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

10 p.m., Ministry of Health building.

In the deputy minister's office on the third floor, the fluorescent lights flickered white. Deputy Minister Li stubbed out the sixth cigarette butt in the ashtray, which was almost overflowing.

He grabbed the black bakelite telephone on the table and dialed the Gu family's number.

The phone rang for half a ring before it went silent, and the microphone was deftly snatched away.

"Feed." Gu Zheng's voice was very low, with a hint of hoarseness from being just woken up.

Vice Minister Li loosened his uniform button and cut to the chase: "Gu, you know about the British thing? Downing Street has officially issued the Treasury approval to charter a plane to send twenty-three children over. This has blown up."

Gu Zheng sat on the armchair in the main room and glanced at the half-closed bedroom door. The room was dark, and his wife's breathing was light and even.

"My wife just went to sleep." He switched hands to hold the microphone, his tone languid. "We'll talk tomorrow. She has two more projects to run tomorrow."

Vice Minister Li felt a lump in his throat.

The entire Chinese foreign affairs system is currently in a state of panic over these 23 critically ill British children, but this guy, all he can think about is his wife sleeping!

"Aren't you excited?" Vice Minister Li raised his voice, then quickly lowered it again. "This is unprecedented! Even the BBC is filming the whole thing. If anything goes wrong, international public opinion could tear us apart!"

"What's there to get so excited about?"

Gu Zheng yawned, touched the matchbox on the table, and casually ran his fingers along the sandpaper strip on the side.

"The technology is in her hands, but life is in the hands of the King of Hell and her. If foreigners want to live, they have to follow our rules."

He slammed the matchbox onto the table, the sound not loud, but carrying an air of nonchalant confidence—

"Uncle Li, why are you panicking? Everyone in the world has to queue up sooner or later, it's just that the British are ahead of us."

On the other end of the phone, Vice Minister Li opened his mouth silently.

After a long pause, he swallowed hard.

"You little rascal... I'm truly impressed."

"Click." The phone hung up.

Vice Minister Li leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh.

This fool's words, though crude, were not without merit. He effectively slapped away the instinctive anxiety and unease that welled up in his heart when facing major Western powers.

Yes—now they're begging us.

the next day.

The chain reaction in international public opinion exploded like a firecracker that had been lit.

Paris, editorial office of Le Figaro.

The lead type was still warm in the typesetting room at dawn when the first page of the morning paper was sent to the rotary printing press. In the international section in the lower left corner of the front page, the editor, under pressure from the editor-in-chief, insisted on changing the headline to a bold, provocative one—

"Is China the New Mecca of Heart Surgery?"

Is China the new mecca of cardiac surgery?

The report cited leaked Downing Street meeting transcripts, which directly pointed to Sir Williams's praise for the skills of Chinese female doctors.

Immediately afterwards, the phone lines of the Associated Press and Reuters' Beijing bureaus were overwhelmed with calls.

At first, these foreign correspondents didn't take it seriously at all. In 1980s China, they couldn't even assemble a decent ultrasound machine, so how could they perform complex congenital heart disease surgeries? Nine times out of ten, it was just a political show.

But a few hours later, the tone of the report changed from "absurd" to "confirmed".

Because the official spokesperson for the British government stood in the morning mist at the entrance to Downing Street, facing a circle of cameras and microphones, and read the official statement word by word—

The British Empire allocated the full amount of its treasury to charter a plane to Beijing for medical treatment.

On this day, the Western world's understanding of Chinese medicine was shaken by a magnitude 6 earthquake.

The situation also caused an uproar in China.

Beijing, Qianmen Hutong. At 6:30 in the morning, a long queue had formed in front of the fried dough stick stall.

Grandpa Liu had just bought soy milk and was clutching a copy of the Health News that had just arrived that day—originally intended as a hand pad to prevent his hands from getting burned by the fried dough sticks.

Upon glancing at him, he froze on the spot.

The entire front page. Not a single photograph. A long news article in black text on a red background, the title so large it practically pierces the eye:

Seeking Medical Care from the West to the East: Beicheng Military Region General Hospital to Receive First Batch of British Children with Congenital Heart Disease

Grandpa Liu didn't even care about the scalding hot fried dough sticks; his eyes widened, and he shouted at the top of his lungs—

"Wow! Everyone come and see! Even the foreigners know how good our doctors are; they're chartering planes to come and see us!"

