The man in the white coat is Noah.
Mason turned around and saw Ryan still standing there, so he walked back and asked, "Teacher Xu, why don't you leave?"
Ryan said "ah", retracted his gaze, and looked at Mason: "I...that..."
He stuttered twice, and Mason blinked and waited for him to speak. This matter is easy to say, I saw an acquaintance, but Ryan's mind was tangled at this time.
Noah put out his cigarette and walked over. When he was four or five steps away, he called out to him, "Teacher Xu!"
"Hey, Doctor Fang." Ryan responded subconsciously.
Mason was shocked: "Huh?! You know each other!"
Then Dawa Gyatso immediately understood: "Oh - yes, Dr. Fang is also from Beijing, so you two are friends?"
Noah smiled and said ambiguously: "We knew each other before."
It was true that they knew each other before, so there was no problem, and Ryan did not explain much. Mason laughed and said, "That's great, Teacher Xu, you still have someone to take care of you here."
"Yes, yes..." Ryan quickly adjusted his state to make himself look less stiff. He adjusted his collar and scratched the back of his head.
Noah turned to Mason and said, "Will you take him to the village for dinner?"
"Yes, take Teacher Xu to familiarize himself with it."
Noah said, "You go and do your work. I'll take care of it."
Mason is a teacher at a junior high school in the county, but he comes to the village middle school every week to help substitute for classes, running back and forth. Noah knows this. Mason runs back and forth every day, and today he received Ryan again, so he must be exhausted.
Mason responded, nodded, and said without hesitation: "Okay, thank you for your hard work, Doctor Fang."
The man who was smoking with Noah also came over, and Noah introduced him: "This is my colleague, Yang Gao, from Sichuan. Doctor Yang, this is Teacher Xu."
Ryan shook hands with him, and Noah said, "How about I take you to the county town to have something to eat?"
"No." Ryan's mind immediately flashed to the three-hour mountain road, and he refused directly, "I just came from the county town and have been running all day. I really don't want to drive or take a car."
"Oh, okay." Noah said, "Then why don't you come to our hospital cafeteria to eat?"
Ryan said without hesitation: "Okay."
The hospital that Noah mentioned was actually just a single building. On the way to the hospital, Noah told him that his aid-in-Tibet location was the hospital in the county town, but because of the inconvenient transportation in the surrounding villages, doctors from the county hospital would take turns coming to this small hospital every month to see patients.
And they go to various villages to provide free medical treatment every once in a while, so there are not people here every day.
The nearby villages and scattered Tibetans are accustomed to calling this place the "small hospital" and the one in the county town the "big hospital".
The so-called canteen is actually a big pot of food prepared by the couple who are the leaders of the small hospital.
The small hospital was built like the school, with the same earthen building and fences with the same pattern. There were several cars parked in the front yard, all of which were high-chassis SUVs. Ryan looked up at the building. There were two lines of words on the iron plate beside the door. The Chinese line read "County Hospital", so this could be understood as a branch of the county hospital.
Let's just call it a hospital, Ryan thought, and continued to look around. After entering the only outpatient building, Ryan also saw that it was divided into internal medicine and surgery.
"Doctor Fang." Ryan called him.
"Hey, Teacher Xu." Noah turned around.
"Um, where is the bathroom?"
Noah pointed to a corner of the outpatient department: "There."
"Can you wait for me for a moment?"
"Of course." Noah put his hands in the pockets of his white coat and looked at him with a smile.
Ryan trotted to the bathroom. Yang Gao nudged Noah with his arm and asked, "Were you two friends in Beijing?"
Noah said: "I went to Golmud two days ago and met him on the way back. My car broke down halfway, so he took me back to Lhasa."
"Wow." Yang Gao recalled, "You told me that the car broke down at night, right? You got into his car on the dark highway?"
"Yeah." Noah nodded.
Yang Gao: "You are also very courageous."
Noah smiled and said nothing more. Indeed, he had reflected on himself these past two days, and concluded that Ryan was too good-looking, and the frosty look while biting a cigarette was too S3xy, so he took a gamble.
Yang Gao stared at his colleague for a moment, feeling incredible. At this moment, Ryan came out of the bathroom, and Noah waved at him.
There are about six or seven doctors eating in the hospital cafeteria, and these six or seven doctors are all the doctors in this "branch hospital". There is no emergency department, and everyone takes turns to work the night shift. The blackboard on the cafeteria wall is a handwritten duty roster.
