"No need, just pay the regular fee. Hospitals don't accept bribes anymore!" Li Langqing said righteously.
The more he said this, the more uneasy Wang Shuxiang felt, wondering if she had complicated matters by asking so directly.
"But..."
"There's no 'but.' Just prepare the things needed for the surgery. The nurses will tell you what they are! You can go back now!" Li Langqing dismissed her.
Regarding bribes, the First Hospital of Sandong City had stopped accepting them three years ago. By making the relevant fees transparent, they allowed patients needing surgery to feel at ease and secure. This was in response to the nation's call and aimed to establish a moral example for modern medicine.
As Wang Shuxiang walked out of the doctor's office, her heart was far from calm.
She had heard before that surgery in hospitals required bribes, but she had never experienced it herself and had no idea how to give one, or how much to put in it.
She had been raised by her father, as her mother had passed away when she was only five years old. Who could have imagined that her father, who had worked tirelessly his whole life, would be so punished by fate as to contract such a serious illness?
Under her father's hard work, their family's life was not great; they were just an ordinary family.
While the surgery fee itself was not comparable to cases like leukemia, forty to fifty thousand yuan was still a considerable sum. Add to that the bribe, and later expenses, it would be at least seventy to eighty thousand yuan to prepare.
Wang Shuxiang worked in a small company, earning about four thousand yuan a month. Before her father fell ill, she always felt this salary was enough for her to live on, and she could even save a good amount occasionally.
But unexpectedly, when her father became sick, their meager savings quickly became stretched thin. Coupled with the need to care for her father and frequent requests for leave from her company, the salary she received was no longer enough.
Although she had heard from others about her father's hardships, she only truly understood the difficulty of one person supporting a family now.
The matter of bribes came up in conversations with people in the same ward.
They said that if a bribe wasn't given before the surgery, the doctor might not perform it well. Some even exaggerated, claiming that if a family didn't give a bribe, the anesthesiologist would deliberately administer less anesthesia, or none at all, and perform the surgery anyway. The patient would suffer excruciating pain, screaming terribly!
Just hearing about it was terrifying, let alone imagining the experience of being cut without anesthesia.
The thought made Wang Shuxiang panic.
Her father was her only relative. If anything were to happen to him, how would she go on with her life?
No matter what, she would never allow such a thing to happen.
She would have to discuss the bribe with her cousins to see how much would be appropriate.
...
After several days of refining and absorption, his cultivation had greatly improved. However, to nourish those souls, he had refined fewer lucky fruits.
To test the difference between the souls nourished by lucky roots and lucky fruits, he summoned the Ten-faced Rakshasa.
As soon as Lu Fang arrived and heard the newcomer's intention to see the results, she understood. Although the timing was not ideal, she decided to try it to gain further trust.
This time, the soul spirit did not need to bring back lucky fruits; it only needed to show the master the difference between these souls and the previous ones.
As for the improvement in abilities, it would naturally become apparent with more time spent nourishing them.
After Lu Fang released Ghost Spirit Number One, the newcomer continued to cultivate in seclusion, refining lucky fruits to increase his cultivation.
Ghost Spirit Number One had actually been a woman in her previous life. She had gradually descended into abyss due to her love for money, eventually being killed. The newcomer had taken her soul and tamed it.
When she was released this time, her first objective was naturally money.
Wherever there was money, wherever people could be tempted to take it themselves, greed would fill that environment. Such places would increasingly demand money, increasingly requiring money to fill a bottomless pit.
This bottomless pit would grow larger and larger.
Both the money that fell into it and the souls of the people within were needed by the master. This was the task she had received.
Re-entering the human world, Soul Spirit Number One saw a scene like this.
This was a hospital corridor, with the operating room door in the middle. A young woman was kneeling on the ground, holding an envelope and handing it to two people opposite her.
"Dr. Li, please take it. I don't know if this is enough. Take it for now, and if it's not enough, I'll make up the difference after the surgery!"
The speaker was Wang Shuxiang. This was what she and her siblings had discussed and prepared.
Someone had said it wasn't a very difficult surgery, so a sum for one person would suffice. She genuinely didn't have much money, so she had only brought this much.
However, at first, at the door of the operating room, when Wang Shuxiang offered it to Li Langqing, he refused. Another doctor also said, "No, no! The hospital doesn't allow it. Please, don't do this. Don't worry, we'll perform the surgery well!"
The more they said this, the more worried Wang Shuxiang became.
After refusing two or three times, Wang Shuxiang, in her anxiety, knelt on the ground.
Regarding the matter of bribes, she had specifically consulted a few former patients' families who had given bribes. They all said they gave it in front of the operating room.
There were two particularly important people: the anesthesiologist and the chief surgeon.
She knew the chief surgeon was Li Langqing; as for the anesthesiologist, they said it was the person wearing that purplish-red uniform who entered with the chief surgeon.
Wang Shuxiang was especially afraid of the scenario where anesthesia was not given, or was given in insufficient doses, so she was extremely anxious. Consequently, when the person in the purplish-red uniform said they wouldn't accept it, she became even more nervous.
"Thump!"
As Li Langqing and another doctor refused, Wang Shuxiang immediately knelt on the ground and said the words above.
Seeing them at an impasse, Wang Shuxiang's brothers quickly stepped forward. One of them said, "Doctor, please don't be offended. She and her father are all they have. Now that her father is going through a life-threatening ordeal, for the sake of this vulnerable woman, please accept it!"
The surgery was being prepared, and it was supposed to begin once they were ready. However, because the family was so worried about the bribe not being accepted, the surgery could not proceed normally.
Amidst the verbal deadlock and the negotiation of differing stances, Li Langqing kept glancing into the operating room.
He saw his colleague inside signal, and the doctor in the purplish-red uniform said, "Alright, let's go in!"
But Wang Shuxiang became anxious and immediately grabbed Li Langqing's pants. "Doctor, please accept it. If it's not enough, I'll go back and get more immediately!"
All of this was captured by Liu Sandao.
They were doing a随身采访 (on-the-go interview), which was intended as reference material. However, this scene was more like exposing the truth of an industry!
But in the final moment, Li Langqing took the envelope and closed the door with a heavy thud!