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

"despair."

The operating lights were pushed to maximum power, and the pale beam of light acted as a barrier, isolating the operating table from the outside world.

Ye Zhen stood at the head of the knife, her hands hovering in the air. Her gaze was not on Alice's bruised face, but on the chest that was about to be opened.

Professor Bauer, standing in the assistant's position, looked solemn through his goggles. He had performed thousands of heart surgeries in his life, but he had never been as nervous as he was today. He knew very well that this surgery was not just about saving a life, but also a gamble between East and West.

In the glass observation room on the second floor, Williams held a coffee cup, a sneer playing on his lips as he waited for a good show: "Just watch, this kid already has a blood clotting disorder. If we don't spend half an hour treating the subcutaneous bleeding after this incision, his vision will turn into a red swamp."

However, before he could finish speaking, the smile on his lips froze.

Ye Zhen brought down her knife.

There was no probing, no hesitation.

The scalpel, like a silver lightning bolt, instantly sliced ​​through the skin and subcutaneous tissue, reaching the sternum. Just as blood was about to gush out, the hand holding the scalpel switched to an electrocautery device. Accompanied by a hissing smoke and the smell of burning, the bleeding point was coagulated in a fraction of a second.

The skin was opened, bleeding was stopped, the sternum was sawed, and a retractor was inserted.

The entire set of movements was fluid and fast, leaving afterimages under the operating lights.

"suck!"

Professor Bauer followed with the suction device in his hand.

Just five minutes.

With the chest cavity fully opened, the weak, severely deformed heart was exposed to view.

"My God..." In the observation room, a German expert glanced at his watch, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. "Five minutes? How is that possible? Who saw her movements clearly just now?"

Williams spilled some coffee on his sleeve, but he didn't wipe it away. He just stared intently at the screen, gritting his teeth, "What's the use of being fast? That's reckless! For a child like this suffering from oxygen deprivation, the pericardial adhesions must be like glue. If she dares to peel them off so quickly, one snip will cause massive bleeding!"

Just as he expected, the heart shown on the screen was wrapped in a thick layer of fibrous tissue, with the pericardium and myocardium tightly stuck together, as if they had grown together.

This kind of adhesion is a nightmare for cardiac surgeons. If they are not careful and cut through the myocardium, the fragile heart will burst like a punctured balloon.

Normally, this requires the surgeon to use a magnifying glass and small scissors to "bite" it off bit by bit, which takes at least three hours.

But Ye Zhen did not stop.

She switched to a pair of Metzenbaum scissors and slipped her left index finger into the almost non-existent gap.

"What is she doing?!" Williams screamed, pointing at the glass window. "Blindly operating? Blindly operating on a heart with such severe adhesions? Is she insane? Muller, stop it! This is massacre!"

In the operating room, Professor Bauer's forehead was also covered in fine beads of sweat.

too fast.

Ye Zhen's left index finger seemed to have eyes, its fingertip keenly sensing the micron-level tension difference between the pericardium and myocardium. Her right hand's scissors followed closely behind, the "snip, snip" of metal striking each other as dense as a rapid rain.

Each time the scissors fell, they cut close to the main trunk of the coronary artery.

Alice's life would be over if her hand trembled even slightly.

Professor Bauer's heart was in his throat. He desperately adjusted his rhythm, trying to keep up with Ye Zhen's pace. This old man was a godfather-like figure in the European cardiac surgery world; usually, others would beg to keep up with his pace. But today, he felt like a clumsy intern!

"Pinky promise, 15 degrees to the left." Ye Zhen didn't even look up.

Bauer did as instructed immediately.

ten minutes.

In just ten minutes.

As Ye Zhen cut the fibrous strands for the last time, the deformed heart, like a peeled lychee, was revealed completely and clearly to everyone.

There was no damage.

There was no major bleeding.

Even the expected bleeding was minimal.

The observation room on the second floor was deathly silent.

Those experts who had prepared a bellyful of sarcastic remarks now seemed to have been collectively choked. Williams' mouth was open, like a fish out of air, the word "no" stuck in his throat, unable to come out.

This doesn't make any sense from anatomy!

But this bloody reality slapped them in the face again.

"Establish extracorporeal circulation and cool down." Ye Zhen threw down the scissors, her eyes still eerily calm.

The heart stopped beating.

The most crucial step is here—connecting artificial blood vessels to reshape the blood flow channels.

Ye Zhen took the 6-0 Prolene suture, flicked her wrist, and the needle holder spun beautifully at her fingertips.

Insert the needle, remove the needle, and take in the thread.

She did not use the traditional "interrupted suturing", but instead used "continuous suturing" with a single stitch all the way through.

"Nonsense!" William's furious roar finally came over the loudspeaker. "This is a Fontan procedure! The anastomosis must be perfectly sealed! Uneven tension in continuous sutures can cause the 'purse-string effect,' leading to anastomotic stenosis! You're gambling with the child's life!"

Continuous suturing is indeed fast, but it is extremely difficult to control the tension. In cardiac surgery in the 80s, this suturing method was regarded as "lazy" and "irresponsible".

Ye Zhen didn't even lift her eyelids, as if what came out of the loudspeaker was just a few barks from a dog.

Her fingers moved with the dexterity of embroidery, each stitch precise as if measured with a ruler. The knots danced on the vessel walls, and the perfect tension at the moment of tautness captivated Professor Bauer, who stood opposite her.

That wasn't stitching.

That's art.

It is a perfectly formed zipper that tightly closes the boundary between life and death.

"Cut the thread."

With a final crisp click, the pipe connection was complete.

Professor Bauer lowered his head and carefully examined the anastomosis. Perfect. There was no twisting, no narrowing, it was as smooth as if it had always been there.

