Chapter 683

October 3rd, morning.

In Enshi in October, the autumn atmosphere was growing thick. The morning wind carried the rustling sound of fallen leaves, gently tapping against the tips of the ginkgo trees in the courtyard of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Group of the Yangyuan. Morning light filtering through the leaves wove a patchwork of light and shadow on the bluestone path.

Chen Song, who had risen early, completed a set of slow Tai Chi in the courtyard.

At this moment, he was sitting upright on a bamboo chair in the pavilion, a bluestone tea table before him.

The pulp of his index finger pressed lightly on the cun-kou pulse of his left wrist, his eyes slightly narrowed, as if listening intently to something.

Three gray sparrows skimmed past the treetops, their fluttering wings stirring the morning light. Ginkgo leaves swayed in the wind, morning dew sliding slowly along the leaf veins, refracting crystalline brilliance in the sunlight.

The hemp cuff of Chen Song's robe was soaked with morning dew, leaving winding water traces on his aged wrist.

The old man's eyelids, covered in age spots, suddenly twitched — the pulse beneath his finger was beating in a bizarre rhythm, like the gears of a long-unrepaired clock, skipping half a beat every seven pulsations.

"Staircase tremor." He murmured to himself, then strode out of the courtyard, returning to the diagnosis table in the diagnosis area.

The dull sound of the consultation room's copper lock opening startled the white doves under the eaves. Chen Song stumbled toward the purple sandalwood pulse pillow, his old-fashioned thousand-layer cloth shoes scraping two mud traces on the blue brick floor.

Chen Song's right hand reached toward the hidden compartment of the diagnosis table for the purple sandalwood pulse pillow.

This movement brought a needle-like stabbing pain from beneath his collarbone...

The consultation room door stood wide open, the morning breeze brushing past, lifting the hem of his long gown, revealing the worn stitching on his old-fashioned thousand-layer cloth shoes.

Three golden ginkgo leaves drifted onto the rosewood diagnosis table, stopping precisely at the positions corresponding to the cun, guan, and chi three pulse positions.

Chen Song's withered-bamboo-like fingers suddenly increased their pressing force — capturing the most minute pulse changes through the "bombarding shock waves."

"Grandpa!" Chen Xiqian's startled cry shattered the silence of the consultation room.

She rushed up clutching a gilt thermos cup, the cup clanging against the iron handrail like a set of bianzhong bells. The morning light dyed the old man's graying temples semi-transparent.

"Go fetch the third volume of the *Pulse Classic*, the Guangxu-era engraved edition." Chen Song's voice carried the texture of sandpaper grinding metal, his right hand still pressing dead tight on the position of the right subclavian artery.

Chen Xiqian noticed the sandalwood pulse pillow had shifted from its fixed position — that was Grandpa's "life-death ruler" used to mark critical pulse cases, and at this moment it was pressing on the illustration of the "death pulse" chapter.

When the yellowed ancient text was presented to the diagnosis table, the waveform drawn by the cinnabar brush tip on the xuan paper suddenly distorted.

Red ink splashed beside the two characters "Yu Xiang" like tears of blood, mixing with the cold sweat sliding down the old man's temples, blurring the annotation "Seven days' limit, Yu Xiang" into illegibility...

"Grandpa, you rest first, you must not move, I'll go call someone right away! ~"

"I'll go call someone right away." Chen Xixian's voice was anxious but hadn't completely lost its composure; she hurriedly scanned Chen Song, confirming he was now sitting stably in the chair and didn't need her support, then hastily turned around.

She had no great talent; following Chen Song to learn Chinese medicine and herbs was purely to amuse Grandpa. She knew clearly she was just a cute "parasite" living off others, and she had always been clear about her positioning.

So she never went to work, never started a business, and never meddled in her father's company; she just did her duty as a "golden canary" —

In reality, Chen Song himself chose to move into the courtyard of the Yangyuan, where attending doctors were available at any time.

