Chapter 215: 214: Meeting the Parents
Chapter 215: Chapter 214: Meeting the Parents
Yu Zhiming followed the restaurant manager, hurrying into a private room on the sixth floor. It was even more luxuriously decorated, yet much smaller in size.
He saw four middle-aged men and women gathered in the lounge area, their faces etched with worry.
There, a bald, middle-aged man was lying on the sofa.
The man’s face was pale and beaded with sweat, and his right hand was clutching his heart over his left chest.
Yu Zhiming walked straight to the lounge area, bent over, and placed his hand on the bald man’s chest…
A moment later, Yu Zhiming removed his hand and straightened up.
An elegant lady who looked to be around fifty but still possessed a certain charm was the first to speak.
“Dr. Yu, is it a heart attack?”
“We gave him nitroglycerin and aspirin, but it doesn’t seem to be working well!”
Instead of answering, Yu Zhiming asked, “Did you call an ambulance?”
The Elegant Lady replied, “We already did.”
“But our friend was in so much pain, and the restaurant manager said that you, Dr. Yu, happened to be having dinner in a room downstairs.”
The restaurant manager, Ni Qin, noticed Yu Zhiming’s gaze fall upon her. She quickly gave a slight bow, offering an ingratiating smile.
In truth, Ni Qin felt quite wronged.
’What does she mean, *I* said Dr. Yu happened to be eating downstairs? I didn’t know anything about it. I was just ordered to go get him.’
However, she couldn’t argue about it in front of the guests, so Ni Qin could only take the blame.
The Elegant Lady quickly added, “So we took the liberty of asking you to come up. Please forgive us for the impolite disturbance.”
She asked again, “Is it a heart attack?”
Yu Zhiming shook his head. “It’s a pulmonary embolism. Fortunately, it’s not too severe yet, so there’s no immediate danger to his life.”
“Unless it develops into a massive acute pulmonary embolism.”
As soon as he said this, everyone in the room breathed a long sigh of relief.
A man’s reputation precedes him.
Yu Zhiming’s fame had spread far and wide, and he was known for his ability to predict outcomes and distinguish life from death.
’Since he says there’s no immediate danger to his life, then he must be fine for now.’
At that moment, Ni Qin pointed to a sizable first-aid kit and a smaller emergency medicine box nearby.
“Dr. Yu, these are the medical first-aid supplies our restaurant keeps on hand for emergencies. If you need anything…”
Yu Zhiming cut her off. “He needs thrombolytic therapy right now. Do you have thrombolytic agents here?”
Ni Qin gave an awkward laugh. “I wouldn’t know about that. I don’t even know what a thrombolytic agent is.”
“But the guy who came by to sell us the first-aid kit and medicine box said that the contents of these two boxes could handle any emergency a customer might have.”
Ni Qin’s words piqued Yu Zhiming’s interest. He opened the smaller medicine box first to take a look.
Whoa. The array of medicines was dazzling; there was quite a variety.
There was nitroglycerin and aspirin for heart attacks, and even an epinephrine injector.
There were antihistamines, corticosteroids, and immunosuppressants for allergic reactions.
There were also inhalers for asthma attacks, insulin injectors for diabetes…
Just as Yu Zhiming was enthusiastically inspecting the medicine box, Gu Qingning gently poked the Elegant Lady’s arm and gestured with her eyes toward the hallway outside.
The Elegant Lady smiled guiltily and quietly shuffled after Gu Qingning into the corridor outside the private room.
“Mom, what are you and Dad up to?”
Although Gu Qingning kept her voice down, she puffed out her cheeks angrily, looking genuinely upset.
The Elegant Lady, addressed as “Mom,” looked Gu Qingning over and said with a pleased expression, “Nannan, you look so beautiful today. It seems you’ve really grown up.”
Gu Qingning’s eyes widened. “Mom, don’t change the subject,” she said, a note of dissatisfaction in her voice. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Why are you and Dad here?”
She added in a whisper, “Keep your voice down. Zhiming’s hearing is very sharp; he can hear us out in the hallway.”
The Elegant Lady coughed lightly and reached out to pat Gu Qingning’s head, but she dodged it.
Facing Gu Qingning’s clear, staring eyes, the Elegant Lady said with a straight face, “Nannan, you can see for yourself. Your father and I are here entertaining guests.”
“Mom…” Gu Qingning drew out the word, her gaze turning serious.
The Elegant Lady coughed again, saying awkwardly, “Well, it’s your fault, and your brother’s. You’re both being so secretive, not letting us meet that boy openly.”
“We knew you were bringing that boy here for a get-together today, and since we had guests coming anyway, we just came here as well.”
“We were planning a ’chance encounter,’ you know, ’accidentally’ walking into the wrong room or something.”
“Heh heh…”
Gu Qingning asked seriously, “Mom, what’s the deal with that uncle’s pulmonary embolism?”
The Elegant Lady reached out and poked Gu Qingning on the forehead.
“Nannan, what’s going on in that head of yours? You don’t actually think we arranged this on purpose, do you?”
“How could that be possible!”
“We had just sat down and hadn’t been eating for long when his face twisted in pain, and he started clutching his chest.”
“He said his chest hurt and he felt awful.”
“We thought he was having a heart attack.”
“Remembering that boy was just downstairs, we had him called up regardless, just to prevent any accidents.”
