Chapter 506: Done, Pack Up

"Doctor Xiao Ji, is it in?"

"Mm, it's in. Can't you feel it?"

"It feels like I can, and yet like I can't. Uh, I mean it's in! It's really in, I can feel it!"

"I'll change the angle, you'll feel better."

The dialogue between Ji Xiang and Zhao Zhe coming through the intercom left the doctors and nurses in the control room stunned.

What does that mean?

"What... are... they doing?" Yang Zhuren asked in a hoarse voice.

"The guide wire hooked the staple. Zhao Yisheng should be able to coordinate to take it out, but I can't see it very clearly. Doctor Xiao Ji has such good eyesight; I didn't notice the details of his movements."

Li Zhuren, Li Ming, braced his hands on the table, his head inching toward the screen. He carefully scrutinized the surgical footage from just a moment ago, yet like Zhao Zhe, he couldn't clearly see whether the guide wire had actually hooked the staple.

"..."

"..."

Hearing Li Zhuren's explanation, the doctors and nurses vaguely understood what was happening.

Seeing the dawn of hope for the surgery should have been a joyous occasion, but the joy, the cheering, and other such emotions were shattered by that conversation.

Everyone was somewhat bewildered.

"Now we need to adjust the direction of the staple to keep the tip away from the inner wall of the pharynx, right?" Zhao Zhe asked.

"Mm, adjustment complete, preparing to withdraw. 1, 2, 3, go!"

On the screen, the guide wire hooked to the staple moved bit by bit, with a thin staple hanging below it.

The black image of the staple under the X-ray flickered and swayed, precarious.

Everyone's heart was in their throat.

It was indeed retrieved, but if it fell, the surgery would head in an unpredictable direction.

Heaven knows where the staple would fall.

Li Zhuren's hands pressed against the table, his body leaning forward, his face almost pressed against the screen, struggling to distinguish the "slender," faint image of the staple.

Yet, Ji Xiang and Zhao Zhe in the operating room seemed not to sense the tension of those in the control room; in less than 10 seconds, the catheter, guide wire, and staple all disappeared from the DSA machine's screen.

"Done, pack up." Ji Xiang turned his head and waved at the people on the other side of the lead-lined glass, holding a staple between his thumb and middle finger, his eyes squinted into slits.

Finished?

Is the surgery done?

It's done just like that?

The machine paused, and Ji Xiang kicked open the airtight lead door and walked into the control room.

In his hand, he held a staple stained with blood and white, viscous secretions.

"Teacher Yang, Teacher Li, it's been retrieved."

"!!!"

Yang Zhuren stared wide-eyed at the staple.

After the efforts of two hospitals and several doctors from different departments, the staple still hadn't been removed.

It remained stubbornly in the patient's right main bronchus, and the repeated surgical failures seemed to tell people that only a thoracotomy, the most traumatic method, could remove it.

Li Zhuren had also tried, but the result was still no.

How did everything change after switching to that old Attending Physician with the subservient look?!

Yang Zhuren was somewhat confused.

But regardless of who took it out, it was a good thing. A smile appeared on Yang Zhuren's face that he himself hadn't even realized, full of approval.

After glancing at Ji Xiang, Yang Zhuren looked deeply at Zhao Zhe.

"Impressive, Doctor Xiao Ji!" Li Zhuren's eyes were slightly red as he said excitedly.

"It's alright, it's alright."

"I guessed you might be able to retrieve the staple, but I didn't expect the Zhao Yisheng you brought to be so capable," Li Zhuren praised.

"It's probably because the two of us have done many surgeries together, so we're more practiced," Ji Xiang said, his eyes squinting, his smile hidden by his mask. "When it comes to surgery, Li Zhuren is leagues ahead of us."

Facing Ji Xiang's shameless commercial mutual flattery, Li Zhuren felt a bit embarrassed.

Ji Xiang placed the staple onto the gauze and handed it to Yang Zhuren.

"Teacher Yang, please let the patient's family take a look."

Yang Zhuren took the gauze, squinted at it carefully for a moment, and nodded in a daze.

The professor from the Thoracic Surgery Department beside him examined the staple with great interest; not having to perform the surgery was a great thing for them, and their joy was only slightly less than that of the patient's parents.

Who wouldn't be happy to do less work?

Ji Xiang turned to help Zhao Zhe with the final matters.

A few minutes later, the patient was lifted onto a stretcher and sent back to the ward, and Li Zhuren gradually came to his senses.

He looked closely at Zhao Zhe, an inexplicable feeling rising in his heart.

At first glance, Li Zhuren felt Zhao Zhe was very familiar. In clinical practice, there is no shortage of old Attending Physicians like Zhao Zhe who know the explicit and implicit rules and are slippery in their work.

They generally have limited ability, as their talent restricts them from advancing further in surgery, so they can only be responsible for basic work.

From Zhao Zhe's subservient smile, Li Zhuren could be certain he was that kind of character; whether it was his expressions, movements, or emotions, he was that type of person.

But!

The surgery that had just been completed overturned Li Ming's perception.

He had tried coordinating with Ji Xiang 3 times himself, a full 3 times, and each time he missed by a hair's breadth.

It looked like a hair's breadth, but Li Zhuren knew it was a huge gap; he was completely unable to coordinate accurately with Ji Xiang.

He had originally intended to rest a bit before going back in, but if it really didn't work, he would have no choice but to resolve the problem with a thoracotomy.

But Zhao Zhe did not know when he had gotten onto the operating table; by the time everyone realized it, the surgery had already been resolved.

Could it really be as Ji Xiang said, that they had just cooperated a lot?

Li Zhuren did not think so.

He did not go with Ji Xiang and Zhao Zhe to transport the Patient, but instead squatted in the locker room to "wait for a rabbit to hit a tree."

After more than ten minutes, Zhao Zhe walked in to change his clothes.

"Zhao Yisheng." Li Zhuren smiled and took the initiative to greet him.

"Li Zhuren, hello, hello, why didn't you go down?" Zhao Zhe still had a servile look on his face; when facing Li Zhuren, his waist bent unconsciously, humble to the bone, as if it had become a part of him.

Li Zhuren looked at Zhao Zhe and gave a wry smile.

"Zhao Yisheng, there is no need to be so polite."

"I have watched your surgical recordings and benefited greatly; counting it up, I am your unofficial student," Zhao Zhe said.

"What?"

"At the National Interventional Annual Conference nine years ago, you performed a demonstration surgery. I studied that surgery repeatedly many times; it was truly brilliant!"

Li Zhuren had forgotten about the demonstration surgery from nine years ago himself, and he was momentarily stunned when Zhao Zhe brought it up.

"You..."

"I used to be a grassroots Doctor in a prefecture-level city in the Northeast. Our DSA machine was almost growing mold, and no one knew how to use it. I pondered it blindly on my own, pondering Interventional Surgery."

Zhao Zhe did not feel like a stranger in front of Li Zhuren, especially since the recent successful surgery kept him in a state of excitement, triggering his chatterbox attribute as he chatted about those unbearable past events in LY City.

His words were so dense that Li Zhuren forgot to ask topics like how many surgeries Zhao Zhe and Ji Xiang had performed together.

(End of this chapter)