After being separated from my family, I became a darling of the military region thanks to my medical

The news spread like wildfire, reaching the hospital gate from the second floor of the inpatient department in less than half an hour, and then disappearing into the crowds of people from the surrounding villages and towns who were out for a market.

"Have you heard? That pampered young lady from Beijing wants to drill holes in Old Li's bones!"

"What? Drill holes? Isn't that a carpenter's job? What are human bones made of? Wouldn't they just crumble if you drilled into them?"

"What a terrible thing! This isn't healing, it's courting death!"

Li Dazhu had just squeezed through the hospital gate, clutching the basket of eggs to his chest, when he heard this.

He was a typical farmer, in his early thirties, as tall as an iron tower, with a dark red face, and wearing a tattered cotton-padded jacket with the cotton batting showing through. Upon hearing this, he stumbled, and the basket in his hand, containing the "hard currency" that his family had saved up for half a month, almost flew out of his hands.

"Father!"

Li Dazhu let out a wail and rushed upstairs.

Behind him followed a chubby-faced boy of about six or seven years old, who was also pulling an old woman with a face full of wrinkles. She was Old Li's wife.

The family of three swept into ward 302 like a whirlwind.

The ward was already surrounded by a group of people.

The family members in the next bed, who were bored out of their minds, were cracking sunflower seeds and pointing at Ye Zhen, who was standing by the bed.

"Doctor! Doctor, you can't crawl in!"

As soon as Li Dazhu entered the room, he slammed the basket on the ground, making a cracking sound as the eggshells hit the floor. He took two steps to the bedside, standing in front of Old Li like a wall, his calloused hands waving wildly in the air, veins bulging with anxiety.

"My dad's legs are made of flesh and blood, not wooden stakes cut down from the mountain! You city folks haven't done heavy work, you don't know. If you drill a hole in his bone, how will he ever walk again? He'll break it if he exerts himself!"

Ye Zhen was writing preoperative medical orders on the medical record folder when the pen paused.

She looked up.

The man in front of me was covered in sweat and dirt, his eyes red like a rabbit's—he was both anxious and frightened.

"Are you a family member?" Ye Zhen asked in a low, indifferent voice.

"I'm his eldest son! I'm the one who makes the decisions!" Li Dazhu said, panting heavily as he glared at Ye Zhen.

He was stunned for a moment by that glare.

I was so anxious just now that I didn't see clearly. This doctor... why does he look like a fairy from a New Year's painting? So fair-skinned, and his wrists are so thin that it looks like he could snap them in half with a little force.

Such a delicate girl, wanting to crawl into her father's lap?

Li Dazhu's panic intensified.

"Doctor, we're not going to treat him anymore!" Li Dazhu turned to carry Old Li on his back. "I'm taking my dad home right now! Even if he's lame, at least he'll have a leg left. With you causing this trouble, he might even die!"

"Yeah, Dazhu, let's go."

An elderly woman watching the commotion spat sunflower seed shells on the ground and interjected sarcastically, "I just heard from the nurse that this new female doctor is using your dad as practice. Our lives are cheap, but we can't treat them like this."

"Exactly! Look at those leather shoes she's wearing—does she look like someone who does manual labor?"

The surrounding chatter buzzed around like flies.

Old Li lay on the bed, his face full of bitterness. He looked at his son, then at Ye Zhen, his lips trembling as he couldn't speak.

Ye Zhen closed the medical record folder with a crisp "snap".

The sound wasn't loud, but it inexplicably made one's heart tighten.

"You can leave if you want." Ye Zhen put her hands in the pockets of her white coat, her gaze passing over Li Dazhu and looking at the old woman with a wrinkled face who was wiping away tears. "Go through the discharge procedures, sign something, and you'll be responsible for the consequences."

She paused, her tone remaining flat, as if stating a perfectly simple fact.

"Go home and rest. After three months, the femoral head will collapse, and after six months, the joint will be completely stiff. At that point, it won't just be a limp."

Ye Zhen looked at Li Dazhu, her gaze falling on his rough, cracked hands.

"That's paralysis."

The moment those two words were uttered, the ward fell silent.

Li Dazhu's action of carrying the person on his back froze in mid-air.

Ye Zhen took a step forward, approaching the burly man. She was shorter than Li Dazhu's chin, but her aura made Li Dazhu instinctively shrink back.

"Are there any able-bodied people left in the family?" Ye Zhen asked.

