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

2 PM, lecture hall of the North City Military Region General Hospital.

The once spacious classroom was now so crowded that even the aisles were packed with people.

Twenty trainees from the intervention training course sat in the front row, while Lin Yi, Li Hong, and a group of interns stood ramrod straight against the back wall. Their eyes shone brightly, like people who hadn't eaten for days starving at a steamed bun.

The surgery that morning had completely thrown them into turmoil.

Thirty-five minutes.

No need for open-chest surgery.

Only a pinprick was left on the groin vein.

Who wouldn't want to learn such technology?

The door was pushed open.

Ye Zhen walked in wearing a white lab coat, holding a stack of imaging videotapes in her hand.

There was no trace of joy on her face after creating a miracle; her expression was indifferent, and her steps were steady. That silence, ironically, silenced everyone in the classroom.

The whispers that had been barely contained just moments before vanished instantly.

Ye Zhen walked up to the podium, picked up the chalk, and turned around to draw a huge cross-section of a heart on the blackboard.

The sound of chalk rubbing against the blackboard was dry and crisp.

"You think thirty-five minutes is amazing?"

"Do you think interventional techniques are omnipotent? With a guidewire, balloon, and occluder, you can just move around inside the heart?"

No one in the audience dared to speak.

The bright eyes of Gao Yuan and Chen Feng gradually dimmed.

"Snapped!"

Ye Zhen threw half a piece of chalk on the lectern.

"Completely wrong."

She pushed the videotape into the machine and pressed play.

The black-and-white television next to her lit up, and the imaging images from Alice's surgery that morning appeared on the screen.

The image wasn't very clear, but it was enough to make any medical student hold their breath.

Ye Zhen pressed pause.

The image freezes on the moment the guidewire enters the right atrium.

"Chen Feng, Gao Yuan."

She called out names.

"Stand up."

The two immediately stood up, their movements so quick it was as if they had been pricked by a needle.

Ye Zhen picked up the pointer and pointed it at the thin guide wire on the screen, which was almost invisible.

"Right now, right here."

She turned around, her gaze sweeping across the two faces.

"If a patient has abnormal myocardial contractility and their heart suddenly beats, even a slight tremor in your hand can cause the tip of the guidewire to puncture the coronary sinus."

The classroom was so quiet you could hear someone swallowing.

Ye Zhen's voice grew even colder.

"The pericardium was instantly tamponade-induced. Within thirty seconds, blood pressure dropped, and the heart stopped beating."

She stared at Gao Yuan.

"How will you save him?"

Gao Yuan's forehead quickly broke out in sweat.

He opened his mouth, and managed to reply, "Immediately withdraw the guidewire, perform pericardiocentesis, and draw blood to relieve pressure..."

"With the guidewire removed, the rupture is no longer filled, and bleeding will accelerate."

Ye Zhen interrupted her directly.

"The blood drawn through the puncture can't keep up with the rate at which the heart is leaking blood. It's a dead end."

Gao Yuan's face turned pale instantly.

Ye Zhen looked at Chen Feng.

"And you?"

Chen Feng's Adam's apple bobbed, his voice hoarse with nervousness.

"Administer a high dose of adrenaline, and prepare the cardiopulmonary bypass machine..."

"Even the fastest pre-filling of the extracorporeal circulation machine takes time."

Ye Zhen's pointer struck the blackboard, one strike after another, as if striking the hearts of everyone present.

"Three minutes of brain deprivation can cause irreversible damage. By the time you get the machine ready, the child will be gone."

Chen Feng's lips moved, but he could no longer speak.

The two slowly sat back down in their chairs, their backs already soaked with sweat.

Ye Zhen turned off the TV.

The lights in the classroom dimmed for a moment, then brightened again.

She stood on the podium, her white coat hem motionless.

"Do you understand now?"

"The 35-minute miracle wasn't caused by a god descending to earth."

"It's like walking a tightrope on the edge of a cliff."

Her voice wasn't loud, but it was so powerful that no one in the classroom dared to breathe.

"Minimally invasive surgery is not magic. If the guide wire goes into the heart correctly, it's a life-saving path; if it goes wrong by even a millimeter, it's a deadly knife."

As soon as those words were spoken, the fervor on the faces of the students in the front row visibly subsided.

Ye Zhen didn't give them a chance to catch their breath.

"If a life-threatening complication occurs during interventional surgery, the only way to save the patient is to immediately switch to open-chest surgery."

