Chapter 15 – View of the World
The cool wind from the elevator’s air conditioning was blowing.
Lian Xi glanced at this young fellow, smiled and shook his head. “No, I’m going out to do something.”
The guy was surprised. “You need to go to work this early?”
Lian Xi didn’t explain much. “Yes.”
The two chatted casually. Soon the elevator reached the ground floor. As soon as Lian Xi got out of the elevator, the guy exclaimed from behind him. “Ah, I didn’t bring my phone!” When Lian Xi turned around, the young guy helplessly spread his hands and said with a smile, “Brother, I’m so forgetful. I’d better go up and get it.”
Lian Xi nodded. “Okay, bye.”
When Lian Xi got to the community gates, the DiDi driver had already been waiting for some time.
As soon as he got in and the air conditioning blew over, he suddenly thought to himself: Am I being too extravagant?
These last couple of months he had been taking the taxi constantly when going out. He hadn’t taken the bus much.
But then he thought it’s such a hot day and there was no point in torturing himself. Not to mention, he still had the demolition money and there was no point in leaving it there to rot.
And also wasn’t there a big golden boss at home?
Lian Xi was thinking in a daze. Quickly, he got to the Yuan District Hospital.
The Yuan District Hospital was the largest hospital in Su City.
Lian Xi was a Su City native.
His birth can be considered premature and he hadn’t reached full term yet. Originally, his mother had been scheduled to go to hospital the following day but he unexpectedly was in a hurry and her waters broke that night. His dad panicked and hurried to take his mother to the hospital on a motorcycle. He took her to the Yuan District Hospital.
Twenty years ago, Yuan District Hospital only had two, three-storey buildings. Today it already occupies an area of 100 acres and is full of tall buildings.
Lian Xi waited a while in the lobby and finally a doctor wearing glasses and the white coat of an intern walked over.
Lian Xi stood up.
Glasses doctor: “You are… Lian Xi?”
Lian Xi: “Yes.”
The glasses doctor glanced at him up and down and then said softly, “Oh. Zhao Wei told me about you. Something about you used to know someone who worked here and is looking for them? He wasn’t clear on his weixin.”
Lian Xi explained, “I was born at Yuan District Hospital. I want to find the nurse that delivered me that year.”
The glasses doctor was dumbfounded. “You’re looking for the nurse that delivered you?”
“Yes.”
“Eh, that will be pretty difficult ah…”
Lian Xi graduated from Su City University. Su City University’s medical school was famous in HuaXia.
Since he was looking for the nurse who gave him the bell, Lian Xi knew he could just rock up without any preparation. He specifically looked through his alumni group and found a classmate that he had relatively okay relations with. And asked him to help him make contact with this intern who had graduated from Su City University.
The glasses doctor pushed up the frame of his spectacles, looking a bit distressed. “Look, I was doing a rotation last month in Obstetrics and Gynecology. There was an old nurse there that had a lot of experience. Maybe she’ll know. Let me take you to ask her.”
Lian Xi: “Sorry to trouble you. Thanks.”
Lian Xi had good luck. When the two people reached the obstetrics and gynecology department, that old nurse happened to be on duty today.
However when Lian Xi asked about the nurse who delivered him as a baby 23 years ago, the old nurse rolled her eyes and said speechlessly, “Who comes asking about this kind of stuff?”
The glasses doctor, “Sister Qin, please help.”
The nurse who was called Sister Qin frowned. “Xiao Wang, it’s not that I don’t want to help you but it’s been 23 years so that means it happened in 1997! Although I started work here in 1995, do you know how many babies we deliver every day? Do you know how many nurses have come and gone in that time?” She looked at Lian Xi again. “When were you born?”
{Xiao Wang as in Little Wang as I’ve explained before, several characters will be mentioned as Xiao Surname, this is just an intimate way of calling somebody younger than you. Similarly Lao/Old Surname is a familiar way of calling someone older than you. I won’t explain this one again.}
Lian Xi immediately answered, “November 27, 1997.”
