Chapter 1244 - 1244: 794 Blind and Deaf_2

The young man quickly stood up. "Oh, oh, oh, I remember now! Doctor Du from Jinzhou."

Du Heng also laughed happily, pointed at the bread in the young man's hand, and said, "Master Huang, are you done with work and taking your lunch break?"

The young man smiled shyly and, somewhat embarrassed, hid the bread he was holding behind him.

In front of others, he could eat bread with pickles heartily, without a care.

But in front of this fellow townsman, whom he had only met once, he felt very self-conscious eating bread.

The young man laughed again, but in just a few seconds, his smile became slightly awkward and strained. "Doctor Du, you can call me Xiao Huang, or by my full name, Huang Jufu. Calling me Master Huang always makes me feel like you're calling Huang Feihong."

Huang Jufu?! My brain isn't working; I didn't even remember that.

"Well then, I'm thirty-one this year. I reckon I'm older than you, so I'll call you Xiao Huang. How does that sound?"

"I'm twenty-two. Xiao Huang is fine."

Du Heng laughed happily. "Meeting by chance is better than a formal invitation. For us to meet again so soon, it must be fate."

He walked forward, picked up the lid of the glass jar, and covered the pickles. "Come on, let's go have a meal together, just the two of us."

The young man was a bit stunned; he hadn't expected Du Heng to take his casual remark seriously.

Du Heng put the lid on the pickles and picked up the jar. "You wouldn't know, I came to the Capital at the end of February, and in the blink of an eye, half a year has passed. There are people from all over around me, but none from our Jinzhou. That feeling... tsk tsk, it's hard to describe.

"Let's not say anything else today. Just two fellow townsmen meeting, let's have a meal and chat."

The young man, still holding his bread, was dazedly led by Du Heng to a restaurant outside the courtyard.

On the way, he really just listened to Du Heng chattering on; he barely got a word in.

It was clear Du Heng had really been holding a lot in during his six months in the Capital.

You have to understand, he himself wasn't a very talkative person by nature.

The young man, who hadn't uttered a word on the way, suddenly showed strong resistance when he saw the restaurant before them. "Doctor Du, this place is too... too..."

Du Heng paid him no mind and directly pushed the young man into the restaurant. "Too what? It's rare to meet a fellow townsman. Surely I can't just treat you to noodles?"

Without giving him a chance to argue, the young man was pushed into the restaurant.

Du Heng noticed the young man's reserve. Not standing on ceremony, he took the initiative and ordered a few dishes.

"Xiao Huang, you have to work this afternoon, so no alcohol. We'll have tea instead."

"No alcohol, definitely no alcohol," Huang Jufu hurriedly waved his hand in refusal.

Du Heng asked Xiao Huang if there was anything else he wanted to eat, encouraging him to order a couple of dishes, but Xiao Huang kept insisting it was enough.

Seeing this, Du Heng asked the waiter to serve the dishes and began chatting with Huang Jufu.

However, on the way over, Du Heng had pretty much said everything he'd been bottling up for so long. Now, he started asking Huang Jufu questions. "Xiao Huang, how long have you been in the Capital?"

"Four years. I came right after high school graduation."

"That's quite early." Du Heng understood the situation in Jinzhou and its surrounding areas, so he didn't dwell on this issue. Instead, he asked, "So what made you decide to do this 'Spider-Man' work? It's a bit dangerous."

Xiao Huang glanced around the restaurant nervously. "I have no skills, no education. I can't do other jobs.

"This 'Spider-Man' job has low requirements and pays well. It's a bit dangerous, sure, but if you're careful, it's usually fine."

"Is the salary high for this job?"

"It depends on the comparison," Huang Jufu said softly. "Compared to you doctors, our salary certainly isn't high.

"But compared to other jobs I can do, the salary is much higher.

"For this job today, I can earn 800 yuan in one day."

Eight hundred yuan, Du Heng mused. That really is a good salary.

