41: Chapter 41: Treating Mom's Illness, and Incidentally Conquering the Cancer Problem

After hanging up the phone with Dean Zhong, Jiang Chen hadn't even had a chance to catch his breath when the phone in his hand began to vibrate like a death knell.

This time, it wasn't some big shot, but the number for the emergency department of the First Hospital of Tianhai City.

"Hello?"

Jiang Chen answered the phone, his heart skipping a beat.

From the other end of the receiver came the anxious and heavy voice of the attending physician, Director Wang, with the background filled with the noisy alarms of medical equipment:

"Mr. Jiang, you had better come over immediately."

"Your mother's condition has suddenly worsened. The cancer cells have spread to her lungs, causing multi-organ failure, compounded by electrolyte disturbances from uremia... The situation is very grim."

"We are currently performing emergency resuscitation, but you need to prepare yourself... for the worst."

Prepare for the worst.

These few words were like a heavy hammer, smashing down hard on Jiang Chen's skull, shattering the immense pride he had just felt from "creating a sun."

This was reality.

Outside, he was a force to be reckoned with, forcing aircraft carriers to stop and tinkering with nuclear fusion by hand, treated like a national treasure by the country. Yet, back home, he was still just an ordinary son who couldn't even save his own mother's life.

"Wait for me! You must hold on!"

Jiang Chen grabbed his car keys and rushed out of the villa like a gust of wind.

The engine of the Hongqi H9 let out a shrill roar, speeding to 200 km/h on the winding mountain road in the dead of night.

While driving, Jiang Chen operated his phone with one hand, opening the only straw he had left to clutch—'Civilization Revival.'

Money couldn't save a life, and current medical technology couldn't either.

But the Wasteland could!

Although that world was devastated, its biomedical technology was shockingly advanced. After all, in that place, humanity had to face high-intensity radiation and genetic mutations every day; without some real capability, they would have gone extinct long ago.

"Wanqiu! Wanqiu!"

Jiang Chen typed frantically into the dialogue box, his fingers trembling, "Emergency help! Do you have any kind of... medicine that can treat systemic cellular failure, or specifically target malignant tumors?"

"No matter the cost, even if I have to sacrifice my life to you, that's fine! Hurry!"

At this moment in the Wasteland, it was just dawn.

Jiang Wanqiu was wearing that 'breathable tactical pajama' and supervising the soldiers' morning exercises on the parade ground. Upon receiving the message from the Father God, which carried terror and despair, her expression changed abruptly. The murderous aura that erupted in that instant made the surrounding soldiers instantly silent as cicadas in winter.

The Father God is in trouble!

"Get out of my way!"

Jiang Wanqiu shoved aside Grand Commander Lei Zhen, who was blocking her path, and rushed into the 'Old Era Medical Repository' that she regarded as a forbidden zone.

It was something she had just dug out with her people from the ruins of a Grade-A tertiary hospital, containing the top-tier medical supplies of the Old Era.

[Jiang Wanqiu (Anxious): Father God, do not panic! Wanqiu is here!]

[Jiang Wanqiu: Targeting malignant tumors? Is that the genetic disease the Old Era called "cancer"? In the late Gaia Civilization, that disease had already been conquered!]

[Jiang Wanqiu: I found it! This is the 'Nano-Targeted Repair Capsule' used by the Old Era military! It was originally used to treat genetic collapse and cellular necrosis caused by high-intensity radiation; dealing with mere cancer is like using a nuclear bomb to swat a mosquito!]

On the screen, Jiang Wanqiu held a delicate little metal box, kneeling before the altar, her gaze devout and firm:

"Father God, please accept this insignificant offering!"

"May the Mother God be safe and healthy!"

[Ding!]

[Received Offering: Military-Grade Nano-Targeted Repair Capsule (S-Grade Medical Supply) x1 box.]

[Description: Contains hundreds of millions of nano-medical robots that can precisely identify and eliminate mutated cells in the body and repair damaged genetic chains. Highly effective; one pill works instantly.]

[Extract?]

"Extract! Extract everything!"

Jiang Chen slammed on the brakes, the car screeching to a halt at the entrance of the hospital's emergency building.

The next second, a cold metal box appeared in his hand.

Opening it, he saw three capsules lying quietly inside, emitting a faint blue glow, looking like some kind of high-tech jelly bean.

There was no manual, no production date.

But Jiang Chen knew, this was his mother's life.

...

Outside the ICU ward, the atmosphere was suffocating.

Director Wang took off his mask, walked out of the ward with a weary face, and shook his head helplessly as he looked at Jiang Chen, who was rushing over covered in sweat.

"Mr. Jiang, we did our best."

"The patient's vital signs are dropping rapidly; her heart rate has already fallen below 40. Now, she is only hanging on by a thread thanks to the ventilator and cardiac stimulants... Go in and see her for the last time."

Jiang Chen didn't speak.

He pushed past Director Wang and strode into the ward.

On the hospital bed, his mother, Liu Yulan, had wasted away until she was unrecognizable, her complexion ashen and paper-thin, her body covered in various tubes. The line on the monitor representing her heartbeat was becoming flatter and flatter, pulsing weakly only every few seconds.

