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

Zhang Guohua was holding an enamel mug to warm his hands when he heard this, he stopped and his eyebrows furrowed.

"How did you adjust it?"

Klaus handed over the paper, his voice barely audible, like a mosquito's buzz: "Schedule for tomorrow at noon."

Zhang Guohua's hand, which was about to take the paper, froze in mid-air.

Noon.

That was the pointless time of the meeting. Those who had been in meetings all morning were already starving, their minds wandering, their thoughts only on the sausages and beer in the cafeteria. Not to mention those arrogant Western experts, who were probably already packing up and ready to leave.

"And..." Klaus closed his eyes, as if he couldn't bear to look at Zhang Guohua's face, which was about to explode, "The time has been compressed from forty-five minutes to... ten minutes."

The enamel mug slammed heavily against the wooden table with a dull thud. Tea spilled out, wetting Zhang Guohua's sleeves, but he didn't care at all.

The old dean's face turned a deep purplish-red, his chest heaving violently, and he crumpled the thin piece of paper into a ball.

"Ten minutes?" Zhang Guohua's voice trembled, not from the cold, but from the shock. "We flew halfway around the world, bringing new technology, and they only give us ten minutes? And in such a short time when nobody's watching?"

He pointed at Klaus's nose, his finger trembling: "This is humiliation! This is trampling on the face of the Chinese medical community!"

Klaus, his face flushed, pulled out a handkerchief and kept wiping the sweat from his forehead: "Zhang, I know this is unfair. I protested, I argued with the organizing committee. But those stubborn members of the presidium said..."

He stammered, his eyes darting away.

"What did you say?" Ye Zhen asked.

Klaus glanced at her, gritted his teeth, and said, "They say the East has no surgery, only herbs and witchcraft. Giving us ten minutes is to make the convention seem 'diverse,' like... like the pre-show entertainment at a circus."

The air inside the room was completely frozen.

Xu Wenqiang was so angry his face turned pale, his fists clenched so tightly they cracked. He was an intellectual, and hadn't yet learned how to swear, so he could only hold his breath, his eyes reddening. For these intellectuals who had always looked up to Western technology and longed for recognition, this blatant discrimination hurt more than a slap in the face.

Zhang Guohua slumped back into his chair, his back bent. A profound sense of powerlessness overwhelmed him like a tide. He had understood the principle that backwardness invites aggression and humiliation his entire life, but when that spittle was actually spat on his face, it still burned him with anguish.

"Oh."

A short, soft laugh broke the deathly silence.

Gu Zheng was leaning against the windowsill, toying with the metal lighter he never parted with. The cap popped open with a "click," a blue flame shot out, and then clicked shut again.

He straightened up, his military boots making a dull thud on the floor. He walked up to Klaus, who was half a head shorter than him, and said nothing, just looked down at him. Even though the stench of blood from the battlefield had been reduced by ninety percent, it still made Klaus instinctively shrink back.

Gu Zheng raised his hand and patted Klaus's shoulder twice. The force wasn't great, but it made Klaus stagger.

"Old Ke, you just don't understand." Gu Zheng's face was expressionless, his tone as lazy as if he were discussing the weather. "A true master kills in an instant. Want to see a monkey show? Want to see us perform a one-man show in front of empty chairs?"

He turned his head, his gaze passing over the crowd and landing on the back of the person wearing a red overcoat.

"Give my wife ten minutes? I'm afraid these foreign devils have heart problems and can't handle the shock."

Ye Zhen stood by the window. Outside, it was night in Berlin, and the beams of searchlights from the Berlin Wall swept across the gray-black clouds.

Her red figure was reflected in the glass window, like a fire burning in the ice and snow.

"Ten minutes is six hundred seconds."

Ye Zhen turned around. She showed no anger, no resentment; her clear eyes remained completely calm. Like a seasoned surgeon checking instruments one last time before surgery, she was composed, precise, and devoid of any personal emotion.