Sister Qin thought for a moment then sighed. “Don’t mention who was working that day, I don’t even remember if I was working! 23 years ago? Who can still remember something like that?”
Lian Xi also felt like his head was getting big.
Indeed for him 23 years ago was the day he was born. It was the most unforgettable day for his entire family. But for doctors and nurses, it was just an ordinary day.
Sister Qin looked at them. “Okay, as a favor to Xiao Wang, I’ll go and ask the chat group we have for retired nurses. But don’t hold out too much hope as it’ll be really hard to find out who it was. Even if the person who delivered you is in the chat group, they might not remember! That’s right, did anything special happen on the day of your birth? If there is, tell me. Maybe it’ll help jog the memory.”
“That old nurse gave me a bell that day.”
Sister Qin was surprised. “Gave you a bell? That’s weird. Okay, I got it. You guys go first, I’ll help you ask around.”
The two people had no choice but to go back without any results.
As they left the department of obstetrics and gynecology and arrived at the elevator, the glasses doctor said: “I have to go upstairs to finish some lab work. If Sister Qin gets back to me, I’ll contact you.”
Lian Xi nodded and said warmly, “Thank you. When you have time I’ll invite you out to dinner.”
The glasses doctor looked like he wasn’t fully awake. So he didn’t demur or continue to make polite speech and just waved his hands casually, turned and went up in the elevator.
Lian Xi came early to the hospital.
It opened at 6AM and he arrived at 6:30AM.
However even though it was just 6 in the morning, the hospital was already crammed with people. They were everywhere,
There was a man who had travelled overnight from the countryside, carrying a plastic bag with test results from the countryside hospital, so he could find a specialist to ask about his dad’s illness. There was a woman cuddling her daughter’s feverish head, rubbing it tenderly whilst waiting anxiously at the door of the pediatric ward. There was also a man who lived alone in the city trying to make his fortune. He came to see the doctor alone, get tested alone, paid alone. He was sitting in a daze on a plastic chair, holding a cotton ball to the spot where he had been pricked by a needle.
This is a view into the world.
There was nowhere more suitable than a hospital to see all the different varied lives of people in the world, to understand that everyone has their own destiny.
Some wore gold and silver, others wore torn and ragged shirts.
But once they entered this door, they were all the same: they all just wanted to live. They just wanted to peacefully be able to walk out again.
“Ding Dong—”
The elevator had arrived.
Lian Xi got into the elevator that was descending. There were some people nearby but they just glanced at the elevator and didn’t get in.
They were waiting for one that went up, to see a doctor upstairs.
Lian Xi took out his phone and prepared to call a taxi. However after trying a few times he found that the signal in the elevator was poor and it was always out of service.
Looked like he would need to wait til he got out of the elevator.
“Ding-dong—”
Lian Xi was just about to walk out when his footsteps suddenly paused.
He raised his head and stared at the long-haired woman who walked into the elevator.
In the empty white corridor outside, there were no windows on either side. Only high-wattage ceiling lights illuminated the clean floors, glowing with a layer of deathly white.
The black-haired woman had her head lowered. She walked stiffly from the corridor… into the elevator.
She slowly walked into the elevator then stood there unmoving.
With a click, the elevator door closed.
Lian Xi glanced at the display on the elevator.
It was the fourth floor.
“What level are you going to?” The youth’s voice was calm and peaceful.
The elevator mirror reflected the long-haired woman standing behind him. She didn’t say a word but kept her head down, hiding her face behind her thick, long hair.
Lian Xi stared at the other person quietly. There was a flash of red color in his peripheral vision and so he lowered his head.
There was a thin red rope tied to this woman’s wrist.
It wasn’t like the red string on Lian Xi’s wrist. This rope was thicker and there wasn’t any bronze bell attached to it. It was a bare red rope and looked quite ugly attached to the pale and bloodless hand.
Inside the icy elevator, it descended level by level.
Lian Xi expressionlessly watched as the elevator jumped to the second floor, and then…
It was the first basement level.