The fried dough stick stall stopped working instantly. Elderly people from the alley, workers rushing to work on their bicycles, and teenagers carrying schoolbags all crowded around to read the newspaper.

"Really? Aren't foreigners supposed to be so arrogant?"

"How could the newspaper be lying! It says it's Dr. Ye from the Beicheng Military Region General Hospital!" The woman selling fried dough sticks tapped the edge of her wok with her iron spoon, her face beaming with pride. "He's a doctor from Beicheng! He really brings honor to us ordinary folks!"

At this time, at the Beicheng Military Region General Hospital.

The entire hospital is like a wound-up machine, with every gear meshing at high speed.

The main building has three floors.

A new brass plaque was nailed to the wall at the end of the corridor, the smell of paint still lingering—"International Patient Ward".

Lin Yi had an Oxford medical dictionary, thick enough to be used as a brick, tucked under his arm. Behind him, twenty-two medical students, including Li Hong, stood ramrod straight in two rows, their backs taut like steel plates.

Dean Zhou Hai strode over, his gaze sweeping from left to right, pausing for two seconds on each young face.

"All the equipment is in place." Zhou Hai's voice was crisp and clear, without a single superfluous word. "You've already memorized the foreign language medical records. Remember—when you're in the ward, be neither humble nor arrogant. If you don't understand something, don't talk nonsense; if someone tries to find fault, don't get impulsive. We're not just representing ourselves, we're representing Beicheng General Hospital, we're representing Dr. Ye."

"clear!"

The twenty-three young people roared in unison. The sound wave caused the white ash on the corridor ceiling to fall down in a flurry.

Zhou Hai nodded in satisfaction and walked away with his hands behind his back.

Lin Yi turned around and glanced at his classmates behind him. A fire burned in each of their eyes.

He lowered his voice: "Everyone, be on your toes. This is the first line of defense we must take for Teacher Ye. We can't afford to do anything shameful."

No one answered. But twenty-two pairs of eyes lit up at the same time.

---

The Gu family's small building.

The morning light shone through the cracks in the window, falling thinly on the edge of the bed.

Ye Zhen was already sitting up against the headboard, flipping through a thick stack of Siemens German faxes in the dim light. The edges of the papers were curled and frayed, having been torn off page by page from the secure fax machine last night.

"Click." The pull switch was pulled, and the dim yellow light came on.

"Don't turn on the light when you're awake, be careful with your eyes." Gu Zheng stood by the bed, casually took the fax from her hand, and put a glass of warm water into her palm.

Ye Zhen didn't argue. She took a sip of water to moisten her dry, hoarse throat.

Who called last night?

"Old Li, let's talk about the charter flight." Gu Zheng sat down on the edge of the bed, reached out and tucked her disheveled hair behind her ear, the movement casual and natural, as if he had done it a thousand times.

"The British insisted on bringing a BBC documentary crew to film the whole thing, and Old Li gave the final approval." He paused, a smirk playing on his lips. "That old bastard, he's got guts than I thought."

Ye Zhen paused for a moment while holding the water glass.

Then, he chuckled softly.

"Take the picture then."

She spoke in a flat tone, as if she were talking about what she was having for breakfast.

"The wall of the Western medical community is too thick. Unless we record it frame by frame with a camera, they will always have an excuse to say that the data from the Chinese is fabricated."

She looked up at Gu Zheng, her gaze calm and clear.

"What did Hans say?"

"This foreign devil is really desperate." Gu Zheng picked up a match from the bedside table, lit one, brought it close to warm her cold hand that was holding the water glass, and then blew it out.

"They chartered a cargo plane; it's probably eating cold bread in the air right now."

Ye Zhen nodded.

"Let's have dinner together tonight and finalize the plan." She put the water glass back on the bedside table, her fingertips unconsciously tracing the edge of the fax paper, her voice deepening.

"Tom, that kid, has complete right ventricular outflow tract atresia. Time is of the essence. The equipment needs to be built as soon as possible."

Gu Zheng didn't speak.

He glanced at her—this woman had only been awake for less than five minutes, and her mind was no longer on herself, but on how long a British boy she had never met could hold on.

He put the stack of faxes back next to her and stood up.

"Okay, I'll arrange things for tonight. You take care of the two surgeries today first."