Chapter 232 - 154: What’s Past Is Prologue
"I don't want people's first thought, when they mention me in the future, to be 'that Cheng Xiyao who's always around Jiang He.' I don't want my roommates to keep saying that I only got all of this because I'm riding your coattails."
"So, Boss, I want to do a project of my own. One that's completely led by me, even if it's small-scale, as long as it's a project that can solve a real clinical problem."
Jiang He looked at her, slightly curious. "What do you want to do?"
Cheng Xiyao uttered a term: "Cervical erosion."
Jiang He understood instantly.
Just this year, the 7th edition of *Obstetrics and Gynecology* was officially published.
In this edition, the diagnostic term "cervical erosion," which had plagued women in China for decades, was officially eliminated.
It was replaced with a more scientific name: cervical columnar ectopy.
This essentially meant it wasn't a disease at all, but a normal physiological phenomenon.
But here in 2008, many unregulated private hospitals and street clinics were still using the name for scare-tactic marketing.
Many girls, scared out of their wits, ended up spending their family's entire savings on all sorts of so-called physical therapies.
So, this wouldn't be easy to do.
It meant messing with other people's profits.
Which could easily bring trouble.
Jiang He asked, "How do you plan to do it?"
"I want to do an epidemiological survey and clinical analysis for public awareness."
Cheng Xiyao had clearly done her homework. She pulled a thick notebook from her bag.
"Boss, I recently checked the latest textbooks and went through some foreign literature. I found out it's not a disease at all. But, look at these…"
She took some flyers from private hospitals out of her notebook.
"A lot of people are still saying cervical erosion leads to infertility or cervical cancer, tricking girls into getting LEEP procedures or cryosurgery. This kind of overtreatment is terrifying."
"I plan to start by conducting a sample survey among the universities here in South City to see how many female students have been misled by this diagnosis. Then, I want to work with some of the OB/GYN professors to write a review on standardizing the diagnosis of physiological cervical variations. And finally… I want to publish an article in the school newspaper to tell everyone the truth."
As she finished, her initially firm tone gained a hint of uncertainty.
She looked at Jiang He and asked quietly, "Boss… is what I'm doing… the right thing?"
Jiang He was impressed.
'While everyone else is thinking about how to get published in top journals or win prize money… she's paying attention to the details in medicine that are most easily overlooked.'
So he encouraged her, "You can do it. Go for it. Don't think this project lacks technical skill. Medical progress isn't just about new drugs and new surgical procedures in a lab; it's also about tearing down old concepts to establish new ones. If you can really erase this 'disease' from the public consciousness, you'll be saving no fewer people than I will."
Receiving Jiang He's approval, Cheng Xiyao visibly brightened up.
She nodded emphatically. "Mhm! I'll definitely see it through!"
The two continued walking, the atmosphere much more relaxed than before.
On the lawn by the road, a few students were singing with a guitar, and cheers echoed from the sports field in the distance.
As they walked, Cheng Xiyao suddenly slowed her pace. Her question came out sounding casual, yet it felt like something she'd been holding back for a long time.
"Boss, can I ask you a presumptuous question?"
Jiang He shut her down directly. "If you think it's presumptuous, then don't ask."
"Ah…" Cheng Xiyao was taken aback, pouting a little in grievance.
But in the end, curiosity won out over her restraint. "But I'm just really, really curious, Boss. I'm just asking. Don't take it to heart. We can just forget about it after we talk, okay?"
Jiang He sighed.
He already had a vague idea of what she wanted to ask.
"Go on."
"Boss, I'm just purely curious, don't overthink it… I mean, back then, during our freshman and sophomore years, before you met your girlfriend… did you… um, have a crush on me?"
After asking the question, Cheng Xiyao felt an inexplicable nervousness.
She still remembered the way Jiang He used to look at her from within a crowd.
Even though the Jiang He of back then was ordinary and quiet, she could still feel the stolen glances of a bashful young man.
Jiang He stopped walking.
Back when he was a twenty-year-old boy, he'd had many secret crushes and insecurities.
He'd also lingered downstairs from the department belle's dorm, not daring to approach, and written bittersweet poems in his diary…
This was perhaps the restless yearning that every ordinary boy experienced in his youth.
"You want to hear the truth?" Jiang He asked.
Cheng Xiyao nodded nervously.
Jiang He thought for a moment, then said, "During our freshman and sophomore years, I'd genuinely be happy for half the day just because I ended up in line behind you at the cafeteria. I'd also deliberately slow down when I walked past your dorm building. If you define that as having a crush, then yes, during that time, I did have a crush on you."
His tone…
…was as if he were telling a story about someone else, from a long, long time ago.
Cheng Xiyao was stunned.
She never thought Jiang He would admit it so readily.
"Looking back on it now, that kind of crush was more like witnessing the restlessness of youth, more like a… one-sided illusion."
"Later, I Encountered Shen Yu, and that's when I realized what true love is."
"It was love at first sight, but also a mutual pursuit; it was impulsive, but also a source of mutual reliance."
"So, we don't need to feel awkward about it, and we certainly don't need to worry about it causing any trouble for either of us."
"The past is in the past, and as for me, now, I value you more as a comrade-in-arms."
"I think our current relationship is much more respectable and long-lasting for both of us."
"Don't you think?"
Cheng Xiyao stood under the shade of a tree, looking at the man before her.
He was only twenty-one, but the tone of his voice and the way he handled things carried a maturity that felt completely out of reach.
The emotion in her heart—
a certain wistful 'what if we hadn't missed our chance'—
finally dissipated after Jiang He's explanation.
'That's right.'
'If he were still that mediocre boy secretly stealing glances at me, I probably wouldn't have given him a second look.'
'It's precisely because he is the Jiang He of today, whose eyes hold only the stars, the sea, and Shen Yu, that he seems so captivating.'
'If you hadn't changed, I wouldn't have been moved by you; but because you have changed, there's no longer a possibility for us.'
'It seemed to be a paradox.'
"I understand, Boss."
Cheng Xiyao took a deep breath, a radiant smile spreading across her face.
"Thank you. I think things are perfect now, too. Well then, I look forward to working with you."
"Mhm, keep up the good work."
After parting ways with Cheng Xiyao, Jiang He suddenly felt a strange sense of displacement.
It was as if his innocent student days were receding into the distance.
His own identity was about to transform into that of a doctor.
The memories of his decades of slogging through clinical practice in his past life were mostly heavy and cold.
A day-after-day tug-of-war with death, which he had ultimately lost completely.
Shakespeare said, "What's past is prologue."
All the past feelings of oppression, regret, and powerlessness related to the hospital… now that he was living a new life, perhaps they could all be rewritten.
'The prerequisite is that I have to work hard, and then work even harder.'