After a simple discussion meeting with several teachers in the small conference room, before I could return to the office, Daisy was already jogging towards me: "Oh! DoctorXiao, I finally found you! Gary is crying and making a fuss! Go and have a look, we can't handle him!"

I immediately turned around and walked towards the clinic, asking, "What's wrong with Gary?"

"He didn't adapt well." Daisy gestured at the position of his upper right arm, "and always felt it hurts here."

I nodded and entered the room. I saw seven-year-old Gary rushing into his mother's arms and crying. My two female colleagues were helpless. When Gary saw me, she seemed even more aggrieved and howled loudly, her face filled with tears.

"Leave it to me." After I finished speaking to Daisy, I walked to Gary and sat down, and said with a smile, "Who is crying so hard? Is it our little Gary superman?"

Gary is a beautiful little boy with brown curly hair and green eyes. He blinked his big eyes and looked at me. His long and curly eyelashes were still covered with tears. He thrust and said, "Jodie, you lied to me! This hand is not easy at all! I'm so painful!"

A car accident a year ago caused Gary to lose one of his right arm. When he was taken to my agency to configure the prosthesis by his parents, he was very depressed. For some reason, this child was very close to me. When the staff measured the size of his remaining limbs, he was very uncooperative. I heard the crying and went to see what happened. After learning the whole story, I tried to communicate with Gary for a while before he agreed to take off his clothes and let us make a model for his remaining limbs.

"You can call me Jodie." I said to Gary at that time. "Dear Gary, only brave kids have the opportunity to install very cool arms. Not everyone comes to me, I promise to install them for him, such as crying people, oh... I really don't like it."

Gary cried like a little cat: "Jodie, can I really have a right hand again?"

"Of course." I smiled at him.

After arriving in the United States, I studied biomedical engineering, and after studying for a doctorate, I decided to focus on the direction of intelligent prosthesis. Although most patients like Gary only choose the myoelectric prosthesis controlled by myoelectric signals, my mentors and my fellow researchers are working hard to overcome the intelligent prosthesis controlled by human brain signals and nerve signals.

Gary's right arm was only ten centimeters long and left with stumps. He was young and was not very adaptable to the use of prosthetics. He probably had a psychological repulsion. He came to our institution to rehabilitate and train regularly to learn how to use prosthetics to drink water, read books, eat, and pick up and put things... I know that this type of prosthetic cannot help him complete very precise movements. For example, he will definitely not be able to break a lucky star, nor can he write with prosthetics, but I still patiently persuaded him.

"Why does it hurt?" I carefully held his prosthetic limb with both hands and checked each part. I understood in my heart that most of the causes of Gary's pain were caused by psychological disorders.

Gary frowned and looked at my movements, as if he would feel severe pain when I touched his prosthesis. I said, "Can you pick up the cup and show it to me? Gary."

I looked at him encouragingly, and Gary really tried to demonstrate to me to pick up the water cup on the table. His prosthetics were still in the adaptation stage, so they did not look like ordinary people's skin. They looked like a metal bone and were connected to many wires, and their fingers were metallic in one by one.

This lifeless thing, with our joint efforts and Gary, became a magical part of his body. It has no life and no implantation in the human body, but it will move.

Gary trembledly picked up a water cup and handed it to me. I immediately took it and praised him loudly.

"How great! Gary, you have made great progress!" I gave him a hug, he raised his left arm and hugged me back, and his right arm moved slightly.

"Hey, don't be shy," I said.

Gary blushed, frowned and tried hard, and finally raised his right arm a little, barely holding it on my body.

"It can't be better!" I rubbed his little head, "Gary, I know it will be a little difficult at the beginning, but please believe it will definitely get better and better. Maybe one day, you can play basketball like Kobe Bryant, he is your idol, right?"

Gary nodded shyly and said, "But Jodie, don't you think my hand is ugly?"

I pretended to be surprised: "How could it be? I think it's so cool!"

"I'll come with me next time, can you come and accompany me again?"

"Yes, but at the same time, you have to listen to Daisy." I pulled Daisy to her side and said to Gary, "She is a very powerful doctor who will teach you how to use your new arm better. At this point, I'm doing much worse than her."

Gary was finally willing to ask Daisy and other staff to help him train prosthetics. I said goodbye to him and walked towards the office. When I passed the rehabilitation hall, I suddenly heard a man's angry roar inside.

There are many people who are out of control here. After all, a healthy person suddenly lost some of his body due to illness or accidents, which is always unacceptable at the beginning. All our staff understand it very well, but this man seems to be yelling too exaggeratedly.

I couldn't help but walk in. Between more than 20 patients, family members and rehabilitation masters, I saw him at a glance. He was a tall young man with a prosthetic limb on his left leg and was holding the parallel bars and shouting loudly at the rehabilitation masters.

I walked to him and found that although the man had dark brown hair, dark brown eyes and slightly square face contour, his skin color and facial features had strong East Asian characteristics.

He was still yelling out of control, and I tried to calm him down: "Sir, please relax, okay?"

He looked back at me, his eyes were a little surprised, and then he shouted again: "Who are you! Don't meddle in other people's business!"

I was wearing a light blue uniform and said, "My name is Jodie, and I'm the staff here. I know you're going through a lot of difficulties, but sir, you're an adult male, there are many underage kids here, they're all going through the same bad things as you, but you're all moving in a good direction, aren't you? You can't set a good example for them, and you'll even scare them."

