My Wife Is A Miracle Doctor In The 80s Chapter 1 - 1 She Became Matcha
“Dr. Tang, you’re here.”
The nurses passing by all nodded in greeting as she walked through the hall.
“Yes, I’ve arrived,” Tang Yuxin replied, adjusting her glasses. Behind the transparent lenses, her dark eyes appeared hollow and devoid of spirit. A faint smile touched her lips, causing small wrinkles to crease the corners of her eyes.
“Dr. Tang looks like she has aged quite a bit recently, doesn’t she?” one nurse whispered cautiously.
“She really has,” another nurse replied in a hushed tone. “Keep this between us and don’t let it spread, but Dr. Tang is divorced. Her husband was having an affair with her own younger sister, and Dr. Tang caught them herself. She’s been cuckolded; she’s basically turned into matcha.”
“Is that true? That is devastating for Dr. Tang. She sacrificed so much, even paying to send that man overseas for his studies, and this is how he repays her.”
“That is just how men are. They are always chasing beauty and novelty. No man wants a plain woman like Dr. Tang who spends every waking hour working like a nun. She is only thirty-three, yet she looks like she is well into her forties.”
The two continued their gossip about Dr. Tang, completely oblivious to the fact that the subject of their conversation was standing nearby with a glass of water. Tang Yuxin raised a hand to her ear and tucked a strand of hair back, exposing skin that had lost its youthful glow.
A midlife divorce and no children to her name; Tang Yuxin’s life had become a series of frustrations and pathetic setbacks.
Holding her glass, she turned to leave. She had only walked a short distance when she noticed a man approaching, using the wall to steady himself. He stumbled and nearly collapsed. After shaking his neatly trimmed hair, he attempted another step, but his balance failed, and his body pitched forward toward the floor.
The expected impact never came. Opening his eyes, he realized a female doctor had caught him, supporting his weight with her shoulder.
“Mr. Gu, are you okay?”
He tried to respond, but his throat was so parched that his lips only trembled. Darkness took him shortly after. His final memory was the sight of his own reflection in the doctor’s eyes—a man so emaciated and sickly he looked like a ghost clinging to life.
Tang Yuxin rubbed her aching shoulder as she walked back toward the private ward reserved for high-ranking officials. She wasn't the physician in charge of this room, as it had its own specialist. The man inside was one of the hospital's most prominent patients.
It was a tragedy; even his high social standing could not protect him from his terminal illness.
She rested her hand on her arm, feeling as though she were being guided by some unseen force, though she couldn't explain why.
Out of habit, she tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. In her other hand, she held the medical file for Mr. Gu.
Gu Ning, age thirty-eight, divorced. His ex-wife was Zhang Xiaomei.
The name Zhang Xiaomei was one Tang Yuxin knew very well. They had been raised in the same village, but Zhang Xiaomei was the "Golden Phoenix" who had achieved great success. She had married into a powerful family and was cherished by her high-ranking husband, who had even gone so far as to donate a kidney when she became ill. However, when Mr. Gu fell sick a few years later, Zhang Xiaomei had promptly divorced him.
Tang Yuxin wondered who was more heartless in this world—men or women.
Closing her locker, she changed into her street clothes to head home. But the very word "home" felt like a bitter mockery. Could the place she was returning to even be called a home anymore?