Chen Xixian's cry had long since alarmed Associate Professor Lin Gongwei, who was on duty; Lin Gongwei quickly followed the sound.

He wore a blue changpao, strode into the consultation room, and at first glance saw Chen Song's condition was wrong. He was about to scold Chen Xixian into making a phone call when Chen Xixian was even steadier than him, her weeping voice as rigorous as a placed chess piece: "Doctor Lin, I've already made the call."

"My father and Doctor Wang both hung up. I agreed with them before: if I call them, something's happened, and they're on their way here right now..."

"Please come quickly and look at my Grandpa."

"I, I'll go prepare tea." The Young Miss Chen was flustered yet not chaotic at this moment.

Chen Xixian was Chen Song's only granddaughter. The red, swollen eyes with tears at the corners made Chen Song especially heartbroken. He sat upright at the consultation table, steady and composed as he comforted her: "Xi Xian, don't panic. It's only just begun now, not as urgent as you think."

Lin Gongwei hurriedly picked up his mobile phone and dialed his superior, Professor Deng Huai, at the first moment.

While coming to the opposite side of Chen Song to take his pulse, after the call connected, Lin Gongwei spoke quickly: "Teacher Deng, Dean Chen has suddenly felt unwell."

Deng Huai listened and responded with no sound at all, hanging up at the first moment.

Simultaneously, the male nurses on duty in the Yangyuan filed in, carefully approaching Chen Song's side, and said: "Dean Chen, Doctor Fang from the Surgical Group previously instructed that if you feel unwell, first inhale some oxygen, then lie on the bed and rest."

"These do not delay Chinese medical treatment."

Chen Song had long since given the word: once his body showed any mishap, the Chinese Medicine Group's team must be prioritized for diagnosis and treatment, with integrated Chinese-Western medicine methods applied as appropriate.

Chen Song was not stubborn; he obediently followed the advice.

Although Lin Gongwei was a Chinese medicine doctor, he could find no reason for Chen Song to forgo oxygen and cardiac monitoring. He acknowledged and began accompanying Chen Song toward the rest area in the courtyard.

This operating room is closest to the operating room; one can enter the surgical suite in two minutes at fastest.

Chen Song is himself a doctor, the Dean of the Yangyuan, so within his scope of permissions, he enjoys the best, highest-quality resource allocation.

07:35, inside the Yangyuan, Angiography Examination Room.

Fang Ziye turned his head and removed his radiation-protective glasses; a bluish-purple afterimage of the vascular angiography lingered on his retina.

He habitually rubbed the callus on his index finger joint with his thumb — a medal earned from years of holding bone-holding forceps as a doctor, now faintly warm.

Amid the monitor's regular low hum, he suddenly caught a metallic scraping sound, like surgical forceps scraping across a stainless steel tray.

The chief anesthesiologist for Chen Song was Professor Tan Mengbai, from West China Hospital, one of the nation's top anesthesiologists Chen Song had pulled strings to bring in, a Tai Dou-level figure in the Anesthesiology Department.

Tan Mengbai stared at the monitor motionless, uttering not a sound. Luo Tingzhu stood by the anesthesia cart three meters away organizing laryngoscope blades, her specially tied ponytail swaying lightly with her movements.

Chen Song was only undergoing an angiography exam now, so general anesthesia wasn't needed, but Luo Tingzhu had already prepared at all times to switch to general anesthesia.

"Dean Chen's radial artery elasticity imaging," Luo Tingzhu turned the tablet toward Fang Ziye.

Fang Ziye leaned in to look closely when the door was slammed open. Nie Mingxian rushed in holding angiography films, his curly temples stained with iodophor: "The old master's calf vein has a small thrombus!"

His sterile cap was askew.

"The pre-op CT didn't show it!" Fang Ziye took the film against the view box; the unique icy touch of the medical film reminded him of the stainless steel tables in the anatomy lab.

Fang Ziye's mind was inexplicably somewhat irritable.

