godfather of surgery

Chapter 1335 Interview
Subsequently, Sanbo Hospital and Sanbo Research Institute completely lost their peaceful days.

Media vehicles lined up in a long queue at the entrance, online celebrities took selfies from various angles as they "pilgrimaged to the academic holy site," and even travel companies launched "one-day tours of the perimeter of the Nobel Institute" packages. Traffic police had to be deployed to maintain traffic order around Sanbo Hospital.

What's even more troublesome are the serious media outlets—science journalists and medical columnists from top domestic and international media—who come with sharp questions, not satisfied with press release-style responses, but wanting to dig into the stories, controversies, and future behind the awards.

Dean Xia's main task now is to deal with these media groups, especially various online celebrities and live streamers. They keep coming to Sanbo Hospital, which has also brought explosive revenue to the surrounding catering, hotel and other service industries.

Yu Shuilian's bakery, the beef offal and sweet potato stall on the overpass, Uncle Er's grilled fish, and so on, have all become popular spots for these internet celebrities to check in. The power of internet celebrities should not be underestimated; once a trend is formed, it can spread like wildfire.

Sanbo Hospital, Nandu Medical University, and Nandu Academy of Medical Sciences have formed a unified publicity department specifically to deal with the massive media force.

"The systemic regulation theory claims to 'help the body restore balance,' but how can we explain the three serious adverse reactions recently reported in Europe? Does this mean the theory has a fatal flaw?"

"Is Professor Yang Ping's refusal to accept the award in person truly due to the needs of his case, or is he dissatisfied with the Nobel Committee? Or... is he avoiding these questions?"

The media questions were increasingly tricky, and although the publicity department could handle them, they were exhausted after each interview. To make matters worse, no matter how carefully they chose their words, the media could always find a "hot topic" in a few words, and the next day headlines like "Nobel laureate team members admit that the theory has risks" and "Yang Ping's team has internal disagreements on adverse reactions" would appear.

“This won’t do.” A week later, at a team meeting, Yang Ping looked at the dozen or so printed copies of distorted reports on the table. “We need a professional spokesperson.”

"How about we hire a professional public relations firm?" Song Ziming suggested.

“No.” Yang Ping shook his head. “Outsiders don’t understand our research and are prone to making mistakes. Moreover, the rhetoric of commercial public relations will only make people doubt the purity of our science.”

The meeting room fell silent as everyone pondered who could grasp the essence of the research, handle the media with ease, and uphold the bottom line.

Tang Shun? Tang Shun is on an important mission and cannot be disturbed by the media.

“I think…” Zhang Lin suddenly spoke up and volunteered, “I’m more suitable.”

With a whoosh, everyone's eyes turned to it.

"you?"

Tang Shun stared at him for a moment and thought about it. Zhang Lin seemed to be more suitable.

“Last month, during his ‘medical fraud debunking’ live stream, he single-handedly confronted three ‘health gurus,’ attracting over five million viewers and uttering a series of memorable quotes.” Tang Shun stroked his chin, his eyes lighting up. “I remember you saying at the time, ‘Your theory is excellent, its strength lies in its perfect avoidance of all known biological principles,’ and the other party was stunned for a long time before being able to respond.”

Song Ziming also remembered and immediately added: "And last time when the institute hosted a visiting group, you introduced our mass spectrometer for twenty minutes, and everyone applauded. Later I found out that you hadn't actually turned it on at all; you were just talking about functions that might be realized in the future."

Zhang Lin chuckled awkwardly.

“You were chatting with a reporter in the cafeteria last week,” Jiang Jitong added, recalling the conversation. “The reporter asked you, ‘What is the core breakthrough of the theory of system regulation?’ You talked for a full fifteen minutes, from Hippocrates’ humoral theory in ancient Greece to modern systems biology. In the end, the reporter was writing down notes and wrote a particularly insightful report. But after reading it carefully, I realized that your explanation was actually just repeating the abstract of a review article by the professor three years ago in different sentence structures five times.”

Zhang Lin's face began to turn red: "That was... improvised."

“Improvisational content that is devoid of information yet seems profound,” Yang Ping said thoughtfully. “This is exactly what we need now.”

“Zhang Lin!” Yang Ping stood up and walked over to him. “I am now officially appointing you as the Special Representative for Media Affairs of the Sanbo Institute, responsible for all external communications. Your task is simple: ensure the media leaves satisfied, but do not give them any substantive information that could harm the research, mislead the public, or disrupt the team’s work.”

