy yellow—Fu Tonglin’s lips were tightly pressed together. He was burning with fever and confused.

His eyeballs shifted beneath his eyelids but didn’t open.

Shen Xi touched his forehead—it was alarmingly hot, as if his internal organs had been replaced by burning coals. Suspecting an infection, she checked his leg—the injury was on his right calf. The wound wrapped in gauze was severely festering, and a foul stench wafted out as she peeled it back…

Though the heat was stifling in the carriage, it suddenly felt as if a chill wind swept through from all directions, cutting to the bone.

“Use your car. We’re going to the hospital,” Shen Xi said with no room for objection.

Fu Tongwen immediately ordered, “Do as she says.”

Before anyone else could move, he had already lifted his unconscious fifth brother. An adult man in his arms, yet he didn’t seem much heavier than Shen Xi—how much suffering had he endured to become this thin? In his life, Fu Tongwen had carried three people: Fu Tongchuan, who tried to kill himself in the family compound; Shen Xi, after killing someone to protect him and suffering psychological trauma; and now Fu Tonglin.

All three had borne pain on his behalf. Yet despite his abilities, he couldn’t protect them.

He carried the Fifth Young Master to the car while Shen Xi took the front passenger seat.

On the way, she kept glancing back, worried that Fu Tongwen, who had heart issues, might falter. She reached into the backseat, found his discarded suit jacket, and took out his heart medication, offering it to him. He shook his head, sitting upright, with the Fifth Young Master’s head resting on his lap.

By the time the car delivered them to the hospital, it was already six o’clock. The nurse on duty at the emergency entrance was surprised to see her and came up immediately: “Doctor Shen? Aren’t you off today?”

“Is Deputy Director Duan here?”

“Yes, yes—uh, I think so…” The nurse was intimidated by Shen Xi’s stern expression.

“Go get the deputy director now,” she ordered, then turned to two male nurses. “You two, come help me move the patient.”

Shen Xi led them out, transferred Fu Tonglin from the car, and handed Fu Tongwen a set of office keys. “Wait in my office. I need to examine and consult on his condition first, so I won’t attend to you,” she added, then handed the medicine bottle to the driver. “Stay close to Third Master. If he feels unwell, give him this and get to the second-floor operating room immediately.”

The lobby lights were off, and to save power, only one out of every three corridor lights remained on.

Shen Xi and the nurses pushed the stretcher. The flickering bulbs cast ever-changing shadows across Fu Tonglin’s face.

She instructed them to push him directly into the operating room, where three surgical beds were lined up, all covered with blue drapes. She pulled back the cover on the central bed and helped the nurses lift him onto it. Then she ordered them to prepare all necessary pre-op tests and call for the anesthesiologist.

After the nurses left, she stood alone in the empty operating room, disinfecting the wound herself. The test results weren’t back yet, and Duan Menghe hadn’t arrived. It was the end of the workday—most people had gone home.

Duan Menghe entered, glanced at Fu Tonglin’s leg, and frowned deeply. “I thought you were overreacting, just because he’s your brother-in-law,” he said, reading the report Shen Xi had written. “This wound is shockingly deep. Is the family present?”

“In my office,” she replied.

“Tell them to be prepared. This kind of infection—”

He didn’t need to say more. She already knew.

Of all the major surgeries they’d performed, more than half of the patients had died from post-op infections. Infection was the greatest enemy of surgeons worldwide. No matter how successful the surgery, the post-op infection rate remained frighteningly high. As the two most experienced surgeons in the hospital, both Shen Xi and Duan Menghe were all too familiar with these symptoms and the severity of such infections.

One of Duan Menghe’s classmates had even quit being a surgeon after losing multiple patients to infections despite successful surgeries. The helplessness in the face of such cases was a torment for any doctor.

There was no medicine that could truly solve this—not one…

“You take the lead on this one. I’ll go call a few colleagues at Renji Hospital,” Duan Menghe said. “Their surgery department just got a batch of new antibiotics—maybe there’s hope.” He said it to comfort her.

Renji had been his former hospital, and they maintained close ties. If new drugs were acquired, he’d be one of the first to know. In Shanghai, Renji had the highest number of surgeries performed. If they could bring in a consultation team, even better.

Half an hour later—

The nurses delivered the pre-op test results. Shen Xi read them in silence for a while before saying, “Prepare for surgery.”

She removed the previous stitches, cleaned the infection, and re-stitched the wound.

The muscle and tendons beneath were already necrotic.

Everything pointed to the worst outcome.

The surgery ended just as the sun was setting.

A nurse handed her the IV supplies, prescribed earlier by Duan Menghe. At the hospital, only critical patients were allowed IV drips, and only three doctors were authorized to administer them. Shen Xi was one of them.

She searched for a vein on Fu Tonglin’s emaciated hand, disinfected, pierced the skin, and administered the medication.

Watching the liquid drip steadily into his body, she silently prayed that the medicine would help.

She gently laid his hand down and, in that moment, began to doubt the choice she had made years ago. Was choosing medical research the better path? Or was clinical practice, saving lives, more important? Back then, she hadn’t found an answer. All she wanted was a powerful drug that could cure bacterial infections—something that could save Fu Tonglin. When penicillin was eventually developed, every time she thought of this day—this young man lying on the operating table, full of patriotic resolve—her heart ached faintly.

“…Sister-in-law.” That familiar voice trembled through her heart.

Shen Xi knew his condition was not good, but she still smiled and leaned in, whispering gently, “Don’t talk too much. Get some rest. You may need another surgery.”

There was confusion in Fu Tonglin’s brown eyes. He sluggishly turned his gaze toward her, then to the wall, the floor. He didn’t have the strength to take in the entire operating room, but he still recognized where he was. “Sister-in-law… you’re a doctor now…” He smiled.

“Mm.” She smiled too and said softly, “Your wound wasn’t treated well. Was it your army medic? I really want to scold him for you.”

“That man…”

The Fifth Young Master smiled faintly, his eyes filling with tears. “He’s gone. Sister-in-law… scold me instead. I’ll take it for him.”