Fang Ziye held up the CT plain film again; with his image reading skill level, he still couldn't read the key content.

But an angiography film is an angiography film; CTA is one of the gold standards for diagnosing thrombi, its resolution far surpassing CT plain film.

In the spiderweb-like shadows of the gastrocnemius venous plexus, there was a barely perceptible density anomaly — like dandelion fluff scattered by wind, or a speck of dust on an X-ray film.

The anesthesia record instrument Luo Tingzhu was responsible for suddenly spat out a long string of data...

As she tore off the waveform paper, her medical rubber gloves rubbing against the thermal paper made a fine sound: "From 6 AM to now, Dean Chen's pulse conduction velocity has increased by 12%."

The paper scroll fell to the floor, winding across the epoxy resin flooring like a white snake……

After Fang Ziye and Nie Mingxian exchanged a glance, Nie Mingxian looked at his teacher Li Yongjun: "The current examination results are insufficient for Old Chen's current symptoms."

Professor Yang Fenggen, the group leader of Cardiology, had been keeping a close watch on Chen Song's dynamic ECG——

The Traditional Chinese Medicine group's pulse diagnosis had ended over an hour ago; the pattern identification was long complete, and a corresponding prescription had already been written, treating according to the pattern.

Mid-way through decocting the medicine, Chen Guangbai invited Fang Ziye and the others to rush over, hoping to provide a "second layer of insurance" for Chen Song!

Chen Guangbai perhaps also shared Chen Song's same obsession with the rise of Chinese medicine, but Chen Guangbai had another identity as Chen Song's son, so he also hoped Chen Song could preserve his life through modern medical means.

Li Yongjun shook his head, his entire face twisted into a stiff knot, his lips parting and closing with extraordinary difficulty, speaking in a halting voice: "The coronary angiography also revealed no abnormalities."

"Dean Chen still feels a dull pain in the chest……"

Li Yongjun's expression also looked utterly bewildered.

He had learned about Chen Song, so he dared not treat Chen Song's judgments as non-existent; if this were in modern medicine, with Chen Song as a patient having today's examination results, he could determine the other party was healthy, at most only needing continued observation in the hospital for a period of time!

But at this moment, Li Yongjun also dared not have any attitude.

Fang Ziye understood Li Yongjun's current psychology; after slowly lowering the film in his hand, he said: "Dean Chen, my opinion is consistent with Professor Li's; you should still prioritize Chinese medicine for recuperation."

"According to our understanding, you currently still have no need for any special treatment! ~"

Chinese medicine emphasizes treating according to the pattern, while modern medicine emphasizes treating according to the disease; without a disease, Chen Song's blood counts currently show nothing special, and even if one wanted to use anticoagulants prophylactically, there is no indication.

Prophylactic anticoagulation without indication — once a cerebrovascular hemorrhagic stroke occurs, no one can bear this responsibility.

Chen Song was only under local anesthesia; hearing this, he nodded lightly and did not speak, instead very calmly sensing his own disease mechanism.

After a while, he slowly said: "Sparrow pecks, three or five pecks in succession; roof leaks, one drop every half day; flicked stone sinks the string, press and obtain; untie the rope, scattered chaotic, suddenly sparse and dense; fish soaring, seems to exist yet seems not; fish soaring slowly, suddenly one leap; cauldron boiling, soup surging, breath utterly ceases……"

Seeing Fang Ziye and the others reveal bewildered expressions, Wang Qishan, the acting group leader of the Chinese Medicine group accompanying the consultation, explained in a low voice: "This is the Seven Absolute Pulses of Chinese medicine."

"The pulse is floating and faint, seems to exist yet seems not, like fish soaring in shallow water, head steady, tail swaying."

Fang Ziye still asked somewhat like a layman: "What is the implication?"

"Heart Qi failing and ceasing, Yang Qi deserting outward." Wang Qishan said.