“Professor, deception is my talent—oh no, dealing with the media is my talent. Please believe me, I will definitely complete the mission.” Zhang Lin stood up abruptly.

"I believe in your talent." Yang Ping patted his shoulder, a rare sly smile in his eyes. "Besides, your moment to shine has arrived, so be sure to seize the opportunity."

After the meeting, Zhang Lin was kept in the conference room. Tang Shun handed him a thick folder: "This is the list of all the media outlets scheduled for interviews within the next week. Starting tomorrow, there will be eight interviews a day, one hour each. This is the background information, this is the list of possible questions, and these are the red lines that absolutely cannot be mentioned..."

Looking at the meticulously detailed arrangements, Zhang Lin said confidently, "Don't worry!"

Song Ziming smiled, a rare occurrence. "Remember, your advantage lies not in how much you know, but in making the other person feel that you know a lot, while not giving them any specific information. It's an art, and you, Teacher Zhang, are a genius in this area."

Zhang Lin chuckled: "I wouldn't call it talent. Opportunity favors the prepared. Over the years, I've been studying videos of famous press spokespeople. I've taken careful notes, analyzed their rhetoric, and summarized the patterns. Today, it's finally come in handy."

He concluded by saying, "It's just about elevating everyday boasting to a strategic level; I can do that."

Day 1, 10:00 AM, in the conference room.

Sitting opposite him were Emilia, a senior reporter for Science magazine, and her photographer. Zhang Lin was dressed formally in a Zhongshan suit. In front of him were a glass of water, a notebook, and a pen—nothing else.

“Professor Zhang, thank you for accepting the interview.” Emilia got straight to the point. “Let’s get straight to the core question: After the system regulation theory won the Nobel Prize, the biggest criticism from the academic community was the insufficient scale of its clinical validation. How does Professor Yang Ping’s team respond?”

Zhang Lin leaned slightly forward, his fingertips touching each other to form a pyramid shape, which was his way of creating a sense of authority.

“Ms. Emilia, you have raised an excellent question, one that touches upon a fundamental contradiction in the transition of modern medicine.” His speech was measured, with a scholarly air of contemplation. “When we shift from a single-target model to a systemic interaction model, the evaluation criteria themselves need to change. Traditional large-scale double-blind trial models are designed for interventions involving a single molecule or pathway. But systemic regulation, as the name suggests, focuses on the restoration of balance across multiple nodes and in a dynamic manner. It’s like… you can’t use weight to evaluate the harmony of a symphony.”

Emilia quickly took notes and pressed on, "So you mean that existing clinical validation standards don't apply to your theory? Isn't that overly arrogant?"

“Ms. Emily, you are very intelligent. It’s rare for someone like you to understand what I mean so quickly! Quite the opposite.” Zhang Lin smiled—a smile he had practiced, meant to be gentle yet firm. “We fully respect the existing scientific validation system. In fact, all our clinical data is open to peer review. We are simply raising a supplementary question: in the evaluation of interventions in complex systems, should we introduce more dimensions beyond traditional endpoint indicators? For example, system stability index, resilience coefficient, network perturbation tolerance… These concepts may sound abstract, but we have already developed preliminary quantitative tools.”

Every word he said was true; the team was indeed discussing these concepts and did have "preliminary tools," although "preliminary" might mean "still in the theoretical modeling stage." But it sounded as if they were already in mature application.

Emilia was clearly led astray: "Could you tell me more about these tools?"

“Of course, you are a very intelligent lady, which puts my mind at ease. I originally thought you might misunderstand me because you couldn't understand what I was saying, but now it seems that worry is unfounded. You can understand every word I said accurately.” Zhang Lin opened his blank notebook, picked up a pen, and said, “This is a very professional topic, but I believe you can understand it. I am amazed by your scientific literacy. Simply put, we introduced the Lyapunov exponent from the theory of complex systems to characterize stability, used mutual information from information theory to measure the correlation strength between network nodes, and then combined it with our independently developed physiological state phase space reconstruction algorithm…” He drew completely unrelated geometric figures on the notebook and uttered a string of real professional terms, but when combined, they contained no concrete information.

Thirty minutes later, Emilia looked at her notebook filled with unfamiliar terms, her expression a mixture of confusion and admiration, while also feeling a bit nervous.

