I became Hokage in Tokyo

Chapters 129 and 131: Surgery in Progress (4k)

Blood splattered onto Professor Kurokawa's face, but he remained expressionless and indifferent.

Professor Kurokawa's hand, which had once held a scalpel to save countless lives, was now inserted into a patient's abdomen and was still stirring incessantly.

In the dimly lit ward, a doctor in a white coat, with a cold expression, was turning over the patient's internal organs with his bare hands.

If someone unaware of the situation saw this, they would think they had stumbled into a horror movie scene.

"Ugh—Professor Kurokawa, what are you doing?! Stop it!"

Dr. Satomi felt nauseous and couldn't help but gag.

Performing tumor removal surgery manually?

This isn't saving lives, it's killing people!

In his memory, Professor Kurokawa had always been a refined, elegant, and witty man, but now, with his heartless and emotionless demeanor, he resembled a cold-blooded murderer like Professor Hannibal Lecter.

Is this really Professor Kurokawa?

Or is it that Professor Kurokawa, who returned from the underworld, is no longer the renowned doctor who saved lives, but has become a vengeful ghost who kills and seeks revenge?

Professor Kurokawa was deathly pale, ignoring Dr. Satomi's words. The veins on his cheeks bulged, and his white eyes were fixed intently on Ms. Ebina's abdomen, as if searching for something.

Dr. Satomi was overwhelmed with thoughts, and countless ideas flashed through his mind in an instant. He felt it was his responsibility to stop this absurd surgery, even if the patient was his deceased teacher.

However, after being swept over by Professor Kurokawa's eerie white eyes, Dr. Satomi trembled all over, his limbs stiffening and he stood frozen in place, unable to move.

Damn!

Damn!

If Professor Kurokawa's ghost continues to torment Ms. Ebina, she might not survive the night.

"Damn it, get moving, my body! I have to stop the teacher from committing murder."

No matter how much Dr. Satomi screamed and struggled in his heart, his body trembled with intense fear, and he could only watch helplessly as Professor Kurokawa's hand moved inside Ms. Ebina's abdominal cavity.

"Surgery complete."

Professor Kurokawa pulled his hand out of the patient's body, revealing a fist-sized, bloody, mangled tumor on his blood-stained palm.

"Oh--"

Professor Kurokawa, who had remained expressionless like a dead man throughout, suddenly smiled, revealing an expression other than indifference for the first time.

He looked at the tumor on his hand, a maniacal smile spreading across his face, and he burst into wild laughter:

"Hahahaha!"

"Finally, I finally—"

Amidst the maniacal laughter, an eerie atmosphere enveloped the entire ward. Then, a large plume of white smoke suddenly appeared around Professor Kurokawa's body, filling the ward and obscuring Dr. Satomi's vision.

The sudden cloud of smoke came and went quickly, disappearing without a trace in no time.

Professor Kurokawa's ghost vanished along with the smoke.

As Professor Kurokawa's ghost departed, the corridor lights were restored, and light streamed into the ward from outside, adding considerable brightness.

The bright light restored some of Dr. Satomi's courage. He took a while to catch his breath before he managed to stand up and come to Ms. Ebina's bedside to examine her carefully.

Ms. Ebina's abdomen is smooth and flat, with no visible signs of surgery.

"How is this possible? I clearly saw Professor Kurokawa's hand penetrate Ms. Ebina's abdominal cavity, how come there's not even a scar now, let alone a wound?"

From the moment Professor Kurokawa appeared in the elevator to the moment he rushed into the ward to perform the surgery, it was only a minute or two. If it weren't for the bloodstains on Ms. Ebina's bedding, Dr. Satomi would have almost thought it was his own hysteria.

Dr. Satomi disregarded the difference between men and women, placed his hand on Ms. Ebina's abdomen, and began to explore inch by inch.

"This is... Miss Ebina used to have a very noticeable foreign body sensation in her stomach, but now she can't feel it anymore. Could it be that Professor Kurokawa really removed her tumor?"

Dr. Satomi's face showed disbelief, and he murmured absentmindedly.

"A thorough examination is absolutely necessary."

Dr. Satomi rushed out of the ward, but stopped in the corridor as if he had remembered something.

It's already past midnight, and several departments, including the Department of Clinical Examination and the Department of Pathology, have long since closed. Going there now won't help.

He glanced at Nurse Asano, who was half-paralyzed at the ward door, and the bewildered intern nurse, and said in a deep voice:

"You were all at the door, did you see Professor Kurokawa come out?"

