The Surgeon's Studio

“What’s wrong?” Zheng Ren was surprised. Zhao Yunlong was looking for him? Were they familiar with each other?

He took over the phone and heard Zhao Yunlong’s thick and gravelly voice on the other end.

“Boss Zheng, the patient you diagnosed on the plane is somewhat unstable. Can you please come and take a look at him in your free time?”

Zheng Ren was stunned. Cui Heming? Today was post-op day three, and any postoperative complications would have appeared much earlier. What had happened?

“Brother Zhao, can you be more specific?” asked Zheng Ren.

“Every single time the sedatives wore off, the patient would make a heart sign and trigger agitation, causing fresh blood to flow into the drainage chamber. 100mL of blood was drained yesterday, and he is agitated again today. Repeated sedation isn’t good for his cardiopulmonary recovery, either,” said Zhao Yunlong, audibly distressed.

After a brief moment of hesitation, he added doubtfully. “A nurse suggested that maybe the patient wasn’t signing a heart, but rather, a square…”

“Okay.” Despite the ridiculousness of the situation, Zheng Ren agreed without hesitation.

Previously in Sea City, the patient with avascular necrosis of the femoral head had addressed him as “Doctor Fang[1]”, so this bizarre situation was not a surprise.

Professor Pei was also dumbfounded. How had Zheng Ren familiarized himself with various mid-level cadres in the hospital when he had only been in Imperial Capital for a few days?

‘Young men are indeed energetic,’ Professor Pei thought with a smile.

Zheng Ren apologized to Professor Pei before taking his leave.

Su Yun frowned. What was so important that Zheng Ren had to deal with it now rather than after the surgery, which was about to begin soon? Was he still planning to participate in that?

This idiot… Su Yun truly had no idea what to think of Zheng Ren as he rarely encountered such a person in his lifetime.

Was he pure? Probably.

An attitude unbroken by the almighty Chengdu could indeed be considered pure.

Su Yun lowered his head and trailed Zheng Ren. He had vaguely overheard Zhao Yunlong’s suggestion and disapproved of it, assuming that the nurse was simply making conjectures.

There were many possible reasons behind the patient’s agitation, and he was going to take a look as well.

In his opinion, the thoracic surgery department care unit was incompetent, and the patient’s agitation was most likely caused by increased pressure from an accumulation of distilled water in the patient’s ventilation tube or simply due to the presence of sputum in his respiratory tract.

Soon, they reached the care unit in the thoracic surgery department.

Apart from the ICU, most departments in the largest, top tier Class Three Grade A hospitals in the country had their own care units to monitor their patients’ postoperative recoveries.

Surgeons’ thorough understandings of their patients’ conditions would hasten recovery to a certain extent as well.

Zheng Ren wiped away his sweat upon entering the care unit.

A sheen of sweat had gathered on his forehead after the brisk walk.

Illness could weaken and incapacitate even the strongest person for days.

Zheng Ren changed his attire and put on a cap and a mask before entering the care unit.

Even for a department care unit, there were more than twenty patients in it at a scale much larger than the ICU of Sea City General Hospital, the place responsible for cleaning up every mess in the building.

Upon seeing their entry, Zhao Yunlong greeted them and shook Zheng Ren’s hand. “I’m sorry to trouble you, Boss Zheng. Eh? You have a fever?”

Zhao Yunlong had immediately detected the anomalous temperature of Zheng Ren’s palm.

“It’s nothing. Let’s take a look at the patient.” Zheng Ren waved his hand and approached Cui Heming under Zhao Yunlong’s guidance.

Despite the mechanical ventilator beeping repeatedly, Cui Heming’s blood oxygen saturation was only at 92 percent. There was also nothing wrong with the closed chest drainage system with bright blood clearly visible within the drainage tube.

Zheng Ren noticed that approximately 60mL of blood had been drained from the cavity.

Theoretically speaking, extubation was possible when there was less than 50mL of fluid in the drainage chamber. However, there was already this much in the early morning; how much blood would be drained at the end of the day? A few hundred milliliters?

“Fluid drained under sedation wasn’t much,” Zhao Yunlong said, “Boss Zheng, please examine him. Otherwise, we’ll have to perform a tracheostomy and have him recover more slowly.”

