Chapter Forty-Five: Two Caregivers

Following the directions of the older nurse, An Changpu and Qin Ruonan quickly found the two caregivers she had mentioned. Just as the nurse had said, both were seasoned professionals who had spent years caring for patients in the hospital. When the police found them, one was caring for a burn victim recovering from a skin graft, while the other was looking after a young woman who had undergone extensive liposuction. After obtaining the consent of both patients' families, An Changpu and Qin Ruonan called the caregivers out and brought them to a quiet corner of the ward's dining hall.

It wasn’t mealtime yet, so the cafeteria was relatively empty. Far from being unhappy or feeling pressured, the two caregivers seemed quite pleased to be invited by the police for a chat.

Both appeared to be in their early forties. One was slightly shorter, with darker skin, long hair, a plump figure, and clever, lively eyes that darted about restlessly. She looked sharp and quick-witted. The other was taller, fair-skinned, thin, and wore her short hair in a neat style. From the moment they met, she had done little but offer a gentle, slow smile and hadn’t uttered a word.

"You two really know how to pick a spot! But let’s try to keep it brief, all right?" The shorter caregiver was the first to speak as soon as they sat down. She glanced at her watch and did a quick calculation. "There’s just over half an hour until mealtime! The place fills up, and the serving hours are short. Caregivers, patients, and their families all buy their meals here. If you’re even a little late, you might not get any food! You’ve seen the area around here—there’s nothing else. We’ve got to get back to our patients this afternoon. If we don’t eat, we won’t have the strength. Right?"

She nudged the slim woman beside her, hoping for support. The woman just gave a timid smile and said quietly, "I don't mind."

"You never mind. If I hadn’t looked out for you all these years, you’d have starved by now!" the shorter woman said with a disgruntled glare. She then launched into a tirade about how exploitative their company was, how she had defended her friend’s interests, and how she had navigated between employers and the agency on her friend’s behalf.

After a few moments of this, An Changpu interjected, assuring them that if helping delayed their lunch, he would take care of their meal and make sure neither went hungry. This finally coaxed a smile from both caregivers.

"And how should we address you?" Once he had soothed their concerns about lunch, An Changpu took the lead.

"My surname is Zhou, and she’s Huang," the shorter caregiver said, briskly taking charge and introducing her friend as well.

"Do you remember Lu Min?" Qin Ruonan, uninterested in Zhou’s emotional account of her hard work, was more curious about whether, considering how many patients they had cared for, these two really remembered Lu Min so distinctly.

This would determine how credible their statements were.

"Of course we remember! People are all about comparisons! We didn’t think he was anything special at first, but after him, we met a particularly stingy patient who was a real handful. That’s when we realized how good Lu Min really was. You wouldn’t believe how difficult that woman was!" Zhou replied.

Seeing that Zhou was about to veer off-topic again, An Changpu quickly steered the conversation back: "So, what was so good about Lu Min?"

"He was generous! Not like those others we met later—stingy, making us pay for our own meals, questioning us if we were out to eat for too long. Brother Lu—no, wait, he always told us to call him Sister Lu," Zhou said, covering her mouth and giggling as if caring for such a unique patient had been an amusing experience. "Anyway, brother or sister, he was a good person. He never bossed us around for no reason, liked to chat, handed me his meal card and told me to take Xiao Huang to buy food—whatever we wanted. As long as we brought a serving back for him, it was fine. Once, after we lost track of time chatting with another caregiver, he got so hungry he hobbled down from the ward to find us himself. And even then, he never said a harsh word! Isn’t that right?"

Huang, standing beside her, gave a sheepish smile in agreement.

"Lu Min was able to walk downstairs after his surgery?" Qin Ruonan was surprised. She had assumed breast augmentation was highly invasive, but it seemed Lu Min was able to move around on his own.

