Life Plan

Chapter 25, Witnesses

Zhou Ya quickly replied: 【Is there something wrong? It can be later, no problem.】

That same phrase again.

Liu Chichi felt Shen Shuyi's gaze sweeping over her. She felt like a student taking some kind of exam. She forced herself to slowly type out the sentence, letter by letter: "It's nothing, I just don't want to go."

While the message "The other party is typing" was displayed, he quickly typed: "I'll never go there again."

She quickly slammed her phone face down on the table. Message notifications started ringing in quick succession. Liu Chichi hesitated before opening her phone to look, and even from the messages, she could sense Zhou Ya's increasingly urgent tone—

Is there something inconvenient? I'll pick you up myself today. If you need any help, please let me know.

I might need to trouble you again later. You know it wasn't easy for me to find a job, and Xiao Qiao likes you a lot too.

【Chichi, aren't we friends?】

Is it because of what happened last night? I've already apologized, what more do you want?

Being a working mom is really tough. You'll be having kids too, can't you understand me?

But shouldn't her husband be the one who truly understands her? Yesterday, Teacher Chen said they haven't been able to contact Xiao Qiao's father. Shouldn't that man be responsible?

Liu Chichi felt she had a lot to say, but she was also worried that if she won the argument, she would lose all her friends, and if she lost, she would lose face.

The messages kept popping up, and Shen Shuyi found it annoying: "Can you let me handle this?"

"Yes." Liu Chichi handed over her phone.

Shen Shuyi quickly blocked and deleted the other party, and the world suddenly became peaceful.

"You..." Liu Chichi didn't expect her to handle it this way.

"What about me?"

"You just told me you forgave her."

"Yeah, I said—it's just forgiveness, not selling myself to her. If you don't like it, just delete it."

Liu Chichi held her phone, hesitated for a long time, and finally shrank her shoulders like a quail. She thought that running away was indeed the best thing for her.

Shen Shuyi stood behind her chair, reached around her chin, and lifted her head by her chin: "Cheer up. Giving up a bad relationship is a serious matter. Don't look so dejected."

Liu Chichi's head was lifted high by her, held just as high. But her tone remained timid: "Won't this offend someone?"

"Your relationship with her is just that of colleagues. In the workplace, the most important thing is not to offend researchers and subjects. At the very least, you should be worried about offending me, since I'm your mentor. Do you think I should be worried about offending you?"

No, no.

Shen Shuyi returned to her desk. An email popped up on her computer. She clicked on it casually without even turning her head. "If you think I'm wrong for solving your problem, then you're an idiot. It's better to let me see an idiot through someone else's problem and stay away from him as soon as possible than for you to make a stupid mistake in our work and drag me down with you."

"What about Chen Bin..."

Although the public opinion has gradually subsided, Liu Chichi is constantly reflecting on herself. If she hadn't lost the chat history, she wouldn't have missed the best time for public relations.

"You deal with your stupidity, there's nothing more to say." Shen Shuyi forwarded the email to her, "The ethics committee has approved Jiang Xiaonv, contact her and make an appointment with the relevant doctors and nurses."

The name that disappeared from the dialog box was quickly squeezed out of my mind by the stress of work.

Jiang Xiaonv came with her coworker Liu Nan. Liu Nan was a very young girl with a colorful tattoo on her upper arm, heavy makeup, and dark contact lenses.

When she received the informed consent form, she leaned back in her chair, laughing heartily: "It's a good thing I only started working after finishing junior high school, otherwise I wouldn't be able to sign it for you since I can't read like you."

Liu Chichi corrected her at the right moment: "You're not signing on her behalf, you're a witness."

"Got it?" Liu Nan turned and patted Jiang Xiaonv's shoulder. "I thought you'd been scammed. They said there was free medicine, but it turns out it really was the Central Hospital."

They looked familiar, and Liu Chichi instinctively asked, "Are you relatives?"