Zheng Ren first scanned the equipment and got closer to Cui Heming’s bed.

Cui Heming was wide awake but unable to speak due to the ventilation tube in his mouth and the nasogastric tube in one of his nostrils.

Zheng Ren’s arrival aggravated Cui Heming’s agitation, causing the alarm to blare through the ventilator and monitors.

Zhao Yunlong furrowed his brow.

Meanwhile, Su Yun examined the subtle details often skimmed over, such as the accumulation of vapor in the tubes behind the ventilator, or…

“Don’t worry, I’m here.” Zheng Ren stared into Cui Heming’s eyes and said seriously, “Everything is fine now. If all goes well, you can be extubated tomorrow and transferred out of the care unit in a few days.”

Cui Heming’s agitation dropped significantly. He repeatedly blinked his eyes as if trying to convey a message to Zheng Ren.

Zheng Ren grabbed his hand and smiled. “Relax. We survived the danger on the plane, and now that the surgery is over, nothing will happen to you. I can’t stay here to look after you, but when something happens, I’ll come to you immediately. I promise.”

After the brief conversation, Cui Heming tried his best to nod and calm down.

“That’s right, maintain this state of mind. I know prolonged bed rest isn’t comfortable, but it’s necessary. Rest up, and you will get better soon.” Zheng Ren firmly squeezed Cui Heming’s hand before releasing his grip.

Cui Heming slowly closed his eyes, no longer signing hearts or feeling agitated.

The alarms of the ventilator and monitors immediately weakened, and within a minute, all readings normalized and the blood oxygen saturation went up to 98 percent.

Upon seeing this abnormal change,

Both Su Yun and Zhao Yunlong were flabbergasted.

What the heck?

The nurse’s speculation had been right all along?

The patient merely wanted to see Zheng Ren?

Zhao Yunlong could not believe it. He was the surgeon in charge, but Zheng Ren’s words carried more weight than his endless diatribes.

This… This was outrageous!

Zheng Ren gave a few more words of comfort to Cui Heming. Seeing that his condition had stabilized, he informed Cui Heming that he would visit tomorrow before making a gesture and slowly leaving the room.

Upon exiting the care unit, Su Yun stared at Zheng Ren as if he was looking at a monster.

“What’s wrong?”

“How did you bewitch that man?” It was the best descriptor Su Yun could come up with after thinking for a long time.

Zhao Yunlong, who was standing beside them, nodded in agreement.

Despite having worked in the medical field for years, he rarely encountered patients who had an intense urge to meet someone after postoperatively regaining consciousness.

An intimacy stronger than blood relations… was truly uncommon.

He could not have foreseen the nurse’s speculation being correct.

The patient had actually been trying to sign a square to indicate that he wanted to see Zheng Ren.

It was utterly incomprehensible.

“I’ve no idea, either.” Zheng Ren shook his head, exhausted, and changed his shoes. “Perhaps he trusts me after what we’ve been through on the plane? Maybe it’s due to the fact that I diagnosed his mother’s condition correctly as well.”

Zheng Ren’s excuse sounded far-fetched, but that was his only explanation at the moment.

“By the way, Boss Zheng, you’re having a fever,” Zhao Yunlong said, “Is it due to your wound getting infected?”

“I suspect it’s just a cold as my clothes were damaged two days ago. I’ll recover in a few days. Don’t worry,” replied Zheng Ren.

For the past two days, with an exception being the welcoming dinner for Su Yun, Zhao Yunlong had been keeping an eye on Fang Lin. Not only was he grateful to Zheng Ren, he was also reluctant to let the man go after witnessing the “miraculous” incident today.

He forced Zheng Ren to the dressing room and personally changed the man’s wound dressing.

The wound appeared inflamed and swollen, but there were no signs of infection, which relieved Zhao Yunlong significantly.

After that, Zheng Ren bid goodbye to him and quickly made a phone call to inquire about the situation in the research institute.

[1] 方 can be translated as “square”. The patient who called Zheng Ren “Dr. Fang”, and now Cui Heming, could have been using “square” to address / denote Zheng Ren as both sounds are close to each other.