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

Gu Zheng looked at the two elegant characters and chuckled softly, the vibration in his chest carrying a fatal magnetism.

"Imagination?"

He extended his slender fingers and gently tapped the two words. He raised his eyes, his dark pupils locking onto her, the smile in them unchanged, but now tinged with a hint of aggression.

"Dr. Ye, you've got it wrong. This isn't my imagination," he said, deliberately lowering his voice and enunciating each word clearly. "This is the imagination you've created in me."

Ye Zhen's heart skipped a beat, as if gripped by his words.

She instinctively wanted to refute, but found that her usually composure was rendered utterly inadequate by this almost rogue logic. She picked up the red pen, intending to casually put it back in her pocket, but her fingertips trembled uncontrollably, almost causing the pen to slip from her grasp.

"My report settled things for you, and you think you can just ditch it with a 'delusion'?" Gu Zheng leaned back lazily against the headboard, his eyes like a hawk's, intently watching her every subtle reaction. "Logically, shouldn't you show some appreciation?"

"Your report is exaggerated and affects my work..."

Just as Ye Zhen was about to speak in a businesslike manner, the ward door was suddenly kicked open with a "bang".

"Something terrible has happened! Dr. Ye! Dean Zhou! Something terrible has happened!" A nurse, who had forgotten to knock, rushed in and almost tripped over the threshold, her voice trembling with tears.

"Emergency call from the operating room! Table 2! Deputy Commander Li's father has suffered a ruptured spleen due to external trauma, resulting in massive bleeding! Dr. Zhao... he can't hold on any longer!"

Spleen ruptured!

Dean Zhou was just having a headache over Gu Zheng's "love letter report" when he heard this. His mind went blank, and without saying a word, he rushed out.

All the playfulness on Gu Zheng's face vanished instantly, his brows furrowed, and his eyes became sharp as knives.

The air in the entire surgical corridor seemed to have been sucked out.

Outside the operating room, the atmosphere was extremely tense. The bright red "Operating in Progress" sign was blinding. Lin Weiguo, his face ashen, paced back and forth like a caged beast. Today's surgery was a golden opportunity for him to strongly recommend Zhao Tiancheng as the surgeon, to curry favor with Deputy Commander Li, and to gain merit for his faction.

Who could have imagined that a surgery would turn into a life-or-death race against time!

The operating room was a battlefield.

The overwhelming stench of blood was almost palpable. The suction device hissed and gurgled, but it could never keep up with the speed at which the blood gushed out. The entire surgical field was a vast ocean of blood, making it impossible to distinguish between tissue and blood vessels.

"Blood pressure is still dropping! 70/40! Heart rate 140!" the anesthesiologist shouted, his voice distorted.

"Blood bags! Quick! Pressurize and transfuse! I don't have enough blood here!"

Zhao Tiancheng stood at the surgeon's station, cold sweat mingling with splattered blood, streaming down his face. His hands were trembling; those hands, once hailed as "the hope of the future of surgery," were now shaking so badly he couldn't even hold a hemostat.

His pride in his composure and talent was completely washed away in the face of the surging arterial blood.

"Pliers... pliers... I can't find it... where's the tear..." he muttered to himself, his hand instinctively trying to clamp it shut, but it slipped away from the slippery tissue several times, which might have worsened the tear.

"Dr. Zhao! It's no good! The patient is going to die!" The assistant next to him was almost crying.

If Deputy Commander Li's father were to die on the operating table, the entire surgical team's future would be ruined!

Outside the operating room, Dean Zhou listened to the intermittent, desperate reports coming from inside, his heart sinking to the bottom. Without hesitation, he roared at the head nurse beside him, "Go! Go to the intensive care unit! Get Ye Zhen here! Ask her to come! Quickly!"

Upon hearing this, Lin Weiguo immediately jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, trying to stop him: "Dean Zhou! This is against the rules! Ye Zhen isn't a tenured employee of our hospital. How can we let her perform such a crucial surgery!"

"Rules?" Dean Zhou shoved him aside, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. "The man lying inside is Deputy Commander Li's father! It's a life! If he dies, you and I, the entire hospital, will be buried with him! And you're talking to me about the hell rules?"

He pointed to the operating room door and said to Lin Weiguo, enunciating each word clearly, "Today, either Ye Zhen goes in to save lives, or you and I should prepare to write our resignations right now!"

Lin Weiguo's face instantly lost all color.

When Ye Zhen arrived, the operating room was already surrounded by people. Ignoring the complex gazes—some inquiring, some jealous, some expectant—she walked straight into the changing room.

A few minutes later, she changed into her dark green surgical gown, put on her cap and mask, revealing only her cool and calm eyes. She went into the scrubbing area, turned on the tap, and applied disinfectant soap from her fingertips to her elbows, once, twice, three times. Every movement was as precise as a textbook template.

When she pushed open the heavy lead door of the operating room, everyone inside seemed to be paused, all turning to look at her.

Ye Zhen's gaze swept across the entire room like the sharpest scalpel.

The monitor showed a precariously dangerous curve of vital signs, and the medical equipment table was a mess, soaked in blood. Finally, the image focused on Zhao Tiancheng, who was at a loss and seemed to have left his body.

