After being separated from my family, I became a darling of the military region thanks to my medical

Professor Wu Wenqing's question hit the nail on the head.

The entire lecture hall was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Everyone held their breath, staring at the excessively young woman on the stage. In an era still accustomed to "old Chinese medicine doctors feeling the pulse" and "senior doctors relying on touch," the term "double-blind" was too unfamiliar and too jarring.

Ye Zhen turned around and tapped the blackboard with chalk, making a crisp "tap-tap" sound.

"Blindness is not the same as being blind."

Ye Zhen's voice was clear and cold, carrying through the electrical current to every corner of the classroom: "It's about shielding. Shielding away doctors' subjective preferences for medications, shielding away patients' blind faith in famous doctors, and even shielding away statisticians' psychological expectations of the results."

She turned around and drew two little figures on the blackboard, with a wall standing between them.

"For example," Ye Zhen said, her gaze sweeping over the elderly experts in the front row whose expressions still weren't very good, "if I prescribe medication to two patients today, and one I tell them it's an imported, highly effective drug, and the other I tell them it's just ordinary vitamins, even if they both drink only plain water, the first patient's subjective symptom improvement rate will usually be 30% higher than the second. That's the placebo effect."

A low buzzing sound arose from the audience.

"Doctors are human too," Ye Zhen continued, her tone as calm as if she were dissecting a frog. "When doctors know they are using a new drug on their patients, they subconsciously look for evidence of 'effectiveness' while ignoring details of 'ineffectiveness' when observing the therapeutic effect. This is called observer bias."

"What should we do then?" Wu Wenqing couldn't help but ask, his body already leaning forward at an urgent angle, having already left the back of the chair.

"Blindfold them."

Ye Zhen wrote several large characters on the blackboard: [Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled].

"Patients were randomly divided into two groups. One group received the real medication, and the other received a placebo that looked and tasted exactly the same. The patients didn't know what they were taking, the doctors didn't know what they were prescribing, and the statisticians didn't know which group's data they were calculating."

Ye Zhen put down the chalk, dusted off her hands, and said with a sharp gaze, "Only when the data tells us it's effective after the blinds are removed, is it truly effective. Once all human weaknesses are eliminated, what remains is an ironclad truth."

boom!

It was as if a thunderclap had exploded in everyone's minds.

Those present were all intelligent people, elites who had dedicated their lives to the study of medicine. Their previous anger stemmed from their defense of "experience." But when a more advanced, rigorous, and truth-oriented method was presented to them, the shock was revolutionary.

Old Qian sat in the second row, his lips trembling slightly. He wanted to argue, to say, "How can a doctor with a benevolent heart lie?" But reason told him that Ye Zhen was right. If one cannot even distinguish whether the medicine is real or fake, that is the greatest cruelty to the patient.

"My God..."

Klaus, the German expert who had been watching the show with his arms crossed, could no longer sit still. He suddenly stood up, so much so that he knocked over the folding chair behind him.

The translator was startled and hurriedly tried to translate, but Klaus pushed him away.

The arrogant German, speaking broken and halting Chinese, pointed at the blackboard with a flushed face: "This...this is...Gold Standard! The gold standard!"

Klaus strode to the front of the stage, his eyes no longer showing the previous disdain, but instead filled with an almost fanatical excitement. He looked at Ye Zhen as if she were a rare, uncut gem.

"Dr. Ye!" Klaus exclaimed excitedly, gesturing wildly. "In Europe, EBM (evidence-based medicine) has only just been proposed! How do you know all this? Your thinking is even more advanced than ours!"

The entire audience erupted in uproar.

If Ye Zhen's words were a theoretical shock, then Klaus's loss of composure was a harsh reality check. Even foreign experts admit they're ahead?

Those who had initially wanted to find fault now fell silent. In this day and age, the approval of foreign experts is a golden ticket, more valuable than any official document.

Dean Zhang Guohua sat in the first row, watching Ye Zhen on the stage, calm and composed, chatting fluently with the foreign experts. He was so excited that he almost crushed the enamel mug in his hand.

We've struck gold! This is like finding a nuclear weapon!

"Mr. Klaus," Ye Zhen replied calmly to the excited German, speaking fluent German, "Science has no borders, but scientists have a homeland. I hope to see more RCT research from China published in top journals in the future."

This German phrase is authentic, elegant, and carries a sense of pride that is neither humble nor arrogant.

Klaus paused for a moment, then solemnly extended his hand, bowed slightly, and gave a standard gentlemanly salute: "Dr. Ye, you are a respectable pioneer. Please do not refuse to attend the German Medical Association's annual meeting next month."

applause.

First one person, then two, and finally, thunderous applause nearly lifted the roof off the lecture hall.

Professor Wu Wenqing clapped as he took off his glasses and wiped his eyes. Looking at the pyramid on the blackboard, he seemed to see a door to a new world slowly opening.

The lecture has ended.

Ye Zhen was surrounded by a group of elderly professors and couldn't escape at all.

"Xiao Ye, could you elaborate on that multi-center study you mentioned?"