It directly skipped over the first level. {I previously translated as ground level but decided to change to first level. China (and I think America too?) calls the ground level ‘Level 1’ whereas in Australia, where I live, the initial floor is Ground, then next floor is 1, 2 etc. But I’ll stick to the Chinese/American from now version since it matches the original text better.}
“Do you know there’s a rule in the hospital morgue?”
Suddenly in the long and deathly silence, the woman’s hoarse and monotonous voice sounded. Lian Xi raised his head and met the woman’s eyes.
At some point unknown, she had raised her head. Her dark long hair slid down her cheeks on both sides, revealing a pale and long face.
“Do you know?”
In the elevator’s mirror, the woman slowly tilted her head and looked at Lian Xi. She opened her mouth wide and grinned.
Lian Xi looked at her silently. He said indifferently, “Don’t know.”
“A red rope must be affixed to the dead person’s body so that other people know that… it needs to be sent to the morgue.”
“….”
There was a long silence.
The woman silently opened her mouth wide in a grin and then suddenly a burst of manic laughter emanated from her which reverberated between the metal walls of the elevator.
Dong dong dong—
Dong dong dong—-
The entire elevator began to shake violently.
It continued to drop further and further down!
“Ding dong!”
Lian Xi quickly raised his head.
He was 18 levels underground!
At this time the elevator doors opened. A cold and pale light squeezed through the gap between the doors and flooded inside.
Lian Xi narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together. His hand bronze bell on his left wrist. But just as he was about to ring it, suddenly he saw a person standing outside illuminated by the light.
A short old man wearing a janitor’s uniform and carrying a mop stood outside the elevator gazing at Lian Xi in surprise. Then gazed at the number on the elevator above his head.
“Young fellow, what are you doing here?”
Lian Xi didn’t let go of the bell on his wrist. He carefully examined the other person then said after a pause, “There seems to be something wrong with the elevator.”
The old man slapped his thigh. “The elevator is broken again! This is the morgue, you’d better go. Go at once ba!” After that he looked at the person behind Lian Xi and his gaze sharpened. “Xiao Lin, why are you here? Did you go out to scare people again?” As he spoke he reached out and dragged over the woman in the corner.
The old man faced Lian Xi and said with a guilty smile, “This is my colleague. She always likes to scare people. Did she tell you that the corpses in the morgue had a red rope tied to them then showed you the red rope of her wrist?… Eh, you’re also wearing one, young fellow.””
Lian Xi: “…..”
Lian Xi quietly hid his left wrist behind his body.
The short old man patted the head of the long-haired woman. “What are you doing, quickly apologize.”
The long haired woman grinned at him.
The short old man: “Don’t listen to her nonsense, these days who ties red rope to a dead person. Thats….” The old man’s eyes turned. “If there’s no other things, we need to go clean. You go first.”
Lian Xi glanced at them both. He didn’t say anything and just nodded his head.
The old man heaved a sigh of relief, as though he was scared that Lian Xi was about to go to his hospital directors to complain about him.
Through the gap in the closing elevator doors, Lian Xi saw that the old man kept reprimanding the young woman, telling her not to keep scaring the patients in the hospital.
“Who told you to go out to scare people again!”
“Do you still want this month’s salary?”
“Young people nowadays, they never follow instructions!”
“Click—”
The elevator doors closed completely.
Lian Xi raised his head and glanced at the display.
He was on the basement three level (three floors underground).
Previously, he must have seen wrong.
He pressed the elevator for the first floor and the elevator slowly moved up.
The cool wind of the elevator’s air conditioning was blowing and when Lian Xi took out his phone, he saw that there was reception now.
The elevator went up floor by floor but in the corridor of the third basement level where the mortuary was located, a short old man’s cursing became softer and softer. In the end, he was completely silent. Only the sound of the woman’s “he-he-he-he” laughter reverberated through the corridor.
The woman lifted her foot and her skirt slid aside, exposing an emaciated left ankle.
Attached to it was a plastic tag that read–
[B-07.8.14]
“Hehe…..”
“Hehehehe….”
***
The author says:
President Lie: ??? Did I get mentioned even once?
CC: Big. Golden. Boss. Four words! {Four words in Chinese}.
