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

It was a check for two thousand dollars, payable to "Academic Consultation Fee - Prepaid".

It was spotless and impeccable.

Lynn casually stuffed the check into the pocket of his white coat.

"What did she give you?" Victoria stared at his pocket.

"Consultation prepayment"

Victoria walked to the table and pushed the five boxes of chocolates to the farthest corner.

"That's how they all do it; they include you in their KPI reports and harvest you every quarter."

"You sound like you know everything."

"I also received 12,000 last year."

Victoria tore open a box of chocolates, picked one up, popped it into her mouth, chewed it a couple of times, and said, "But don't think I'm on the same side as her."

"I've never thought of it that way."

Why did you let her sit on your desk?

"My office only has this one chair under my butt."

Why did you let her get so close?

Victoria picked up another chocolate, "and put her hand inside."

Lynn looked up at her.

Victoria's expression was flawless, but the tips of her ears looked as if they had been burned.

"Dr. Vanderbilt, are you here to discuss work, or to check on the compliance of pharmaceutical sales representatives?"

Victoria bit into the chocolate in her mouth.

"Tomorrow is the VIP hip revision surgery, and you will be my first assistant. The preoperative discussion will be at 2 PM."

He turned around, took two steps, and then stopped.

"Did you notice her right hand?"

"There is a tear around the thumbnail, caused by long-term biting. It's an indication of somatization of anxiety."

Victoria leaned against the door frame and fiddled with the end of her scarf.

"The more tightly a person is wrapped up on the outside, the more water seeps in from the inside."

The sound of high heels echoed down the hallway.

Lynn glanced down at the table; five boxes of chocolates had been pushed into the corner, but the one that had been opened was missing three pieces.

Metropolitan Hospital, VIP Operating Room Number One.

Victoria was the lead surgeon, Lynn was the first assistant, and Julian was the second assistant.

Julian had officially been rotated to the emergency department, but he volunteered to come back to assist.

The atmosphere on stage was off from the very beginning.

Passing instruments was supposed to be the job of the scrub nurse, but Victoria insisted on handing them all over to Lynn.

"Lin, bone chisel."

"Snap." The instrument precisely slapped into the palm.

Victoria took the bone chisel and began chiseling at the edge of the femoral stem prosthesis.

Bang, bang, bang.

Each strike carried excessive force.

But her aim is precise, never damaging surrounding tissues. Her temper can't control her hammer, but her medical ethics can.

"Attractant".

The nozzle is positioned one second ahead of time, and the debris is sucked up cleanly.

"Dr. Lin's hands are moving very fast today."

Victoria didn't even look up. "Your fine motor skills are pretty good. You must do a lot of unbuttoning your clothes, right?"

Julian paused for a moment, his hand holding the traction hook.

Unbuttoning? What kind of training method is this?

Lynn handed over the scraper. "Practice makes perfect."

"yes."

Victoria took the scraper. "I hope you only keep your hands in the sterile area. These cheap scrapers costing thirteen dollars and seventy cents a piece are easy to get infected if you touch them too much."

Julian silently noted it down in his mind:

Unbuttoning training, aseptic zone awareness enhancement, and 13.7 yuan—could these be the prices of some training equipment?

Victoria sped up the surgery by half a beat compared to usual.

The reamer rotates at high speed.

Victoria's mind flashed back to that hand, a hand with nude nail polish that had been pulled out of her collar.

0.1 second.

The file tip was off by half a millimeter, grazing a hidden tiny artery.

Blood gushed out, flooding the surgical field.

Victoria's pupils constricted.

Before he could even call for hemostats, Lynn had already pressed the bleeding point with a gelatin sponge in his left hand, and precisely applied the electrocautery with his right hand.

"Sizzle—"

A wisp of smoke.

The bleeding was stopped in less than a second.

Victoria let out a long breath under her mask.

She looked up.

Lynn was also looking at her, his eyes holding nothing extra, only his eyebrows twitching slightly.

It's light, but that's enough.

Victoria's ears burned.

She turned her gaze back to Shuye, the pliers making a cracking sound as she gripped them.