"Professor Kurokawa, is he the middle-aged doctor who came up in the elevator? We didn't see anyone come out at the door. Isn't he in the ward?" the intern nurse asked curiously.

"Why do you all look so strange? It's like you've seen a ghost."

Nurse Asano's face was deathly pale, her forehead covered in cold sweat, and she was only able to stay upright by leaning on the intern nurse. Upon hearing what the intern nurse said, she couldn't help but give a bitter smile.

Professor Kurokawa, who had been dead for a year, came up in the operating elevator again. Wasn't that because he had encountered a ghost?

"Dr. Satomi, that really is..." Nurse Asano's face still showed obvious fear, and she didn't even dare to mention the person's name.

"I don't know, I don't know!"

Dr. Satomi covered his face with his hands, his voice filled with confusion and pain.

That familiar face and voice were indeed his mentor, but Professor Kurokawa had a cold and aloof demeanor, never giving Dr. Satomi a second glance, as if he didn't recognize him at all.

Dr. Satomi's worldview, built up over thirty years, collapsed in an instant tonight, not only because of the unexpected visit of Professor Kurokawa's ghost, but also because he demonstrated a near-divine ability to remove tumors with his bare hands.

In Dr. Satomi's professional field, such a thing is simply a fantasy.

However, upon closer examination, it's understandable that Professor Kurokawa, now a ghost rather than a living person, would exhibit some mysterious and unpredictable abilities.

"Dr. Satomi, should we report this to the hospital?"

"certainly!"

…………

"Professor Kurokawa's ghost? Hmph, Dr. Satomi, you're a medical school graduate and assistant professor, yet you believe such nonsense."

In the minister's office at the medical university hospital, Professor Noriu scoffed at Dr. Satomi's words.

Dr. Satomi also looked helpless.

He stayed outside the ward last night, and the hospital's electrician arrived at the scene less than ten minutes after the power tripped.

The electrician spent a long time checking the 13th floor and the elevator room, but couldn't find any short circuit. Based on his assessment, the hospital building's electrical system wasn't faulty at all; it was more likely that someone had shut off the power to the 13th floor. However, the electrician and his team were stationed in the electrical distribution room, and no outsiders were seen entering or leaving.

Unless there are invisible people.

Because of the power outage, the hospital's surveillance cameras did not capture Professor Kurokawa's ghost; they only recorded the words of Dr. Satomi and the two nurses, which proved nothing.

"However, Ms. Ebina's stomach tumor has indeed disappeared! The lesions that started to spread to other parts of her body have also disappeared."

Dr. Satomi took out a CT scan and placed it on his desk.

Early this morning, Dr. Satomi used his connections to urgently arrange for Ms. Ebina to have an examination, and then expedited the CT scan results.

The CT scan showed that the huge tumor that was originally in Ms. Ebina's stomach had disappeared!

According to the latest examination results, although Ms. Ebina still has some cancer cells in her stomach, it is only in the early stage of stomach cancer. As long as she undergoes surgery at the hospital, her five-year survival rate after surgery is as high as 84%.

Professor Zene picked up the new CT scan, a hint of doubt flashing in his eyes, but he nonchalantly put it down, shook his head, and sighed:

"Dr. Satomi, I can't believe you made such a basic mistake. You must have misdiagnosed Ms. Ebina before, turning her early-stage stomach cancer into a late-stage one."

"But wasn't you Ms. Ebina's first doctor?" Dr. Satomi asked seriously.

"This has nothing to do with me. There must be some mistake in the diagnostic department! Maybe it's a machine malfunction, or maybe someone else's test results were mixed in." Professor Zene frowned and immediately denied it.

This is a very rational judgment.

Compared to the absurd ghost story of Professor Kurokawa returning to the hospital to perform surgery on a patient, this explanation is more in line with reality.

Although Professor Zene immediately absolved himself of responsibility, he thought for a moment that making this matter public would not benefit him and would also affect the hospital's reputation.

Early-stage stomach cancer, a disease with a relatively high five-year survival rate, was misdiagnosed as a late-stage terminal illness. This is quite a scandal, if it gets out in the news and becomes a big deal, the head of the medical university hospital might have to come out and apologize.

"Dr. Satomi, we all want to avoid misdiagnosis. It's because of doctors like you who are so conscientious and responsible that we were able to discover the error in time," Professor Noriuchi said, his tone changing to a gentle and pleasant one.

