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

In early spring in the northern part of the city, the biting ice shards in the wind have disappeared, and tender green buds the size of rice grains have quietly sprouted on the branches of the poplar trees along the roadside.

It has been almost half a month since Li Changqing, the editor-in-chief of the Chinese Journal of Surgery, took away the 50,000-word manuscript. With the special issue being distributed to key hospitals in provinces and cities across the country, the Beicheng Military Region General Hospital has gained a great deal of exposure to the people of the whole country.

Dean Zhou Hai has been walking with a brisk pace lately, and even specially allocated the brightest room on the first floor of the administration building to hang a fresh wooden plaque that reads "Huaxia Heart Congenital Heart Disease Relief Special Office".

However, the consequences of such great fame quickly became apparent.

Not only did the number of outpatient visits double, but every day the postman would ride his green old-fashioned bicycle, carrying a bulging green canvas mailbag, piling it all onto Zhou Hai's desk like a small mountain.

The letters came from all over the country, with eight-cent stamps affixed to them, and the writing on the envelopes was crooked and messy.

Some used pencils, others red ink, and the signatures were all from remote, impoverished mountain villages. These families had all come after reading newspapers and listening to the commune's broadcasts, seeking a way to save their children suffering from strange illnesses.

The doctors and nurses at the main hospital were working non-stop, performing surgeries and seeing patients, and simply didn't have the manpower to unpack these sacks of SOS letters. Zhou Hai was so worried that his already thinning hair fell out in clumps, and he would agonize over the pile of letters every day before leaving get off work.

12:30 PM.

Gu Zheng had just arrived at the main hospital and picked up Ye Zhen, who had been working non-stop all morning, to take her home to her family's apartment building, intending to prepare a hot meal for her.

Ye Zhen was exhausted from the special clinic. As soon as she entered the house, she went straight to the inner room, intending to use a hot towel to apply to her face to relieve her fatigue.

Gu Zheng was wearing a floral apron and washing some bok choy by the kitchen sink, thinking that he would quickly make his wife a bowl of hot soup noodles with poached eggs after he finished washing them.

Just then, the roar of a car engine came from downstairs.

A military jeep with a Beijing license plate, covered in dust, drove into the military compound and came to a steady stop at the entrance of their building.

Gu Zheng heard the noise in the kitchen and paused in his work. He peeked out the window, his sharp eyes sweeping across the room, then casually wiped his hands with a rag, took off his apron and draped it over the back of a chair, turned around, opened the security door, and went downstairs.

The jeep had just come to a stop when the door was pushed open.

Zhao Gang was the first to step out of the car. He wasn't wearing his military uniform today, but rather an ordinary gray cloth jacket. He turned around and took two mesh bags out of the car, which contained several packs of good cigarettes and two cans of golden malted milk powder.

Liu Xiumei got out of the car right after, carefully protecting her daughter behind her.

"Brother Gu!"

With a crisp greeting, Zhao Lanlan emerged from the back seat. She was wearing a pale yellow polyester shirt with a knitted cardigan over it.

Although she was still thinner than the average girl, and her fingers still showed faint signs of slender bones, her face had completely lost its former lifeless ashen color. Having just completed her post-operative check-up and discharge procedures at a hospital in Beijing, her cheeks were glowing with vibrant color.

Walking at the very back was Gu Yue, who had short hair cut to her ears and was clutching a large cardboard box tightly in her arms.

"Uncle Zhao, Auntie." Gu Zheng strode forward, took the net bag from Zhao Gang's hand, and then took the cardboard box that was almost half the size of Gu Yue from her arms.

The box was extremely heavy, and when it was shaken, there was a constant rustling sound of stacks of paper rubbing together.

Zhao Gang waved his hands repeatedly. The old political commissar was extremely humble in front of Gu Zheng, his eyes crinkling with deep wrinkles from smiling: "Zhengzi, thank you for your hard work and Dr. Ye's efforts this time. As soon as we finished the discharge procedures, Lanlan refused to rest in Beijing for a couple more days. She insisted on coming to Beicheng, saying that Dr. Ye had to take a look at her as soon as possible."

"Don't mention it, come upstairs and have a seat." Gu Zheng steadily carried the heavy cardboard box with one hand and led the group upstairs.

Gu Yue followed behind, craning her neck to peek into the house: "Brother Zheng, did your wife just get back from get off work? I heard about it when I was in Beijing; she does three surgeries a day here, standing for hours on end. You have to keep an eye on her and make sure she takes care of herself!"

