The Surgeon's Studio

Sea City’s winter fog was thick and oppressive.

Beyond several meters, visibility was reduced to layers of white mist.

In the field of the No. 9 Elementary School, children were trembling in fear. Their crying and shouting could be heard through the fog like shrieks of demons.

There was a pool of blood on the path between the teaching building and the main entrance.

Only ten minutes ago, a man in his forties armed with a sharp blade had appeared like an evil spirit just as students finished their classes.

Their happy chatter dissipated instantly, leaving only horrifying reality.

A class teacher, Yang Lili, had been 24 this year. She had just graduated from a teacher’s university with a heart full of aspirations and passion.

She had the habit of seeing the children off at the main gate. The smiles on their faces kept her dreams happy and positive.

It was foggy as usual, but the man’s sudden presence had broken the normal routine.

Yang Lili responded quickly, almost instinctively.

She yelled at the top of her lungs when the attacker appeared, throwing the books in her hand like weapons to attract his attention.

However, it was a futile attempt. He did not dare face an adult; his only targets were harmless children who could not fight back.

Despite being terrified as well, the children’s screams instantly pushed her fears aside.

She faced the attacker head-on and was stabbed twice in the chest as she used her body as a shield.

As life faded from her in agony, she remained determined to continue fighting, using her last breath to wrap herself around the attacker’s knife hand and blocking his way with her body.

She had then been stabbed multiple times in the abdomen.

The young woman had been powerless to fight back, but she had given it her all.

As if by ritual sacrifice, Yang Lili had given her life in exchange for the safety of the children.

The attacker had been scared off by other teachers arriving. His knife lay abandoned in the snowy ground nearby, covered in blood.

It had turned cold, the blood on it frozen to ice.

In the face of such a bloody scene, the male teachers were also shocked and paralyzed. After calling 110 and 120, they notified the principal.

They did not know how to deal with the situation. Yang Lili’s face was pale like white paper smudged with red ink.

Her youth pooled underneath her, leaving her a cooling husk.

They dared not move her body for fear that it would worsen the injuries.

A female teacher close to Yang Lili knelt beside her, frantically trying to stop the bleeding. Both her hands were covered in fresh blood.

However, there was nothing she could do.

A male teacher gathered the courage to tear some fabric from his shirt and tried his best to put pressure on Yang Lili’s wound to stop the bleeding.

Alas, it was pointless.

Soon, the cloth was soaked in blood that flowed like a winding stream and froze solid not far away.

Some of the children she had saved were still dazed and confused. A few were wailing loudly while others were catatonic. They were like a helpless flock of sheep.

Ten minutes later, police and ambulance sirens began to approach.

They pierced through thick layers of fog like a beam of light, bringing them a glimpse of hope and the future.

The ambulance skidded to a halt near Yang Lili’s body.

Zheng Ren leapt out with a first-aid kit in hand before the vehicle had even come to a stop.

“Move aside!” he roared at the crowd, shooing them away so that he could reach Yang Lili.

The System’s monitor at the upper right corner of his vision was blinking with a glaring red.

Hemorrhagic shock, punctured lungs and mediastinal, traumatic hemopneumothorax, punctured superior mesenteric artery, punctured intestines and over ten other diagnoses were flashing a ghastly red like a devil’s grin.

Zheng Ren’s ears rang with the chime of a System mission.

[Sudden Mission: Hope in Darkness.

[Mission: Save teacher Yang Lili who had been brutally injured protecting her students.

[Mission Rewards: 500 skill points, 100,000 experience points.

[Mission Time: 6 hours.

There will always be darkness in the world, but no matter when and where it appears, there will be hope, of which you are its light.]

It did not register. His mind was working at full capacity to process the patient’s situation.

With more than ten injuries present,, they naturally differed in urgency and significance.

Since time was running out, any misjudgment would result in a delay in rescue and cost the patient her life.

“Load her up; prepare the surgical tray, suture kit and infusion set,” Zheng Ren said hurriedly.

Already waiting for Zheng Ren’s orders, the stretcher-bearer lifted Yang Lili onto the stretcher.

The nurse did not know what Zheng Ren was planning but followed standard procedure and efficiently prepared the things he would need.

“Open a bottle of saline!” Zheng Ren hastened his instruction when he saw Yang Lili’s already weakened breathing starting to accelerate.

The stretcher-bearer loaded Yang Lili onto the ambulance and folded up the stretcher before shutting the door.

The ambulance whizzed away, leaving only a bloody floor and a crowd of ashen-faced, terrified people.

Unable to detect any blood pressure, the first thing the nurse did was to cut open Yang Lili’s clothes, exposing the surgical field for Zheng Ren to prepare for subclavian vein catheterization.

When Zheng Ren got into the ambulance, he ignored the catheterization set the nurse passed to him and instead ripped open the first layer of the suture set, pouring its contents into a surgical tray.

“Iodophor,” he said as he put on sterile gloves.

The nurse opened the jar of iodophor cotton balls for Zheng Ren.

He pinched the cotton balls between his fingers and began disinfecting the right section of Yang Lili’s chest.

It was the second intercostal space along the midclavicular line.

After disinfection he picked up a surgical blade. He did not have the time to attach it to its handle and simply made an incision with the bare blade between his fingers.

There was no blood. It was currently all over the school grounds.

Zheng Ren then used the blade to cut open the infusion set and grabbed the infusion tube.

“Saline.”

After blunt dissection, he used hemostatic clamps to insert the tube into Yang Lili’s chest cavity through the incision he had made.

The other end of the tube was connected to the bag of saline.

The saline gurgled, and fresh blood began to flow.

Zheng Ren unpacked the suture set, used the needle holder to secure the reverse cutting needle and started stitching the infusion tube in place.

“Disinfect the subclavian artery,” he said as he did so.

He was slightly disappointed that it was not Xie Yiren beside him. There would be no need for words if she were.

In less than twenty seconds, he completed the suture and secured the infusion tube in its position. Then, he opened the central venous catheterization set and changed into a new pair of gloves before performing the procedure.

He punctured the subclavian vein and hooked the patient up to low molecular weight dextran. The nurse also added a pressured infusion set to increase the rate of infusion into the patient’s circulation, hoping to buy them more time.

The young police officer escorting them was aware of the urgency of the situation, speeding up and anxiously ordering traffic to make way for them via loudspeaker, fighting for as much time as he could for the ambulance.

Every second mattered.

…