"What our hospital needs to do now is to appease Ms. Ebina and prevent her from spreading rumors."

"How could they do this? This is so irresponsible!" Dr. Satomi said indignantly.

"So what are you going to do? Hold a press conference and tell the media ghost stories about a doctor coming to the hospital to treat patients?" Professor Ze Nei was amused and said irritably.

"The newspapers and TV stations in Tokyo must be ecstatic! Turns out the professors and doctors at the medical university hospital are all a bunch of lunatics! Who would dare come to us for treatment now? Are you planning to transfer to the health center at Hokkaido University too?!"

Finally, Professor Zene spoke in a commanding tone:

"Dr. Satomi, Ms. Ebina trusts you, so I'm leaving this to you. Make sure you shut her up. Since Ms. Ebina has early-stage stomach cancer, there's no need to transfer her to another hospital. This is actually a good thing for her, since our university-affiliated hospital has extensive experience in treating early-stage stomach cancer."

Japan has a high incidence of stomach cancer because of its dietary habits, which include a preference for pickled foods and the essential consumption of miso soup with every meal, resulting in a high intake of salt.

Moreover, as an island nation, resources are scarce, fresh vegetables and fruits are consumed in small quantities, vitamin deficiency occurs, and pickled foods contain high levels of nitrites, which also contribute to stomach cancer.

It is precisely because stomach cancer poses a serious threat to the lives of its citizens that Japan has begun to mobilize the entire nation to promote early stomach cancer screening. Early detection and treatment have resulted in a five-year survival rate of up to 80% for early-stage stomach cancer.

Dr. Satomi arrived at Ms. Ebina's hospital room looking rather dejected.

His feelings were quite complicated. Rationally speaking, he also believed that Professor Zene's judgment was correct. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, what normal person would believe such a bizarre thing as a ghost doctor removing a tumor with his bare hands?

Dr. Satomi pushed open the door to the ward and saw Ms. Ebina standing at the window, gazing out.

Unlike her usual sickly appearance, Miss Ebina's complexion was noticeably rosier, and even more different was the hopeful light shining in her eyes as she looked over.

"Dr. Satomi, what exactly is wrong with me...?"

Seeing the sparkle in Ms. Ebina's eyes, Dr. Satomi suddenly felt much more relaxed and chuckled to himself.

Regardless of the reason, Ms. Ebina's late-stage stomach cancer has now progressed to the early stage, meaning that her chances of survival are very high.

Dr. Satomi was genuinely happy for Ms. Ebina.

"Ms. Ebina, congratulations, your stomach cancer is only in its early stages."

Congratulating someone on getting stomach cancer may sound strange, but for Ms. Ebina, who was diagnosed with incurable late-stage stomach cancer, it was like going from hell to heaven.

"Really?"

Miss Ebina covered her mouth, tears streaming down her face like broken pearls, weeping with joy.

"We are very sorry that you were misdiagnosed at our affiliated hospital before, which led to the diagnosis of late-stage disease!"

Dr. Satomi had carefully considered the matter on his way here, and decided not to tell Ms. Ebina about Professor Kurokawa's ghost removing the tumor with his bare hands.

"To show our sincerity, our affiliated hospital has decided to reduce your treatment costs accordingly..."

Ms. Ebina buried her face in her hands, and although she tried her best to suppress it, sobs still escaped from between her fingers.

She cried for a long time before finally raising her head, her eyes red and swollen, and said:

"Was that doctor last night Professor Kurokawa?"

Dr. Satomi was somewhat surprised.

"Do you know Professor Kurokawa?"

"I am a medical student, and my goal used to be medical school, so naturally I know the highly respected Professor Kurokawa."

Ms. Ebina smiled, but tears still streamed down her face uncontrollably.

"Thank you, thank you. Once I recover, I will definitely, definitely visit Professor Kurokawa's grave to express my gratitude. Dr. Satomi, could you please accompany me then...?"

Ms. Ebina knew exactly what had happened yesterday and that she was saved because of Mr. Kurokawa's ghost, but she felt no fear. Instead, she was filled with gratitude towards Mr. Kurokawa.

Dr. Satomi was deeply moved.

Whether Professor Kurokawa becomes a ghost or something else, he is still saving lives just like he was in life.

"must."

It was nearly midnight when Dr. Satomi switched shifts with the on-call doctor and stayed in the duty room on the 13th floor, staring intently at the elevator entrance.

A video recorder was placed next to him.

Will Professor Kurokawa perform surgery today?

(End of this chapter)