She turned around and wrote four words heavily on the blackboard—

Open-chest bottom.

Chalk dust fell down in a flurry.

"Cut open the sternum to expose the heart, locate the rupture under direct vision, compress, suture, and stop the bleeding."

"Without extremely solid basic skills in open-chest surgery, and without the ability to keep your hands steady in a pool of blood, no one should even think about touching the interventional operating table."

The scorching heat in the classroom was completely extinguished by this bucket of cold water.

Many students turned pale.

Only then did they understand why Ye Zhen had been forcing them to practice suturing, anatomy, and the basics of open-chest surgery.

It's not the same old thing.

It wasn't intentional harassment.

It's because when you're actually on the operating table and something goes wrong, what can save your life is never a pretty slogan, but a pair of hands that are frighteningly steady.

In the back corner, a hand suddenly rose up.

It was abrupt, yet very stable.

It's Lin Yi.

Ye Zhen looked over.

"explain."

Lin Yi stood ramrod straight, clenching his fingers as if he had finally managed to squeeze out the words he had been thinking about all day into a single sentence.

"Teacher Ye."

"Since simple intervention is risky, and open-chest surgery involves extracorporeal circulation."

He spoke slowly, but his voice grew increasingly steady.

"When faced with particularly complex congenital heart disease, can we combine the two approaches?"

All eyes in the room immediately turned to him.

Lin Yi's ears turned slightly red, but the redness didn't fade.

"For example, without first establishing extracorporeal circulation."

"First, open the chest to directly expose the heart. Under direct vision, puncture through the surface of the heart to insert the catheter and occluder."

He spoke faster and faster, and his eyes lit up.

"This provides both direct visualization through open-chest surgery, allowing for immediate treatment in case of bleeding, and avoids the damage to the child's entire body that can occur with cardiopulmonary bypass."

After he finished speaking, the lecture hall became eerily quiet.

It was so quiet that even the sound of someone dropping a briefcase at the back door was exceptionally clear.

Zhou Hai stood at the back door, bending down to pick up the bag.

He looked up at Lin Yi, his eyes filled with shock.

How could an intern who hasn't even performed many major surgeries come up with this idea?

On the podium, Ye Zhen's hand holding the pointer froze in mid-air.

She looked at Lin Yi.

The coldness in his eyes gradually dissipated.

Instead, there was an overwhelming sense of amazement.

What Lin Yi proposed was one of the most cutting-edge directions in cardiovascular surgery decades later.

Hybrid surgery.

Surgery and interventional procedures are not competing for jobs.

Instead, they shared the stage to save lives.

Ye Zhen suddenly smiled.

It wasn't the usual faint smile.

It was a genuine smile born from medical resonance.

"Well said."

Upon hearing those three words, Lin Yi froze.

"The path you just mentioned may become a reality in the future."

Lin Yi's eyes widened suddenly.

A chorus of suppressed gasps filled the classroom.

Ye Zhen turned around and looked at all the trainees and interns.

"Remember it all."

"Interventional physicians and surgeons are never enemies."

"Interventional procedures fill the gaps, while surgery lays the foundation."

She pointed to the huge heart diagram on the blackboard.

"Only when you can stand on the same operating table and combine the two techniques into one will China's cardiovascular medicine have truly taken a step forward into the world."

Chen Feng lowered his head, his once proud demeanor as a student from a prestigious university worn away, leaving only silence.

Gao Yuan looked at Lin Yi in the back row with a complicated expression, but there was no sign of resentment.

Liu Xiaohe turned and glanced at Li Hong.

Li Hong was also looking at her.

The two didn't speak, but nodded at the same time.

At that moment, they all understood.

The Heart of China aims to cultivate individuals not from any particular sect.

They are a group of doctors who can truly snatch children back from the jaws of death.

Ye Zhen walked back to the podium and put away the videotape.

"Lin Yi".

"arrive!"

Lin Yi immediately straightened his back.

"Come to my office in a bit."

Ye Zhen said calmly, "There's a box of German documents. Take it back to your dorm and translate it."

Lin Yi's throat tightened.

That's not punishment.

That was the signal that Ye Zhen had truly taken him into her sights.

He answered forcefully, "Yes!"

Ye Zhen put the pointer back on the lectern.

"get out of class dismissed."

No one moved immediately.

Ye Zhen didn't say anything more, picked up the videotape, and walked out of the classroom.