"I just started working at that factory yesterday, and that's when I met her," Liu Nan waved, very outgoing. "The food at that factory is awful, and the location is remote. It takes three bus transfers to get here. I'm thinking of switching factories. Do I need to come back to sign some papers later?"

"We will contact you if needed."

Upon hearing this, Liu Nan patted Jiang Xiaonv's hand, mouthing exaggeratedly in a loud and slow voice, as if creating an echo around the clinic: "Then you can message me if you need anything, I won't be going far away lately."

Liu Nan felt a heavy responsibility on her shoulders. Last night, Jiang Xiaonv suddenly knelt in front of her, took out a piece of paper, and scared her so much that she scrambled to the bed, thinking that Jiang Xiaonv wanted to borrow money from her. After reading the words on the paper, Liu Nan thought that Jiang Xiaonv had been scammed. Feeling sorry for her, she took the day off today to come out with her, but she didn't expect it to be true.

Jiang Xiaonv gratefully tried to sign her, but she didn't even glance at it and waved her hand impatiently: "Stop swiping, I can't understand it."

The witness must be someone who has no connection to the experiment. Whether the experiment results are beneficial or harmful, the witness should be irrelevant and cannot even be a relative of the subject.

Liu Nan's name is difficult to pronounce. For Liu Chichi, who can't distinguish between "L" and "N", she even has to practice it in her mouth beforehand, but her pronunciation is still not standard. The same goes for Dr. Li.

"Ms. Liu, are you sure you fully understand the contents of the agreement you signed?"

"I understand, when will you give her the medicine?"

"If the examination is successful, a complete treatment plan will be available."

After Shen Shuyi saw Liu Nan off, Liu Chichi took Jiang Xiaonv to get a checkup. She was very docile, as docile as a bandage stuffed with medical cotton, capable of covering up a bloody wound.

Liu Chichi saw bruises on her arm, the kind of marks caused by human violence, so clear—the imprint of striped shoe soles.

Jiang Xiaonv's docile movements revealed a hint of embarrassment as she tried to open her hands to cover her wound.

In accordance with privacy principles, Liu Chichi could not inquire about the subjects' private matters that were unrelated to the experiment; she could only try to avoid looking at them.

Jiang Xiaonv was successfully enrolled in the team. After two weeks of hospitalization and observation, she was worried about her daughter at home and asked if she could be discharged. After reviewing her medical records, Dr. Li agreed to her discharge, but a follow-up visit every seven days was required.

Liu Chichi prepared diary cards and medication instructions for Jiang Xiaonv. She chose to print them in the largest font size and taught her to read the medicine box word by word.

Writing diary cards wasn't easy for Jiang Xiaonv, so they agreed that Jiang Xiaonv would send online text messages and videos describing her day. They also agreed to use special symbols instead of everyday writing on the diary cards, such as drawing a smiley face if she felt well.

After Liu Chichi took over the project, three patients were enrolled in half a month. The frequency of adverse events reported for tumor drugs was so high that it was overwhelming. She also had to check Jiang Xiaonv's diary card every day. Sometimes the email notification would ring late at night, and she would immediately sit down in front of the computer. Occasionally, Liu Chunhong would push open the unlocked door.

Sometimes I would advise her to rest early, sometimes I would ask her if she was hungry, and sometimes I would say nothing at all.

Although she was busy, she felt that this was the kind of life she wanted, and she would feel happy if she ignored why the door wasn't locked.

So when Liu Chunhong said, "This kind of work is too hard, how about Mom finds you a home? Finds a man to take care of you."

She didn't refuse. Her mother hadn't mentioned that family in a long time, and she didn't want to break the hard-won peace between them. She also wanted to give herself a moment to breathe.

She knew that happiness required playing dumb to maintain.

The illusory and fragile peace did not last long. When the follow-up visits reached the third cycle, Jiang Xiaonv lost contact.