Everything was so simple and quaint that Ryan felt like he had traveled through time in a period drama. But this was just like the 1990s. In the 1990s, Shanghai was so rich that there were Australian lobsters and king crabs on the table, and in the 1990s, people in the northwest used public taps to wash clothes.
In fact, it is the same today. There are coffee shops in the hospital canteens in big cities, and the rice cookers in the canteens of small county hospitals are still the same model as when Ryan was 10 years old.
The world is like a rain forest. Some trees are illuminated by the sun and grow tall and majestic in fertile places. Some trees take root in barren places and can only try their best not to die.
Then others will say: The trees in this forest are growing so well!
"Thank you." Ryan took the full bowl of rice from Noah, and whispered, "It's a little too much, Doctor Fang."
"Come on, pass it to me." Noah handed over the bowl.
During the dinner, other people in the hospital told Ryan that the county town he visited during the day had just been lifted out of poverty a few years ago. The county hospital was not very large, with only basic facilities, such as CT machines and MRIs, and some pathological tests had to be sent to hospitals in Shannan City.
This small hospital in a single building mainly serves the surrounding villages. Many villagers don’t understand how a hospital operates, so the county set up a small one here.
There is only one manual window for registration here, and medical insurance can be used. Villagers usually see a doctor here if they have a headache or fever.
Ryan nodded in response.
Noah found that he was a little reserved. After dinner, someone suggested that they go to the county town to have some fun and welcome Teacher Xu. Noah declined the offer on his behalf, saying that Teacher Xu had been busy all day. Only then did they give up.
It was already dusk after dinner, and the school had not started yet, so there were no students in the school. Noah accompanied him from the hospital to the school. The two buildings were quite close, and there were no other buildings blocking the way, so it only took five or six minutes to walk there.
"Have you seen the dormitory?" Noah asked him.
"I've seen it." Ryan, like him, put his hands in his pockets.
Noah: "How is it?"
Ryan: "Do you still need to ask, Doctor Fang?"
Noah chuckled: "I've been to your teachers' dormitory. I went there to help carry the desks last month."
"Ah." Ryan remembered, "I thought so. That set of desks and chairs looked quite new."
Noah nodded: "Yes, the original desk had four legs that had different strengths. The principal bought a new one from the county town, saying that it would be more comfortable for the volunteer teachers to write their lesson plans."
"Each has its own strengths..." Ryan smiled, this was a description, and then he slowly stopped laughing.
The teaching building was right in front of him. Thinking about the dormitory, he couldn't sigh. He was here to teach, so he couldn't sigh and had to hold it back.
"Doctor Fang."
"Hey, Teacher Xu."
"fire."
Noah didn't smoke, but stood with Ryan and smoked a cigarette two meters away from the teaching building. Noah also saw the G-Class parked in the school, looked at the G-Class, and then looked at Ryan. Noah thought to himself, the young master has gone to the countryside...
"Why don't you keep this lighter?" Noah said.
Ryan rubbed the lighter and lit the cigarette, then pursed his lips and bit the cigarette holder with his teeth, saying, "Actually, I have a lighter. I bought a lighter in Lhasa, but I forgot."
... Noah pursed his lips to hold back his laughter, "The oxygen is thin, it's not your fault."
Ryan took a deep breath of the cigarette, letting the smoke roll completely in his lungs, before slowly exhaling.
From the terrain point of view, this place is located on the mountainside, the southwestern plateau at the northern foot of the Himalayas. The road is not flat but there are no exaggerated ups and downs. The altitude is about 4,000 meters. Ryan has adapted well and can even smoke, which is a rare talent in the plateau area.
The overall environment looked similar to the remote mountainous area in Ryan's mind. He looked up at the window of his dormitory room on the second floor of the teaching building with melancholy, without saying a word.
Noah followed his gaze and looked up, trying to ask: "What's wrong? Are you scared of living alone in an empty building?"
"That's impossible." Ryan said, "The national flag is flying in the yard. There's nothing to be afraid of."
Noah smiled and said, "Your eyes look a little bitter."
"It's not hard. What's the hardship? If you're afraid of hardship, then don't join the teaching program." Ryan took down the cigarette, looked around and didn't see a trash can, so he put it out on the wall and then held it in his hand.
