You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Chapter 212 Theoretical Formation of Long-lived and Short-lived Species (4k)

The three of them waded through the muddy puddles and quickly arrived at the Ford Explorer parked outside the church.

Lyon flung open the back door, and a strong smell of blood filled the car. Christopher lay pale and slumped in his seat.

Reverend Thomas stood by the car door, his gaze quickly sweeping over Christopher's bloodied and mangled calf.

The old pastor's gaze paused slightly when he saw the standard tactical tourniquet tied above the wound and the blood-clotting sponge stuffed into the torn muscle.

"The handling was very professional; it saved his life."

Thomas's voice was still dry, but his speaking speed had noticeably increased.

"The wild animal sustained lacerations, accompanied by severe soft tissue contusions and ruptured veins. His blood pressure is estimated to be alarmingly low, and his heart rate is also dropping."

Thomas turned to look at Lyon.

"I need large doses of hydrogen peroxide and saline for debridement, absorbable sutures, needle holders, hemostatic forceps, and cephalosporins or any broad-spectrum antibiotics."

"If you have local anesthesia, that's best; otherwise, just stitch it up."

"You know I'm out of medicine. If you don't have any either, then we can start digging a hole for him right now."

"I have."

Lyon turned around without changing his expression, strode to the rear of the Ford Explorer, and slammed the trunk lid open.

The large trunk lid popped up, creating a perfect blind spot in front of Thomas and Alex's line of sight.

Lyon's trunk was actually filled with various rifles and pistols, along with a large number of spare magazines, in addition to some basic emergency rescue equipment. There were none of the medical supplies that Thomas had just mentioned.

He lowered his head slightly, his mind instantly switching to the system's exchange panel.

For the "Enhanced Law Enforcement Justice System," mass-produced industrial products like iodine solution, gauze, sutures, lidocaine anesthetics, and common broad-spectrum cephalosporin antibiotics—common industrial products found everywhere in the East—are priced ridiculously low in the system's marketplace.

Lyon's gaze swept over the basic items at the bottom of the list, and he quickly deducted a small amount of points.

Almost instantly, a dark green hard-shell first aid kit appeared out of thin air in the trunk.

To avoid looking out of place, the system even thoughtfully added some wear and scratch treatment to the outer shell of the first aid kit.

Lyon picked up the first-aid kit with one hand, slammed the trunk shut with a "whoosh," and turned to hand it to Thomas.

"Basic debridement tools, 7-0 and 4-0 sutures, hemostatic forceps, lidocaine, two boxes of intravenous ceftriaxone, and ————"

Lyon calmly recited the list, "Enough to piece this leg back together."

Thomas took the first-aid kit and skillfully unlocked the latch.

Upon seeing the neatly arranged and well-packaged sterile medical devices and antibiotics inside, his weathered old face finally twitched slightly.

But he didn't ask any more questions; curiosity is often a fatal thing.

"Give me a hand, let's carry him inside."

Thomas pointed to a small door on the side of the church.

"The nave is filthy, full of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. Go to the baptismal chamber at the back of the church; there's a long marble table there that I just wiped with bleach yesterday."

Lyon leaned into the carriage, avoiding Christopher's injured leg, and with a burst of strength, hoisted the withered old man onto his shoulder as if lifting a weightless sack of cotton.

Alex quickly ran ahead and pushed open the small door on the side of the church. The three of them avoided the wailing homeless people in the corridor outside, and hurried through the dimly lit passageway toward the baptismal chamber at the back.

In the narrow corridor, Leon carried the person on his back with extremely steady steps.

He turned his head and looked at Thomas, who was walking beside him and taking scalpels and hemostats out of the first aid kit.

"Which hospital did you perform your surgeries at before?"

Lyon lowered his voice and asked, "This depth of animal bite and vascular repair is not something a regular ER doctor can handle."

Thomas paused for half a second as he tore open a package of sterile gauze.

He let out a dry, cold laugh, the sound sounding somewhat self-mocking in the empty corridor.

"Dr. Chief Physician of both Cardiothoracic Surgery and Trauma Surgery at Engelwood Hospital, Sweden."

Thomas, without looking up, fiddled with the needle holder in his hand while recounting his messed-up past in a numb voice.

"Twenty years ago, my daily job was to sew back together those unfortunate people who had been broken into pieces in car accidents."

Lyon raised an eyebrow: "If you're a top expert, how did you end up like this? Medical malpractice?"

No, it's because of the rules.

