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

No one spoke in the special consultation room.

Edward's hands were trembling.

He clenched his fists twice, his knuckles cracking, before he could barely steady himself.

Thirty-five years.

The head of pediatric cardiac surgery at Brompton. The face of cardiac surgery in the entire UK. He thought he had this case figured out.

As a result, Ye Zhen kicked both Mayo's and Japan's plans off their foundations in less than five minutes.

It wasn't the kind of politeness that involves finding fault.

It's about flipping the table.

Edward took a deep breath and bent down to open the second aluminum alloy case he was carrying.

"Dr. Ye," his throat was a little dry, "Mayo and Tokyo's plan certainly has fatal flaws. But we at Brompton... are not unprepared."

He took out a thick stack of printed papers from the box and carefully unfolded them on the consultation table.

Colorful.

Computer-generated 3D reconstruction images: There are only a handful of medical institutions worldwide capable of performing 3D reconstructions of the heart. Brompton is one of them.

The images were generated using the latest VAX minicomputer, based on continuous cross-sectional data from cardiac catheterization, stacked layer by layer to ultimately produce a complete three-dimensional heart model.

The course of blood vessels, the structure of cavities, and the location of valves—all are marked with different colors and printed on A3 paper.

The visual impact is off the charts.

Edward laid out the six reconstruction diagrams one by one, like a royal flush being spread out on a gambling table.

"This is a 3D reconstruction that our team completed on a VAX 11/780 in two whole weeks." His tone finally regained some confidence. "The resolution is 0.8 millimeters—currently the limit of precision for civilian medical imaging worldwide."

Lin Yi couldn't help but lean forward and take a peek.

to be frank.

That's really intimidating.

The color markings and clear layers made it far more sophisticated than the black and white film they usually saw.

He subconsciously turned to look at Ye Zhen.

Ye Zhen walked over.

I looked down and scanned the six reconstruction images.

He didn't show much expression.

She picked up the top one, held it up to the lightbox, and held it up to the light—

three seconds.

lay down.

the second one.

two seconds.

lay down.

The third one.

one second.

I've let it go.

I didn't look at the last three pictures.

Edward's heart sank to his feet.

"You've chosen the wrong baseline for reconstruction."

Ye Zhen's voice was soft and flat, as if she were saying that the steamed buns in the cafeteria were a bit hard today.

She picked up a red and blue pencil and placed the tip on the right ventricle area of ​​the first reconstruction diagram.

"VAX's algorithm is essentially based on edge detection of consecutive imaging frames to construct contours."

She paused for a moment, then poked the pencil tip into the thinnest part of the right ventricular wall.

"But the thickness of this child's right ventricular wall is extremely uneven—the thinnest part is 1.2 millimeters, and the thickest part is nearly 6 millimeters, a difference of five times."

With a stroke of the pen, a red line was drawn on the reconstructed map.

"Your program defaults to a uniform wall thickness model."

In short, Brompton's two weeks of computation were doomed.

"The calculation of the total volume of the right ventricle has a deviation of more than 15%."

Edward opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

What is meant by "dimensional reduction attack"?

This is.

"The second question." Ye Zhen didn't give him a chance to catch his breath.

Draw the pen tip to the lower left corner of the reconstructed image.

"Layer spacing, 2 millimeters."

She looked up at Edward, her tone as if she were giving an intern a basic lesson.

"That's enough for a normal heart. But this heart—"

Her pen tip rested on the edge of the ventricular septal defect.

"The distance from the edge of the defect to the conduction bundle is only 1.1 millimeters."

Edward's breath hitched for a second.

"In your model, this distance—"

Ye Zhen looked at him.

"It doesn't exist at all."

Those four words made Edward's face turn pale.

0.8 mm resolution. 2 mm interlayer spacing.

The ruler is thin enough, but you only measure every two centimeters. That missing 1.1 millimeters is exactly what could have cost a child their life.

Lin Yi stood to the side, his white coat soaked with sweat from his back.

He recalled his first reaction when he saw those colorful reconstruction images—"Wow, that's so stylish!"

Thinking back on it now, my face still burns.

Ye Zhen turned around and walked to the lightbox.

The films hanging on the lightbox were not brought by the British.

She drew it herself.

Hand-drawn.

Red and blue pencils. White paper. No computer assistance whatsoever.

But the hearts in those six hand-drawn pictures—

The course angle of each coronary artery branch is marked.

The orientation of each myocardial fiber is marked.

The geometric shape of each petal is marked.

The key areas were also shown with enlarged details, with arrows pointing to the abnormal proliferation of the trabeculae, and the annotations next to them were written in small, neat, and dense handwriting.

Edward stepped forward.

His pupils widened little by little.

He spotted the abnormal coronary artery that Mayo had missed.

The diagram of Ye Zhen is clearly marked. Even the diameter of the branches is written down—accurate to 0.1 millimeters.

He noticed the collateral circulation that the Japanese had overlooked.

Ye Zhen drew all three small branches that originated from the bronchial artery, including the direction of blood flow and the estimated flow rate, leaving nothing out.

He also saw the conduction bundle that didn't exist in his computer model at all.

Ye Zhen drew a dotted line from the atrioventricular knot to the bifurcation of the His bundle.

Eight characters were written next to it:

"Avoidance must be exercised during the procedure; deviation ≤ 0.5mm."

Conduction bundle.

The heart's electrical system.

Cut it off, and the heart loses its metronome. Forever.

This thing is not visible in any image.

It's not visible on ultrasound. It's not visible on contrast imaging. It's not visible on CT. It's not visible on MRI either.

Edward slowly straightened up.

He glanced back at the stack of color computer printouts he had brought.

VAX 11/780.

A small computer worth half a million pounds.

Two weeks of processing time.

Six engineers.

He couldn't beat a Chinese woman, a pencil, and six sheets of white paper.

It's not that the equipment is faulty.

It's because the person is no good.

To be precise, the vast majority of people in this world cannot do it.

"Dr. Ye..."

Edward's throat felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper. He pointed to the dotted line of the conductive beam on the lightbox, his fingers barely obeying his commands.

"How did you pinpoint this location? There's no imaging evidence whatsoever—"

"Use your brain."

Ye Zhen casually tucked the red and blue pencils into the breast pocket of her white lab coat. The movement was as casual as inserting a pair of chopsticks.

"The cardiac catheterization data can be used to calculate the pressure gradient distribution in different segments of the right ventricular wall. Combined with the direction of the mitral regurgitation jet in the ultrasound report, the fiber course angle of the interventricular septum can be deduced."

She spoke slowly, pausing between sentences, each word hitting the mark perfectly.

"The conduction bundle runs along the lower posterior margin of the membranous ventricular septum and downwards along the left ventricular surface of the muscular ventricular septum."

"The location was calculated."

The special consultation room was so quiet that you could hear the hum of the ballast in the fluorescent light tube.

Edward didn't say anything more.

He has practiced medicine for thirty-five years. He has seen geniuses, prodigies, and those once-in-a-century surgical madmen.

But at that moment, for the first time, he felt like a clinical intern.

That feeling was very clear.

It wasn't that we were defeated.

It was run over.

Even the tire tracks are visible.