****
Chapter 15 – View of the World
The cool wind from the elevator’s air conditioning was blowing.
Lian Xi glanced at this young fellow, smiled and shook his head. “No, I’m going out to do something.”
The guy was surprised. “You need to go to work this early?”
Lian Xi didn’t explain much. “Yes.”
The two chatted casually. Soon the elevator reached the ground floor. As soon as Lian Xi got out of the elevator, the guy exclaimed from behind him. “Ah, I didn’t bring my phone!” When Lian Xi turned around, the young guy helplessly spread his hands and said with a smile, “Brother, I’m so forgetful. I’d better go up and get it.”
Lian Xi nodded. “Okay, bye.”
When Lian Xi got to the community gates, the DiDi driver had already been waiting for some time.
As soon as he got in and the air conditioning blew over, he suddenly thought to himself: Am I being too extravagant?
These last couple of months he had been taking the taxi constantly when going out. He hadn’t taken the bus much.
But then he thought it’s such a hot day and there was no point in torturing himself. Not to mention, he still had the demolition money and there was no point in leaving it there to rot.
And also wasn’t there a big golden boss at home?
Lian Xi was thinking in a daze. Quickly, he got to the Yuan District Hospital.
The Yuan District Hospital was the largest hospital in Su City.
Lian Xi was a Su City native.
His birth can be considered premature and he hadn’t reached full term yet. Originally, his mother had been scheduled to go to hospital the following day but he unexpectedly was in a hurry and her waters broke that night. His dad panicked and hurried to take his mother to the hospital on a motorcycle. He took her to the Yuan District Hospital.
Twenty years ago, Yuan District Hospital only had two, three-storey buildings. Today it already occupies an area of 100 acres and is full of tall buildings.
Lian Xi waited a while in the lobby and finally a doctor wearing glasses and the white coat of an intern walked over.
Lian Xi stood up.
Glasses doctor: “You are… Lian Xi?”
Lian Xi: “Yes.”
The glasses doctor glanced at him up and down and then said softly, “Oh. Zhao Wei told me about you. Something about you used to know someone who worked here and is looking for them? He wasn’t clear on his weixin.”
Lian Xi explained, “I was born at Yuan District Hospital. I want to find the nurse that delivered me that year.”
The glasses doctor was dumbfounded. “You’re looking for the nurse that delivered you?”
“Yes.”
“Eh, that will be pretty difficult ah…”
Lian Xi graduated from Su City University. Su City University’s medical school was famous in HuaXia.
Since he was looking for the nurse who gave him the bell, Lian Xi knew he could just rock up without any preparation. He specifically looked through his alumni group and found a classmate that he had relatively okay relations with. And asked him to help him make contact with this intern who had graduated from Su City University.
The glasses doctor pushed up the frame of his spectacles, looking a bit distressed. “Look, I was doing a rotation last month in Obstetrics and Gynecology. There was an old nurse there that had a lot of experience. Maybe she’ll know. Let me take you to ask her.”
Lian Xi: “Sorry to trouble you. Thanks.”
Lian Xi had good luck. When the two people reached the obstetrics and gynecology department, that old nurse happened to be on duty today.
However when Lian Xi asked about the nurse who delivered him as a baby 23 years ago, the old nurse rolled her eyes and said speechlessly, “Who comes asking about this kind of stuff?”
The glasses doctor, “Sister Qin, please help.”
The nurse who was called Sister Qin frowned. “Xiao Wang, it’s not that I don’t want to help you but it’s been 23 years so that means it happened in 1997! Although I started work here in 1995, do you know how many babies we deliver every day? Do you know how many nurses have come and gone in that time?” She looked at Lian Xi again. “When were you born?”
{Xiao Wang as in Little Wang as I’ve explained before, several characters will be mentioned as Xiao Surname, this is just an intimate way of calling somebody younger than you. Similarly Lao/Old Surname is a familiar way of calling someone older than you. I won’t explain this one again.}
Lian Xi immediately answered, “November 27, 1997.”
