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

Under the operating light, Ye Zhen took the needle holder.

With a flick of the wrist, the 5-0 Proline cable traced a silvery arc under the light.

The needle tip lands with millimeter-level precision. It pierces the teardrop-shaped edge of the pericardium and passes through the incision edge of the right ventricular outflow tract in one swift motion.

The right hand holds the needle, moving it forward and backward. The left hand uses toothless tweezers to assist in the alignment. The rhythm of the two hands working together is as if calibrated by a metronome—steady, fast, and decisive.

Observation room. In front of one-way glass.

Green was standing closest.

He pulled the black notebook from his jacket pocket. The cover was frayed, and the pages were folded at several corners. Opening the first page, densely packed small English text came into view, each line ending with a bold question mark.

Twelve.

From materials mechanics to immune rejection, from suture tension to the risk of long-term degradation. He spent forty minutes organizing it in the taxi on his way to the airport in London, and then revised it twice more on the plane.

Every question is a knife.

He prepared to use these twelve knives to dissect every single, seemingly brilliant conclusion in that paper.

But at this moment, he stared intently at the operating table beneath the glass. His lips moved. No sound came out.

Ye Zhen is performing interrupted mattress sutures.

Insert the needle.

The margin is one millimeter.

The needle spacing is two millimeters.

Green's eyes narrowed sharply.

He had worked in cardiac surgery for thirty years, mentored no fewer than twenty fellows, and seen at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, suturing techniques. Interrupted mattress sutures were a basic skill, something every resident knew. But the problem was never "whether they knew it or not," but "whether they were evenly distributed."

Ye Zhen tied the first knot.

The tension at the end of the suture is transmitted to the tissue via the needle holder, causing the pericardium to slightly contract and fit perfectly against the myocardial resection margin.

The second knot.

The tension is exactly the same.

The third one. The fourth one. The fifth one.

Green's fingers began to stiffen. He gripped the corner of the notebook, his knuckles turning white bit by bit.

Each nodule experiences exactly the same tensile force. Not "almost," not "close," but exactly. The tension of the sutures is distributed extremely evenly at every point of contact.

The flexible pericardium seemed to have grown onto the heart muscle, fitting together perfectly without a single wrinkle.

Green gasped. The sound was so loud that Anderson turned to look at him.

He lowered his head, his gaze sweeping over the third question on his notebook.

"Does uneven tension lead to long-term tearing?"

Green gripped the pen tightly, the nib pressed against the line of text.

It paused for a second.

Then, with a heavy stroke.

The horizontal line went straight through the back of the paper. A thin, long tear was poked into the paper, as if something inside his mind had also cracked open.

On the operating table, the suturing process entered its second stage.

Continuous suture reinforcement.

Ye Zhen's hand speed suddenly increased.

The needle holder flipped at her right fingertips, and the four movements of inserting the needle, threading, withdrawing the needle, and retracting the thread were compressed into a smooth arc.

She didn't look down to check the angle at which the needle went in.

Green's breath hitched.

Not going to watch?

The pericardium is less than two millimeters thick; a needle insertion depth deviation of more than 0.3 millimeters could penetrate the entire thickness. Why doesn't she look?

But every time the needle tip falls, the angle is perfect.

This isn't stitching. It's muscle memory making the judgment instead of vision; the fingers know where to go on their own.

Green's pupils contracted sharply.

He understood.

Intermittent mattresses provide anchoring and radial support, while continuous stitching ensures sealing and evenly distributes tangential stress. Together, they create a perfect mechanical buffer zone at the microscopic level.

The physical limitations of the pericardium itself—insufficient elastic modulus and inadequate fatigue strength—are completely smoothed out by this suture system.

It wasn't the materials that covered her costs; it was her skills that covered her costs.

Green's hands began to tremble.

He looked down and turned to the fourth question. "Stress concentration effect of continuous stitching?"

Cross it out.

Fifth. "Is the pericardial compliance insufficient to match the dynamic deformation of the myocardium?"

Cross it out.

The sixth. The seventh. The sound of the pen nib scraping across the paper grew increasingly rapid, like the final struggle of a heartbeat before it lost control.

Green's chest heaved violently. His breathing was as heavy as if he had just run a kilometer.

It wasn't fear. It wasn't tension.

It is the body's reaction—trembling—that precedes the brain's reaction after witnessing absolute truth firsthand.

Twelve question marks.

Less than thirty minutes.

It was completely covered by horizontal lines.

Green closed the notebook, then opened it again, staring at the questions that were scribbled all over. His pen slipped from his fingers, bounced on the windowsill, but he didn't pick it up.

"Incredible."

Anderson was pressed against the glass. His hands were outstretched, his forehead pressed against it, and his nose was almost touching the glass surface. His exhaled breath created two puffs of white mist on the cool one-way glass.

His voice was weak: "Arthur, you're right. Discussing theories with her is a waste of time."

He took a deep breath and exhaled in a low voice, as if he were talking to himself.

"These hands have skipped directly from the theoretical stage."

Inside the operating room.

"The suturing is complete." Ye Zhen's voice was as steady as when she started the show, without any fluctuation. "Check for bleeding points."

