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

Charité Hospital, Berlin, first operating room.

The water gurgled and splashed over Ye Zhen's slender arms. The water was only ten degrees Celsius, and the biting cold seeped into her pores, but it couldn't suppress the slightest tremor in her heart.

She looked at herself in the mirror.

This is more than just a surgery.

This is a blocked national lifeline, the hope of researchers thousands of kilometers away who are eagerly waiting, and the only way out for that little girl named Alice.

If this fails, not only will Schroeder's promise become worthless, but the reputation of Chinese doctors will also be completely ruined in Europe.

Ye Zhen took a deep breath, picked up a sterile brush, and scrubbed her fingers vigorously. But the harder she scrubbed, the stronger the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff became. Her wrist even trembled uncontrollably.

"Scared?"

A deep voice boomed behind my ear, carrying a familiar smell of tobacco.

Ye Zhen was startled and was about to turn around when a pair of large, iron-like hands loosely wrapped around her waist from behind.

Gu Zheng put on a sterile gown, but it was a little small and looked somewhat comical. He rested his chin on Ye Zhen's head, his stubble gently brushing against her, sending a tingling, itchy sensation through him.

"This is a no-go zone for surgery, you..."

"Shh." Gu Zheng interrupted her, the vibration of his chest against her back. "What are you afraid of? Just think of this as fixing Old Wang's radio at the village entrance. If you fix it, that's a skill; if you don't, you're just a mute, since it wasn't working anyway."

Ye Zhen was amused by his audacious analogy, but her tense nerves inexplicably relaxed a little: "This is the granddaughter of a European shipping magnate, not a radio."

"So what?" Gu Zheng's large hand enveloped her still slightly trembling hand, the heat of his palm burning like a ball of fire, burning from her skin into her heart. "If the sky falls, I'm here to hold it up. At worst, we can abandon this flight route, and I'll carry you back to China."

"The Pacific Ocean is so wide, you can't swim there."

"Let's swim half, and take the other half in a submarine." Gu Zheng chuckled in her ear, his roguishness, typical of a soldier, now transformed into the strongest armor. "Wife, remember, your hands are for saving lives, not for trembling. If those foreign devils outside dare to bare their teeth, I'll knock them all out."

Ye Zhen closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, the trace of worry in her eyes had vanished, leaving only a cold, clear light.

She pulled her hand away and turned off the tap.

"Go outside and keep watch." Ye Zhen turned around, a smile appearing on her lips. "When I come out, I want to eat noodles."

Gu Zheng grinned, revealing a set of white teeth, his eyes both fierce and doting: "Okay. Add two eggs."

……

The airtight door to the operating room slowly opened.

Ye Zhen walked into the operating room, which was said to be the most advanced in all of Europe, with her hands raised.

However, the next second, she stopped in her tracks.

In the large room, there was only a cold operating table, with an anxious anesthesiologist and a scrub nurse standing beside it.

The two German associate chief physicians who were scheduled to be seen were nowhere to be found.

Empty and desolate, deathly silent.

Ye Zhen looked up at the glass observation room on the second floor.

Williams was standing by the window, holding a cup of coffee, looking down at her. When he met Ye Zhen's gaze, a smug smirk appeared on his lips, and he even raised his coffee cup, making a "good luck" gesture from afar.

strike.

This was the "greeting gift" from the European medical community to this arrogant Chinese woman.

Without an assistant to expose the field of vision, without an assistant to help stop the bleeding, without an assistant to cut the sutures and tie the knots. In such an extremely difficult open surgery as Fontan's, even if the surgeon had three heads and six arms, it would be impossible to complete the procedure alone.

This is not surgery, this is execution.

In a corner of the observation room, Dean Zhang Guohua trembled with rage, slamming his hand on the bulletproof glass: "Damn it! This is blatant disregard for human life! I'm getting off! I'm a doctor, I'm her assistant!"

"Excuse me, sir." Two burly German security guards stopped him expressionlessly. "You can't go in. Please calm down."

"Calm down my ass!" Xu Wenqiang, his glasses askew, pointed at Williams's nose and yelled, "This is a conspiracy! You're murdering that child!"

Williams shrugged, looking innocent. "Mr. Xu, doctors are human too. They believe this surgery violates ethics and refuse to participate; that's their right. Even Mr. Schroeder can't do anything about it."

Ye Zhen stood in front of the operating table, looking at the empty seats.

The scrub nurse, a young German woman, asked, "Dr. Ye... Dr. Ye, should we continue? Without an assistant, we can't establish extracorporeal circulation at all..."

"Prepare the towels." Ye Zhen's voice was calm.

"But……"

"I said, lay out a towel."

Just then, a commotion suddenly erupted in the corridor outside the operating room.

The flashes of cameras from various media outlets, like bolts of lightning, frantically pierced through the cracks in the door. Someone had apparently leaked the information, and reporters from dozens of media outlets broke through the security cordon and blocked the entrance to the operating room.

