The Surgeon’s Studio

Zheng Ren obediently took a bath and had a good night’s sleep.

It felt great not to have to work night shifts.

Xie Yiren woke up very early and left a message for Zheng Ren, telling him to wash up and come over for breakfast.

He felt like the owner of a thousand buildings and hectares of farmland, having to go through two mansions just to have breakfast…

There were fried eggs, bread and milk. Zheng Ren ate, tasting nothing but sweetness.

Hmm… sweetness, like Xie Yiren’s fragrance leaving an indelible imprint in his mind.

They both hurried to the hospital after breakfast.

There was still some time before ward rounds, but Zheng Ren went regardless.

The patient who had received surgery the night before had regained consciousness. Her pain was not severe, but she could not eat solid food yet as she had not passed any gas.

She was still embarrassed by the almond incident. Apparently, she had drunk a little too much and downed her food without chewing it thoroughly.

The other patients in the ward were in a stable condition as well.

Zheng Ren called Su Yun to ask about Yang Lili’s situation.

The latter was fine, with no serious fluctuations.

No changes also meant no complications.

It was the best news he had received this far.

Zheng Ren believed the human body had excellent mechanisms to heal its own traumatic injuries.

At 7.55 a.m., like clockwork, Professor Rudolf arrived at the department on time and greeted Zheng Ren with a little more enthusiasm than usual.

At 8 a.m., Old Chief Physician Pan performed the handover of shifts and ward rounds.

After the rounds, Zheng Ren had little left to do. Other routine tasks were dealt with by a few residents. He picked up a book and began reading, hoping to add to his skill points.

Even though he had reached the Master rank, Zheng Ren was a man with aspirations. One specialization remained in mind—he hoped to achieve Grandmaster level in general surgery one day, possibly even the Prime level that he had caught the barest glimpse of.

Although skill points accumulated from reading were slow, they still added up.

The patient that Old Chief Physician Pan had referred was currently undergoing a 64-slice CT scan with three-dimensional image reconstruction and was thus not in the ward. Chang Yue had already contacted the CT room and Zheng Ren would be allowed to perform the reconstruction during their afternoon break.

After that, they would assess the man’s condition and decide whether or not to opt for surgery, as well as resolve other matters such as scheduling.

The department phone rang after some time.

Cheng Yue picked it up and said a few words before looking at Zheng Ren. “It’s for you.”

Zheng Ren took the receiver.

“Hello.

“Oh, oh, I am.

“Okay, I’ll go look at the patient’s scans.

“Oh, sure. I’ll wait in the department.”

He hung up.

“Why is orthopedics looking for you?” Chang Yue was curious.

There had not been an emergency orthopedics surgery in the emergency department before. Why were they looking for Zheng Ren? Did they have a pelvic fracture case with bleeding?

“They have a patient with bone metastasis and are planning a corpectomy, and so want to prepare for preoperative interventional procedures,” Zheng Ren said, already imagining the surgery requested by the orthopedic surgeon.

Suddenly, Professor Rudolf Wagner piped up, “Boss, if you’re going to remove the vertebra, will you perform the embolization in the lumbar artery?”

Zheng Ren nodded. “I think so.”

The professor was likely well-versed in this method to bring it up so casually.

“Professor Rudolf, I’ve told you not to call me boss. You can call me Dr. Zheng or Chief Zheng if you’d prefer,” he said stiffly.

“Oh, no!” Professor Rudolf Wagner shrugged. “I heard from Chang that you allow your assistant to address you as boss. Since I’m trying to be your assistant, let’s start with your name. Everyone does this in my lab, too.”

This…

Forget it. It was the man’s prerogative.

Zheng Ren had no issues with it. He closed his book and inched closer to the professor. “Professor Rudolf, I’m going to do a 64-slice CT scan with three-dimensional image reconstruction later. Would you like to accompany me?”

“Dear Zhen. Do you prefer this instead? Or would you prefer I call you boss?” Professor Rudolf Wagner asked seriously.

Zheng Ren could not stand the idea of being called “dear” by a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, burly German.

It was uncomfortable.

“Call me boss,” Zheng Ren said without hesitation.

