Afterlife

I believe the professor must have said, "Microbiology may not be your cup of tea, but let's make it your bread-and-butter."

With much persuasion and encouragement, reluctantly Y took up the post and started his training again - as a microbiologist.

And it must have been fate. With all the clinical experience, he saw things differently from his ordinary peers. In a few years, he moved up the hierarchy of academy and, when the old professor retired, took up the chair of his boss.

You may ask, "What would happen if Y did not have hepatitis and remained to be a surgeon ?"

I don't know. At least I do not know what would happen to us. Maybe Y would continue to work in that peripheral hospital, which was badly struck some 20 years later by SARS - due to the very virus that was first isolated by the microbiologist Y.