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

At 10:40 a.m., the door to operating room number two was opened.

Ye Zhen walked out, pulled off her mask with her left hand, and was still fidgeting with her right knuckles, which made a soft cracking sound.

Two congenital heart disease surgeries were performed consecutively at "Huaxia Heart". One was atrial septal defect repair, and the other was patent ductus arteriosus ligation. Both were performed on infants under three years old, and both were children with red card status.

Liu Jianmin followed behind, holding the post-operative record book in his hands, muttering to himself.

"The catheter wall adhesions in the second case were more severe than the preoperative assessment. I didn't understand your separation technique. Could you explain it again later?"

As Ye Zhen walked, she said, "We'll talk about it together when we do rounds tonight. You can pull up the intraoperative videotape, and I'll annotate a few keyframes."

"Okay, I'll arrange it right away."

Liu Jianmin jogged and turned into the nurses' station.

Ye Zhen stopped at the sink at the corner of the corridor and turned on the tap. The cool tap water washed over her fingertips, and she bent down to wash her face.

Water droplets trickled down his chin, dripping onto the front of his white lab coat, leaving several small, dark spots.

Footsteps sounded behind me.

More than one person.

She turned off the tap, wiped her face with her sleeve, and turned around.

Andrei stood three steps away.

His silver hair was combed meticulously, and his gray wool coat was buttoned up neatly. His thick hands were clasped in front of him, his knuckles white.

Two young Soviet doctors stood behind him.

Ivan's eyes were red.

He had just watched the entire surgery in the observation room—from the first open-chest surgery to the last stitch in the second, without even going to the toilet in between.

The translator stood at the back, clutching a notebook, his eyes darting back and forth between Andrei and Ye Zhen.

The corridor was quiet for two seconds.

Ye Zhen leaned against the sink, not moving, waiting.

Andrei didn't speak.

He lowered his head.

He reached his right hand to his left chest and touched the gleaming gold star medal on the lapel of his coat.

His fingertip paused briefly at the edge of the medal.

Then he unscrewed the pin and took the medal off his collar.

The movements were very gentle.

It's like picking a leaf that doesn't belong to you.

He held the metal badge, representing the highest honor of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, in his palm and slowly tucked it into the inside pocket of his coat.

Ivan opened his mouth, but stood rooted to the spot.

He followed Andrei for six years.

From Leningrad to Moscow, from the Bakulov Center to the Berlin Academic Conference—that medal never left the mentor's chest.

there has never been.

He wore it when attending state banquets at the East German State Opera. He wore it when giving reports at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. In any setting with cameras and flashes, Andrei always placed it in the most conspicuous position.

That's not a decoration.

That was his armor, his calling card, all the dignity he had earned after forty years of practicing medicine on this planet.

At that moment, he picked it.

I put it in my pocket.

Andrei looked up at Ye Zhen.

He pulled a brown paper envelope from his briefcase and handed it to him with both hands.

It wasn't pushed or slipped; it was handed over with both hands held flat.

"Dr. Ye."

Before the translator could speak, Ye Zhen had already taken the envelope and opened it.

Inside were two ultrasound images, an electrocardiogram, and a blood gas analysis report.

She took out the ultrasound image and held it up under the fluorescent light overhead in the corridor.

On the gray-white image, a heart structure smaller than a walnut was twisted beyond recognition. The aorta was completely reversed, and no compensatory pathways could be found in the ventricular septum.

Turn to the blood gas report.

Blood oxygen saturation - 68%.

Four days ago it was 77%.

Four days, and the percentage dropped by nine points.

The heart is counting down.

Ye Zhen put the photo down.

Andrei spoke up.

"Four days ago, I called Moscow from the north and asked them to do a full reassessment."

He paused. His Adam's apple bobbed.

"The child's condition has deteriorated significantly since I arrived. He's been on ECMO until now, and his kidney function is starting to fail."

It paused again.

"Dr. Ye—"

His eyes no longer held any of the arrogance he had shown when he arrived; only one thing remained.

The silent, piercing helplessness of an old doctor who has witnessed life and death his entire life, when faced with a child he cannot save.

"If you don't save him, this child won't survive the month."

The only sound in the corridor was the faint hum of the fluorescent lights.

Ye Zhen lowered her head and looked at the ultrasound image again.

My fingertip traced a spot in the lower right corner of the image and paused for a moment.

three seconds.

She put the photo back in the envelope and handed it back to Andrei.

"How many hours of life support can be guaranteed during transport?"

Andrei's eyes changed.

It wasn't just bright light—it felt like someone had pulled you up from underwater and was suddenly taking your first breath of air.

His voice was filled with barely suppressed urgency.

"Soviet Air Force medical transport planes, equipped with military ECMO machines and neonatal thermostats, flew directly from Moscow to the northern city, taking a maximum of eighteen hours."

"Random medical staff?"

"The attending physician and two nurses from the Bakulov Center accompanied me throughout the process."

He spoke much faster.

"I've already made the arrangements in advance."

Ye Zhen glanced at him.

It has been arranged in advance.

This means that he had already paved the way before he even boarded the plane to China.

The roaring on the phone, the haughty attitude when meeting in person.

The relentless pressure when bringing up that terminal illness case, though he said he was "discussing" it, was filled with barbs in his eyes.

They were all tests.

He tested her strength, one cut at a time, to see if she was tough enough and could withstand the blows.

Ye Zhen didn't say much.

"Have him fly over."

Andrei's shoulders slumped down an inch.

It's not a collapse, it's a loss of momentum.

Like someone who has carried a burden for too long and too far, finally seeing a place to put their shoulders down. Their feet haven't stopped, but their back has already relaxed.

He nodded heavily, then turned and left.

After taking two steps, he stopped again.

Look back.

"Dr. Ye."

He spoke a long sentence in Russian, but very slowly, enunciating each word one by one, as if reciting a written oath.

The translator opened his mouth, his Adam's apple bobbed twice, before finally managing to squeeze out a sound.

His voice was actually a little shaky.

"The academician said that from today onwards, he will hang a hand-drawn anatomical diagram of yours in the operating room of the Bakulov Center."

The translator swallowed hard.

He said that it wasn't for learning.

"It's to remind myself."

The corridor was silent for three seconds.

Ye Zhen did not reply.

She picked up the stethoscope hanging around her neck, turned around, and walked towards the ICU.

The hem of the white coat swayed gently with each step.

Andrei stood still, his gaze following the thin figure all the way to the corner.

The last corner of the white coat disappeared.

He then lowered his head.

His gaze fell on his left chest.

empty.

Where the medal had been forty years ago, now only a faint, small, round mark pressed into the fabric of the wool coat remains.

He reached into his inner pocket, his fingertips touching the cool gold star.

It wasn't taken out.

Ivan walked up to him, his lips trembling for a long time before finally managing to squeeze out a sentence.

"Teacher...your medal."

Andrei didn't turn around.

He waved his hand.

"I'll wear it again when I get back to Moscow."

He looked up at the flickering fluorescent light at the end of the corridor. The light was old and had poor contact, so the light danced and shone, yet it stubbornly stayed lit.

"Here—"

"Unworthy."

Ivan opened his mouth.

He didn't say anything.

Andrei turned around and strode toward the gatehouse.

He needs to make a phone call.

Call Moscow.

Make that plane take off now.