Gu Qingning let out a long “Ohhh,” then said with a dejected expression, “Mom, Zhiming found out I was hiding my identity. He knows I’m a direct descendant of the Gu Family. There’s still a huge hurdle to overcome.”
“You and Dad better not cause any more trouble.”
Seeing Gu Qingning looking so insecure and anxious, the Elegant Lady’s heart ached for her.
“Nannan, since that boy already knows, just explain it to him properly.”
“You’re a rich heiress pretending to be an ordinary girl, not some commoner putting on a brave face and pretending to be a socialite.”
“Strictly speaking, this should be a plus for you.”
Gu Qingning still looked distressed. “Zhiming is quite proud.”
“You could tell from that time he insisted on not accepting the two million in gratitude, only taking the six hundred thousand.”
“He seems calm and treats people sincerely, but he’s actually warm on the surface and cold on the inside. It’s hard for outsiders to get close to his heart.”
“I only managed to become a part of his life bit by bit after living with him for so long.”
“Now, I might be right back at square one.”
Seeing her daughter, whom she had pampered since birth, being so cautious and even subservient, made the Elegant Lady’s heart ache terribly. It also made her feel quite displeased with Yu Zhiming.
“What’s so great about that boy? All he has is a commendable medical skill.”
“That kind of person doesn’t necessarily make a good life partner.”
“Nannan, you’re the little princess of our Gu Family. What kind of good boy can’t you find?”
“Even if a real prince came along, I’d still have to vet him and test him. You can’t let yourself be wronged.”
Gu Qingning pouted. “Mom, I like him. I’m willing to be wronged…”
Just then, the door to the private room was flung open, and Gu Qinghe leaned halfway out.
“Auntie, Xiaoqi, that man is not going to make it…”
The Elegant Lady and Gu Qingning rushed back into the room.
They were shocked to find that the man on the sofa in the lounge area had a face that was completely purple.
This was cyanosis, a sign of severe oxygen deprivation.
Not only that, but his breathing was also rapid and labored. His eyes were glazed over, and he looked as if he might stop breathing at any second.
The Elegant Lady’s heart leaped into her throat as she fixed her hopeful gaze on Yu Zhiming…
Yu Zhiming hadn’t expected the bald man’s condition to take such a sudden turn for the worse, plunging him into a critical state.
He had been curiously rummaging through the various medical supplies and instruments in the first-aid kit when he heard an alarming sound—rapid breathing, like the wheezing of a bellows.
Yu Zhiming turned his head toward the sound and was startled by what he saw.
The bald man’s face had already turned purple.
He immediately understood: it was an acute massive pulmonary embolism.
’It seems the bald man has quite a few blood clots. In the past few moments, another one must have blocked a main pulmonary artery.’
The most urgent task was to restore his breathing as quickly as possible to prevent cardiac arrest.
Otherwise, judging by the man’s current condition, it would all be over in three to five minutes.
Yu Zhiming was, of course, well aware of the relationship between pulmonary embolism and cardiac arrest.
An embolism in a main pulmonary artery prevents blood from being pumped out of the right ventricle, causing acute right heart failure.
A massive pulmonary embolism also leads to systemic hypoxia.
The heart itself inevitably becomes deprived of oxygen.
Myocardial cells, like brain cells, have extremely poor tolerance for hypoxia. They can only last three to five minutes before irreversible damage occurs.
With these two factors working in tandem, cardiac arrest was highly probable without timely and effective treatment.
The emergency measure for the bald man now was to restore circulation from the right heart and re-establish pulmonary respiration.
These two things were essentially one and the same.
Yu Zhiming was suddenly thankful that the restaurant had purchased such a well-stocked first-aid kit.
It had everything he needed.
Yu Zhiming took out two thick puncture needles from the kit and pulled out a sterile, sealed IV tube.
He used scissors to cut off a section of the tubing about thirty centimeters long and connected the back ends of the two puncture needles with it.
He secured the tubing to the back of the needles with binding wire.
After fashioning this simple shunt, Yu Zhiming felt the bald man’s chest…
In a flash, Yu Zhiming’s hand moved, and one of the needles plunged into the bald man’s chest with a soft SQUISH.
The Elegant Lady let out a sharp “Ah!” at the sight, not only squeezing her eyes shut but also covering them with her hands.
A moment later, she felt someone tugging at her sleeve. She cautiously opened her eyes and peeked out through the gaps between her fingers…
On the bald man’s chest, two ten-to-twenty-centimeter-long puncture needles were inserted more than halfway, and the IV tube connecting them had turned blood-red.
That was the color of blood flowing rapidly inside it.
The Elegant Lady could even see the tube trembling nonstop from the force of the blood flow.
She looked at the bald man’s face and was thrilled to see the purple cyanosis rapidly fading.
’Is he going to be okay?’
The Elegant Lady lowered her hands and looked at her daughter beside her, smiling a little sheepishly.
“Nannan, weren’t you scared at all just now?”
Gu Qingning rolled her eyes, just as Yu Zhiming sometimes did. She gazed at his back and took a deep breath.
The next moment, she grabbed the Elegant Lady with one hand and a handsome, scholarly man with salt-and-pepper hair with the other, pulling them two steps closer to Yu Zhiming.
“Zhiming, I’d like to introduce you to my parents…”