Chapter 222: 221: There’s More to This
Chapter 222: Chapter 221: There’s More to This
Zhou Mo contacted Qiao Lei and learned the guy hadn’t made it to the hospital yet because he was on the subway, playing the good Samaritan for someone who had suddenly fainted.
Knowing this, Yu Zhiming didn’t think much of it. He changed his clothes, clocked in, and started his day.
He first helped his colleagues Xie Jianmin, Wang Zhijin, and Wang Zejia by examining the several patients they were each responsible for.
Then, Yu Zhiming went to the general surgery department, where he assisted Dr. Cui Zhitan and Dr. Wang Jiangyue in completing a gastric cancer resection and an ileal adenocarcinoma resection, respectively.
Yu Zhiming also found time to visit the inpatient ward to check on the post-operative recovery of colon cancer patient Xiaolan.
Afterward, he returned to the Qi Yue Medical Research Center to perform physical examinations for a family of nine from the VIP channel project…
By nearly 6:20 in the evening, Yu Zhiming had also completed rapid screenings for fifty people in the ultra-early-stage cancer project.
When he returned to the main office, he was somewhat surprised to see his Fourth Sister, Gu Qingning, Fu Xiaobo, and the other co-founder of Junbo Design and Decoration Company, the interior designer Zhu Jun.
“Why are you all here?”
“Uncle, sit down first!”
Fu Xiaobo first helped Yu Zhiming, who seemed as frail as an old man, into his office chair, then started fawningly massaging his shoulders.
He even asked cheekily, “Uncle, are you satisfied with the pressure and my technique?”
Meanwhile, Zhu Jun took out a lavish takeout order and diligently arranged the dishes on the desk.
Yu Zhiming waved his hand in dismissal, stopping Fu Xiaobo, who was all brute force and no technique, from continuing his massage.
He picked up his chopsticks, ready to eat, only to notice there was just one serving of rice. He asked another question.
“Have you all eaten already?”
Yu Xiangwan smiled, hiding it with her lips. “We’ve all eaten. We just boiled some dumplings at home to fill up before coming over.”
“Xiaobo specially prepared this for you.”
Yu Zhiming scoffed lightly. “It’s only because I lined up a job for him.”
“I don’t usually see him being this filial.”
Fu Xiaobo put on a look of being rightly scolded and said sincerely, “You’re right to criticize me, Uncle. I’m usually too disrespectful.”
“Uncle, from now on, I’ll be as filial to you as I am to my own parents.”
Yu Zhiming snorted. “Don’t bother. My eldest sister is always telling me what a headache you give her.”
Amidst light laughter, Yu Zhiming took a few bites of food and asked, “Are you guys coming along too?”
Fu Xiaobo grunted in affirmation. “First, to see if we can help you with anything, Uncle.”
“And second, to take this opportunity to discuss the renovation design, budget, and timeline with Boss Liu.”
Yu Zhiming said, “Oh,” and looked at his Fourth Sister and Gu Qingning.
“You two don’t need to come along, do you?”
“What’s so interesting about pigeons? Never mind the smell; there’ll be feathers and pigeon droppings everywhere for sure.”
Gu Qingning lifted her chin slightly. “Zhiming, I’m now a major shareholder and the quality control manager for decoration at Junbo Design and Decoration Company.”
“I’m going over to talk business with Boss Liu.”
Yu Zhiming pursed his lips, then heard his Fourth Sister say, “I just want to see for myself what a sapphire worth a million looks like…”
Not long after Yu Zhiming finished his dinner, Liu Qilun and his wife, Tian Ling, also arrived.
Yu Zhiming, his Fourth Sister, and Gu Qingning rode in a Mercedes GLK, while Qiao Lei and Zhou Mo took a BMW MINI.
Fu Xiaobo and Zhu Jun, on the other hand, rode in Liu Qilun and Tian Ling’s Bentley.
The three cars drove in a convoy, arriving near the city’s People’s Square after more than half an hour.
The group first parked in the underground garage of a nearby shopping mall, then walked to the square’s pigeon management office.
Liu Qilun had already made arrangements with the pigeon management office, and their group was settled into an office.
Yu Zhiming put on the protective suit he had brought from the hospital. Seeing that Qiao Lei and Zhou Mo had also suited up, he said, “We can begin.”
Seeing this, Liu Qilun shouted to someone outside the door.
Soon, a staff member brought in a cage of COOING pigeons and an empty cage.
Qiao Lei grabbed a pigeon from the cage.
Yu Zhiming, sitting as still as a mountain, took the pigeon. He gently and meticulously kneaded its crop for a few moments, feeling it out, before passing the pigeon to Zhou Mo on his other side.
Zhou Mo took the pigeon and put it into the empty cage.
The three of them worked together like a well-oiled machine. It took them about twenty seconds to examine a single pigeon.
Of that time, Yu Zhiming’s examination took the longest, about thirteen to fourteen seconds.
Watching this process, Tian Ling couldn’t help but lean closer to her husband and whisper, “He finished checking that pigeon so quickly. Isn’t that a bit careless?”
Liu Qilun shot her a sideways glance. “Dr. Yu is a renowned doctor from Huashan Hospital. His integrity is absolutely trustworthy.”
“Besides, haven’t I told you time and again not to judge things you don’t understand?”
Liu Qilun then gestured with his eyes toward Fu Xiaobo, Gu Qingning, and the others nearby.
“Go over and chat with them about the house’s renovation design. With over six hundred pigeons, it’ll take at least three or four hours at this rate.”
Tian Ling said, “Oh,” softly, then asked in a low voice, “But didn’t we already have the house’s renovation designed?”
