At five in the morning, the emergency room seemed to be poured with a bucket of cold water. Lin Xiaoman stared at the fifth diarrhea patient on the rescue bed. Not only disinfectant water lingered in her nose, but also a faint smell of wormwood. Ever since Li Chengqian traveled through time at midnight yesterday, this smell seemed to stick to her, and even the pottery pieces in the pocket of her white coat had a sour taste of aged vinegar.
"Doctor Lin, this is the third case tonight," Nurse Xiao Li approached with the test report, "The patient said that he had seen a 'talking pottery jar' before the onset of the disease. Do you think it is related to the Tang Dynasty cultural relics exhibition in the museum?" Lin Xiaoman's hands trembled and she almost dropped the thermometer on the ground. Isn't it related? When Li Chengqian left yesterday, he insisted on engraving a warning on the modern pottery jar exhibition, and ended up engraving "separate raw and cooked" into "separate raw and cooked by liters". Now there are still dog-like engraving marks on the glass of the display cabinet.
The phone vibrated wildly in the duty room. It was a video call from the archaeological team. In the video, Doctor Zhang's goatee almost poked through the screen: "Doctor Lin! There's a commotion in the West Market of Chang'an! People say that a dysentery ghost flew out of the pottery jar, and all the pigs in Butcher Wang's house were infected!" The camera turned and the streets were full of broken disinfectant pottery jars. The "boiled three times" marks on the broken pottery pieces were trampled into pieces, and the smell of donkey feces hit me.
"It must be that fellow Li Chengqian who made a mess again!" Lin Xiaoman gritted her teeth at the screen, "Last time I taught him to carve 'boil', he insisted that the word 'boil' looked like steam coming out of a pot, so I added four drops of water. Now, the people think it needs to be boiled four times!" As she was cursing, the pottery shard in her pocket suddenly became hot, casting a crooked light and shadow on the duty desk - Li Chengqian of the Tang Dynasty was being chased by Doctor Zhang, and a half-carved dogwood leaf was still hanging on the carving knife on his waist.
"Hello, your takeaway." Intern Xiao Chen came in with a plastic bag, "You ordered... uh... Coptis chinensis instant noodles?" Lin Xiaoman rolled her eyes at him, and when she opened the package, she smelled the smell of Chinese medicine - this was the recipe that Li Chengqian "improved" last week, insisting that Coptis chinensis with instant noodles could cure dysentery, which ended up making her have diarrhea all day. At this moment, the heat of the pottery suddenly turned cold, and it left a simple "I'm sorry" mark on her palm, which was obviously scratched by the guy in a panic.
The door of the emergency room was "banged" open, and a figure in a Tang suit stumbled in, and three carving knives and half a moldy pancake fell out of his wide sleeves. "It's over," Li Chengqian said with a bruised forehead, "I carved 'Drinking raw water to seek death' in the West Market, but the people said I cursed them and threw pancakes at me!" He opened his sleeves, and the red marks on his arm were shocking, "Zhang Yizheng also said that I lost the face of the Imperial Hospital and asked me to carve the "Thousand Gold Prescriptions", but who can understand it!"
Lin Xiaoman looked at his embarrassed appearance and suddenly remembered that in the Tang Dynasty, this guy gave a lecture to the people for the first time, saying "bacteria" as "insects smaller than ants' grandchildren", and the children chased him and asked if insects had wings. "You deserve it," she said disdainfully, but she pulled out an iodine cotton swab, "I told you not to talk properly. 'Drinking raw water will cause diarrhea' is so straightforward, you must be a scholar!" Li Chengqian shrank his neck to avoid the cotton swab, and his ears turned red: "Then you teach me modern 'down-to-earth', such as... For example, 'Don't touch dirty hands when you have diarrhea, otherwise your butt will bloom'?" This made Xiao Chen almost knock over the medical record folder, and Lin Xiaoman couldn't help laughing: "Okay, next time you carve 'Wash your hands after defecation, your anus will feel better', I guarantee that the people will remember it." As he said that, he suddenly remembered something, took out his mobile phone and flipped through the photos of the archaeological team: "Look, the pottery jar you carved 'Xiao Chen stupid' was unearthed, and now experts guess it is 'Tang Dynasty folk cursing pottery', Xiao Chen is about to cry." Li Chengqian scratched his head and smiled foolishly: "Who told him to say that my carving was like ghost painting last time in modern times, this is called... Call for revenge across time and space! "
The siren of the ambulance broke the relaxation, and another diarrhea patient was pushed in. Lin Xiaoman looked at the broken pottery pieces held by the patient's family, and suddenly an idea came to her mind: "Li Chengqian, lend me your carving knife." She grabbed a blank piece of pottery, carved a little man covering his butt on it crookedly, marked "wash hands!" next to it, and painted an exploding chrysanthemum with red paint. "Take this to the West Market," she stuffed it into the still confused Li Chengqian, "it's more useful than your Zhihuzhe."
In the West Market of Chang'an in the Tang Dynasty, the moonlight shone on the bluestone road. Li Chengqian held up the newly carved pottery pieces, and the people around him slowly gathered around. When seeing the crooked little man covering his butt, someone suddenly laughed out loud: "Isn't this what Old Man Wang looks like when he has diarrhea!" Then there were laughters from the crowd, and someone reached out and touched the red chrysanthemum on the pottery: "So the dysentery ghost is afraid of this?"
At the same time, in the modern emergency room, the family of the fifth patient suddenly pointed at the poster on the wall and exclaimed: "It's the same as the painting on the pottery jar in the museum!" Lin Xiaoman looked at the hand-washing diagram he had drawn temporarily, and suddenly found a line of small words in the lower right corner - Li Chengqian's handwriting: "The little man Xiaoman drew is better looking than the one I carved, but the butt is not round enough."
At seven in the morning, the sky was pale. Li Chengqian's figure gradually became transparent in the duty room, and he still had half a piece of Huanglian instant noodles in his hand. "Tomorrow I will bring the chef from the Imperial Hospital," he yawned, "Let him learn how to make modern scallion pancakes. Doctor Zhang tasted one yesterday and his beard was so happy." Lin Xiaoman looked at the direction he disappeared, and suddenly found a newly carved pottery on the table, with the words "When Xiaoman is angry, his eyes are like almonds" carved crookedly on it.
The phone vibrated again, and the archaeological team sent the latest news: "It is suspected that a 'toilet sign' from the Tang Dynasty was found, with a pattern of a little man covering his buttocks. It is recommended to name it 'Chang'an's most down-to-earth cultural relic'." Lin Xiaoman touched the uneven marks on the pottery, and suddenly felt that such imperfections were warmer than any perfect medical heritage.
The sunlight in the emergency room finally came in and shone on the "wash hands after defecation" pottery she had carved yesterday. There was still a gap on the edge of the pottery where the carving knife slipped, but it was glowing with warm light in the morning light. Just like the prince who always carved the characters crookedly, and the always busy emergency room, life is never a perfect medical book, but a hot and humid world with a notch on the carving knife.
She stuffed the pancake left by Li Chengqian into her mouth. Although it was moldy, she could faintly taste the fragrance of chopped green onions. Perhaps this is the medical way that transcends time and space - imperfect, but fresh, with the warmth of a flurry of hands and feet, and a benevolent heart that can never be carved crooked.