She genuinely didn't understand, but if she admitted it, the public would easily perceive her as unprofessional, unintelligent, and lacking in scientific literacy. Since Teacher Zhang had repeatedly praised her for being smart and understanding his words, she absolutely couldn't let her guard down.

The ten pointed questions she had prepared were now completely lost in the maze of terminology Zhang Lin had created.

At the end of the interview, Emilia shook hands and said, "Professor Zhang, you have given me a completely new perspective. Systems medicine really needs a new language to describe it."

Zhang Lin nodded modestly: "Science is a process of constantly creating new languages ​​to describe new realities. Thank you for your insightful thinking. Your scientific literacy amazes me. To be honest, understanding our theories requires extremely high scientific literacy; otherwise, misunderstandings are very easy to occur."

This is Zhang Lin labeling the interviewees behind him. If you misinterpret my meaning or don't follow my preconceived notions, you have poor scientific literacy and completely misunderstand what I'm saying.

In the monitoring room, Yang Ping, Tang Shun, and Song Ziming, who were watching the whole thing through the camera, looked at each other and smiled.

This guy has a real talent for showing off.

"See that?" Tang Shun pointed at the screen. "This kid handled it quite well."

Song Ziming said admiringly, "He also successfully made the reporter feel that the reason they didn't understand was because they lacked knowledge, rather than because he didn't explain anything clearly."

Yang Ping took a sip of tea: "Talent."

On the third day, at 2 PM, it was also in the conference room.

This time, it's a BBC documentary team, with cameras, lighting, and recording equipment—a much larger operation. They're producing a special episode on the "future of medicine," with Yang Ping's award as the central theme.

Director David is an experienced science documentary filmmaker who excels at using gentle questions to evoke dramatic conflict. He started by asking a few soft questions about the origins of the theory, which Zhang Lin answered with ease. He had heard these stories many times before, and for Professor Zhang, they were nothing new.

Then, David changed the subject: "Professor Yang Ping won his second Nobel Prize but refused to go to accept the award, which is extremely rare in the scientific community. Some commentators believe that this may be a negative response to the adverse reaction to the European Collaboration Center's report, or that there are disagreements within the team. Can you reveal the real reason?"

The question was incisive, directly pointing to the most sensitive speculation.

Zhang Lin did not answer immediately. He picked up his water glass, took a slow sip, and put the glass down, having already devised a strategy.

“Mr. David, your question reminds me of something Professor Yang often says.” Zhang Lin’s gaze deepened, as if recalling a sacred moment. “He said that a scientist’s time does not belong to himself, but to those who await answers to their questions and those who await hope.” He paused, letting the words settle in the air.

"As for why Professor Yang didn't go to accept the award, Dr. Tang Shun and Dr. Song Ziming already explained it very clearly on the night of the award ceremony, so I don't want to repeat it. I just want to say that we cannot use vulgar ideas to speculate on the pure ideals of a genius scientist who has won the Nobel Prize twice. That would be a desecration, a misplaced way of thinking. I'm not good at expressing myself, but I think Mr. David should have understood what I meant."

The conference room was so quiet you could hear the static from the cameras.

David's Adam's apple bobbed. He said he wasn't good at expressing himself—what he really meant was that he didn't have enough intelligence or understanding to understand me. Asking further questions or getting bogged down in the issue showed that his comprehension was insufficient.

“I understand what you mean, Professor Zhang! As a scientist, Professor Yang has transcended worldly trivialities and dedicated almost all of his time to scientific research.”

“Mr. David, thank you for your accurate understanding.” Zhang Lin nodded slightly.

The atmosphere completely changed in the latter half of the interview. David's questions became gentler, even respectful. He was afraid that he might misunderstand something and be perceived by the public as having low intelligence or poor scientific literacy, thus failing to accurately understand Professor Zhang's words.

At the end, he solemnly shook hands with Zhang Lin: "Please tell Professor Yang that his choice has helped us understand what true scientific spirit is."

Zhang Lin nodded: "I will, and thank you for accurately conveying every word we say to the audience."

Interviews came one after another...

A week later, Zhang Lin had become a legend at the research institute.

He developed a complete system of rhetoric: when asked about specific data, he would say, "This is a problem of multidimensional data space. I need to establish a few key coordinate systems for you first..." and then start drawing a diagram on the whiteboard that no one could understand.

When asked about theoretical controversies, he would say, "All model shifts go through this stage. When the bacterial theory was first proposed, the mainstream medical community dismissed it as 'fantasy'; when the DNA double helix structure was published, many authorities thought it was 'too simplistic.' Questioning is not the end, but the starting point of scientific dialogue."