“Then please call me Lil Fugui too,” Professor Rudolf Wagner said.

Zheng Ren truly had no idea why this man was insisting on a Chinese name, let alone “fu gui”.

In the past, these two characters were reserved for indentured servants.

They were now used to name pets.

Chang Yue and the others were clearly pulling this man’s leg.

Even though he knew it was just a joke, explaining it would waste too much time and effort.

1

Zheng Ren was not keen on doing so.

After some consideration, Zheng Ren decided to give up and let the professor use any salutation he pleased.

Grimly, he said, “Lil Fugui, I’m going to do a 64-slice CT scan with three-dimensional image reconstruction later. Would you like to come with me?”

“Yes, please.” Professor Rudolf gladly accepted. “Are you doing the scans to prepare for surgery?”

“I’m sure that it will be an interventional surgery for liver cancer. I need the scans to decide whether a patient with the embolized lumbar artery requires reconstruction,” Zheng Ren said.

As they talked, a woman in her mid-thirties knocked on the office door.

“May I know if Chief Zheng is around?” she asked.

“That’s me. Are you the family member of the patient under Dr. Zhou from orthopedics?”

The woman was slender and haggard; she had dark circles under her eyes, withered, yellow hair and a bad mood. In her hands was a big bag of what looked like five kilograms of scans.

At Zheng Ren’s question, she nodded.

“Let’s take a look at the scans first.” Zheng Ren took the bag, put it on a table in front of a radiographic film viewer and started checking for dates.

“Chief Zheng, do you want to see the more recent ones or the earliest batch?”

Since the patient’s cancer had metastasized to the vertebra, older scans were obsolete.

“The latest three months,” Zheng Ren said.

“On the 15th of September, he had a CT scan on his lumbar vertebrae. This one,” the woman said unhesitatingly.

Rifling through the scans without referring to their date stamps, she counted out an envelope and passed it to Zheng Ren.

He felt a twinge of melancholy.

Such attentive family of patients were rare throughout his many years as a doctor. Most did not bring their previous scans and some even forgot where they had been left.

Lacking previous information would not pose a problem for most doctors, but it would be better to have something as comparison.

For a family member of a patient to be so thorough was extraordinary.

A few years ago, Zheng Ren had met a man in his mid-thirties who had bound his father’s health reports from over a decade into a book. The progression of his father’s condition from its very beginning unfolded itself clearly.

This woman in front of him was exactly the same.

She had to love the patient very much to remember his scans so well.

It was truly a shame that he had late-stage cancer and bone metastasis.

One could not bear all of the joys and sorrows on this earth. All Zheng Ren could do was relieve the patient of some pain.

Such were the extent of mortal hands.

Zheng Ren retrieved the lumbar vertebrae CT scan from the envelope, placed it on the viewer and started to analyze it.

Professor Rudolf rushed over to join him.

The patient was in a bad way. His renal cancer had metastasized to his vertebra, which was uncommon for a form of indolent cancer.

Luck had not been on the man’s side.

The scans from three months ago revealed that cancer cells had invaded the bone and were approaching nervous tissue.

He had gone for two more consultations, the most recent being the 64-slice CT scan with 3D image reconstruction from two days ago. It seemed like the orthopedic surgeon wanted to have a clearer image of the surgical path.

The patient’s condition was regressing extremely quickly. Although the malignant tumor originating from the kidneys had been indolent, the cancer cells had multiplied faster as his immunity deteriorated during the later stage.

Zheng Ren hummed softly.

The tumor would have an abundant blood supply due to angiogenesis. Zheng Ren believed that he would discover more blood vessels if he personally performed the reconstruction.

Orthopedics wanted to embolize the lumbar artery to reduce the extent of bleeding during surgery. That, he could do.

The woman waited patiently and did not push Zheng Ren.

Twenty minutes later, Zheng Ren said, “They can proceed with embolization. I will do my best to reduce the bleeding so that he will have a better quality of life after surgery.”

“Thank you.” She looked as if she had accepted fate. Zheng Ren’s words were all that she wanted to hear.

Putting the scans back into her bag, she bowed deeply before leaving.