Gu Zheng unlocked the door, then paused for half a second as he pulled on the doorknob. Remembering his wife's relentless work ethic, he snorted, "With her stubborn temper, once she's on the operating table, not even the King of Heaven can persuade her. Come on in, I'll get you some water."

The group followed them into the house. Gu Zheng placed the net bag on the coffee table in the living room and tossed the box in his hand: "Yueyue, you've been carrying this tattered cardboard box like it's a treasure all this way. What's inside? It's so heavy."

Gu Yue immediately puffed out her chest, patted the cardboard box lid, and her eyes lit up: "Brother Zheng, this is the medical record data that Linlin and her classmates from Beijing compiled for your wife!"

Speaking of this, Gu Yue's tone was full of pride.

"They divided the work, going to the suburbs and the Beijing offices of various provinces and cities, collecting information on children with congenital heart disease everywhere." Gu Yue gestured with her hand to indicate the thickness of the suitcase. "Linlin and her team meticulously copied down the degree of cyanosis, medical history, and family situation on letter paper, categorizing them by province and binding them into booklets. I came here with Uncle Zhao and his team this time to personally deliver this labor of love to my sister-in-law!"

Upon hearing this, Gu Zheng's gaze suddenly darkened.

He knew all too well that the data these young men had painstakingly compiled with just their two legs and a pen was more valuable than a box of gold bars in those years of medical scarcity!

Just then, the door to the inner room was pushed open.

Ye Zhen was wearing an old-fashioned beige sweater, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, revealing her well-defined forearms. She had just applied a hot towel to her face, and her fair skin was glistening with moisture.

Hearing the commotion outside, Ye Zhen looked up.

Those cool, clear eyes swept over the crowd, finally settling firmly on Zhao Lanlan, who stood ramrod straight.

After greeting Zhao Gang and his wife, Ye Zhen strode towards Zhao Lanlan.

Zhao Lanlan stood still obediently, her eyes filled with awe and affection, like a well-behaved student.

Ye Zhen extended her right hand, placing three slender fingers precisely on the radial artery in Zhao Lanlan's left wrist. A few seconds later, she withdrew her hand, her gaze shifting to Zhao Lanlan's fingernails.

The nails, which were originally swollen like drumsticks and had a purplish-black hue, now have a healthy pinkish-nude color showing under the nail bed.

"Heart rate is stable, pulse is strong," Ye Zhen concluded, her tone as calm as if she were making rounds in a ward. She looked up at Zhao Gang and his wife, "Have you stopped the anticoagulant medication during the later stages of dialysis?"

"It's stopped! Completely stopped!" Liu Xiumei's eyes reddened with emotion. "The experts in Beijing checked my coagulation function twice, and they told me to stop the medication last week. Now, as you instructed, I'm just taking some blood-tonifying medicine!"

Ye Zhen nodded and turned to walk to the coffee table: "You've recovered well, don't stand, sit down."

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Gu Yue pushed the cardboard box to the center of the coffee table, took out a pair of scissors, and deftly cut the hemp rope sealing the box.

The lid of the box was opened.

Inside, there were no miscellaneous items, only neatly folded kraft paper bags. Each bag had large characters written on it in thick black calligraphy: "Shandong Area Archives", "Yunnan-Guizhou Area Archives", and "Northern Shaanxi Area Archives".

Ye Zhen stopped in her tracks as she was about to pour the tea.

She stepped forward and reached into the top "Shaanxi Northern Region" file folder, pulling out a few sheets of paper.

Those were forms meticulously copied by medical students from Beijing, stroke by stroke, using pure blue ink. Names, ages, addresses, echocardiogram descriptions, and frequencies of hypoxia and cyanosis were listed clearly. The handwriting was so neat that even the punctuation exuded a rigorous academic air.

In the lower right corner of the table, the "urgency level rating" inferred from the symptoms is marked in very conspicuous red pen.

Ye Zhen held the few thin sheets of paper in her hand, her gaze lingering on the dense ink marks for a long time.

This is an extremely vast treasure trove. It is a bright path to survival that a group of young medical students carved out from the chaos and despair of desperate cries for help for children in grassroots areas of China.

Ye Zhen sat down on the fabric sofa, her fair fingers pressing against the cover of the kraft paper bag.

Then, she took out the entire stack of letters inside, which contained the lives of countless people.