Xiao Huang nodded silently. Zhou, eager to show off her knowledge, answered on her behalf: "That’s where you might not know! Not all breast surgeries are the same. There’s the kind where they graft your own tissue—that’s more invasive but safer, since it’s your own body. You could be in bed for more than a week. The other kind is silicone implants—much easier. You can be up and walking after three days! Lu Min had both done. Think about it—he was so thin, where would he get enough extra flesh to move to his chest? So it had to be silicone! After three days, he was up and about, even had us stroll with him in the hospital garden!"

"If the surgery was so minimally invasive, why did he hire both of you at the same time?" Qin Ruonan asked.

Zhou seemed a bit put out and rolled her eyes. "How should I know? He had money and wanted to live comfortably!"

An Changpu checked his watch, then took fifty yuan from his pocket and handed it to Zhou. "Sister Zhou, we’re really sorry for taking up your time today. Why don’t you go get something good to eat? That way you won’t have to squeeze in with the crowd later. Consider it a small token of thanks for your help."

Though Zhou protested that she couldn’t accept it, her hands eagerly took the money. She immediately stood up, told Huang to wait, and went out to buy lunch.

"I’ll hurry back. If we finish early, we can get back to our patients before our employers get upset," she said to Huang as she left.

After she was gone, Huang looked uncomfortable and said nothing until An Changpu gently prompted her.

"Sister Huang, was it Lu Min who hired you and Sister Zhou?" he asked directly.

Huang blushed, glancing out the window before speaking in a soft voice. "Actually, at first he only wanted to hire me. But Xiao Zhou talked him around for a couple of days, and then he changed his mind. It didn’t matter to me, so in the end, it was the two of us together."

"You didn’t like Lu Min, did you?" An Changpu had caught the hesitation in her words.

Huang’s expression grew troubled. She chose her words carefully. "It’s not that I didn’t like him. I’m just stubborn, and I can’t really accept men who want to become women. He—he just seemed odd to me. The way he talked, the way he acted—it just made me uncomfortable."

"Was Lu Min difficult to get along with?" Qin Ruonan interjected.

"Not really. I’m quiet, and he didn’t care for me much. Xiao Zhou is sweet-talking, good at flattery—she could praise him to the skies, so he liked her more. He even gave her his meal card. The first time we used it, I was shocked to see it had thousands on it!"

"Sister Huang, how did the fees work for your 24-hour care?" An Changpu asked.

"By the day. Ninety yuan a day. He even paid extra so we could both have beds. He had a three-bed ward all to himself, and he paid all the fees."

"How long did you two look after Lu Min?" An Changpu asked.

Huang counted on her fingers. "Altogether, at least a month. He was discharged from thoracic surgery and went for more plastic surgery after that."

They left Huang in the cafeteria waiting for Zhou to return with lunch, while An Changpu and Qin Ruonan left the hospital ward building.

Lu Min, it seemed, was not difficult to deceive. Qin Ruonan calculated in her mind—the surgeries, the hospital stay, the two caregivers’ wages and their beds, food for three people—Lu Min’s expenses over the month far exceeded what his family could afford. Why was he spending so freely? If he only had the 100,000 yuan from selling cemetery plots, would he really have felt so secure?

"Why did you give Zhou money to buy lunch?" The thought of money reminded Qin Ruonan of An Changpu’s earlier gesture.

"You saw it too—Zhou is slick, everything she says is embellished, and she’s dominant. With her there, Huang wouldn’t open up," An Changpu replied.

"But how did you know Zhou wouldn’t just send Huang to buy the food? If she had, your plan would have fallen through!" Qin Ruonan was still puzzled.

An Changpu smiled and shook his head. "You’re more naive than I thought! You could tell from Zhou’s words—she likes little perks. Just getting to eat for free on Lu Min’s meal card made her so pleased. If I gave her fifty yuan, there’s no way she’d spend it all on food. She’d definitely want to go herself—so she could pocket the change. That way, she’d have every reason to do the errand herself."