Noah didn't ask in detail, because he could understand. He was the same when he first came to Tibet to help. He was not afraid of hardship, nor did he dislike the environment, and he didn't regret it. The medical aid to Tibet and the assessment of teaching support are the same. They have to go through layers of screening. One of the contents of the assessment is to let the teachers understand the local situation. Before coming here, everyone understands what kind of place this is.
There is no 24-hour hot water here, no convenience stores, and the toilet is just a ditch. You have to go to the county town more than ten kilometers away to pick up express delivery, and this place may not be within the delivery range at all, let alone takeout.
Just smoking a cigarette like Ryan is already considered a very good mentality.
Noah said: "There is no public trash can here, go to the school to throw it away."
"Okay." Ryan nodded, "Okay, just send me here. I'm going upstairs to sleep. Thank you for treating me to dinner, Doctor Fang."
"Thank you for nothing, it didn't cost me anything."
"I don't care. I'll thank you once I'm full."
"Okay, you're welcome. Go and have a rest."
Ryan nodded.
According to reason, Noah should have turned around and left, but he didn't move. If he didn't move, Ryan wouldn't be able to escape first, so they looked at each other for a moment under the evening stars... After a moment, Ryan tried to ask: "Anything else?"
"Did you bring a mattress from home? The kind of cotton mattress that you use to put on the bed." Noah asked.
Ryan blinked: "It's in the room."
That was prepared by the school. During the meeting in Shannan, it was written in the teaching manual that the school provides basic accommodation, including quilts, mattresses, pillows, some clothes hangers, basins, and basic daily necessities. When Ryan and Mason went upstairs just now, they saw that the bed was in good condition, with quilts and pillows.
Noah seemed to be about to say something, but stopped himself and changed the subject: "Oh, by the way, I'm going to the county town tomorrow, are you coming with me?"
"What am I going to do?" Ryan was puzzled.
"That's right." Noah swallowed and changed his angle to say to him, "Go upstairs and sleep there for a night to experience it first, because the plank bed is hard and may only have one quilt. If you can't get used to it, come with me to the county town tomorrow to buy a few more thick mattresses. After all, the weather is getting cold."
Ryan listened to the advice and nodded: "Okay, then what are you going to the county town for?"
"My buddy from the auto repair shop on National Highway 109 helped me drive the car to Lhasa, and my colleague in Lhasa helped me drive it to Shannan. I took a bus from the county seat to Shannan and drove my car back," said Noah.
"Oh---" Ryan remembered that Noah's car broke down on the road, "So that's it."
"Yeah." Noah was just about to say, "Then I'll go back first," but he saw Ryan's furry eyebrows suddenly frowned and stared at him.
Noah was a little scared when he was stared at: "What's wrong?"
"Doctor Fang."
"Hey, Teacher Xu."
"How much would the guy at the auto repair shop charge you for driving your car back to Lhasa?" Ryan asked with a smile.
Noah answered honestly: "Two thousand five."
Ryan crossed his arms and jokingly said, "It seems that after deducting the gas money, you still owe me 300. Let's settle the bill some other day, Doctor Fang."
"Okay." Noah also smiled and patted his shoulder, "You take a rest, see you tomorrow."
Ryan felt that what Dr. Fang said was outrageous. It was just a hard bed. Aren't all the beds in university dormitories hard?
But Ryan forgot that his mother had put several cotton and velvet mattresses on the hard bed in the university dormitory, which were as thick as a fist. He went up to the second floor and walked into his dormitory. He turned on the light, and the long incandescent light flashed twice before it stayed on.
Ryan bent down and pressed the bed... and then lifted it up, and there was indeed only a thin quilt. He didn't complain. He didn't come here to be a ancestor, so why should he be served?
So Mr. Xu from Beijing lay flat on the bed for a while, then sat up and walked down the teaching building in the night. Mr. Xu opened the car door, reclined the seat, lowered the rear window a little, and fell asleep.
The next morning, Dr. Fang walked to the school from the hospital.
Doctor Fang didn't even go upstairs. He walked straight to the car and knocked on the window.
Ryan woke up with a start, opened his eyes suddenly, sat up straight, and met Dr. Fang's eyes outside the car window.
"Good morning, Teacher Xu."
"Good morning, Doctor Fang."
Honestly, it was a bit embarrassing.
Ryan rubbed his eyes and opened the car door. Maybe it was because he had just sat up too violently and the G-Class was too tall, so he stumbled forward when he got out of the car.
Noah subconsciously stretched out his arms to catch him, and he fell directly into Noah's arms.
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