Sister Qin thought for a moment then sighed. “Don’t mention who was working that day, I don’t even remember if I was working! 23 years ago? Who can still remember something like that?”
Lian Xi also felt like his head was getting big.
Indeed for him 23 years ago was the day he was born. It was the most unforgettable day for his entire family. But for doctors and nurses, it was just an ordinary day.
Sister Qin looked at them. “Okay, as a favor to Xiao Wang, I’ll go and ask the chat group we have for retired nurses. But don’t hold out too much hope as it’ll be really hard to find out who it was. Even if the person who delivered you is in the chat group, they might not remember! That’s right, did anything special happen on the day of your birth? If there is, tell me. Maybe it’ll help jog the memory.”
“That old nurse gave me a bell that day.”
Sister Qin was surprised. “Gave you a bell? That’s weird. Okay, I got it. You guys go first, I’ll help you ask around.”
The two people had no choice but to go back without any results.
As they left the department of obstetrics and gynecology and arrived at the elevator, the glasses doctor said: “I have to go upstairs to finish some lab work. If Sister Qin gets back to me, I’ll contact you.”
Lian Xi nodded and said warmly, “Thank you. When you have time I’ll invite you out to dinner.”
The glasses doctor looked like he wasn’t fully awake. So he didn’t demur or continue to make polite speech and just waved his hands casually, turned and went up in the elevator.
Lian Xi came early to the hospital.
It opened at 6AM and he arrived at 6:30AM.
However even though it was just 6 in the morning, the hospital was already crammed with people. They were everywhere,
There was a man who had travelled overnight from the countryside, carrying a plastic bag with test results from the countryside hospital, so he could find a specialist to ask about his dad’s illness. There was a woman cuddling her daughter’s feverish head, rubbing it tenderly whilst waiting anxiously at the door of the pediatric ward. There was also a man who lived alone in the city trying to make his fortune. He came to see the doctor alone, get tested alone, paid alone. He was sitting in a daze on a plastic chair, holding a cotton ball to the spot where he had been pricked by a needle.
This is a view into the world.
There was nowhere more suitable than a hospital to see all the different varied lives of people in the world, to understand that everyone has their own destiny.
Some wore gold and silver, others wore torn and ragged shirts.
But once they entered this door, they were all the same: they all just wanted to live. They just wanted to peacefully be able to walk out again.
“Ding Dong—”
The elevator had arrived.
Lian Xi got into the elevator that was descending. There were some people nearby but they just glanced at the elevator and didn’t get in.
They were waiting for one that went up, to see a doctor upstairs.
Lian Xi took out his phone and prepared to call a taxi. However after trying a few times he found that the signal in the elevator was poor and it was always out of service.
Looked like he would need to wait til he got out of the elevator.
“Ding-dong—”
Lian Xi was just about to walk out when his footsteps suddenly paused.
He raised his head and stared at the long-haired woman who walked into the elevator.
In the empty white corridor outside, there were no windows on either side. Only high-wattage ceiling lights illuminated the clean floors, glowing with a layer of deathly white.
The black-haired woman had her head lowered. She walked stiffly from the corridor… into the elevator.
She slowly walked into the elevator then stood there unmoving.
With a click, the elevator door closed.
Lian Xi glanced at the display on the elevator.
It was the fourth floor.
“What level are you going to?” The youth’s voice was calm and peaceful.
The elevator mirror reflected the long-haired woman standing behind him. She didn’t say a word but kept her head down, hiding her face behind her thick, long hair.
Lian Xi stared at the other person quietly. There was a flash of red color in his peripheral vision and so he lowered his head.
There was a thin red rope tied to this woman’s wrist.
It wasn’t like the red string on Lian Xi’s wrist. This rope was thicker and there wasn’t any bronze bell attached to it. It was a bare red rope and looked quite ugly attached to the pale and bloodless hand.
Inside the icy elevator, it descended level by level.
Lian Xi expressionlessly watched as the elevator jumped to the second floor, and then…
It was the first basement level.