Li Dazhu was stunned: "What?"

"I'm saying, besides you, who else in the family can work in the fields to earn work points? Who else can stay by your bedside 24 hours a day, tending to your father's needs, turning him over, and washing him?"

Ye Zhen spoke slowly, but every word was piercing: "A paralyzed patient needs someone by their side. Are you planning to stop working and stay home to take care of them every day, or will you have your wife take care of them? Or perhaps, your youngest son who's just started school?"

Li Dazhu's mouth was open, as if his throat was stuffed with cotton.

This is a critical problem.

In the countryside, strong laborers are everything. If Dad becomes paralyzed, and someone else has to take care of him, life... life just becomes unbearable.

"But...but that's drilling into bones..." Li Dazhu's momentum weakened considerably. He squatted on the ground, clutching his head, his voice trembling with tears. "That sounds terrifying..."

"Have the tree roots ever rotted?" Ye Zhen suddenly asked.

Li Dazhu raised his head and looked at her blankly.

Ye Zhen pointed to the bare old poplar tree outside the window.

"Your father's leg is like that tree. The blood vessels inside are blocked, and the bones are trapped inside, lacking blood and oxygen, just like the roots of a tree rotting in the soil, unable to breathe."

She took a pen out of her pocket and casually sketched a draft on the newspaper on the bedside table.

With just a few strokes, a vivid image of a tree root leaps off the page.

"What I'm doing now isn't destruction, it's drilling a hole in the tree root to let it breathe, to release the stagnant blood and let fresh blood flow in." Ye Zhen pointed to the "hole," "This is called decompression. If we don't do it, the tree root will rot completely and the whole tree will fall down."

Li Dazhu stared at the picture.

He was skilled at farming; he understood the principle of digging up soil to allow the roots of a tree to breathe when they rotted.

"Then...how can he live?" Li Dazhu's voice trembled.

"If we do it, there's an 80% chance he can save his joints, and by this time next year, he'll be able to get out of bed and feed the chickens." Ye Zhen looked into his eyes, her gaze clear and firm. "If we don't do it, he'll be paralyzed without a doubt."

"Grandpa, the fairy sister will heal you, it definitely won't hurt."

The little boy who had been hiding behind the pillar suddenly poked his head out, his dark, grape-like eyes staring intently at Ye Zhen. "Sister, you're so beautiful, a hundred times prettier than Er Ya from the village entrance."

Tong Yan Wuji.

The previously heavy and suffocating atmosphere was eased by this shout.

Ye Zhen's cool and aloof expression softened slightly.

She crouched down and pulled a White Rabbit milk candy from her pocket—Gu Zheng had insisted on giving it to her to "replenish her low blood sugar."

"Take this and eat it."

Unwrapping the candy, the aroma of milk instantly filled the space filled with the smell of medicine.

Ye Zhen touched the child's tiger-head hat, stood up, and when she looked at the family members again, her gentleness vanished instantly, and she reverted to being the unquestionable surgeon she always was.

"Take a gamble, or accept your fate, the choice is yours."

Old Li, who had been silent all along, suddenly moved in his hospital bed.

He struggled to prop himself up, looking at his son's distressed face, and then at his wife who was still wiping away tears beside him.

In the past six months, this family has been almost brought to ruin because of his leg.

"rule!"

Old Li slammed his hand on the bed, gritting his teeth, his cheeks puffed out. "Dazhu! Listen to the doctor! If we gamble, he'll be a cripple; if we don't, he'll be paralyzed! I believe this little girl!"

"Father..." Li Dazhu's eyes were red.

"Sign!" Old Li roared. "Stop dawdling like a woman! Leave the eggs for the doctor! They're for his brain!"

Li Dazhu wiped his face hard and stood up.

"Doctor, I'll sign!"

Ye Zhen handed over the surgical consent form and the pen.

Li Dazhu looked at his hands, covered in dirt and cracks, then at the gleaming fountain pen that reflected his image. He awkwardly rubbed it against his clothes, hesitant to take it.

"I'm afraid I'll get your pen dirty..."

Ye Zhen didn't pull her hand back, nor did she show the slightest disgust. She simply shoved the pen into that rough, large hand.

"A pen is meant to be used," she said. "I sign my name here."

Li Dazhu held the pen, his hand trembling like a leaf, and wrote his name crookedly, finally pressing a red handprint on it.

At that moment, that thin piece of paper carried the livelihood and hope of a family.