Chapter 25

The incident happened suddenly, and Lin Shengwen returned to Ting City early.

He and Yu Minjun had originally planned to stay in Country S until Monday and then take an evening flight back. Country S had a time difference of several hours, so returning home would be exactly midnight in China. After a night's rest, they could perform surgery on Hou Ying on Tuesday afternoon.

However, it was precisely because of this few hours of time difference that Lin Shengwen was not able to learn the bad news about Hou Ying in such a timely manner.

Even though he reviewed the situation later, he still knew that as long as Zhou Xin intended to violate the rules, no matter whether there was a time difference or not, he could not be stopped.

Lin Shengwen had something to eat at the after-party at the venue, said goodbye to Yu Minjun and left early to hold an online project meeting with domestic partners.

On the way back to his hotel, Lin Shengwen finally pulled out his phone. He'd barely checked it during the conference, mostly listening to other speakers. Plus, he had a talk of his own, and afterward, there was a dinner included in the conference, so there really wasn't much opportunity to pull out his phone.

He unlocked the screen and found that Li Ye had sent him a message.

The message was very short, but the moment Lin Shengwen saw that line of words clearly, his pupils trembled suddenly.

Li Ye: "Zhou Xin performed an EEO on Hou Ying."

Above my head is a purple night sky dotted with stars, but unfortunately the bright moon is obscured by clouds, making it hazy and unclear, and unable to provide any brightness.

Lin Shengwen paused on the path outside the venue and called Li Ye.

"You finally replied to me." Li Ye shouted on the other end of the phone.

"Why did he touch my patient without permission?" Lin Shengwen couldn't control his emotions for a moment and raised his voice. He quickly lowered his tone and asked Li Ye as he strode towards the hotel a kilometer away, "He's overstepping his authority!"

Li Ye was silent for two or three seconds. He didn't know whether it was due to the delay caused by the physical distance, or because what he was about to say was already quite difficult.

"President Hong Li authorized him. You and Vice President Yu were not here, and Zhou Xin claimed to the president that he could publish a good article for the hospital by performing this operation. You also know that starting this year, the scientific research indicators of our hospital have been weighted, and the quality of the articles needs to be improved. I recruited him for this reason." There was a "hiss" sound from Li Ye's side, like the sound of turning on a lighter.

Lin Shengwen knew that Li Ye had quit smoking for a long time, and even his favorite lighter was sealed in a locked drawer in the cabinet, but he was so upset that he broke his habit.

"Sheng Wen, I tried to stop him, but he didn't listen to me," Li Ye's voice was choked with sobs. "The operation was completed, but you also know that Hou Ying's imaging examination already showed signs of atlantoaxial dislocation. I don't know if his EEO will make his spinal cord cavitation worse..."

Lin Shengwen took a deep breath: "I will go back as soon as possible. If anything happens to Hou Ying during this time..."

His voice choked, and after a long while, he said in a low voice, "Please help me keep an eye on it. If it needs urgent treatment, please handle it first."

"Please, Li Ye." Lin Shengwen requested.

Li Ye sniffed: "I know, Shengwen, I'll wait for you to come back."

Lin Shengwen ran all the way back to his hotel room as his meeting was about to begin.

He did not open the conference software standby, but checked the nearest flight back to Ting City. He actually found a red-eye flight with tickets available, but the only tickets left were first-class tickets. According to regulations, first-class tickets could not be reimbursed at Lin Shengwen's level. However, Lin Shengwen had no time to consider the trivial matter of reimbursement or not, so he swiped his card to buy the ticket.

He quickly packed his luggage, went downstairs to check out, his computer in one hand and his suitcase in the other, and got into a taxi waiting in line at the hotel entrance. After giving the airport address, Lin Shengwen entered the online conference room.

He finished a meeting on the way to the airport. At one point, the signal was so poor that he couldn't hear the other person, so he had to ask the doctoral student presenting to repeat themselves. The taxi driver, kindly seeing that his meeting wasn't over yet, pulled over to the side of the road instead of going directly to the drop-off area.

Lin Shengwen turned off the conference software, paid the driver's bill, gave him a generous tip, and got out of the car to enter the airport.

Lin Shengwen hadn't felt sleepy for the several hours on the plane. He even thought he'd be in a state of panic, but perhaps because of years of habit, his thoughts were unusually clear.

He went over in his mind the situations that would occur if Hou Ying's EEO was unsuccessful. The most critical situation, of course, would be the worsening of the instability of the skull and neck. The widening of the spinal cord cavity might cause compression or contusion of the medulla oblongata and heavy bleeding. If the situation worsened and led to respiratory arrest, it would be no joke.

Lin Shengwen had never imagined Zhou Xin would do such a thing. He had always assumed Zhou Xin simply had a problem with him. Perhaps it was because their clinical thinking was biased, or perhaps Zhou Xin simply disliked him, but Zhou Xin's professionalism was evident. Stealing someone else's patients was completely unexpected.

He landed at Tingdong Airport and quickly took a taxi back to the First Hospital of Ting University. During this time, he sent several messages to Li Ye to confirm Hou Ying's condition.