Li Yongjun took over the topic aptly: "When I was at Capital Hospital before, I also heard of this kind of pulse image; however, that patient corresponded in modern medicine to the moribund stage of severe bradycardia, but Dean Chen's current heart rhythm is normal……"

Li Yongjun then looked at Chen Guangbai, who was also wearing a Chinese medicine long robe: "Did Dean Chen take some life-saving secret medicine? That's why the current pulse image and vital signs have symptoms that don't quite correspond?"

Li Yongjun had worked at Capital Hospital, therefore he was knowledgeable and well-informed.

Especially as the person in charge of Vascular Surgery, he also had some understanding of certain Chinese medicine methods.

"Medicine is three parts poison; my father did not take any medicine." Chen Guangbai's demeanor was as usual, as if after years of floating in the mall he had suddenly retired, and he did not feel any discomfort at all……

"Then we can only continue observation; hard work to Doctor Wang and Doctor Chen, you'll have to expend more thought yourselves." After Li Yongjun spoke, he looked at Professor Tan Mengbai.

Tan Mengbai is a professor of Anesthesiology; his meticulous control over the subtle details of vital signs is extremely thorough.

At this moment, Tan Mengbai also nodded to everyone: "For safety's sake, I suggest appropriately adding prophylactic anticoagulant drugs; the specific prescription — whether subcutaneous injection of heparin or in the form of Chinese medicine decoction — is for Professor Wang to decide."

Tan Mengbai also could not produce a suitable plan……

Fang Ziye and the others began one after another to remove the instruments from Chen Song's body, and slowly pushed him to the monitoring ward.

Every courtyard in the sanatorium can be a separate monitoring room! ~

Traditional Chinese Medicine Pharmacy.

Chen Xiqian's hand gripping the copper medicine grinder was trembling; the notoginseng pieces cracked into irregular fragments in the grinding groove. She stared at the Zi Wu Liu Zhu Clock on the wall; every jump of the brass pointer felt like it was severing nerves.

When the second hand pointed to the "Hand Lesser Yin Heart Meridian" scale, the medicine grinder suddenly slipped, emitting a piercing sharp screech on the bluestone countertop.

"Fried ginger charcoal must be simmered for a full six hours." Lan Minnong appeared silently beside the medicine cabinet, holding a calcination furnace from which wafted a scorched fragrance mixed with the smell of blood.

The old Chinese doctor lightly tapped the furnace wall with a long-handled medicine spoon; the crackle-glazed surface emitted a clear resonance like a set of chime bells: "Just like your grandpa back then at ' ' Hospital calcining blood residue charcoal."

Chen Xiqian suddenly grabbed the copper handle of the medicine cabinet, her knuckles turning white from excessive force: "If. If the pulse image really"

She couldn't continue; a scalding hard lump choked her throat. The notoginseng powder in the grinder was scattered by the morning wind, spreading star-chart-like patterns on the bluestone floor, overlapping in a trance with the ashes of the "Treatise on Cold Damage" Grandpa burned last night.

Lan Minnong bent down to pick up the scattered pulse case record book; a black-and-white photo fell from between the yellowed pages. A young Chen Song wore faded coarse cloth clothes, needling a wounded soldier in a trench. On the back of the photo, written in cinnabar: "Dai Mai and Jie Mai appearing together, more dangerous than shaving the head."

"Your grandpa burned half the 'Treatise on Cold Damage'," Lan Minnong suddenly said; the firelight in the calcination furnace danced on her lenses, "Said he wanted to make room for the younger generation to write new prescriptions."

"Professor Dong Zhi was so angry he didn't sleep all night; just now he was still muttering to me." The sound of carbonized fragments cracking was crisp as bone breaking; the newly calcined fried ginger charcoal glimmered with a dim blue luster on the bamboo plaque.

Lan Minnong is of the Spleen-Stomach School; although she felt heartache that Chen Song burned his treasured half of the Treatise on Cold Damage, she was still not as heartbroken as Dong Zhi of the Cold Damage School.