When asked about Yang Ping's personal life or personality, he would say, "Professor Yang often says that scientists should focus on the problem itself like a lens. We should also learn from Professor Yang and focus on the scientific problem itself. So I'm sorry, all I can tell you about him personally is that he is very passionate about medicine."

Even more ingeniously, Zhang Lin began to actively "feed him information." He would carefully prepare some seemingly bombshell but actually insignificant "exclusive information":
"What I can reveal is that we are collaborating with three top European research centers to develop next-generation system evaluation tools... Which three? I'm sorry, I can't disclose that before the formal agreement is signed, but I can say that one of them dates back to the Verchaux era."

"Professor Yang has recently been rereading some seemingly unrelated classics, such as the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic... He often says that modern medicine needs to look back at the path it has taken in order to see the direction of the future."

“Our team has a tradition of holding a ‘failure data sharing session’ every Thursday afternoon. Yes, we specifically share failed experiments, negative results, and unexplained anomalies. This is because we believe that the real key to scientific progress often lies in those unexpected data points.”

These stories were widely reported by the media: "Yang Ping's Team Secretly Researches Next-Generation Assessment Tools," "Nobel Laureate Seeks Inspiration from Classical Chinese Medicine," and "'Failure Sharing Sessions'—The Unique Culture of a Top Team." The public saw an image of an open, profound, and philosophically sophisticated scientific team, while the team's true core work was perfectly protected under the spotlight.

Zhang Lin even developed a "personalized coping strategy":
For academic media that pursue depth, he talked at length about model shifts and the philosophy of science; for mass media that pursue stories, he told patient stories and interesting anecdotes about his team; for online media that pursue trending topics, he threw out some carefully crafted "golden quotes," such as "Medicine is not about conquering death, but about giving quality to life," which was made into a poster and went viral on social media.

The monitoring room became the team's most popular "entertainment center." Every day after meals, everyone would gather together to watch how Zhang Lin "fooled" various media outlets.

"Look, he's started drawing that 'multi-dimensional phase space' diagram again. I bet the reporter has no idea it's just a three-dimensional coordinate axis with some curves added." Chu Xiaoxiao laughed so hard she almost fell over.

"This reporter is brilliant, relentlessly pursuing the issue of adverse reactions... Great! Excellent! Zhang Lin skillfully steered the conversation towards 'the risks and ethical boundaries of science,' a perfect evasion." Jiang Jitong applauded.

Yang Ping usually just watched quietly, a smile playing on his lips. Once, Zhang Lin said in an interview, "True science is not about finding answers, but about learning to ask better questions." Yang Ping nodded slightly and said to Tang Shun beside him, "That's actually true, but coming from his mouth, it sounds more like a tactic."

Tang Shun laughed: "Professor, don't you think we are witnessing the birth of a 'media response school'? Zhang Lin's rhetoric can be written into textbooks in the future."

“He already has his own imitators.” Song Ziming scrolled through his phone. “Look, someone online has compiled a ‘Zhang Lin’s speech highlights’, and it’s been viewed over ten million times.”

The real test came two weeks later.

The Lancet editorial office dispatched Harrison, a deputy editor known for his incisive analysis, with a copy of an open letter co-signed by twelve international experts. The letter detailed "seven unsolved problems" of systems regulation theory, ranging from mechanistic ambiguity to clinical applicability, using precise and sharp language.

More importantly, Harrison had done his homework beforehand. He interviewed the head of the European collaborating center that reported adverse reactions and obtained more details: the three cases not only experienced side effects, but one of them experienced a more severe rebound after stopping treatment, questioning whether Yang Ping's team's treatment plan "may have caused irreversible systemic disturbances."

This is an accusation that could shake the very foundations of the theory.

The interview was arranged in the largest conference room. Harrison didn't bring a camera crew, only a voice recorder and a thick document. He was in his fifties, with neatly trimmed gray hair, and his eyes looked as if he were scrutinizing a flawed academic paper.

“Dr. Zhang, let’s get straight to the point.” Harrison didn’t even bother with pleasantries. “This is a detailed case report from the European Center, showing that after patient P-07 stopped the intervention program you provided, her intestinal inflammatory markers rebounded to 180% of pre-treatment levels, accompanied by systemic dermatitis. The center’s director believes that this proves your intervention ‘disrupted the patient’s original, fragile compensatory balance, causing a more complex systemic disorder than the original disease’.”