The circulating nurse handed over a dry gauze.

She took it and wiped the anastomosis site. Her movements were unhurried, as if she were cleaning a precision instrument.

Remove the gauze.

It was spotless. Not a drop of blood had seeped out.

"Shut down the machine. Remove extracorporeal circulation."

The command is given. The perfusionist operates the handle. The extracorporeal circulation machine emits a dull hum, its speed gradually decreasing. Blood flows back into the body.

All eyes were fixed on the monitor.

The heart slowly fills the pericardial cavity.

One second. Two seconds.

The repaired heart began to beat on its own.

At first, it was slow. Like a baby just waking up from a deep sleep, tentatively stretching.

Then—once, twice, three times. Each jump became more powerful.

On the monitor screen, green waveforms fluctuate regularly.

Blood pressure rose. Heart rate stabilized. Oxygen saturation climbed from 92 to 95, then to 98.

All values ​​fall within the ideal range.

But no one spoke.

Because everyone is waiting for that final number.

The pressure measuring tube is inserted into the outflow channel.

The numbers are fluctuating.

In the observation room, Parker's hands were clenched into fists. Van der Hearst stared intently at the monitor, his lips pressed into a thin line.

The numbers are jumping.

It's getting slower and slower.

Freeze.

15 mmHg.

Perfect real-time pressure differential.

It matches the data in the paper exactly.

The observation room was deathly silent.

Parker stood rooted to the spot, the coffee stain on his trousers now dried into a hard, dark brown blot. He stared intently at the green "15," motionless.

His complexion went from red to white, and then to an indescribable gray.

A profit of two thousand pounds. A profit of two thousand four hundred percent.

Faced with this cold, hard number, everything becomes a joke.

He not only lost the bet and his reputation, but also had his company's core testing equipment stolen.

Van der Hearst slumped against the wall, his shoulders drooping. His eyes stared blankly at the beating heart on the operating table, as if he had lost his soul.

His proud materials science system was crushed to pieces by a Chinese female doctor in her early twenties.

Williams slowly walked forward from the corner.

His steps were unhurried, his leather shoes making solid, steady thuds on the cement floor.

He turned his head and glanced at Parker. Then he glanced at Van der Hearst.

Then he straightened the hem of his suit jacket and put his hands behind his back.

"Don't worry too much about the machine."

The tone was flat.

It is extremely lethal.

"If this machine stays in your hands, it's just a lump of iron for testing materials at best." Williams' gaze fell towards the operating room. "Only by leaving it with her will it be qualified to test real medical miracles."

He paused for a moment, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly.

"You should thank Dr. Ye. He has enhanced the historical value of your equipment."

Parker's lips twitched twice.

Gu Zheng dusted off non-existent dust from his military uniform cuffs and strode over. His boots thudded twice on the ground. He patted Williams on the shoulder with just the right amount of force—not enough to break a bone, but enough to make the old knight stumble forward half a step.

"Old Wei, you have good taste."

Then he turned and looked at Parker.

It only takes a blink of an eye for a look to change from friendly to indifferent.

He pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. It was a folded receipt with a bright red handprint pressed in the lower right corner. He held the receipt by one corner with two fingers and stuffed it directly into Parker's suit breast pocket. The movement was swift and efficient, no different from dropping a utility bill into the mailbox.

"Mr. Parker, we've accepted the items. This is the receipt from the North City Military Hospital; please take it back and use it for your accounting."

He patted Parker's chest, not too hard, not too soft.

"You're welcome. We always do our best to serve our international friends."

Parker felt a lump in his throat. A gurgling sound came from his throat, as if something was stuck there, unable to go up or down. His vision blurred, and he swayed, but Clark caught him from behind.

The operating room door was pushed open from the inside.

Ye Zhen came out.

She removed her mask, revealing a face devoid of expression. Fine beads of sweat glistened on her forehead, and stray hairs clung to her temples. The cuffs of her surgical gown were stained a darker color from the sweat.

She didn't look at Parker.

He didn't even glance at me.

He walked straight up to Williams.

stop.

"Did you understand?"

Three words. The tone was flat. Like a attending physician casually asking, "Did you take your medication?" after rounds.

Williams straightened his back and instinctively pulled both hands out of his pockets, standing ramrod straight beside him.

He bowed slightly.

I understood half of it.

Before the words had even finished, a figure rushed in from the side.

Green shoved Anderson aside—who stumbled and nearly fell—and rushed to Ye Zhen in three strides.

He held the black notebook, which was covered in scratches, in both hands and presented it to Ye Zhen.

My waist was bent at a 90-degree angle.

A 63-year-old tenured professor at University College London bowed to a Chinese female doctor in her early twenties in front of a group of people.

"Dr. Ye," Green's voice trembled. "I take back all my previous doubts. Every single one, every single word."

He pushed the notebook forward, the pages rustling.

"Does your special consultation room need an assistant?"

He raised his head, his eyes reddening, his tone filled with a fanaticism that even he himself found absurd.

"I'd like to apply to stay. Three months, six months, it doesn't matter."