Sent to the countryside, I turned the health center into a top-tier hospital.

He changed to finer sutures and used intradermal continuous sutures, where the needle travels through the dermis of the skin, and the thread is not visible on the epidermis, with only two small needle holes at the entry and exit points.

This suturing method leaves almost no scars after healing, but it requires extremely steady hands and sharp eyesight. The needle tip must travel in a straight line within the dermis, neither too deep to penetrate the skin nor too shallow to fail to suture the tissue.

Zhou Jie and Sun Xiaoyan, who were standing nearby, were completely absorbed in watching.

They had learned suturing at nursing school and had seen doctors suture wounds during their internship at the county hospital, but they had never seen this kind of suturing.

Zhou Jie's mouth was slightly open, and she forgot to hand over the gauze in her hand.

Sun Xiaoyan remained indifferent, but her eyes lit up as she stared intently at Chen Ping's hand.

Wang Tao, holding a tray of iodine solution, watched as Chen Ping received more than twenty stitches and suddenly felt a burning sensation in his eyes.

He quickly turned his head away, pretending to look at the clock on the wall. The second hand on the clock was ticking away, and almost an hour had passed.

He recalled how Cui Ying had been laughing and talking during the day, but now she was covered in blood. His throat tightened, and he swallowed hard.

By the time the last stitch was sewn, Chen Ping's forehead was covered in sweat.

He didn't use the nurse's habit of wiping his sweat; instead, he turned his head and rubbed it on the cloth on his shoulder before continuing to sew.

When tying the final knot, he wrapped his fingers around the suture three times, then gently pulled, and the knot was tied neatly and buried under the skin.

He pushed the instrument tray aside, took off his gloves, and checked all the wounds again.

The wounds closed perfectly, with the skin edges neatly pressed together, without any inward or outward eversion.

After it heals, even if a scar remains, it will be the thinnest and faintest kind, barely noticeable unless you look closely.

"dressing."

Zhou Jie handed over the sterile dressing, and Chen Ping applied it layer by layer and secured it with adhesive tape.

Then a larger dressing was placed over the bite wound on Cui Ying's arm and applied.

Finally, I applied iodine to the abrasions on my shoulder, left them uncovered.

Chen Ping straightened up, took off his mask and hat, and let out a long sigh of relief.

He glanced at the clock on the wall; it had taken nearly an hour and a half from the start of cleaning the wound to the application of the last dressing.

The operating room was quiet, with only the beeping of the monitor and Cui Ying's even breathing.

Outside the operating room, Liu Wei squatted in the corridor, with several buckets of boiling water at his feet, steam rising in the dim light.

Li Fang leaned against the pharmacy door, staring blankly at the operating room door.

Zhao Guosheng held the teacup in one hand and had his arm around Zhou Xiaohe with the other. The tea in the teacup had long since gone cold, but he hadn't drunk a drop.

Wang Jianguo sat on a bench in the corridor, his reading glasses resting on his knees, his eyes closed, his lips moving slightly, seemingly muttering something.

Zhou Xiaohe had stopped crying. She leaned on Zhao Guosheng's arm, her eyes red and swollen, staring intently at the operating room door, her little hand still clutching a button that had been torn off Cui Ying's coat.

Chen Ping took off his gloves and mask, threw them into the trash can, and then walked to the operating table, picking up a small syringe from the tray.

The needle tip flashed under the operating light. He inserted the needle into the muscle of Cui Ying's upper arm and slowly pushed it in.

Less than two minutes later, Cui Ying's eyelashes twitched, and her eyelids slowly opened.

Her gaze was still unfocused. She squinted in the white light of the operating lamp before fixing her gaze on Chen Ping's face.

Tears welled up without warning, streaming down her cheeks, into her ears, and into her hair. She didn't wipe them away, just stared at Chen Ping, her lips trembling several times, her voice hoarse and almost inaudible, "Where's Xiao He?"