Li Ye: "I took a dynamic CT scan of her. The diameter of the cavity has increased, there is fresh bleeding, and she had respiratory arrest once. Although she has recovered now, it is very weak."

Lin Shengwen: "Arrange anesthesia and an operating room, and go back for the second surgery."

Li Ye: "You're crazy! If you undergo a second surgery now, Zhou Xin will definitely put all the blame on you!"

Lin Shengwen: "Then what do you say we should do? Just watch her die?"

Li Ye: “…”

Lin Shengwen: "Now I am the only one who has to go back to the emergency room for surgery. I am most familiar with her condition."

Lin Shengwen took a deep breath and typed a reply to Li Ye.

Lin Shengwen: "I don't mind losing my job, Li Ye. I can't let her die because of Zhou Xin's arbitrary decision."

Li Ye: "No need to say, I'll make arrangements for you and be your assistant. I've postponed today's surgery."

Lin Shengwen: "Thank you, Li Ye, really."

Lin Shengwen got out of the car, rushed into the hospital's main entrance, and dragged his suitcase up the elevator back to the neurosurgery department's office. He quickly printed out the materials and took them to Hou Ying for her signature. However, when he arrived at Hou Ying's ICU cubicle, he found Zhou Xin there too.

Hou Ying suffered respiratory failure and was given emergency treatment in the ICU, where she was intubated.

He didn't have time to pay attention to Zhou Xin. He repeatedly confirmed Hou Ying's condition and called Li Ye to do a dynamic rapid CT scan for her.

Zhou Xin seemed to want to explain something.

"Lin Shengwen, I..."

Lin Shengwen was anxious to ask the nurse to push the bed to the operating room, so he stopped abruptly. He turned around and stared at Zhou Xin with his dark eyes.

Zhou Xin felt an unprecedented sense of oppression. Under Lin Shengwen's cold gaze, his bones and blood began to freeze step by step from the soles of his feet, and soon his hands and feet became stiff.

He said with difficulty: "I am not wrong, it's just that you didn't explain her situation clearly at the previous department meeting."

"I've made it very clear that Hou Ying's cervical spinal cord compression is a problem that needs attention," Lin Shengwen said. "Zhou Xin, what do you think of this patient? A tool to threaten me?"

"You are not worthy of being a doctor, Zhou Xin." Lin Shengwen said coldly.

Lin Shengwen turned around and, along with the nurse, pushed Hou Ying's bed out of the ICU. Behind him, the man clenched his fists.

The difficulty of a second operation is exponentially greater than that of a one-step operation.

Not only did they have to correct the errors from Zhou Xin's EEO surgery and reposition the atlantoaxial joint, but they also had to perform fixation and fusion in the already unstable state, re-expand the dura mater, and re-establish craniocervical biomechanics. Furthermore, the problem was that the cerebrospinal fluid pressure caused by the widening of the syringomyelia urgently needed to be shunted and relieved. It was essentially three surgeries combined, all to be completed within a limited timeframe, a life-or-death struggle.

Li Ye had already arranged the operating room. Lin Shengwen washed his hands and disinfected them before walking into the operating room. There was no time to lose. Lin Shengwen nodded to Li Ye, and the two of them began the operation in tacit understanding.

Hou Ying's emergency second operation took nearly eleven hours. After the final skin suture was completed, Lin Shengwen, who had already traveled a long distance and had not slept all night, finally felt a little tired.

Under excessive tension, Lin Shengwen's adrenaline blocked all his sleepiness and fatigue, allowing him to devote all his energy to this difficult operation.

The instrument nurse gave him and Li Ye a bag of glucose solution respectively.

Lin Shengwen waved his hand and refused. He walked straight out of the operating room. Everything in front of his eyes was dark. His optic nerve was overwhelmed and finally issued an overload warning.

He held onto the wall and took a long time to relax. When his vision became clear again, it was as if he was hallucinating. The person approaching him from a distance was Liang Xun. Who else could it be?

"Shengwen!" Liang Xun strode over and hugged Lin Shengwen, "Why are you sweating... Isn't it said that the operating room is very cold?" He put his hand on Lin Shengwen's back and found that Lin Shengwen's back was almost wet.

Lin Shengwen blinked and hugged Liang Xun back. Fatigue had drained most of his strength away from his body. He buried his head in the side of Liang Xun's neck and took a deep breath.

Liang Xun was scented with his favorite perfume, very faint, as if it was contaminated just by lying on his bed. Lin Shengwen didn't even know how he could smell this scent due to his abnormal sense of smell.

"Why are you here?" Lin Shengwen asked.

"I was worried about you. I sent you so many messages, but you didn't reply," Liang Xun said. "I knew you were on a business trip, but I was just... I was so scared. I came to the hospital to look for you, only to find out you were undergoing emergency surgery."

"The operation is over."

Lin Shengwen's voice was very soft. He hugged Liang Xun tightly and spoke softly.

Liang Xun patted his back. He did not ask questions like whether the operation was successful or whether it was difficult. Instead, he patted Lin Shengwen's back over and over again to comfort him.

"Thank you for your hard work," he said.