Time passed, second by second.

The treatment room was eerily quiet, with only Jiang Yan's slightly heavy breathing remaining.

He could feel her hovering hand, as if carrying a faint warmth, "scanning" back and forth on the skin of the back of his neck.

About a minute later, Su Tang opened her eyes, her gaze frighteningly clear.

“Found it.” She withdrew her hand, her tone certain. “The root cause is between the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae, at the nerve root exit point, there is an old adhesion point, about the size of a soybean. Due to recent high-intensity training, the surrounding tissue has undergone compensatory hyperplasia and edema, which has further aggravated the compression of the nerve. This is the root cause of your right-hand numbness and index finger tremor.”

She paused, then said something that made Jiang Yan feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

"In Western medical terms, this is a typical early sign of 'neural sheath entrapment syndrome.' If strong intervention is not taken now to break this vicious cycle, within three months at most, you won't even be able to hold chopsticks with your right hand, let alone pull the trigger."

Three months... I can't even hold chopsticks properly...

These words struck Jiang Yan's heart like a heavy hammer.

For a sniper who considers shooting his life, this is tantamount to a death sentence.

His face turned deathly pale instantly.

“I can cure it,” Su Tang calmly offered, “but it requires acupuncture to directly stimulate the affected area. The process will be more than ten times more painful than the massage I just had. Moreover, to ensure the effectiveness, it needs to be treated for three consecutive days, once a day, without interruption.”

Ten times more painful?

Jiang Yan's lips curled into a smile that looked more like a grimace.

As long as I can save this hand, what does it matter if the pain is ten times greater or even a hundred times greater?

“Comrade Su An,” he turned his head, looking at her intently with a resolute determination in his eyes, “as long as you can heal my hand, from this day forward, my life, Jiang Yan’s life, will be yours!”

Only after the words left his mouth did he realize how ambiguous and easily misunderstood they were. In this day and age, for a man to tell an unmarried lesbian, "My life is yours,"... what's the difference between that and publicly proposing love?

His face flushed red again, and he explained awkwardly, "I...I didn't mean that! What I meant was that I owe you a huge favor, and I'll do anything for you in the future, even if it means going through fire and water!"

Seeing his helpless expression, Su Tang's lips curled up almost imperceptibly before she regained her composure.

"Lie down."

Without saying anything more, she took out the thinnest silver needle, about three inches long, from the wooden box, carefully disinfected it with an alcohol swab, and walked to the bedside.

"I'm going to begin."

As soon as she finished speaking, Jiang Yan felt a slight stinging pain on the back of his neck, like being bitten by a mosquito.

The silver needle, as thin as a cow's hair, had already pierced his skin with precision.

Immediately afterwards, Su Tang gently pinched the end of the needle with her right index finger and thumb, and began to slowly twist it in circles at a very rhythmic frequency.

An indescribable, intense ache erupted from the needle tip and spread along an invisible line deep into his right shoulder.

"Guard your mind, don't resist this feeling, guide it, let it go down your arm." Su Tang's voice rang clearly in his mind as if it had some kind of magic.