"Xiao He is alright."

Chen Ping placed his hand on her uninjured shoulder, applying slight pressure. "Not a scratch. Dean Zhao is watching her from outside."

Cui Ying closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

The breath was exhaled deeply, as if releasing all the fear from the mountain to the present.

Then she tried to move her arm, and her brows immediately furrowed, and she hissed softly.

"Does it hurt?" Chen Ping asked.

"My back... my back feels like it's on fire." Cui Ying bit her lip, her voice still trembling.

"You have four wolf scratches on your back and one bite wound on your arm. I've cleaned and stitched up the wounds. Thankfully, no arteries or bones were damaged. I've given you a tetanus immunoglobulin and antibiotics. You'll recover after a while," Chen Ping said.

Cui Ying slowly sat up, supporting herself on the operating table with her hands, and Zhou Jie quickly went over to support her arm.

Cui Ying glanced down at the white dressing on her arm, then tilted her head to look at her back, but of course she couldn't see it.

She lightly touched the edge of the dressing with her fingers, looked up at Chen Ping, tears still in her eyes, but the question she asked made Chen Ping pause.

Will it leave a scar?

Before Chen Ping could speak, Zhou Jie chimed in, her tone still carrying the same amazement she'd felt on the operating table, "Don't worry, Sister Cui Ying, I've never seen Dr. Chen's suturing technique before."

"He stitched two layers. The inner layer used absorbable sutures, and the outer layer used intradermal sutures. The needles went entirely inside the skin, so the sutures were not visible on the surface."

"He stitched up more than twenty stitches in your back, and it took more than an hour just to stitch them up. Dr. Chen did it all by himself from beginning to end."

As she spoke, she glanced at Chen Ping again, her voice lowering slightly, tinged with embarrassment, "We were all dumbfounded watching from the sidelines, and we couldn't help at all."

Only then did Cui Ying notice Chen Ping's appearance.

His mask was hanging on one ear, his forehead was covered in sweat, the tips of his hair were soaked and stuck to his forehead, and the back of his dark blue T-shirt was also stained with a large dark sweat stain.

His eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were dry and chapped. He hadn't had a drop of water since he ran down the mountain.

"Thank you."

Cui Ying looked at Chen Ping, her voice very soft, but those words seemed to have been drawn from the depths of her being.

Before Chen Ping could speak, the operating room door was pushed open.

Zhou Xiaohe squeezed through the crack in the door, and Zhao Guosheng followed behind, trying to stop her but failed.

Zhou Xiaohe ran to the operating table and saw Cui Ying sitting on it, with white dressings on her arms and several on her back. There were also bloodstains on her face that hadn't been wiped clean. The little girl burst into tears and rushed over to grab Cui Ying's hand, crying and trembling all over.

"Sister Cui Ying, it's all my fault, it's all my fault for going hiking... If I hadn't insisted on going, you wouldn't have been bitten by wolves... Waaah... I'm so sorry..."

Cui Ying reached out and pulled Zhou Xiaohe into her arms, putting her arm around her with her uninjured arm, resting her chin on the top of her head, and gently patting her back, saying, "It's not your fault, I took you there, it has nothing to do with you, don't cry."

Zhao Guosheng stood at the door, watching Cui Ying wake up. Her face finally regained some color, and he breathed a long sigh of relief.

He turned around and waved to the crowd outside the door, "It's alright, it's alright, go back and rest! Old Wang, you should go back early, and Liu Wei, don't squat there anymore, you have to go to work tomorrow."

The crowd dispersed.

Wang Jianguo put on his reading glasses, put his hands behind his back, and walked away slowly.

Liu Wei, Li Fang, and Wang Tao left relieved to see that Cui Ying was alright.

Sun Xiaoyan began cleaning the operating room, sorting used gauze, gloves, and empty medicine bottles into medical waste bags. Her movements were swift and silent.