Her brows furrowed tightly.

Stop.

The cool voice wasn't loud, but it pierced through the noise and panic of the entire operating room, carrying an undeniable authority.

Zhao Tiancheng looked up blankly, his blood-stained face filled with humiliation and resentment: "You..."

"I said stop." Ye Zhen's tone was devoid of any emotion. She walked up to him, her eyes as cold as ice. "Are your trembling hands trying to save someone, or are they just mashing a pot of minced meat?"

These words are louder and harsher than a slap in the face.

Zhao Tiancheng instantly flew into a rage: "Ye Zhen! Who do you think you are! If you're so capable, you do it!"

"I am going," Ye Zhen's voice remained calm, "but not now."

She turned to the scrub nurse and head nurse Liu beside her and began to give orders.

"Sister Liu, remove all the equipment he touched, and re-inventory and disinfect it. This table is dirty."

"Furthermore," she turned her gaze to Zhao Tiancheng, as if looking at a giant, walking source of pollution, "please get him out. His presence is polluting this sterile environment."

boom!

Everyone in the operating room gasped.

This is no longer just a slap in the face; it's utterly shattering Zhao Tiancheng's dignity as a surgeon, throwing him on the ground, and repeatedly washing him with disinfectant.

"Ye Zhen! How dare you!" Zhao Tiancheng trembled with rage.

"Please ask Dr. Zhao to go outside and calm down." Ye Zhen didn't even look at him and directly gave the order to the two male doctors next to her. The two exchanged a glance, saw Dean Zhou's approving look from the observation window outside the door, and, one on each side, half "invited" and half "carried" the distraught Zhao Tiancheng out.

He became the first doctor in the history of the military hospital to be kicked off his own operating table.

The world fell silent instantly.

Ye Zhen stepped into the surgeon's position and took over a brand new set of instruments.

"Increase the suction power and clean the surgical field in a fan shape from the twelve o'clock direction."

"Prepare three non-invasive forceps."

"Number 7 silk thread, double needles as spares."

Her instructions were clear, concise, and efficient. The team, which had been in a state of panic and confusion, was transformed under her command into a finely tuned machine, operating swiftly and systematically.

Her hand moved.

No one could keep up with her movements. With her left hand, she plunged a suction device deep into the pool of blood, while her right hand simultaneously moved a hemostat. In that bloody mess that even Zhao Tiancheng couldn't find his way, the tip of her hemostat didn't hesitate for a moment, precisely locating the ruptured artery. Steady, accurate, and ruthless, she clamped down!

The gushing blood stopped abruptly.

"The blood pressure has risen! It's back to 90/60!" The anesthesiologist's voice was filled with the elation and trembling of someone who had survived a close call.

We've stabilized!

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and when they looked at Ye Zhen again, their eyes were filled with almost divine awe.

What followed was more like a breathtaking performance of violent aesthetics. Every movement she made was clean and efficient, without a single superfluous action. Her hands seemed to be imbued with a soul; with a clamp, a pull, a snip, a sew, she staged a miracle of reversing life and death within the confines of the human body.

The desperate surgery, which was originally expected to take at least two hours, was completed in forty minutes.

After the last stitch was completed, Ye Zhen put down the needle holder and said calmly, "It's over."

Inside the operating room, there was a deathly silence at first, followed by thunderous applause, a sound of relief and triumph.

Ye Zhen took off her blood-stained gloves and surgical gown and walked out of the operating room.

In the corridor, Zhao Tiancheng still stood against the wall, his face ashen, his eyes vacant. He had watched the entire surgery through the observation window, the one that had shattered his faith. Everything he was so proud of had been crushed by this woman.

Ye Zhen walked up to him.

Without even glancing at him, she casually and accurately tossed the pair of gloves, stained with blood and bearing the shame of Zhao Tiancheng, into the yellow medical waste bin at his feet.

Then, she turned her head and glanced at him with a cold, emotionless gaze.

"Go back and copy the first chapter of 'Campbell's Orthopaedic Surgery,' the part about aseptic principles and the basic qualities of a surgeon, one hundred times."

She paused, recalling the words he had said when he broke off the engagement, and added the final blow, her tone as calm as if stating a fact.

"Oh, right. I take back what I said earlier."

"Your level of expertise doesn't just have a potential impact on your descendants; it definitely will."

After saying that, she turned and left without giving him another glance.

In the intensive care unit, Gu Zheng leaned against the headboard, the report she had labeled "delusional" still on the table. He toyed with the Hero brand fountain pen in his hand, his eyes deep and lost in thought.

Ye Zhen pushed open the door and entered, bringing with her a chilling aura of disinfectant mixed with the smell of blood.

She came in and went to wash her hands without saying a word.

Gu Zheng watched her back as she carefully washed the hands that had just created a miracle, and suddenly spoke, his voice deep and powerful.

"I've had someone 'observe' your surgery."

Ye Zhen paused in her handwashing.

Gu Zheng's gaze was deep, filled with unprecedented seriousness and a hint of domineering authority that brooked no refusal.

"That was fantastic."

He paused, then slammed the pen heavily on the table, making a soft "click" sound, like the closing of a vow.

"Ye Zhen, from today onwards, I'll take on all your troubles."