"Comrade Ye, could you give a lecture at our Peking Union Medical College Hospital? Name your price!"

"Xiao Ye, could you leave your contact information? I have a difficult case I'd like you to take a look at!"

These usually aloof and demanding experts, who require waiting in line for half a month to register, now surrounded Ye Zhen like a group of eager students.

"Dear teachers."

A deep, mellow male voice suddenly pierced through the crowd.

It wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable penetrating power. It was the aura cultivated from years of issuing commands.

Everyone turned around.

Gu Zheng was leaning against the classroom door, his hat brim pulled low, obscuring his eyebrows and eyes, but his crisp military uniform and the two bars and one star on his shoulders gleamed under the light.

He was carrying Ye Zhen's military overcoat in his hand, a half-smile playing on his lips.

Excuse me.

Gu Zheng strode forward, his military boots making a steady sound as they hit the floor. The crowd instinctively parted to make way for him.

He walked to Ye Zhen's side without saying a word, but simply draped his military overcoat over her shoulders with remarkable ease. His slender fingers deftly fastened the buttons, and then wrapped the dark blue scarf around her neck, his movements as practiced as if he had done it a thousand times before.

"Finished talking?" Gu Zheng looked down at her, the icy coldness in his eyes melting into spring water. "Your voice is hoarse."

Ye Zhen nodded, letting him fiddle with her: "A little."

"Let's go then." Gu Zheng ignored the group of stunned medical luminaries around him, put an arm around Ye Zhen's shoulder, and assertively declared his ownership. "Professors, academic discussions are always welcome. But my wife needs to eat. In the Gu family, nothing is more important than eating."

After saying that, he nodded slightly to everyone, then embraced Ye Zhen and strode out.

The room was left with a room full of experts looking at each other in bewilderment.

"Who...whose brat is this? So arrogant?" Old Qian blew his beard and glared.

Dean Zhang Guohua smiled like a cunning old fox, pointing at Gu Zheng's retreating figure: "Old Qian, calm down. That's the young master of the Gu family. Our Dr. Ye is their prized possession. You want to poach her? You'll have to ask the Gu family's bigwigs for permission first."

……

On the jeep.

Ye Zhen leaned back in her chair, holding the hot water bottle that Gu Zheng had handed her, and looked out the window at the rapidly receding cityscape of Beijing.

The snow stopped, and the sunlight shone on the red walls and yellow tiles, so bright it made one's eyes sting.

"Did you understand when you were behind me?" Ye Zhen turned to look at Gu Zheng, who was driving.

Gu Zheng held the steering wheel with one hand, and with the other hand, he took out a White Rabbit milk candy from his pocket, unwrapped it, and handed it to Ye Zhen's mouth without even looking at it.

"I don't understand," Gu Zheng replied confidently. "What blindness? All I saw was those old men's eyes practically popping out of their sockets."

Ye Zhen held a candy in her mouth, the sweet, milky aroma melting in her mouth, dispelling the fatigue from talking all morning.

"However," Gu Zheng glanced at her, his eyes deep, "I know what you're doing."

"Um?"

"You're building a road." Gu Zheng looked ahead, his voice steady. "Before, doctors had to walk through the dark to see patients, stumbling and struggling. You want to build them a cement road and install streetlights. Honey, although I don't know anything about medicine, I know this is a really impressive thing."

Ye Zhen was taken aback for a moment, then smiled.

This man, though rough around the edges, has a terrifyingly sharp eye for problems.

"Gu Zheng".

"exist."

"We're leaving." Ye Zhen looked out the car window at the main hospital building gradually disappearing into the distance, a complex emotion flashing in her eyes. This place had the best equipment and the most outstanding colleagues; it was the place where she had spent her entire life striving in her previous life.

Now, she is going back to that remote mountain military hospital.

Is the difference in elevation significant? Yes.

Regret?

Gu Zheng seemed to sense her emotions. The car suddenly swerved and stopped on the side of the road.

He unbuckled his seatbelt, turned to look at Ye Zhen, and placed his large hands on the cold back of her hands, the rough calluses making her palms itch.

"Ye Zhen." Gu Zheng called her by her full name for the first time, his expression more serious than ever before. "If you want to stay, I can persuade Grandpa to transfer you to the main hospital. Your talent shouldn't be buried in that place in Beicheng."

This is the truth.

As long as Ye Zhen agrees, given her performance on the podium and the Gu family's efforts, staying in Beijing is a sure thing.

Ye Zhen looked at Gu Zheng. There was reluctance in the man's eyes, but even more so, respect. He was genuinely considering her future, and was even willing to endure a long-distance relationship for it.

Ye Zhen grabbed his hand with her own, their fingers intertwined.

"Commander Gu, have you forgotten what I said?"

Ye Zhen leaned slightly closer to Gu Zheng's handsome face, their breaths mingling: "I am the sheath, you are the sword. Wherever the sword goes, the sheath follows. And..."

She paused, a hint of pride flashing in her eyes: "True technology doesn't necessarily need a platform to support it. Wherever I am, that's the best surgical center."