Chen Xixian is just a young lady; how would she know how to answer questions? She has come to this point only wanting to do something for her grandpa; she clapped her hands, stood up, and said: "Professor Lan, I'll go give Teacher Dong a gift, hoping he temporarily won't be angry for now."

Lan Minnong's eyes revealed pity: "You'd better not go; although Dong Zhi usually has a good temper, when he gets stubborn, even your grandpa gets sprayed at. He's the hardest hardliner I've ever seen."

"Right now he's at the peak of his anger; if you go, I'm afraid you'll be caught in the crossfire."

"His anger is his anger; ignoring him is fine; he won't not do his work." Lan Minnong patted Chen Xixian's shoulder to comfort her.

"Little Chen, those who can come to the sanatorium all have some sentiment. Usually scolding is scolding, temper is temper, but the feelings are all real."

Lan Minnong had no direct master-disciple relationship with Chen Song, yet she was also one of the seniors of the Chinese Medicine group in the sanatorium; these people got along like kindred spirits, gathering for many years, each person's temperament thoroughly understood, getting along extremely well.

"Don't know if Professor Li and them can discover anything! ~" Chen Xixian calmed down.

She rarely came to the sanatorium; actually she wasn't particularly familiar with many professors of the Chinese Medicine group, more often meeting in private.

"Do you hope Professor Li and them discover a problem or hope they don't discover a problem?" Lan Minnong pressed, her crow's feet deeply wrinkled, the flesh mole at the end of the wrinkles trembling.

"I…"

Chen Xixian shook her head: "Professor Lan, I don't know either."

Now, she rather hoped Li Yongjun and them could discover a problem; just that if a problem is discovered it can be directly resolved, and then she wouldn't need to live in fear and trepidation.

But standing from the perspective of family inheritance, she had also studied Chinese medicine, knew how to process some common Chinese medicines, and naturally put herself in the shoes of a Chinese medicine practitioner.

"I hope my grandpa is fine, not a single thing wrong; whatever pulse image, Pulse Classic corrections, can all be left for others to do……" Young Lady Chen Xixian finished speaking and went back to grinding notoginseng.

……

11:20, Top Floor Secret Room of the Yangyuan!

The moment Chen Song locked the door bolt, a severe pain erupted in his left wrist, making him crash into the rosewood medicine cabinet. Seven Qinghua porcelain jars shook simultaneously; the rhinoceros horn jar at the very top was braced by the old man with his knee — a sixty-year-old war trophy, now holding arsenic trioxide for preparing pulse diagnosis reagents. Amid the hum of the secret room's exhaust fan, he heard his own breathing overlapping with the cannon fire of his youth.

As the combination dial turned, the cinnabar on his fingertips dragged blood-red lines across the metal surface.

At the very back of the safe lay seven cowhide-bound notebooks; the newest one's ink was still wet: "Gui Mao Frost's Descent, House-Leaking Pulse appears, seven days the limit."

When he opened the 1956 pulse case records, the yellowed pages exhaled a sigh scented of ink. Back then, just past his weak-crown years, he had written in the Kunming Military Region Hospital: "Dai and Mai pulses both present, must use large dose of aconite."

And now his trembling brush tip added in the blank space: "Thirty years of misdiagnosis, only now do I know it was a heart-vessel malformation."

The moment the silver needle case slipped, three-edged needle tips flashed cold light in the darkness. Just as the needle tip pressed against the Tanzhong point, Chen Xiqian's spoiled, tear-choked voice suddenly came from the ventilation duct: "Grandpa! If you don't open the door I'll bash my head in!"

Chen Song did not answer.

Immediately came a "Bang—" that froze the old man's fingers in midair; the needle tip pressed a crescent-shaped white mark into the skin...

"Xi Xian!" Chen Song fumbled frantically to undo the deadbolt; sure enough, a patch of Chen Xixian's forehead was scraped red.

"How can you be so stupid?" Chen Song watched with heartache while being "tied up" by her.

