Chapter 258: A new year

After 15 days, the Spring Festival was now over. People started going back to other provinces, returning to their jobs. They would be gone for one year. No matter how warm their home was, and how cold working far away from home was, they would still have to go. The farmers also needed to start fertilizing their fields for spring. Everyone out on the streets started walking far quicker in comparison to the idleness of the holiday.

There were plenty of office workers who had a bun in their mouth, cell phone in hand, and document bag in the other hand while chasing after a bus. They still hadn't fully recovered from the Spring Festival's atmosphere yet. Students, too, would have to start focusing on school again as the schools would soon start up again.

Shao Hua prepared many things for Jingshu. "You must take this as well as this. If this is too much, we can have it delivered!" Shao Hua had prepared too many things for Jingshu, even to the extent where Jingshu was unable to move the suitcases.

"Sister-in-law, this is far too much! I can buy most of this at my college."

"I'd never believe you. Once you're back at college, you'll return to being unwilling to spend money on yourself. That's why I must prepare all of this for you. You can just leave all this here as you take your flight to Shanghai. I'll have all of this shipped over to your college," Shao Hua said as she busily prepared everything.

"Sister-in-law!" Jingshu acted a little bit spoiled as she embraced Shao Hua!

"Yes, what is it?"

"When are you and my brother going to get married?"

"Hey! You'll have to ask your brother for that."

"Has he proposed to you yet?" The two women were in Shao Hua's room as they organized everything. Since there were some private things, it would be awkward for Zhang Fan to enter. He sat outside in the study, only half focusing on his medical textbooks as he occasionally checked on what was going on inside Shao Hua's room.

Jingshu took a plane back to Shanghai. At Chasu City's small airport, Zhang Fan watched the plane completely disappear in the sky before he left together with Shao Hua. Now that the Spring Festival was over, it was time to return to normal life. There would be many things this year as well.

First up was the matter of Zhang Fan and Shao Hua's engagement. Zhang Fan, Shao Hua, and both sides' parents had a discussion and finally set Zhang Fan and Shao Hua's engagement date to be on October 1st, borrowing the celebratory mood as October 1st was also China's National Day!

Chasu City Hospital's new apartments for its employees had now been completed. All that was left was to assign apartments to the hospital staff. The apartment's neighborhood was rather nice. The price was also very cheap. Zhang Fan would definitely receive an apartment of his own, although what floor the apartment was on and other things would be uncertain since he was still young and inexperienced compared to many doctors at the hospital.

Next up was Shao Hua registering for the accounting examination. She intended to pass the accounting examination after just one year of preparation, which would really bring a significant amount of pressure. Although Shao Hua was excellent at her studies, and she also worked really hard, the accounting examination was considered to be one of China's four most difficult examinations. It really was highly difficult. Even though Zhang Fan kept telling her that there was no rush and that she could take things slowly, Shao Hua wouldn't listen. She absolutely insisted on being able to pass in her first year.

There was also the matter of Zhang Fan's hospital, which was no small matter at all. He had run it for a few months now. The hospital was already beginning to make a profit. However, it couldn't be continuously operated just like this. A hospital was an integrated organization, not some small food stand. There needed to be a professional manager. Right now, Zhang Fan's hospital had zero competitors in Chasu City for limb replantation surgery, but as long as his hospital continued to remain popular, some other hospital would definitely step up to compete with him.

There were so many things to take care of that there was no time to rest. Everyone would have to constantly work hard in order to live a better life. Chasu City Hospital's new emergency center was now in the stage of internal renovations. For this new year, due to the construction of the new emergency center, Chasu City Hospital intended to hire a large number of new doctors. Of course, any new doctors would have to have a master's degree at minimum.

Over the past year, Chasu City Hospital had developed incredibly swiftly under Superintendent Ouyang's leadership. Before, Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital, the only other Class A hospital in Chasu City, had been considered an equivalent to Chasu City Hospital. However, ever since Superintendent Ouyang had become the leader of Chasu City Hospital last year, Chasu City Hospital had begun to completely suppress Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital.

This wasn't because of traditional Chinese medicine being bad, but rather because the area around Chasu City in the border province didn't have any good traditional Chinese medicine specialists. Although Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital was supposedly a traditional Chinese medicine hospital, their treatments were far too simple.

Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital only had an orthopedic surgery department and general surgery department for surgical departments. Their orthopedic department specialized in the local ethnic minorities' orthopedic treatment styles rather than traditional Chinese medicine treatment. It was similar for the other departments as well. Although the other departments were using traditional Chinese medicine treatments in name, they actually mainly still used western medicine treatment methods.

