Chapter 55: Chapter 55: The Dingxiang Garden Alt Account
The two walked across the street from the hospital to take the bus.
Chen Hao said, "Old Jiang."
Jiang He: "What’s up?"
Chen Hao: "Be honest with me. Do you have some kind of special study method?"
Jiang He shook his head. "No, I just brute-forced it like everyone else."
"Sigh..." Chen Hao sighed. "Sometimes I feel like I’m such a noob."
Jiang He said, "It’s like they say about the ’competitive cabbage’—you have the heart to out-compete everyone, but you’re still a noob."
Chen Hao chuckled. "A noob? You can say that again."
After saying that, he asked again:
"Anyway, what you pulled off was seriously amazing, Old Jiang. This whole thing... can I leak a little bit about it in our class group chat when I get back? Just a little."
"No." Jiang He rejected him instantly.
Chen Hao’s mouth twitched. "Come on, man. Having to hold in gossip like this is worse than death..."
"Everyone will find out when the paper is published." Jiang He turned his gaze back out the window. "Just focus on your books. Passing your anatomy final is what you should be worrying about."
Chen Hao let out a long sigh. "Fine, whatever you say... Sigh..."
It was already afternoon by the time he returned to his dorm.
As Jiang He booted up his computer, he began to sort through the current threads of his plans in his mind.
’The thesis has been handed over to Yang Xu.’
’Even with Boss Yang’s efficiency and connections, using the fast track for blind review at a core journal will still take over a month at the earliest for it to actually be published.’
’In terms of funds, I already opened an account at Guangfa Securities this morning and transferred the money. But the Shanghai Composite Index still has room to fall, so I have to be patient and wait.’
’As for tomorrow’s semi-final for the Clinical Pathology Reasoning Competition... it won’t be difficult. No extra preparation needed.’
’All three threads are in a holding pattern.’
In other words, from now until the semi-final tomorrow, he unexpectedly had nearly a full day of free time.
A normal university student, after working around the clock for several days, would probably choose to sleep in or go to an internet cafe to play a couple of games and relax.
But Jiang He felt a sense of emptiness.
In short, he couldn’t stand being idle.
’I have to keep expanding my influence, and even subtly correct some of this era’s backward medical concepts.’
’Besides papers and podiums, what other channels are there in this day and age?’
Jiang He’s gaze fell on the Internet Explorer icon on his computer screen, and a name suddenly popped into his head.
Dingxiang Garden.
The "Garden," as medical students called it.
In 2008, Dingxiang Garden was far from the hodgepodge platform it would become in later years.
Right now, the Garden was a pure academic haven.
It was China’s earliest and most hardcore professional medical exchange BBS.
Active on the site were not only medical students toiling away in their ivory towers, but also countless grassroots resident doctors and attending physicians. There were even a good number of department heads and academic leaders from Grade A Tertiary hospitals lurking on the forums.
Everyone communicated anonymously on the forums, sharing rare clinical cases, discussing surgical approaches, and debating the latest international guidelines.
Here, no one cared about your real-life identity; professional skill was all that mattered.
Jiang He typed in the URL.
The webpage took a few seconds to load, then appeared.
Jiang He clicked on the registration page and entered his email and a password.
When he got to the [Forum Nickname] field, Jiang He paused.
’Of course, I can’t use my real name.’
’Creating a sock puppet account and acting as an outsider to answer difficult questions and propose cutting-edge views will not only help me avoid a lot of doubt due to my age and experience, but it will also be the fastest way to gather a group of professional followers who truly value skill.’
Jiang He’s fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment before typing out a single word.
—Zhiyu.
The meaning was simple: a homophone for "to heal."
He clicked register, and the system confirmed his success.
Jiang He clicked into the "General Surgery Professional Discussion" section.
The post titles were varied; some were asking for help with literature, some were discussing the medical licensing exam, and others were exploring clinical cases.
Jiang He’s eyes stopped on a help request post marked in red.
Title: "[Help] Local hospital, ER case of abdominal pain with jaundice, no obvious signs of peritonitis on physical exam, abnormally elevated transaminases. What should be considered?"
Jiang He clicked on it.
The post provided a detailed description of the case history.
There were already over a dozen replies below.
"With transaminases that high, it must be complicated by acute severe hepatitis. I recommend an immediate consult with the infectious disease department."
"No bile duct dilation? The ultrasound tech must be incompetent. This has to be obstructive jaundice caused by an impacted stone in the lower common bile duct. I suggest an MRCP (Magnetic Resonance Cholangiopancreatography) to confirm."
"I agree with the above poster. The stone is probably too small for the ultrasound to pick up."
Jiang He looked at these replies and shook his head slightly.
He replied: [Don’t be alarmed by the transient spike in transaminases. This is most likely a transient obstruction from a micro-stone in the common bile duct. Because the obstruction was brief, compensatory dilation of the bile duct is not yet obvious, so of course the ultrasound wouldn’t detect it.]
[Recommendation: No emergency surgery is needed at this time. Provide routine anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, and liver-protective therapy. Closely monitor liver function. If the transaminases show a precipitous drop within 24-48 hours, the diagnosis is confirmed. After the inflammation subsides, an elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) can be performed. Whatever you do, do not blindly treat it as acute hepatitis and delay proper treatment.]
After writing this, Jiang He checked for typos and clicked send.
He continued scrolling down.
He saw a post asking for help with a difficult question from a school exam.
It was posted by a fourth-year medical student and was about a multiple-choice question on surgical pathology.
Jiang He casually typed a few lines in reply.
For the next few hours, Jiang He answered questions on the Garden.
Relying on his God-like perspective from twenty years in the future and his vast practical experience, every one of his replies hit the nail on the head and was packed with solid information.
After replying to seven or eight posts, Jiang He felt a bit thirsty.
He picked up the cup on his desk, took a sip, and casually clicked on his personal profile on the forum.
A notification in the top right corner read: 27 new replies.
Jiang He clicked it open.
Most of them were feedback from the original posters he had replied to.
[Thank you, Great God! I just got the results from the urgent repeat liver function test, and the transaminases really did drop to just over 300! The patient’s abdominal pain has also subsided! Even my department head said we almost went in the wrong direction. Thank you for your guidance, Senior! May I ask which major Grade A Tertiary hospital you are a director at?]
There was also a reply from a medical student:
[I’m in awe, completely in awe. In just a few sentences, this master explained a mechanism I couldn’t understand all semester. I bow to you!]
Jiang He looked at these replies, full of exclamation points, his expression remaining neutral.
He had no intention of replying and went back to answering questions.
’I don’t need to cultivate a persona. I just need to make the ID ’Zhiyu’ a symbol of authority in Dingxiang Garden’s general surgery section.’
Once this sock puppet account had enough credibility, he could use it to publish some advanced medical concepts and preliminary surgical ideas, thereby attracting truly discerning colleagues within the country.