He looked up and, through his fogged-up goggles, gave Ye Zhen a deep look. His gaze no longer held the appreciation of an elder looking at a younger person, but rather an almost reverent awe.

"Next..." Ye Zhen took a deep breath and picked up a sharp punch from the instrument tray.

The atmosphere in the entire venue instantly froze to freezing point.

This was the most controversial and unorthodox step in the entire surgery.

Open a window in the heart.

Williams pressed his face against the glass, his eyes bloodshot: "Schrod! Look closely! She's drilling holes in the repaired pipes! This is murder! This is creating a defective product!"

Schroeder stood in the corner, gripping his cane tightly with both hands, his knuckles turning white. He didn't understand medicine, but he saw the light in the eyes of the Chinese female doctor.

It was a kind of confidence that even if the sky were to fall, this sword could hold it up.

"puff."

A slight muffled thud.

With a steady, precise, and ruthless motion, Ye Zhen used the punch in her hand to pierce the septum between the newly connected artificial blood vessel and the right atrium.

A small hole with a diameter of 4 millimeters appeared.

It's like artificially creating a breach in a perfect dam.

"A madman... he's absolutely insane..." someone muttered to themselves in the observation room.

"Open the aorta, restart the pulse." Ye Zhen's voice showed a hint of unease for the first time, carrying a sense of determination.

The clamp was released.

Blood flowed back into the heart.

The waveforms on the monitor instantly became chaotic, and a series of urgent alarm sounds rang out like a death knell!

"Beep beep beep beep—!"

"Central venous pressure (CVP) is skyrocketing! 18...20...22!" the anesthesiologist shouted in alarm. "The pulmonary resistance is too high! Blood can't flow through! The right side of the heart is going to burst!"

Williams upstairs was so excited he almost jumped up: "See! What did I tell you? Pulmonary hypertension! It's a dead end! We're finished! This is the price you pay for believing in Eastern witchcraft!"

Schroeder closed his eyes in anguish.

Professor Bauer also looked at Ye Zhen nervously, the emergency medication already prepared in his hand.

However, Ye Zhen did not move.

She simply watched the heart struggling violently, her gaze fixed on the man-made "small window," and whispered, "Pass."

Before he could finish speaking...

A miracle happened.

Just as the venous pressure was about to exceed the critical value and trigger irreversible heart failure, a stream of dark red venous blood, like a clear spring, flowed into the left atrium through that inconspicuous 4-millimeter hole.

It's like the pressure cooker having its pressure relief valve removed.

"drop……"

The shrill alarm on the monitor stopped abruptly.

The CVP curve, which was originally rising in a straight line, suddenly experienced a precipitous drop and then came to a steady stop on a straight line.

"CVP...14." The anesthesiologist's voice trembled, filled with disbelief. "Blood pressure is stable, heart rate...heart rate is regular!"

"Blood oxygen saturation?" Ye Zhen asked.

"88%! It's not high, but..." The anesthesiologist's eyes welled up with tears, "but it's very stable! The waveform is beautiful!"

The heart, which was originally a dark purple, visibly turned rosy as the pressure was released, and began to beat strongly and regularly.

Thump, thump, thump.

That is the rhythm of life.

The observation room upstairs was deathly silent.

Williams remained frozen in place, his accusatory gesture still in place, as if immobilized. He stared at the steady curve of life, his mind buzzing.

Really... alive?

The window that they considered a "loophole" actually became a life-saving valve?

This completely overturns decades of textbook theories in Western cardiac surgery!

"The window of God..." Professor Bauer murmured, looking at the small hole that was faintly visible in the blood. "Dr. Ye, this window really was opened by God."

Ye Zhen exhaled a long breath, and her tense shoulders relaxed slightly.

The subsequent chest closure suturing went much more smoothly.

Finally, cover the wound with a dressing and gauze.

She looked up at the clock on the wall.

"Two hours and fifteen minutes," Ye Zhen said calmly. "Half an hour faster than expected."

She turned around, took off her blood-stained gloves, and threw them into the yellow medical waste bin with a soft "thud".

The sound wasn't loud, but it was like a hard slap across the face of all the arrogant people upstairs.

Ye Zhen walked to the operating table, took one last look at Alice, whose breathing was steady, then raised her head and looked coldly at Williams, whose face was ashen, through the glass window.

She did not speak.

That plain face bore a hint of weariness, but even more so, an air of arrogance that looked down upon the world.

She turned around and nodded slightly to Professor Bauer, who was still standing there in a daze: "It was a pleasure working with you, Professor Bauer. Your cooperation was very professional."

This is the highest praise a surgeon could give to their assistant.

Professor Bauer paused for a moment, then shook his head with a wry smile and solemnly returned the bow to the Chinese girl who was forty years younger than him.

The operating room doors opened.

Gu Zheng, who had been anxiously waiting at the door, spotted Ye Zhen walking out at a glance.

Her scrubs were soaked through, and stray hairs clung to her face, making her look somewhat disheveled. But in Gu Zheng's eyes, she was more radiant than anyone else in the world at that moment.

"How are you?" Schroeder rushed over, leaning on his cane, his voice trembling uncontrollably.

Ye Zhen stopped and looked at the overlord who controlled the European seas.

A slight upturn of her lips revealed a genuine smile.

"Prepare the ship, Mr. Schroeder."

Ye Zhen's clear voice echoed in the empty corridor.

"Even if death comes, it can't take your granddaughter with it."

Upstairs in the observation room, Williams slumped into a chair.

He knew that from this moment on, the Eastern country that they had ridiculed as "only having herbs and witchcraft" had used this scalpel to forcefully cut an unhealable gash in the iron curtain of Western medicine.