American Medicine: I survived the death knell thanks to the devil.

They said it at the same time.

They looked at each other.

Cassie laughed first.

Lynn smiled and picked up the controller.

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, B, A, start.

The number of lives in the upper right corner of the screen jumped from three to thirty.

Cassie stared at the number for two seconds.

Then slowly turn your head.

"Thirty lives?"

"You used a cheat code!"

"Make rational use of resources."

"That's terrible."

Cassie couldn't suppress the smile on her face.

"Dr. Lin, you're a chief resident, a dignified doctor."

"You've been using this trick to pass exams since you were a kid?"

"I'm just an agent, an 'agent'!"

Lynn's ears turned slightly red, and she emphasized the word "agent".

I'm definitely out of practice.

He's no longer the boy who could beat the game in one life.

"To fight or not to fight?"

"beat."

Cassie turned back, his shoulders still trembling. "Ha. A man with thirty lives."

They cleared the level this time.

The final boss was blown to pieces.

"Yay!" The two high-fived.

A screen pops up showing the two flying in a helicopter over a jungle, with the base below exploding.

Eight-bit music echoed through the metal carriage, a rough but lively march.

Cassie put the handle down.

"Don't use cheat codes next time."

"it is good."

Lynn also put down the handle.

The CRT television in the carriage emitted a slight electrical hum.

The camera pauses on the blue sky above the pass.

Neither of them was in a hurry to move.

Cassie sat cross-legged, her back against the metal frame of the stretcher.

Lynn leaned against the wall of the opposite carriage.

In between was an old television and two controllers with worn-out directional keys.

Outside the window is the New York night.

Occasionally, a police siren could be heard in the distance, or perhaps a dog barking from one of the buildings.

The ambulance's metal shell separated these sounds into something from another world.

"It's time to go," Lynn said after a while.

"Now? It's so late."

"It's been three days since the drainage tube was removed; we need to go check on the speaker's condition again."

Cassie didn't ask any more questions.

She knew that Lynn was keeping a close eye on the Speaker's post-operative care.

He was the first to operate on such important patients if any problems arose.

Cassie drove to the hospital, and Lynn pushed open the door and jumped out.

"Don't stay up too late," Cassie said from behind.

Lynn replied with "Okay" without turning her head.

After the carriage door closed, Cassie wound up the wires of the two handles and placed them side by side into the cardboard box.

She glanced at it for two seconds, but didn't put the TV back under the driver's seat as she usually did.

Instead, it was left on top of the medicine cabinet.

Lynn said there would be a next time.

This is more convenient.

At 1 a.m., only half of the lights in the corridors of the Metropolitan Hospital were on.

After being transferred out of the ICU, the Speaker stayed in a single room at the very back of the surgical ward.

Two plainclothes officers leaned back in their chairs by the door. One of them was looking at his phone. He glanced up at Lynn, nodded, and let her through.

Lynn pushed the door open and went in; the lights were off.

Dawson was asleep, breathing evenly.

He used the light coming in from the corridor to take a look at the drainage port.

The gauze was changed during the day; it was dry and there was no seepage.

There was no redness or swelling around the skin, and there was no fluctuation when pressed.

It healed very cleanly.

He signed the time and his initials on the observation record board at the foot of the bed and was about to leave.

The sound of leather shoes echoed at the end of the corridor.

It was neither too fast nor too slow, and the pace was very steady.

It's Grant.

The chief of staff was wearing a wrinkle-free dark gray suit and had a brown paper document bag tucked under his arm.

His tie was half an inch loose, the only sign of his fatigue.

I was still at the hospital at 1 a.m.

Such people probably don't have the concept of "getting off work".

"Dr. Lin."

He saw Lynn come out of the ward without any surprise on his face.

"Is this the time to see a patient?"

"Routine observation."

Grant nodded.

"Thanks for your hard work."

He leaned against the wall in the corridor and casually rummaged through the contents of the file folder.

His gaze swept across Lynn's face, then down, naturally passing over his hands.

Lynn looked down at his right hand.

There is a small, light brown mark between my index and middle fingers.

Iodine solution.

Povidone-iodine staining is very stubborn, especially in the lines of fingerprints and nail grooves. Ordinary soap cannot remove it completely; it requires repeated wiping with alcohol wipes.

He didn't wear surgical gloves when he cleaned Sachi's wound tonight; he saved the last pair of sterile gloves for suturing. The disinfection process was done by hand.

I washed it twice in the car.

But because the light was dim, I didn't notice the gaps between my fingers.

The hospital's operating rooms have long been completely replaced with chlorhexidine gluconate, a disinfectant that is inexpensive, does not stain, and has a broader bactericidal spectrum.

Those still using iodine solution are either old-fashioned community clinics or places with limited resources.

For example, an ambulance parked behind an abandoned gas station.

Grant stayed with her at the hospital for almost two weeks.

Although he wasn't a doctor, his observational skills were enough to distinguish the differences.

"The Speaker is recovering very well," Grant said casually, as if he were talking about the weather.

"He specifically asked you to be in charge of post-operative care. This level of trust is hard to come by."

Grant straightened up and patted his sleeves.

"You're young, you have a bright future ahead of you."

He paused for a moment.

"But... it doesn't matter what kind of job I do."

He looked into Lynn's eyes.

"What I fear most is being too tired. When you're tired, you're more likely to make mistakes. Washing your hands and handling paperwork are small things, but if something goes wrong with small things, you can't save the big things."

"Wash your hands thoroughly, Dr. Lin. There are some tasks... that might require your hands in the future."

……

Dawson was discharged from the hospital on a Saturday.

New York City experienced its first snowfall of the winter, leaving Manhattan streets shoveled and battered by snowplows.

A black Chevrolet Suburban was parked at the side entrance of Metropolitan Public Hospital, its body so clean it didn't look like it had just come from the snow.

Bulletproof glass, extended wheelbase, and two identical escort vehicles, one in front and one behind.

The Speaker spent a full seventeen days in a public hospital in the United States.

This is news in New York's political circles in itself.

Mount Sinai on the Upper East Side, the Presbyterian Church in Midtown, and even Johns Hopkins Hospital all sent people to discuss the transfer.

Dawson refused them all.

Grant privately told the media that "the Speaker wanted to demonstrate his confidence in the public healthcare system through his actions."

Every choice a politician makes is a statement.

But Lynn knew the real reason was simpler: Dawson didn't trust anyone to touch the incision in his chest cavity.

An hour before her discharge, Lynn had one last check-up.

The chest X-ray was clean, both lungs showed good re-expansion, and there was no mediastinal shift.

The stitches were removed five days ago, and the incision has healed into a faint white line.

Judging from its current state, it will be almost impossible to tell after three months.

He sat on the edge of the bed, wearing the dark blue suit that Grant had brought.

The shirt was buttoned up to the top, and the tie was tied in a Windsor knot.

He doesn't look like someone who was in the ICU with two tubes in his chest just two weeks ago.

"Dr. Lin." Dawson raised his hand, gesturing for Lynn to sit down.

He took a business card from the bedside table drawer.

It was handwritten.

On thick ivory white cardstock, the penmanship was extremely neat, with a private phone number and a line of smaller text below it.