I didn't tell any lies. There are indeed many children in the rehabilitation hall practicing walking wearing prosthetics. Many children look at this man with panic expressions on their faces when they look at this man.

The man looked a little ugly, his chin was tightly tight, and after staring at me for a while, he asked me in English: "Are you Chinese, Japanese, or Korean?"

"Chinese." I said.

Then, he gave me a standard Beijing movie: "You stand and speak without any pain in your back."

I decided to ignore him.

Back at the office, I made a cup of coffee. Wendy knocked on my door and said that there was my mailing bag at the front desk, which was sent from China. I was a little surprised and went to the front desk to pick up the mailing bag. I opened the box and saw that it was a book and a greeting card.

"My Miss Crab." I read the title of the book and saw the author's name, Mr. Ostrich. I suddenly "boomed" in my mind, and I didn't understand where I was. I opened the greeting card and was written by Xie Yi:

DearJodie:

MerryChristmas!

Do you like this gift? We found him.

Martin

Christmas 2010

I walked towards the office with a book. When I passed by the rehabilitation hall, the angry man was walking out. During the rehabilitation, he wore sports shorts, had amputated on his left knee, and had a receiving cavity on his thigh. There was a column-type prosthetic limb underneath, like a leg bone. After the training, he changed into a black coat and blue jeans underneath. If it weren't for his elbow-holding, I wouldn't have seen that he was a person who had one leg missing.

At this time, he had calmed down a lot. He looked at me with a stern face. I smiled at him and walked towards the office.

When we got off work, Wendy and Daisy came to shout to me, "DoctorXiao, Christmas is coming soon. Ada said to have dinner together tonight, you can come together!"

I put on my coat, shook my head and said, "No, thank you, I have an appointment tonight."

Daisy smiled and said, "Is it a video with your handsome boyfriend in Beijing?"

I laughed: "Martin is not my boyfriend."

"Please, he has come to us to see you several times."

"What a pity, there is no chemical reaction between me and him." I brought my bag and went out with them with my scarf. When I locked the door, I said, "Besides, he already has a girlfriend."

New York in December is as cold as City E, and perhaps even colder.

I walked to the parking lot in the cold wind and drove home. The first thing I did was to clean up my cat first.

I picked up this cat, yellow and white, and there is no breed. I named it A Miao, which is a Chinese name, so when I look at it, I can speak Chinese. The American cat A Miao adapts well and has mastered a foreign language.

I live alone in a small apartment near the school. I bought the house because I plan to live for a long time. The topic I research may take me a long time, making it impossible for me to travel around like my parents. My father is a zoologist and my mother is a veterinarian. The places they run are poor and remote, and they often encounter dangerous things. I used to yearn for such a life, but now I have to stay in the most technologically developed country in the world and contribute my own meager strength to the development of human intelligent prosthetics.

I made myself a bowl of fried noodles with vegetable soup for dinner. After I finished eating, I put a jar of water, soaked a hot bath, changed into a comfortable pajamas, and got into the bed early.

I watched "My Miss Crab" again. After watching it, I turned on my laptop and sat on the bed and sent an email to Xie Yi.

I said, I received the gift, thank you.

His call request immediately jumped out on Skype, and I accepted it.

"I just arrived at the office." Xie Yi's voice was very cheerful, "What are you doing?"

"I just got to bed." I said, "By the way, where has he been in the past few years?"

He knew who I was talking about and immediately replied: "Sanya, Sanya, Hainan."

"Oh..." I knew in my heart that it was a warm place, and he hated the cold winter the most.

"The crab will see him in a few days," said Xie Yi. "We are going to give him a Christmas surprise."

He will definitely be very happy, I think.

"It's really good." I asked, "How are you doing recently?"

"It's the same, where are you?"

"It's the same as usual, I'm very busy at work."

"Will you come back for the New Year next year?"

I thought for a while: "What do you say?"

"Crabs will probably take Gu Mingxi back for the New Year. If you can come back, you can get together."

"I'm not sure," I said, "Let's talk about it then."

Xie Yi suddenly said, "Jodie, do you have no questions to ask me?"

My eyes rolled: "How are you dating your girlfriend?"

"Break up." He answered quickly.

I was speechless.

Countless people have asked me, Jodie, why don’t you accept Martin? Or, Xiao Yujing, why don’t you accept Xie Yi?

The reason they ask that is because Xie Yi is so perfect.

It's so perfect that there's almost no flaw.

Once, I asked him, Xie Yi, if you were asked to describe yourself as an animal, what would you choose?

He said, eagle.

There are two important supporting characters in "My Miss Crab", one is Miss Antelope, probably me, and the other is Mr. Peacock.

I don’t know if this is Gu Mingxi’s kind-hearted joke to Xie Yi, but I think neither the eagle nor the peacock can be used to accurately describe Xie Yi.

He is a very good person with a dazzling appearance and a superior family background. What is even more commendable is that he does not have the arrogance that a rich young man is accustomed to. He studies hard and works hard. If he has to talk about his shortcomings, it is probably that in the eyes of some people, he is a little as he wants.

Xie Yi never forced himself to do anything he didn't want to do. I am very similar to him.

But what makes me different from him is that he will do what he wants to do, but I will choose to move forward or backward after weighing the trade-offs.

That's why I reject him.
To be continued...