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

The Duke stood three steps away.

He couldn't understand those technical terms.

What is coronary artery course, what is conduction bundle, what is interstitial space—these terms float past my ears like a train going through a tunnel, a rumbling sound that I can't grasp at anything.

But some things don't need to be understood.

He saw Edward's expression.

Edward Harvey.

The Director of the Royal Brompton Hospital. The face of cardiac surgery in the entire UK. The most capable person to be seen in the imperial medical community.

At this moment, his face showed neither anger nor resentment.

It's like a person who has stood on a mountaintop for thirty-five years suddenly realizing that what's under their feet isn't the summit.

It's at the foot of the mountain.

The Duke had seen that expression before.

I've seen it in the House of Commons. I've seen it at Buckingham Palace. I've seen it on the trading floor of Wall Street.

This is what a person looks like when they've been completely crushed.

There was no room for struggle.

They didn't even bother to explain themselves.

"Dr. Ye."

The Duke spoke.

"I'll only ask one question."

Ye Zhen turned to look at him.

What are my son's chances of survival?

Ye Zhen looked at him for two seconds.

In those two seconds, there wasn't a ripple in his eyes. Neither arrogant nor timid, he didn't hide.

Just look at him.

It's like looking at a form that hasn't been filled out yet.

"I never disclose the probability to the family members."

The Duke frowned.

In his entire life, no one dared not answer his questions.

New York hedge fund managers wouldn't dare. London cabinet ministers wouldn't dare. And the surgeon in Tokyo who bowed fifteen times certainly wouldn't dare.

"I'll only tell you one thing."

Ye Zhen lowered her eyes, opened the blank surgical record sheet on the table, and picked up a pen.

The pen tip touches the paper.

"Surgery tomorrow morning at eight o'clock. All pre-operative preparations must be completed tonight."

After writing the first line, she glanced at the Duke.

"You can go into the observation room to take a look."

"But there's one thing—"

His gaze was fixed on it.

His tone left no room for negotiation.

"No sound is allowed in the observation room during the surgery."

The Duke's lips moved slightly.

He wanted to say something.

I want to say, "I am the head of the Cavendish family." I want to say, "I have the right to speak in any operating room in the world." I want to say, "Do you even know who you're talking to?"

But not a single word of these words came out.

Because there's something about this woman.

It's not about prestige or airs.

It is an absolute, clean, and unwavering certainty.

It's not something you can learn through practice, nor is it something you can just present.

It's ingrained in her bones, bound to every breath she takes and every heartbeat she has, something she was born with.

The Duke had only ever seen this kind of thing in one type of person in his entire life.

Those who truly hold the power of life and death.

He turned and walked towards the door.

He paused for a moment as he passed Edward.

"Edward".

"Yes, Your Grace."

"you're right."

The Duke's voice was extremely low, so low it sounded like he was speaking to himself.

"You'll know when you see her."

Leather shoes stepped onto the terrazzo floor.

笃.

笃.

笃.

The door closed.

The footsteps in the corridor faded into the distance. Then they disappeared.

---

Liu Jianmin then realized that his back was completely soaked.

It's close to the skin and flesh.

It's chilly.

He twisted his shoulders, but his white coat was stuck to his back and he couldn't pull it off.

He turned his head and glanced at Ye Zhen—

She has already written three lines on the record sheet.

Her pen moved quickly and steadily. It was as if the conversation she had just had—where she opened up and examined each of the world's top three cardiac surgery institutions one by one—had absolutely nothing to do with her.

Do what you're supposed to do.

Five words popped into Liu Jianmin's mind.

The daily life of a big shot.

"Director Liu."

Ye Zhen didn't even look up.

"exist!"

Liu Jianmin's spine snapped straight up, and he almost blurted out "Here" from his mouth—but he swallowed it back down.

He cursed himself in his heart.

This is a hospital, not a military camp.

But when Ye Zhen sat there, the way she could freeze people in place without even glaring at them was exactly the same as Gu Zheng's.

"Notify the operating room to sterilize all instruments tonight. Replace all the tubing for the extracorporeal circulation machine."

"clear."

Prepare three units of type O washed red blood cells and two units of platelets.

"receive."

"Prepare a bed for the ICU. Admit the child there first, and stabilize his blood oxygen levels tonight."

"no problem."

"Also—preoperative discussion tonight at 8 PM."

Ye Zhen's voice was as flat as still water.

"I need to confirm a plan."

Liu Jianmin nodded, turned around and went out.

---

Ye Zhen was the only one left in the special consultation room.

The lightbox was buzzing.

The low-frequency whirring characteristic of old-fashioned ballasts is like a string twisted to its limit, ready to snap at any moment.

The cold, white light poured down, illuminating the six hand-drawn hearts so thoroughly that not a single detail could be hidden.

She stood in front of the lightbox.

I stared at that heart for a long time.

Deformed.

Incomplete.

It is riddled with holes.

It's tiny, not even as big as her fist.

But it belongs to a seven-year-old boy.

A boy with messy blond hair plastered on his forehead.

A boy with lips so dark they were almost black, and whose chest rose and fell so shallowly it was almost imperceptible.

A boy who was abandoned by Mayo, halted by Tokyo, disapproved of by the whole of Europe, and sentenced to death by the whole world.

Ye Zhen reached out her hand.

My fingertip gently touched the very center of the heart on the drawing.

The paper felt slightly cool.

She withdrew her hand and glanced at the watch on her wrist.

6:17.

There is one hour and forty-three minutes left before the preoperative discussion.

She pulled up a chair and sat down.

Pick up the red and blue pencil again and turn to a new sheet of white paper.

The pen tip touches down.

The consultation room was so quiet that the only sound was the soft scratching of a pencil lead against paper.

A surgical approach that no one had ever taken before began to take shape little by little on paper.

7:58 PM.

The small conference room is on the third floor of the main hospital.

A row of sheets was laid out on the long table. The lightbox had been moved from the consultation room, and Ye Zhen's six hand-drawn pictures were pinned to the blackboard, with two more added next to them.

It was a new painting she created in the past hour or so.

Liu Jianmin arrived the earliest.

He arranged the chairs one by one, then jogged to the logistics department to borrow a thermos, filled it with hot water, and placed it on the corner of the table.

After doing all that, he stood at the door and waited.

7:59.

Everyone has arrived.

Domestic and foreign, a whole room full.

Ye Zhen turned around and faced the blackboard.

The tips of the red and blue pencils landed on the first picture.

"This child has four critical heart problems that need to be addressed simultaneously."

Her voice echoed in the small conference room. Clear, calm, and unhurried.

"First, ventricular septal defect. Second, right ventricular outflow tract obstruction. Third, aortic and pulmonary artery atresia. Fourth, right heart failure."

The pen tip touched each of the four positions one by one.

"Mayo's approach addressed the first two issues but overlooked the abnormal course of the coronary arteries, making the first incision potentially fatal. The Japanese team noticed the coronary arteries, but with a McGoon index of 0.9, their bridging approach wouldn't last more than a month post-surgery."

He paused for a moment.

"Everyone is thinking about how to 'fix' this heart."

She flipped the pencil over.

The blue pen tip drew a large circle on the paper, enclosing the entire heart inside.

"But the problem with this heart isn't that it's 'broken'."

"It's not fully grown."

"Don't try to fix something that can't be fixed."

She raised her eyes and her gaze swept over everyone present.

"Rebuild a road."