"Ms. Ye! Come out and explain yourself!"

"I heard that the doctors have all refused to participate in this surgery. Are you still going to insist on going ahead with it?"

"Is this a live experiment conducted to gain fame?"

The questions were sharp, and every word was piercing.

Williams laughed even harder upstairs. If Ye Zhen were to step out of that door now, tomorrow's headlines would be "The Chinese Witch Flees in Disarray Under the Resistance of Justice."

The operating room door opened again.

Ye Zhen came out.

She wore sterile gloves, a green scrub suit, and a mask covering her face, revealing only a pair of clear, cold eyes.

The once noisy corridor fell eerily silent for a second the moment she appeared.

A microphone was almost shoved in her face: "Dr. Ye, facing a boycott from colleagues across Europe, what do you have to say? Are you gambling with Schroeder's granddaughter's life?"

Ye Zhen stopped in her tracks.

She did not avoid the camera.

"bet?"

Ye Zhen removed one earlobe of her mask, revealing a clean yet sharp face. She looked directly at the reporter who had asked the question.

"In the medical wilderness, the first person to raise a torch is often regarded as an arsonist."

She spoke German, with perfect pronunciation, each syllable like a drumbeat striking the heart.

"You ask me why I persist? It's not for fame, nor to prove anything. It's simply because ten minutes ago, that child grabbed my hand and said she wanted to live, wanted to see next spring."

Ye Zhen pointed to the tightly closed door behind her, her voice calm yet carrying a powerful, awe-inspiring force:

"In the eyes of doctors, there are no borders, no games, only life."

The entire audience erupted in uproar.

The reporters were stunned, their hands holding cameras frozen in mid-air. They had anticipated Ye Zhen's explanation, anticipated her anger, but they had never imagined such a soul-searching interrogation.

Ye Zhen put her mask back on, turned around, and her back view was resolute and aloof.

"If you refuse to hold the scalpel because you're afraid of failure, then I'll hold it all by myself."

After she finished speaking, the airtight door slammed shut behind her.

All the noise and malice are shut out.

……

Back at the operating table, the world fell silent once more.

The grand pronouncements have been made, but reality remains harsh.

The anesthesia machine emitted a sharp alarm sound.

"Dr. Ye, what do we do?" The anesthesiologist was sweating profusely. "We need to establish cardiopulmonary bypass! But... there are only two of us; there's simply not enough time to intubate and shut off the blockage!"

Time passed by, second by second.

Ye Zhen's hand holding the scalpel was as steady as a rock, but her back was already soaked with cold sweat.

A person.

I really can't do it.

Even if she were a surgical genius from another time, she couldn't conjure up three hands in this era.

In the observation room, Williams looked at his watch: "It's over. In five minutes, she'll have to beg for mercy."

Just then.

"laugh!"

The sensor door on the other side of the operating room suddenly opened.

The sound of a high-pressure airflow broke the silence.

Ye Zhen suddenly looked up.

A figure was washing his arms at the sink. It was an old man with gray hair and a tall stature. Even with his back to people, one could feel the authority of someone who had long held a high position.

He skillfully put on the sterile surgical gown and gloves, each step as precise as a textbook.

"Who?!" Williams upstairs exclaimed in surprise. "What are the security guards doing? How dare they let unauthorized personnel in?"

The old man turned around, raised his head, and glanced at the observation room through his goggles.

With just that one glance, the coffee cup in Williams' hand shattered with a loud crash.

Brown liquid splattered all over the floor, but he didn't notice. He just stared wide-eyed as if he'd seen a ghost, his lips trembling: "Professor...Professor Bauer?!"

Helmut Bauer.

President for life of Charité Hospital, Honorary President of the German Association of Cardiac Surgery.

Bauer ignored the commotion upstairs. He strode across to the other side of the operating table and stood in the assistant's position.

In this position, he is usually the mentor and the judge.

But today, he looked like an intern, his hands clasped in front of his chest, and through his goggles, he gave Ye Zhen a deep look.

He overheard Ye Zhen's words to the reporter in the locker room just now.

Arsonist and those who set the fire on fire.

This Chinese woman possesses a soul sharper than this scalpel.

"Dr. Ye."

Bauer's voice came through the mask, aged yet steady and powerful, "Your speech was excellent. If you don't mind, I'd like to apply to be your assistant."

"My old bones can still stand for two hours."

The entire venue was deathly silent.

Immediately afterwards, all the German experts in the observation room stood up, their eyes filled with disbelief and shock.

Could Professor Bauer be made an assistant?

Who exactly is this Chinese woman?!

Ye Zhen looked at the old man in front of her, her eyes slightly warm.

Her eyebrows curved slightly, and she gently turned the scalpel in her hand, reflecting a dazzling cold light.

"It would be my great honor."

Ye Zhen took a deep breath, her voice clear and crisp, echoing throughout the venue:

"Surgery begins."