Superintendent Ouyang described it as receiving the government's financial assistance while still prescribing cephalosporin to patients! Basically, Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital didn't have its own specialization at all. With how society was developing these days, no matter if it was a hospital or some other industry, unless you were able to monopolize the industry, it really wouldn't be easy to survive in the market unless you had some specialty of your own.

Due to Superintendent Ouyang's absolute domination, Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital no longer had much of a future left in Chasu City. Not only did this hospital lack patients, lacking patients meant lacking resources, and lacking resources meant that its doctors as well as hospital leadership were having a hard time. After many discussions involving various people, Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital decided to move! This entire hospital would move out of Chasu City and far away to a distant city, renaming itself. Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital's old location would be transformed into an ordinary health care center.

This was all due to Superintendent Ouyang's might! She managed to successfully lead Chasu City Hospital to the extent of completely beating Chasu City Chinese Medicine Hospital, which had still been an equal when Chasu City Hospital was under previous Superintendent Huang's leadership, into such utter submission that the latter was forced to run away to a faraway city! For any industry, becoming the undisputed leader of the industry in the area would be greatly advantageous for attracting even more resources as well as talented individuals.

Chasu City Hospital's development was going excellently. This caused the neighborhoods close to the hospital to become more expensive to live in. Business owners and other rich individuals would always want to take good care of their lives. This was even more so for some retired individuals who were still powerful. They would really prefer to live close by to the best hospital in the area.

There were severe regulations for assigning apartments to hospital personnel. Lots of people from all over were interested in the hospital's apartments. These people were willing to pay market value rather than the hospital's internal prices for the hospital's apartments. Superintendent Ouyang originally kept 10 apartments which she had intended to use as a way to establish connections, but too many people ended up contacting her over these 10 apartments.

Superintendent Ouyang decided that she might as well sell all of them now. Those with connections would often learn things earlier than others. It was common that a local health expert might actually learn certain things earlier than some government officials since these experts would also have their own connections.

By using these 10 apartments, Superintendent Ouyang established connections with various experts from all over, also establishing connections with the experts' own teachers, friends, and so on. This would help Superintendent Ouyang to learn even more important information as early as possible. Although such information would often only be rumors, sometimes rumors would actually be even more valuable than officially stamped documents.

Assigning apartments depended on a points system, where how many years you worked, your official position at the hospital, and academic qualifications all added to the number of points you had. Doctors received 30 more points than nurses for free! After the veteran doctors all received their apartments, only the younger doctors remained. The younger doctors mostly all had similar points, but there were very few apartments remaining by this time.

Most of the young doctors began to try and use whatever connections they could. Meanwhile, Zhang Fan was completely unworried... even though Shao Hua was also becoming anxious.

"How about you try and ask Sister Wang?" Shao Hua suggested.

"Why be so anxious? Relax! We don't need to contact anyone."

"Alright! If we don't get an apartment, then we don't get one. We can still get married and live at my family's old apartment. Don't feel too much pressure. I'm happy as long as I'm together with you." After Shao Hua saw how Zhang Fan was, she actually became the one to console him. She even kissed him on the mouth. That tasted really good!

When time came for the younger doctors to receive the few apartments that were left, Superintendent Ouyang suddenly started adding more rules, such as adding extra points for having graduated from a top-class university. Here in the border province, there were very few doctors who had graduated from top-class universities, but Zhang Fan happened to be the only one who had as his medical college had been absorbed into a top-class university, even though his medical college had only been average!

Not only that, Superintendent Ouyang did something which favored Zhang Fan even more. She declared that any doctor who didn't have a medical license yet, no matter how old the doctor was, wouldn't be receiving an apartment. Additionally, bonus points would be awarded based on how well each doctor had scored on the medical license exam.

With her new rules, heh! Zhang Fan's points surpassed all other resident doctors' points by far! Basically, after all the attending physicians, Zhang Fan would be the very first one who could choose his apartment. He didn't need to use connections at all. Superintendent Ouyang had made the rules, and nobody dared to cheat. This was the benefit of working at a place where skills mattered. There were certain hard standards that needed to be reached. Everyone would know everyone's abilities.

Zhang Fan received an apartment and started renovating it. Although he currently had a debt of more than 1,000,000 yuan, he wasn't worried at all, because his hospital was becoming profitable. He was beginning to slowly pay back the money that he owed!

On this day, Zhang Fan saw an old acquaintance and friend that he hadn't seen for quite a long while!