Du Heng nodded and said, "The salary is high, but it's still too dangerous. It would be better to find a safer job."

Huang Jufu suddenly gave a bitter smile. "Safer jobs pay too little. Even on a construction site, working twelve hours a day, you only make three or four hundred yuan."

Hearing the young man's words, Du Heng paused. "Are you really short of money?"

"I am. Desperately," Huang Jufu laughed, but it looked sadder than crying. "I came to the Capital not just to work and earn money, but mainly to get medical treatment for my daughter."

"You're married?"

"Yes, I got married the year I graduated. My child is already three."

Unexpected?

A little.

But not at all surprising.

Du Heng still remembered the year he graduated from junior high. After getting into high school, on his way home for winter break, he ran into a female classmate from junior high. She was only seventeen at the time, but she was already holding a newborn baby.

What made Du Heng even more flustered back then was that the classmate jokingly told the baby in her arms to call him "Uncle."

This made Du Heng—still in his school uniform, carrying a backpack, a ring of dark fuzz on his upper lip, not even knowing how to masturbate yet—feel like the world was surreal.

Du Heng let out a soft breath. "What's wrong with the child? Is it serious?"

Huang Jufu sighed lightly, trying his best to compose himself a little. "She can't hear or see."

Deaf? Blind?

This... Du Heng felt a sharp pang in his heart. "Is it congenital?"

"No." Huang Jufu managed a wry twitch of his lips but couldn't quite smile, so he could only sigh. "She was fine at first. When she was eight months old, she had a bout of dysentery. After it was treated, the family noticed her reactions seemed a bit slow.

"They didn't think much of it at the time, assuming she was just listless from her illness. But a few weeks later, they found she had become vacant. Unless there was a loud noise, she wouldn't respond."

Du Heng frowned slightly. "Didn't you go see a doctor?"

"We did. First, we went to our County Hospital. After an examination, they concluded she was blind. But they couldn't find the cause, so the doctors there contacted a specialist for us and told us to go to the First Affiliated Hospital of JZU."

Huang Jufu's face darkened a bit. "Later, the First Affiliated Hospital of JZU couldn't find the cause either and told us to come directly to the Capital, saying not to delay her treatment."

"So, what's the situation now?" Du Heng asked cautiously.

Huang Jufu forced a bitter smile. "When we got to the Capital, the doctor we found said he suspected it was neurological blindness, but they still couldn't pinpoint the specific cause. He just prescribed some medicine and told us to try it first."

As Huang Jufu spoke to this point, his face completely lost its light and expression. "Later, when we went for a follow-up," he continued, his voice flat, "the doctor discovered that not only was my daughter blind, but her hearing also seemed to be declining.

"At first, we didn't believe it, but within a month, my daughter truly couldn't hear anything at all."

Dysentery, blindness, medication, deafness...

Du Heng quickly processed what Huang Jufu had said, picking out a few keywords, but he still couldn't quite understand what had happened. "So, what was the outcome then?"

"The same. They couldn't find the cause," Huang Jufu said weakly. "The doctor we found was very responsible; he helped us contact many specialists, but the results were all the same—they couldn't find the cause.

"But there was some good news. After an examination, they said that with her condition, if she gets a cochlear implant, her hearing can be restored."

"That's not cheap," Du Heng sighed. "The materials and surgery fees would be at least 100,000 yuan."

Huang Jufu nodded. "I asked the doctor. He said since my daughter is still young, for her future, we should use a better one. The cost would probably be at least 150,000 yuan."

One hundred fifty thousand yuan. No wonder Huang Jufu was doing such dangerous work.

But this inability to find the cause... isn't that a bit strange?

However, Du Heng was not surprised.

According to available data, in modern medicine, it's not just one or two cases each year where the cause of a disease cannot be found; there are many such instances.

Du Heng didn't comment on this but, after a moment of thought, asked, "Are you sure your daughter lost her sight before her hearing?"