He pushed the report in front of Zhang Lin: "Please explain."

The air in the conference room froze. In the monitoring room, everyone held their breath. This wasn't an issue that could be circumvented with rhetoric; it was concrete, data-driven, and backed by experts.

Zhang Lin didn't look at the report. He remained silent for a long time, so long that Harrison began to frown.

Then, Zhang Lin did something that surprised everyone.

He stood up, walked to the window, and turned his back to Harrison. His back looked tall and sturdy, as if he carried a heavy burden on his shoulders.

“Mr. Harrison,” Zhang Lin’s voice was low and deep, “do you know what I fear most?”

Harrison was taken aback: "What?"

“It’s not a question, not a failure, not even a theoretical error.” Zhang Lin turned around, his face devoid of a smile, only a deep weariness. This was a side of Zhang Lin that Tang Shun and Song Ziming had never seen before. “What I fear most is that when we try our best to help someone, we end up hurting them instead.”

He walked back to his seat, finally picked up the report, but didn't open it.

“You ask me for an explanation? I can explain it to you. I can tell you that the P-07 patient’s genome has special SNP sites that affect the activity of drug-metabolizing enzymes; I can analyze that his gut microbiota composition is abnormal, which has produced unexpected interactions with our treatment plan; I can also say that any innovative treatment has risks, and medical progress is always accompanied by unforeseen costs.” Zhang Lin spoke slowly, and every word seemed to carry weight.

"But can these explanations alleviate the patient's suffering? Can they make his dermatitis disappear? Can they restore his trust in science?" Zhang Lin looked directly at Harrison. "No."

Harrison's expression changed, from aggressive scrutiny to complex contemplation.

“So,” Zhang Lin took a deep breath, “first, we have already sent a team to Europe within 72 hours to work with local doctors on this case. We will cover all costs and be responsible for all follow-up treatments. Second, we have suspended the same treatment plan for all patients with similar phenotypes and are re-analyzing the data. Third, we have invited international colleagues, including these twelve experts who signed the joint statement, to establish an independent review committee to conduct a transparent evaluation of this matter throughout the entire process.”

He paused, then said, "But the most important point is the fourth one: we were wrong, not because the theory was wrong, but because we underestimated the extreme complexity of individual systems, and we did not collect enough unknown special cases. Our mistake was in our lack of practical experience."

In the monitoring room, Tang Shun gasped: "He admitted it? Could this be—"

"Wait a minute." Song Ziming stared intently at the screen. "Let's see Harrison's reaction."

Harrison was genuinely shocked. He had prepared a series of questions to throw out when Zhang Lin tried to explain, but the words "we were wrong" disrupted all his plans.

“All major advancements in the history of science have been built on the courage to admit mistakes,” Zhang Lin continued, his voice regaining a certain strength. “Pasteur admitted the failure of early vaccines, Fleming acknowledged the limitations of penicillin purification, and even Einstein admitted that the cosmological constant was his ‘greatest mistake.’ Mistakes are not terrible; what is terrible is the inability to face mistakes, instead using layers of rhetoric to wrap them up and make them appear as part of a success.”

He stood up and bowed slightly to Harrison: "Thank you, thank you to those twelve experts, and thank you to the European Centre for your candor. Because of these questions and reports, we will become better, our theories will become more solid, and future patients will receive safer treatment. Isn't that the power of science to self-correct?"

Harrison remained silent for a full minute. Then he turned off the recorder.

“Teacher Zhang,” his voice softened, “before I came, I thought I would hear a defense and a counterattack. I didn’t expect…”

Zhang Lin smiled bitterly, “Professor Yang often said that medicine is a profession for the humble and the reverent, because we are dealing with life, and life is always smarter than us.”

The interview ended early. As Harrison left, he shook Zhang Lin's hand and said, "I will report the facts. Thank you, Professor Zhang."

"Thank you!" Zhang Lin nodded.

Harrison walked to the door and said to his entourage, "This conversation has changed some of my stereotypes about the Chinese scientific community."

Soon after, interview clips appeared online. Harrison briefly addressed the waiting media outside the institute: "Today I witnessed the most valuable qualities of science: honesty and courage. Yang Ping's team's response gives me even more confidence in the future of this theory."

The comment section was unusually quiet, filled instead with phrases like "This is the magnanimity of a great power's science" and "True strength lies in daring to admit mistakes."