The silence lasted for about six seconds.

Then Julian spoke.

"Lynn".

His voice was excited.

"I estimate the time interval between the compression with your left hand and the electrocautery with your right hand to be between 0.3 and 0.4 seconds."

He put down the traction hook and gestured to the name, "This kind of simultaneous operation of both hands in opposite directions requires extremely strong cerebellar-cortical coordination ability."

No one responded.

Julian didn't notice.

"So, when you mentioned 'unbuttoning,' were you referring to one hand or two hands? If it's one hand, it trains the independent control of the radial three fingers, but if it's two hands..."

He became more and more serious as he spoke.

"How long should I practice each day? Are there any recommended button sizes?"

"Judging from the way you opened and closed your thumb and forefinger just now, it should be a standard shirt button with a diameter of about 12 millimeters."

The circulating nurse turned around, her shoulders shaking.

The anesthesiologist buried his face in the record sheet, the tip of his pen piercing through the paper.

Victoria held the reamer in her hand, the veins on the back of her hand clearly visible.

She slowly turned her head.

His grey-blue eyes were fixed on Julian through his goggles.

"Julian Cabot!"

"Here!" Julian straightened up reflexively.

"Shut up!"

"Yes, Dr. Vanderbilt."

……

An abandoned auto repair shop in Queens.

The smell of ozone from electric welding mingled with the fishy odor of machine oil.

Cassie pushed up her goggles and wiped her cat-like face.

A used Ford RV without any markings was parked in the middle, its interior completely hollowed out.

"The folding operating table is welded shut; it can support 300 pounds." She patted the stainless steel tabletop.

Sachira ripped off the heavy black cloth covering the car window. "Military-grade blackout curtains. Even with the searchlights on inside, you can't see a single ray of light from the outside."

Lynn got into the car and glanced at the center console in the driver's seat.

"Did you get ALPR working?"

"Just like my car, I had a friend write an overwrite program."

Cassie tucked a cable back into the gap. "The DMV's license plate recognition system only caught one refrigerated truck. It cost me eight hundred."

Having learned their lesson from Miller GPS tracking, they upgraded the vehicle's security to the highest level.

Lynn ignored her and went to the operating table to check the second-hand monitor that Arjun had brought.

There is a deep scratch on the refurbished casing, and the words "St. Barnabas" are faintly visible deep inside the scratch.

Property label for St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx.

Lynn withdrew his hand.

The waters of this Indian pharmacy owner are deeper than they appear.

Cassie kicked the medical-grade PVC floorboards under her feet.

"Closed clinics in Brooklyn charge by the pound. Seamless welding, nowhere for bacteria to hide."

She patted the white antibacterial panel on the inner wall again.

"The entire back is covered with magnetic strips. If it gets stopped, it can be dismantled into a regular bread cart in three minutes."

Sachi walked around the carriage.

Have you thought about ventilation?

"When using an electrocautery knife during surgery, the smoke needs a place to go. Dragging a smoke exhaust pipe around on the street is less efficient than simply painting 'Mobile Operating Room' on the roof of a car."

Cassie pulled a flat metal box from under the back seat.

"Industrial-grade activated carbon filter. Bought it secondhand for forty dollars on eBay, and replaced the filter cartridge."

She inserted the box into the pre-drilled slot on the roof of the car, "so the smoke and smell will go through the internal air circulation and won't be noticeable outside."

Sachi reached out and pushed the filter device to make sure it was securely fixed.

"Add a switch." He pointed to the inside of the rear door of the carriage.

"What switch?"

"Emergency power outage."

Sachi said, "With one press, all the devices lose power at the same time, and the lights go out. From the outside, it looks like a car that's turned off and parked."

Cassie thought for two seconds, then crawled under the center console and began wiring.

Ten minutes later, a red flip button appeared next to the rear door handle.

Sachi lifted the lid and pressed it down.

The carriage was plunged into darkness.

The standby light and the indicator light of the shadowless lamp on the monitor were all off.

"The last question: what if the police knock on the door halfway through the surgery?" Sachi leaned against the carriage wall.