“Why are we having them design it again?”
Liu Qilun lowered his voice. “It’s mainly to see what their design capabilities are like. It also gives us an indirect understanding of their construction quality.”
“If their design has some good, fresh ideas, we could consider using it instead.”
Tian Ling said, “Oh,” again and walked over to Fu Xiaobo’s group, where they began a back-and-forth discussion about the design and renovation of the new house.
Liu Qilun watched his wife’s retreating figure, his expression complicated…
Examining pigeon after pigeon, this monotonous work became quite tiring after a while.
After more than an hour and over two hundred consecutive pigeons, Yu Zhiming felt his arms starting to ache, so he called for a short break.
Yu Zhiming, Zhou Mo, and Qiao Lei took off their protective suits, which had already developed quite an odor, and stepped out of the office. They walked around the small courtyard of the management office, stretching their legs.
Liu Qilun quickly instructed his wife to go out and buy some food and drinks.
Tian Ling agreed and left. Fu Xiaobo and Zhu Jun, being quick-witted, volunteered to go along and help out.
Yu Zhiming, who was hopping around a bit, saw his Fourth Sister and Gu Qingning walk over and chuckled. “Getting bored?”
“Go wander around the nearby mall, or just head home. There are still over six hundred pigeons, which will take another two or three hours.”
Gu Qingning pouted. “Our luck can’t be so bad that we only find the gem in the last few pigeons, can it?”
Yu Zhiming smiled and said, “It’s possible.”
“Isn’t that the saying? The thing you’re looking for is always in the last place you look.”
Gu Qingning chuckled. “That’s because once you find it, you stop looking.”
Yu Zhiming chuckled again. “There’s also a good chance we’ll check every single pigeon and come up empty-handed.”
Gu Qingning lowered her voice and asked, “Zhiming, have you noticed something?”
She added mysteriously, “While we were discussing the house renovation, that wife kept asking whether you could actually find the gem!”
“Xiaobo said your sense of touch is incredibly sensitive.”
“He also said he once mixed a single coin into a pile of dozens of coins of the same denomination, and you found it by touch without much effort.”
Gu Qingning glanced at Liu Qilun, who was standing nearby, and lowered her voice even more.
“I noticed that when his wife heard that story about you, she didn’t look happy. In fact, she looked even more worried.”
Yu Xiangwan also lowered her voice. “Now that Qingning mentions it, I feel like something is off too.”
“For such a valuable gem, the setting must have been high quality. How could a pigeon just peck it loose so easily?”
“If a pigeon’s beak were that strong, wouldn’t it be able to peck a chunk of flesh from our hands?”
Yu Zhiming said cheerfully, “Have you two been watching too many dramas about feuding rich families?”
“Your heads are full of conspiracy theories.”
“It was a gemstone ring passed down by an elder. It’s very possible the setting became loose from age and disrepair.”
“When I said we might come up empty-handed, I meant it’s possible the pigeon flew away, or that it coughed up the gem on its own.”
Gu Qingning huffed twice and insisted stubbornly, “I trust my sixth sense.”
“There’s definitely something going on here…”
After drinking the fresh-squeezed juice that Tian Ling had bought, Yu Zhiming’s trio put their protective suits back on and returned to work.
This time, Yu Zhiming’s luck was good.
After examining the forty-seventh pigeon since they resumed, Yu Zhiming finally found something.
Liu Qilun, Tian Ling, and the others—Gu Qingning, Yu Xiangwan, and Fu Xiaobo, who had heard the commotion—all crowded around, their eyes fixed on the pigeon in Yu Zhiming’s hands.
“Zhiming, is the gem in this pigeon’s stomach?”
“There’s a good chance!” Yu Zhiming said, not wanting to be definitive.
“Uncle, how do you get it out? Do we have to kill it?”
Liu Qilun interjected, “I’ve already cleared it with the management office. We’re allowed to kill any suspicious pigeons we find.”
Yu Zhiming chuckled. “It won’t be that much trouble.”
As he spoke, he held the pigeon with one hand and began to massage and squeeze its crop with the other. After a moment of squeezing, his hand moved up along the pigeon’s neck…
Liu Qilun saw Yu Zhiming look at him, understood, and quickly placed his right hand under the pigeon’s beak.
“Hey, wait a second!”
Liu Qilun suddenly shouted, pulling his hand back to take two tissues from his pocket and place them on his right palm.
Yu Zhiming’s hand, gripping the pigeon’s neck, pushed upwards, and the pigeon’s beak opened involuntarily…
A particle emitting a blue glow fell onto the tissues in Liu Qilun’s right hand.
Liu Qilun eagerly wiped the filth off the particle with the tissue, then picked it up between his thumb and forefinger, holding it up to the room’s light…
Under the light, the small blue gemstone radiated a mesmerizing blue glow…
“This is it! This is it!”
“Dr. Yu, you’re a miracle worker!”
“Thank you! Thank you, everyone…”
Clutching two transfer checks, each for 100,000 yuan, Yu Zhiming rode back to the Zijin Garden District in the Mercedes GLK with his Fourth Sister, Gu Qingning, Fu Xiaobo, and Zhu Jun.
Zhou Mo and Qiao Lei also headed home, each with the 3,000 yuan hardship fee Yu Zhiming had transferred to them.
Liu Qilun thanked everyone at the pigeon management office and also drove his wife home.
After the Bentley drove onto the overpass, Liu Qilun finally broke the silence in the car.
“The gem is found, but you don’t seem that happy. Is there something you want to tell me?”
Tian Ling bit her lip and sighed. “You went to all this trouble and expense to get it back… Did you already suspect something?”