That was the countdown of life fading away.

"Mom..."

Jiang Chen felt his nose sting, but he had no time for sadness.

He took out the metal box and retrieved a blue capsule.

"Mr. Jiang! What are you doing?!"

Director Wang, who had followed him in, saw this scene and was terrified, "The patient is currently in a deep coma; her swallowing function has already been lost! Moreover, in her current physical condition, she can't even handle a sip of water! You are..."

"Shut up!"

Jiang Chen turned back, his bloodshot eyes filled with a ferocious intensity that could eat a person alive, "I am saving my mom!"

"If something happens, I'll take responsibility!"

After saying this, he pried open his mother's mouth and stuffed the capsule inside.

Strangely, the capsule dissolved the moment it entered her mouth.

It didn't get stuck in her throat like an ordinary pill; instead, it instantly turned into a stream of blue light that slid down her esophagus, as if it were alive itself.

Director Wang wanted to stop him, but it was already too late, and he stomped his feet in anger: "Absurd! This is simply absurd! What kind of uncertified product is this? You're going to kill her!"

He turned around to call the nurses to prepare emergency equipment, or perhaps to prepare to pronounce her dead.

However.

Just at the moment he turned around.

"Beep—"

The monitor, which had been emitting a dull alarm sound, suddenly changed its tone.

It was a crisp, powerful, and vibrant electronic sound.

Director Wang froze.

He stiffly turned his neck to look at the screen.

The ECG line, which had been almost flat, suddenly soared upward like a dragon awakened from a blow, forming a towering peak.

"Beep—beep—beep—"

The heart rate began to recover.

40... 50... 60... 75!

In just ten seconds.

Liu Yulan's heart rate not only returned to normal, but it was even as strong as a young person's!

Even more absurd was the blood oxygen saturation, which soared directly from a critical 70% to 99%!

"This... is this instrument broken?"

Director Wang's eyes widened, and he rushed to the bedside like he had seen a ghost, picking up a stethoscope and pressing it against Liu Yulan's chest.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

That was a strong, powerful heartbeat.

Moreover, with every pump of the heartbeat, he could even feel a surge of vibrant life reviving within this withered body. Liu Yulan's originally ashen complexion was becoming rosy at a speed visible to the naked eye, and even on her scalp, which had been left bald by chemotherapy, a layer of faint green stubble seemed to be emerging.

"Cough, cough..."

On the hospital bed, Liu Yulan, who had previously been declared to be in a "deep coma," suddenly frowned and let out a slight cough.

She slowly opened her eyes.

Her eyes were clear, without the slightest cloudiness.

"Chen'er..."

Liu Yulan looked at her son by the bedside; although her voice was still a bit weak, it was full of energy, "What happened to me? Why do I feel... like I suddenly have strength in my body? And my stomach doesn't hurt anymore?"

Jiang Chen held his mother's hand; that hand was no longer cold, but warm.

Tears finally couldn't be held back and fell.

"Mom, it's okay now."

Jiang Chen buried his head in his mother's palm, his voice choked with sobs, "Let's go home."

Beside them.

The stethoscope in Director Wang's hand fell to the floor with a "clatter."

He completely ignored the touching scene of mother and son reuniting, instead rushing to the computer like a madman to pull up the real-time CT scan image that had just been automatically generated.

It was a comparison between the image from a few minutes ago and the current one.

"My God..."

Director Wang looked at those two images, feeling that the medical knowledge he had studied for thirty years had completely collapsed in this moment.

On the first image, the lungs were full of dense white shadows; those were the spreading cancer cells.

And on the second image.

The lungs were as clean as freshly washed glass!

Those cancer cells were like snow meeting the sun, or pests meeting insecticide; in just a few short minutes, they had all dissolved, vanished, and been wiped out!

Not even a trace was left!

"Suicide... Did the cancer cells commit mass suicide?"

Director Wang muttered to himself, clutching his head with both hands, his expression twisted as if he were watching a sci-fi movie, "This is impossible... This isn't scientific... What the hell did she eat? An elixir of immortality?!"

He turned his head abruptly, staring fixedly at the metal box in Jiang Chen's hand that he hadn't had time to put away, his eyes glowing with a green light more terrifying than a hungry wolf.

"Mr. Jiang! That medicine... do you have any more?!"

"Even if it's just a crumb! Give it to me! I need to take it for analysis!"

Jiang Chen stuffed the box into his pocket and glanced at him coldly:

"It's gone."

"This is a secret ancestral recipe; it's passed down to men but not women, and passed to insiders but not outsiders."

"Director Wang, please write a discharge certificate; my mom is hungry, and I'm going to take her to eat braised pork."

Director Wang: "..."

Braised pork?

Eating braised pork right after coming out of the ICU?

This is a second insult to medicine!

But looking at Liu Yulan, who was already able to sit up on her own and pull out the tubes, Director Wang opened his mouth but couldn't say a single word of rebuttal.

He knew.

After tonight, the entire medical world would be turned upside down.