Thomas pushed open the half-closed wooden door of the baptismal chamber, and a cold wind blew out, carrying with it the smell of damp mildew.

"The medical queuing system is a piece of shit."

Thomas walked to the marble table, gestured for Leon to put the person down, and continued speaking.

"A guy with acute suppurative appendicitis, according to procedure, must first make an appointment with his general practitioner and wait in line for several months."

"After the general practitioner confirms that he is indeed about to die, and then fills out a bunch of damn referral forms, he can finally be sent to the operating table of a specialist like me."

Thomas placed a sterile surgical pad on the marble tabletop.

"If we had followed the proper procedure, by the time he saw me with the referral slip, his appendix would have already perforated, and he would be dead."

Lyon gently placed Christopher on the stone table and listened quietly.

"I had just finished my night shift, so I skipped the formalities and rushed him straight into the operating room. I opened his abdomen and saved his life."

Thomas picked up the scissors and deftly cut open Christopher's remaining trouser leg.

"As a result, I violated the hospital's referral policy. They suspended me and are preparing to revoke my license."

"I found it disgusting, so I threw my resignation letter in the dean's face before that, and let them do whatever they wanted. I then came here to become a priest."

Thomas picked up a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured it directly onto the bloody, mangled wound.

A large amount of white foam surged up instantly, accompanied by a hissing sound.

Christopher, who was in a deep coma, clenched his muscles instinctively due to the excruciating pain, but Leon held his shoulders firmly down.

"I thought that by coming to this dilapidated church to become a priest, I could escape that 'great' medical system."

Thomas picked up the scalpel, his eyes instantly turning cold and focused.

"After twenty years, the homeless are still lining up to die, and I still have to take this knife."

After hearing these words, Lyon was completely relieved.

A veteran expert who has worked on the operating table for decades, his skills are absolutely beyond doubt.

This is a sure thing.

He released his grip on Christopher's shoulder, took a half-step back, and gave the position to Thomas.

The surgery officially began.

Thomas's movements showed none of the trembling typical of the elderly. He used tissue forceps to open the everted flesh and precisely removed the grayish-white necrotic muscle tissue with a scalpel.

Debridement is the core of treating animal bites. It is essential to thoroughly scrape away all contaminated tissue that may harbor rabies virus and anaerobic bacteria, even if this makes the wound look more gruesome.

"Hemostats"

Thomas held out his hand without looking up. Alex quickly rummaged through the first-aid kit and pulled out a pair of hemostats, handing them over.

Thomas clamped the slowly bleeding anterior tibial artery, rinsed away the bloodstains in his field of vision with saline, and then pinched a very thin 7-0 absorbable suture.

His fingers were exceptionally nimble; the needle pierced the blood vessel wall, tied a knot, and cut the thread—all in one smooth motion, forcefully reconnecting the severed blood vessel.

Alex, standing to the side, was dumbfounded.

With the completion of the last few subcutaneous tension-reducing sutures, the horrific deep crater on Christopher's calf was barely closed up.

Although it looked like an ugly centipede, the fatal bleeding had completely stopped.

Thomas was still engrossed in the final stages of the surgery, his head bowed as he slowly injected ceftriaxone solution into the old man's vein with a syringe.

Lyon watched as the old man's chest gradually rose and fell, and knew that his life was saved.

Leon took two steps back and leaned against the stone wall of the baptismal chamber. He put his hands in the pockets of his jacket, turned his head slightly, and glanced at Alex, who was also stepping back.

"This old man," Leon said in a low voice, gesturing with his chin toward Thomas, who was focused on finishing up, "is definitely an anomaly in America."

Alex pulled off one of his face masks, leaving only a breath of air. He exhaled a long breath and nodded in deep agreement.

"This is more than just an anomaly; it's even rarer than seeing a corpse in the morgue that can dance ballet on its own."

Alex muttered in a low voice to Lyon, complaining.

"Having worked in the morgue for so long, I've seen that nine out of ten American doctors are vampires in white coats."

"As long as you can't get any money out of your medical insurance card, even if your intestines are spilling out, they can still smile and prescribe you two painkillers, then have the security guards throw you out onto the street."

"Medical ethics are less important than toilet paper when it comes to medical bills in the United States."

Leon touched the bluish-gray stubble on his chin and glanced at the operating table not far away.

"Indeed. If he could climb to the position of head of cardiothoracic surgery, he could live in a wealthy neighborhood, drive a yacht, and play golf on weekends, if he wanted to."