"A regular open-chest surgery takes three hours, but the minimally invasive one I performed only took fifty minutes."

She walked to the table, picked up the crumpled piece of paper that Zhang Guohua had crumpled, and smoothed out the wrinkles little by little.

"There's no need forty-five minutes of setup, nor is there any need to beg for their pity and patience." Ye Zhen pressed her finger on the glaring "12:00".

"I will use these 600 seconds to tear open this iron curtain."

Zhang Guohua looked at her, his throat tightening. Xu Wenqiang finished translating the sentence, pushed up his glasses, and the anger in his eyes turned into a kind of fanatical worship.

Gu Zheng smiled. He walked over, pulled the collar of Ye Zhen's red coat up, and brushed his fingertips against her cool earlobe.

"Did you hear that?" He glanced at Klaus, his tone incredibly arrogant. "Go back and tell those old fogies to have their nitroglycerin pills ready by tomorrow. Chinese doctors aren't here to entertain monkeys; they're here to teach them a lesson."

……

The morning in West Berlin was bitterly cold.

Ye Zhen got up very early. She stood in front of the slightly yellowed dressing mirror and meticulously buttoned the last button of her red coat.

The person in the mirror has a beautiful face, but her eyes are like a scalpel that has just been forged, its sharpness restrained.

"Are you nervous?" Gu Zheng handed over a cup of hot milk from behind.

"I'm not nervous." Ye Zhen took the milk and drank it all in one gulp. "I'm just doing calculations."

"What's so special about it?"

"How do I shut them up in these ten minutes?" Ye Zhen put down the empty cup with a soft thud.

Zhang Guohua and Xu Wenqiang were also ready. Dean Zhang had specially changed into a nearly new Zhongshan suit, with a "Serve the People" badge pinned to his chest. Xu Wenqiang, on the other hand, was so nervous that he kept memorizing vocabulary words, muttering to himself.

Downstairs, the dilapidated potato truck was already waiting.

When they arrived at the Berlin International Conference Center, the stark contrast struck them once again.

The grand entrance to the venue was lined with Mercedes-Benz, BMWs, and Audis. Well-dressed European celebrities and top doctors chatted and laughed in small groups. The air was filled with the aroma of expensive cologne and cigars.

The appearance of that rickety bread cart was like an ugly duckling stumbling into Swan Lake, attracting countless stares.

"Where did this come from? Is it a food delivery person?"

"It seems to be that Eastern delegation."

"Oh, that country that's still stuck in the herbal medicine stage? God, are they here for a meeting too?"

A few harsh words in German and English drifted into Xu Wenqiang's ears, making him turn pale with anger and clench his fists so tightly they cracked.

Ye Zhen pushed open the car door, her black calfskin ankle shoes landing steadily on the damp ground of Berlin.

Then came a dazzling red.

She got out of the car, ignoring the mocking or curious glances around her, her back ramrod straight. Gu Zheng followed closely behind, dressed in civilian clothes. Although he had no military rank, the murderous aura he exuded, as if he had rolled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, silenced the frivolous foreigners who were about to whistle.

"Let's go." Ye Zhen walked straight to the registration area without looking to the side.

The staff member at the registration desk was a blonde woman with bright red lipstick. She casually took Ye Zhen's invitation, glanced at it, and tossed it into a pile of documents next to her.

"The Chinese delegation? Please wait over there, the admission passes haven't been printed yet." She chewed gum and joked with her colleague next to her, not taking these people seriously at all.

Just as Zhang Guohua was about to lash out, a long, strong hand slammed onto the table.

Ye Zhen leaned down, her clear, cold eyes staring directly at the woman.

"Three minutes," Ye Zhen said in perfect German, her pronunciation even more authentic than the woman's. "If I don't get my pass within three minutes, I will file a complaint with the organizing committee chairman about your racist behavior. Believe me, I don't want tomorrow's headlines to be 'Arrogant Berlin.'"