It directly skipped over the first level. {I previously translated as ground level but decided to change to first level. China (and I think America too?) calls the ground level ‘Level 1’ whereas in Australia, where I live, the initial floor is Ground, then next floor is 1, 2 etc. But I’ll stick to the Chinese/American from now version since it matches the original text better.}
“Do you know there’s a rule in the hospital morgue?”
Suddenly in the long and deathly silence, the woman’s hoarse and monotonous voice sounded. Lian Xi raised his head and met the woman’s eyes.
At some point unknown, she had raised her head. Her dark long hair slid down her cheeks on both sides, revealing a pale and long face.
“Do you know?”
In the elevator’s mirror, the woman slowly tilted her head and looked at Lian Xi. She opened her mouth wide and grinned.
Lian Xi looked at her silently. He said indifferently, “Don’t know.”
“A red rope must be affixed to the dead person’s body so that other people know that… it needs to be sent to the morgue.”
“….”
There was a long silence.
The woman silently opened her mouth wide in a grin and then suddenly a burst of manic laughter emanated from her which reverberated between the metal walls of the elevator.
Dong dong dong—
Dong dong dong—-
The entire elevator began to shake violently.
It continued to drop further and further down!
“Ding dong!”
Lian Xi quickly raised his head.
He was 18 levels underground!
At this time the elevator doors opened. A cold and pale light squeezed through the gap between the doors and flooded inside.
Lian Xi narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together. His hand bronze bell on his left wrist. But just as he was about to ring it, suddenly he saw a person standing outside illuminated by the light.
A short old man wearing a janitor’s uniform and carrying a mop stood outside the elevator gazing at Lian Xi in surprise. Then gazed at the number on the elevator above his head.
“Young fellow, what are you doing here?”
Lian Xi didn’t let go of the bell on his wrist. He carefully examined the other person then said after a pause, “There seems to be something wrong with the elevator.”
The old man slapped his thigh. “The elevator is broken again! This is the morgue, you’d better go. Go at once ba!” After that he looked at the person behind Lian Xi and his gaze sharpened. “Xiao Lin, why are you here? Did you go out to scare people again?” As he spoke he reached out and dragged over the woman in the corner.
The old man faced Lian Xi and said with a guilty smile, “This is my colleague. She always likes to scare people. Did she tell you that the corpses in the morgue had a red rope tied to them then showed you the red rope of her wrist?… Eh, you’re also wearing one, young fellow.””
Lian Xi: “…..”
Lian Xi quietly hid his left wrist behind his body.
The short old man patted the head of the long-haired woman. “What are you doing, quickly apologize.”
The long haired woman grinned at him.
The short old man: “Don’t listen to her nonsense, these days who ties red rope to a dead person. Thats….” The old man’s eyes turned. “If there’s no other things, we need to go clean. You go first.”
Lian Xi glanced at them both. He didn’t say anything and just nodded his head.
The old man heaved a sigh of relief, as though he was scared that Lian Xi was about to go to his hospital directors to complain about him.
Through the gap in the closing elevator doors, Lian Xi saw that the old man kept reprimanding the young woman, telling her not to keep scaring the patients in the hospital.
“Who told you to go out to scare people again!”
“Do you still want this month’s salary?”
“Young people nowadays, they never follow instructions!”
“Click—”
The elevator doors closed completely.
Lian Xi raised his head and glanced at the display.
He was on the basement three level (three floors underground).
Previously, he must have seen wrong.
He pressed the elevator for the first floor and the elevator slowly moved up.
The cool wind of the elevator’s air conditioning was blowing and when Lian Xi took out his phone, he saw that there was reception now.
The elevator went up floor by floor but in the corridor of the third basement level where the mortuary was located, a short old man’s cursing became softer and softer. In the end, he was completely silent. Only the sound of the woman’s “he-he-he-he” laughter reverberated through the corridor.
The woman lifted her foot and her skirt slid aside, exposing an emaciated left ankle.
Attached to it was a plastic tag that read–
[B-07.8.14]
“Hehe…..”
“Hehehehe….”
***
The author says:
President Lie: ??? Did I get mentioned even once?
CC: Big. Golden. Boss. Four words! {Four words in Chinese}.
****