Lyon pondered for a moment, then said, "But he quit his job because he couldn't stand seeing patients waiting in line to die, and came here to work as a caregiver for the homeless."

Alex leaned against the wall next to Leon, arms crossed, and continued Leon's line of thought: "It's not just about money. As a cop, you should know that there are plenty of mentally unstable people in top pharmaceutical companies or cutting-edge medical labs who secretly use these homeless people as test subjects for drugs."

"In their eyes, these drug addicts are not even as good as lab rats. Lab rats might be purged by animal protection organizations, but when a living person dies, they are just buried in a hole and no one's family will even make a fuss."

Lyon's eyes flickered slightly as he listened to Alex's complaints.

Suddenly, images flashed through his mind of drug addicts urinating and defecating in the streets, as well as tech elites and medical experts sitting in high-end office buildings in custom-made suits.

"Why do you think these elites who possess core technologies are so indifferent to the lives of those at the bottom?"

"I mean something more specific, not some vague concept like class."

Leon tilted his head slightly, looked at Alex, and posed a question.

Alex paused for a moment, then frowned. His perspective as an international student instinctively brought to mind American campus culture.

"Because they don't see each other as one of their own kind?"

Alex pursed his lips, his voice low.

"Think about how public schools in the United States are run."

"That shitty, happy education system. The parents of low-income Black and white trash families are drug addicts, gangsters, and people who don't know what tomorrow will bring."

"In their family environment, studying? That's something only idiots do."

"Only those who can play rugby, run a cheerleading squad, and get involved in the underworld are considered the most popular people in school."

Lyon nodded, following Alex's train of thought: "And what about those academic geniuses like Thomas, or that old man lying on the operating table? They're what's called 'nerds' in school."

"right!"

Alex slapped his thigh, but immediately lowered his voice.

"These bookworms would definitely be the number one target for bullying by those muscle-bound, empty-headed thugs in public schools, who would pin them down in lockers."

"Every day, not only are we ridiculed, but we are also bullied by being forced to sit in the toilet with our heads pushed into the toilet bowl, having our lunch money stolen, and having our pants pulled down. These are all basic things."

Lyon watched Thomas skillfully administer antibiotics to Christopher, his gaze growing increasingly profound.

"and then?"

Lyon continued his deduction along the lines of logic, "Once these nerds get through their damn student days, get into prestigious universities, and join Pfizer, Boeing, or become top surgeons..."

"They took on student loans, but gained power and access to advanced medical resources, while those who bullied them back then became addicted to drugs at a young age because of their anti-intellectualism."

"They rotted on the streets in their thirties, becoming those homeless people who would stab each other in the back over half a piece of moldy bread."

Alex gasped, his eyes widening as if he had caught something terrifying.

"Holy crap—"

Alex muttered to himself, his expression turning somewhat strange.

"Therefore, those medical fanatics who conduct human experiments, or those elites who formulate medical insurance policies, will naturally feel no guilt when they see these homeless people dying on the streets."

"Besides the fact that they have student loans to repay and they are meant to extract value from these people, it's also because in their subconscious minds, the people they killed were the same lowly scum who forced them to drink water from the toilet back then."

"Short-lived species".

Alex suddenly uttered a word with a fantastical feel, but it was strangely fitting in the current context.

"Because of anti-intellectualism and hedonism, the lower class may die from gunshot wounds or fentanyl poisoning in their early thirties; they are a short-lived species."

"They only care about whether they can have fun tonight and whether they can get money to buy the next vial of drugs tomorrow."

“And those elites,” Lyon’s gaze swept over Christopher and Thomas, “they have better living conditions, eat organic white food, and plan famous careers that will last for decades. They are immortal beings.”

Leon turned his head and looked at Alex.

"Long-lived species look down on short-lived species, considering them only fit to be used for experiments and as cheap labor."

"Short-lived species are anti-intellectual and short-lived, multiplying like mayflies and then being quickly harvested and killed under the American system."

"Although both groups of people have two legs, they are no longer the same species in each other's eyes."

""

After hearing these words, Alex broke out in a cold sweat.

Looking at the empty, dark baptismal room and listening to the faint wails of homeless people coming from the corridor outside, he felt that the fragmented images of American society in his mind were now tightly strung together by an invisible thread.

How could a long-lived species possibly sympathize with a short-lived species? The fact that they don't actively poison them to hasten their death is already a testament to the high level of cultivation of the long-lived species.

"Holy crap—it all connects!"

Alex swallowed hard, his voice trembling slightly.

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