In the entire Lao Chen household, top to bottom, only Chen Xixian held the key to his heart gate; Chen Xixian gauged Chen Song's measure with terrifying precision, precisely because she was "spoiled" enough to never go easy on herself!

Yangyuan.

Morning light poured in through the window, but in the mountains a thin mist rose, curling past the white walls outside the courtyard, seeping into the pavilions beyond the yard, faintly visible outside the sealed laminar-flow room window of the sanatorium, isolating two worlds, inside and out.

12:30!

Fang Ziye pressed the ultrasound probe against the rabbit vascular model; coupling agent dripped down the table edge, forming pale blue tear-tracks.

The blood-flow imaging on the monitor displayed a bizarre double-helix structure, reminding him of Chen Song's radial artery tremor waveform. For an instant he seemed to see blood particles dancing a waltz at the bifurcation...

"Asymmetric dimethylarginine ADMA 0.68 mmol/L."

At the same time, the monitor on the observed rabbit suddenly buzzed; the screen flashed a "calcification abnormality" warning, the wildly jumping red numbers in the value column like an emergency room resuscitation signal.

Nie Mingxian burst in, sterile shoe covers screeching sharply on the floor: "Dean Chen's oxygen saturation suddenly dropped to 88%!"

"Anesthesiology is prepping for intubation."

Fang Ziye rushed out the door; the rubber tube connected to the ultrasound probe whipped a black lash behind him.

"What's going on?" Fang Ziye asked.

Chen Song was fine—how did his blood oxygen suddenly start dropping?

"We don't know what happened either. Dean Chen left the courtyard for a while, said he wanted to clear his head, so we didn't interfere."

"Then after Dean Chen went to the Administrative District top floor and came out, his electrolytes began to go haywire."

"Another Dr. Chen said Dean Chen might have used some stimulating technique on himself, putting himself on the brink of death, in order to self-perceive the signs and pulse of near-death!"

"Crazy, right?" Fang Ziye's steps stiffened.

Nie Mingxian said irritably: "How many normal people do you think are in this sanatorium?"

"When things go abnormal, there's not a single one of them you can pull back!"

Nie Mingxian wanted to add that if you, Fang Ziye, get stubborn, your degree of craziness wouldn't be any less than Chen Song's.

"Dean Chen Song hopes we can use both modern medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine methods to simultaneously record the pulse!"

"He needled himself earlier, said the pulse would change several times!"

"Not until he's at death's door would he dare gamble like this!"

"Lunatic!" Fang Ziye cursed loudly, quickening his pace further.

"Hurry, don't let Dean Chen's sincerity go to waste—he's already done the first half himself."

The instant the monitoring ward's automatic doors opened, he saw Chen Song's withered-branch fingers clutching empty air—that classic needle-holding posture...

12:42!

"Professors, next I will analyze Dean Chen's current basic condition from my perspective."

"Our team's Dr. Lan has organized the corresponding test data into data form; you can see it as shown in the figure."

Fang Ziye projected the ultrasound elastography image onto the screen; red marker points connected into a steep staircase: "Radial artery intima-media thickness 0.85 mm, but local stiffness abnormal."

His laser pointer's light circle halted at a waveform gap: "This corresponds to the staircase tremor Old Chen spoke of."

Chen Guangbai suddenly stood, his white coat sleeve knocking over a celadon teacup.

He lifted the pulse collection device report; blue LCD light flowed across his lenses: "Sixteen hertz abnormal harmonic—exactly the resonant frequency of vascular endothelial cells."

Tea spread across the tabletop, staining Nie Mingxian's angiogram films with tea-colored halos; the spiderweb thrombus shadows grew even more hideous in the tea stains.

"We detected microthrombus activity synchronized with the respiratory cycle." Luo Tingzhu pulled up a spectral analysis graph; a forty-hertz spike hung like a scalpel in midair: "Recommend prophylactic anticoagulation therapy."

