57: Chapter 57 Mysterious Surgery!

Early in the morning, Su Ye walked on the way to the hospital.

He had spent the entire night thinking until his scalp felt numb, yet he hadn't come up with any reliable way to make money. He was poor in his last life and remained poor in this one; ultimately, he just wasn't cut out for business.

He finished his breakfast.

"Payment of 43 yuan successful..."

This was already the result of Su Ye showing restraint. As he progressed further along the Transcendent Path, his physical body's demand for energy grew larger and larger. He became hungry extremely quickly and had a massive appetite; even a breakfast from a roadside stall made Su Ye grit his teeth in frustration.

"A dignified Transcendent surely won't end up starving to death on the streets, right?"

He shook his head, temporarily suppressing these messy thoughts.

Forget it.

He would go find Old Zhou first.

From that phone call last night, he could hear the gravity in the old man's tone and faintly felt that this surgery might not be simple.

...

The hospital.

It was still early, so there weren't too many people in the corridors. Only morning shift nurses hurried past pushing treatment carts, their soles making crisp, rapid sounds against the floor.

Su Ye followed the location given by Zhou Jingtang and arrived at a secluded little consultation room.

He pushed the door open and entered.

Zhou Jingtang was already sitting there.

The old man was dressed simply today in a white shirt and a gray jacket. Several scans and medical records were spread out before him, and a cup of tea that had long since gone cold sat by the edge of the table. He looked up at Su Ye and nodded, but didn't get to the main topic immediately.

Instead, he raised his hand and pointed to the chair beside him.

"Sit."

Su Ye sat down.

Then, Zhou Jingtang began to speak.

But he didn't start by saying who the patient was; instead, he began lecturing Su Ye, starting from the most basic anatomy of the pulmonary hilum.

The location of the hilum.

The anterior-posterior relationship between the pulmonary artery and the pulmonary vein.

The angle of the main bronchus bifurcation.

The imaging manifestations of old scar tissue.

The difference between chronic foreign body residue and high-density lesions in an open-chest field of view. Zhou Jingtang even explained certain precautions for suturing in great detail, word by word.

Su Ye didn't fully react at first.

But as he listened, he began to understand.

These pieces of knowledge seemed scattered, but in reality, they all pointed toward the same place.

The lungs.

More precisely, the area near the hilum and the scarred lung lobes.

Zhou Jingtang seemed more like he was giving a final briefing, cramming knowledge into Su Ye and using the briefest words to tell him the most valuable things from his decades of clinical experience.

In the operating room, what truly decided life and death was always this kind of experience.

The more Su Ye listened, the more solemn his expression became.

He finally understood why Old Zhou had called him like that last night.

This was no ordinary surgery.

The situation was complex and quite dire. The subject was likely an elderly person with a frail body. Under such circumstances, the surgery itself was extremely difficult.

The old man let out a soft breath, as if only now truly feeling tired. He leaned back slightly and raised a hand to rub his brow.

He was old.

Even if his spirit could still hold up, that fatigue seeping out from his bones ultimately couldn't be hidden.

"Teacher, I've remembered it all."

Zhou Jingtang's movements paused slightly. He looked up, glanced at Su Ye, and said nothing.

What was taught today was too precious, so Su Ye addressed him as 'Teacher' with great sincerity.

Zhou Jingtang's expression turned serious again.

"Regarding the person about to undergo surgery, I only received the call from the province last night. If nothing goes wrong, according to the timeline, he will be transferred here by plane in an hour."

Su Ye sat up a bit straighter.

"This person is a veteran of the provincial military."

"When he was young, he performed great deeds. He truly went to the battlefield and survived through hardship. Later, in a battle, bullet fragments were left in his lungs."

At this point, Zhou Jingtang reached out and pushed a scan toward Su Ye.

"Initially, those fragments weren't a big problem. They were too deep and the risk was too high, so they could only be treated conservatively. But as the years passed, the old injuries repeatedly pulled at the surrounding tissue, making the lesion area increasingly complex. Now, new changes have suddenly appeared: chest tightness, coughing blood, shortness of breath, and severe pain during deep breaths. Most troublesome of all, the high-density shrapnel that should be visible on the scan is becoming increasingly blurred at the edges."

"His current situation is extremely grave."

Su Ye looked down at the scan.

High-density shadows.

Traces of old wounds.

Involvement of the hilar region.

There were also several shadows distributed in an extremely eerie manner; they looked like metal, yet didn't seem to be pure metal, mixed together in a smoke-like pattern.

Su Ye's heart immediately sank.

It really wasn't simple.

Zhou Jingtang continued:

"This surgery carries immense danger."

"Once the chest is opened, we won't just be facing the simple task of removing a foreign body. In that area, blood vessels, bronchi, scars, and old injuries are all tangled together. One wrong move will lead to massive hemorrhaging. Any more serious, and the patient won't make it off the table—not to mention the subject's physical condition is already abysmal."

He paused here.

His voice remained calm, but within that calmness, a hint of undisguised heaviness had leaked through.

"Performing surgery is physical labor."

"I am old now."

"I'm not afraid of you laughing at me, but I'm truly worried I won't be able to hold out halfway through."

Su Ye's expression changed instantly.

For someone like Old Zhou to say he might not hold out meant that this surgery was so severe that even someone of his level had to prepare for the worst in advance.

Zhou Jingtang seemed to have guessed the shock in Su Ye's heart and waved his hand.

"It can't be helped. At this stage, this surgery must be done by me. The few old fellows qualified to perform this surgery are in even worse physical condition than I am."

He spoke plainly, but Su Ye's respect only deepened.

To put it bluntly.

With a patient of this weight and such a dangerous situation, ordinary doctors—no matter what kind of professor they were—wouldn't dare take it on. If something went wrong and that old man didn't get up from the operating table, the consequences would be more than an average person could bear.

Yet the old man before him was taking everything upon his own shoulders.

"What kind of look is that? Treating the sick and saving lives is merely a duty. As for the consequences, those are matters for after I'm gone."

Zhou Jingtang began to explain the patient's symptoms, history of old injuries, imaging changes, and consultation opinions to Su Ye, point by point.

Su Ye listened extremely intently.

The more he heard, the more solemn his heart became.

This was a surgery dancing on the edge of life and death.

After Old Zhou finished speaking, the room fell silent for a few seconds.

Su Ye slowly exhaled, and his gaze finally steadied.

"I understand. When the time comes, I will not slacken for a moment."

Zhou Jingtang looked at him, a hint of satisfaction finally appearing in the depths of his eyes.

This was also the first time Su Ye would participate in a surgery from such a position, and right from the start, it was a surgery of such immense weight.

To say he wasn't nervous would be a lie.

The background of this surgery wasn't simple either.

The weight of the military.

The pressure from the province.

The old man's reputation.

And the unknown within that lung where old injuries and anomalies were intertwined.