"How...how much? Twenty thousand...twenty thousand needles?"
Li Haiying's eyes widened in disbelief, stunned on the spot.
Another nurse named Ma Furong could no longer afford to fear the siblings Song Wanliang and Song Xiangyu. She furiously cursed, "Chen Xiao, are you deliberately making things difficult for Sister Ying and me, or do you think the richest man Song isn't dying fast enough? The entire hospital combined can't even gather twenty thousand needles. Where are we supposed to get them?"
"I am deliberately making things difficult for you two!"
Chen Xiao retorted without any politeness. He clearly remembered that when Li Bingxue used his phone to send mass messages framing him for sexually harassing female colleagues, the first ones to run to Gou Shunquan to complain were Li Haiying and Ma Furong, whose appearances and figures were indescribable, and who were old enough to be his aunts. If it weren't for Zhou Wannong's protection, he would have been fired.
As soon as he finished speaking, Chen Xiao, still feeling unappeased, raised his hand and slapped Ma Furong hard across the face.
Li Haiying was completely terrified and quickly pleaded tremblingly, "Dr. Chen...Dr. Chen, please spare me and Furong. We...we have no past grievances with you. If Liu Zihao and Li Bingxue hadn't threatened us privately back then, we...we wouldn't have dared to give false testimony against you to Gou Shunquan..."
Chen Xiao sneered, "I advise you to hurry and prepare the needles, because according to my diagnosis, Mr. Song's condition is not optimistic and he could pass away at any moment!"
"..."
Song Wanliang's heart sank, despair evident in his expression.
Song Xiangyu completely lost control, throwing herself at Li Haiying and Ma Furong regardless of her image, roaring furiously, "You trash, didn't you hear Dr. Chen? Hurry and prepare the needles! Otherwise, I'll have your entire families, along with that bastard He Chaochao, be buried with my father!"
In the blink of an eye, Li Haiying and Ma Furong were shoved out of the crowded room.
But Song Xiangyu's emotions remained out of control. She slammed the door shut heavily and immediately fell to her knees at Chen Xiao's feet with a thud, desperately tugging at his pants and crying, "Dr. Chen, save me...save me! The old man can't die! Otherwise...otherwise, my brother and I will live with guilt for the rest of our lives..."
Chen Xiao's pants were almost pulled off, and he was startled. He quickly said, "Flat-chested auntie, didn't I make it clear that I was deliberately making things difficult for those two nurses? What are you so anxious about?"
Song Xiangyu's expression froze for a moment, then she spoke with immense excitement, "You...you mean the old man can still be saved?"
Song Wanliang, who was about to message Song Yan and Song Nuan, was also suddenly stunned. He looked at Chen Xiao with extreme anticipation, not even bothering to wipe away his tears.
"Of course!"
Chen Xiao nodded slightly. While secretly circulating the profound, wordless golden formula in his mind for a further diagnosis of Song Kaichao, he said with full confidence, "I've said before that the snake venom this old man was poisoned with has already been completely dissolved by my Qing Kailing. However, the internal organs and other parts damaged by the snake venom have developed very severe pathological changes, and long-term effective treatment is necessary for gradual recovery."
As he spoke, he pulled open Song Kaichao's shirt and took out a box of needles he carried in his pocket, beginning to acupuncture Song Kaichao's chest. Instantly, the profound, wordless golden formula in his mind began to circulate even faster.
Song Wanliang, having only recently returned, was completely unaware of Song Kaichao's condition. Seeing large patches of bruising on Song Kaichao's chest when his shirt was opened, he was startled, "Xiangyu, why does Grandpa have so many bruises on his body that look like he's been beaten?"
Song Xiangyu shook her head nervously, "I... I don't know either. I only remember that dozens of bruises, large and small, appeared on his body successively after he first fell ill..."
Before she finished speaking, Song Xiangyu was horrified to find that as Chen Xiao inserted the third needle, a palm-sized bruise on Song Kaichao's chest suddenly faded slightly. She was stunned speechless, as the scene was truly magical.
Song Wanliang was also stunned. After a moment of disbelief, he exclaimed, "Dr. Chen, could these bruises be a manifestation of my father's critical illness? Will he recover once all the bruises disappear?"
Although the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Longevity Needles required seventeen needles, the physical and mental exertion was far less than that of the Sheng Sheng Zao Hua Needles, Six Meridian Divine Needles, or Yin Yang Gui Shou. As Chen Xiao inserted the needles, he controlled the wordless golden formula with ease, calmly saying, "More or less. However, it's absolutely impossible to completely dissipate the bruises solely through traditional Chinese acupuncture. The most effective treatment measure is actually intravenous infusion, a combination of Chinese and Western medicine. After all, I've treated another patient with a similar condition who was even more severe than him, so I have plenty of experience."
Song Xiangyu was overjoyed and eagerly said, "In that case, please give him an IV infusion..."
Song Wanliang was startled and quickly interrupted Song Xiangyu with a stern face, "Xiangyu, Dr. Chen only agreed to save his life, not to treat his illness. Let's not push our luck too far."
"..."
Song Xiangyu, who was usually fearless, instantly turned pale with fright and instinctively covered her mouth, terrified that even a single extra breath would cause Chen Xiao to abandon the treatment.
For a moment, only the "drip, drip, drip" alarm of the cardiac monitor filled the examination room.
Chen Xiao, enjoying the quiet, focused even more intently on acupuncture.
Meanwhile, as Li Haiying and Ma Furong, with disheveled hair and torn clothes, were beaten out by Song Xiangyu, more people gathered outside the closed door, including many emergency patients who were waiting in line but were only there to watch the commotion.
Fearing the situation would get out of control, security guards from the security department rushed to maintain order.
In examination room number one, Meng Baobao, who had been working frantically, finally finished with her current patient and was about to call the next waiting patient. It was then that she realized her intern and nurses were nowhere to be seen. She paused in confusion, opened the door, and saw the ridiculous scene of security guards struggling to maintain order amidst the chaos.
"Oh no! Could that kid Chen Xiao be causing another big scene in examination room number eight?"
Meng Baobao's blood pressure surged, but upon realizing the chaos was in examination room number two, she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief: "That's... good."
Although He Chaochao in examination room number two was personally hired by Meng Baobao, given her "Abbess" personality, since the security department was involved, she wouldn't interfere. After all, besides treating patients, her eyes were only on Chen Xiao.
However, after the security guards had worked tirelessly to disperse the noisy crowd, Meng Baobao unexpectedly saw Gao Sheng, dressed in a sharp suit, appear at the main entrance of the waiting hall with a grim expression. She immediately felt like she was facing a formidable enemy.
Because she could guess with her toes that Gao Sheng was definitely there to cause trouble for Chen Xiao because of Gao Fei's incident with the teacup.
She immediately stopped seeing patients and rushed forward, saying nervously, "Brother-in-law, why... why are you here?"