Her fingertip swiped the tablet, projecting the data stream onto the holographic screen; amid the digital waterfall were interwoven the Traditional Chinese Medicine group's Zi Wu Liu Zhu hourly parameters.

The first time Wang Qishan saw this image, he said: "How was this image made? Can you send it to our TCM group?"

Hearing this, Fang Ziye's cardiac muscle fibers nearly fibrillated—he barely stopped himself from cursing "sissy"!

What time is it now? You're still thinking about looking at pictures?

"Dean Chen's blood oxygen has currently returned to normal; Professor Tan recommends continuing prophylactic anticoagulation!"

"Strive to resolve the thrombus early via anticoagulant heparinization."

"Professor Wang, what's your opinion?" Fang Ziye asked Wang Qishan's view.

Dean Chen Song said before to prioritize the TCM group's herbal formula!

"Dean Chen has already taken the medicine down; it's just that his condition is hard to diagnose right now, may change at any moment, so the effect won't be very obvious."

"Otherwise the Fish-Soaring Pulse wouldn't have been recorded in the ancient texts."

"Dr. Chen Guangbai, what do you think?" Wang Qishan didn't dare decide alone either.

"Take it one step further and continue pattern differentiation!"

"We'll record data first; I don't want my father's sacrifice to be in vain. He right now?" Chen Guangbai's voice was suddenly cut off there.

Chen Song's voice came from inside the door, carrying the texture of sandpaper grinding metal: "'Living-dead pulse'... back then at Chosin hu, there was a."

"Beep-beep-beep-beep" the old man's voice was suddenly cut off by the monitoring alarm; all display screens flared red simultaneously.

Hearing the alarm, everyone's discussion stopped at once; Fang Ziye rushed out the door, hearing the old man's last conscious whisper: "Remember, at the staircase's end is the Yin-Yang Bridge."

The corridor's emergency lights stretched the shadow of Chen Song's raised hand, casting a giant black question mark on the glass curtain wall.

"Emergency blood test, check electrolytes! ~"

"Pay attention to blood pressure and heart rate!" Fang Ziye subconsciously looked at the nurse inputting medical orders.

"Sinus rhythm."

"Oxygen saturation 96.5%!"

"Blood pressure 98/65mmhg!"

The cardiac monitor displayed sinus rhythm, but when Fang Ziye palpated, he could still feel the ladder tremor in Chen Song's radial artery.

Luo Tingzhu's anesthesia record instrument printed out three meters of waveform paper; on the frequency spectrum analysis chart at the very end, the 16hz abnormal harmonic was continuously strengthening.

"Doctor Fang," Chen Song's eyelids suddenly twitched, his amber pupils gleaming with metallic luster under the ceiling lights, "did you touch my 'Life-Death Steps'?"

The old man's right hand hung in the air making twisting needle technique movements; the trajectory his fingertips traced coincided exactly with the abnormal band on the spectrum chart.

Nie Mingxian chewed his tenth mint candy, inputting new parameters on the ecmo control screen.

The centrifugal pump's hum suddenly changed frequency.

At the same time, Chen Xiqian rushed into the monitoring room clutching the "Pulse Classic," just in time to see Grandpa's monitoring waveform piece together strange symbols like an ancient qin score on the screen; her eyes grew even redder...

"Doctor Fang,"

"Did you touch my 'Life-Death Steps'?" Chen Song's unconscious voice rang out again.

Fang Ziye's eye sockets suddenly reddened; for a moment he didn't know how to answer Chen Song's question.

How could he touch it?

He doesn't even know how to touch it, so how could he touch it?

But at this moment, Chen Song seemed to already be in an inexplicable "coma" state, still unconsciously murmuring softly...

"Dean Chen, I'm sorry."

"Sorry... I don't know how..." Fang Ziye's face was full of self-blame.

Chen Guangbai and Wang Qishan took Chen Song's pulse from left and right, their gazes shifting over Fang Ziye, yet they didn't blame Fang Ziye either.

(Chapter End)