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

After the patient left, the archives room finally returned to its quiet state.

Zhao Haifeng looked at Ye Zhen with such kindness in his eyes, it was as if he wished he could enshrine her on a shrine and burn three sticks of incense for her.

"Xiao Ye, you must be exhausted!" Zhao Haifeng rubbed his hands together, his face crinkling with a wide smile. "Quickly, go back and get some rest!"

Ye Zhen was indeed tired.

This body is still too weak. After a high-intensity craniotomy and a day of extremely demanding diagnosis, the adrenaline has subsided, and fatigue washes over me like a tide, making even my bones ache.

She didn't stand on ceremony with Zhao Haifeng, nodded, and started packing her things.

After eating at the cafeteria, I returned to my dormitory. The cement floor was gleaming from the mopping. There was a wooden-framed bed, a washbasin stand with peeling green paint next to it, an enamel mug with "Serve the People" printed on it on the table, and even a thermos full of boiling water.

In this day and age, this is considered a pretty good treatment.

Ye Zhen quickly washed up, patted the slightly uncomfortable pillow to loosen it, and crawled into bed.

The quilt was thick, and it smelled of fresh cotton with a dry, sun-dried scent.

Logically, with this level of exhaustion and the comfortable environment, she should fall asleep instantly.

But Ye Zhen couldn't sleep.

She lay flat on the bed, her eyes fixed on the dark yellow water stain on the ceiling left by the leak, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

cold.

It was a very strange feeling. Even though she was covered with a heavy six-pound quilt and the windows were tightly closed, she still felt a sense of emptiness around her. The coldness didn't seep into her skin, but rather emanated from her very bones.

She rolled over and turned to her left.

Not right.

Turn over again, to your right side.

Something still doesn't feel right.

No matter what position I'm in, my back always feels cold, and my arms feel empty, like a puzzle piece is missing.

Ye Zhen sat up irritably and scratched her half-dry hair.

"Damn it."

She muttered a curse under her breath.

Back in the capital, because that scoundrel Gu Zheng insisted on sharing a bed with her, she slept almost all night with her body pressed against that man's chest.

The man's body temperature was frighteningly high, like a human furnace running at full power.

That hard, muscular body, though it was uncomfortable, had a powerful heartbeat and steady breathing that felt like a natural white noise hypnotic.

Now, the stove is gone.

Ye Zhen lay back down, wrapped the blanket tightly around herself, and tried to analyze this abnormal physiological reaction with reason.

"This is a typical case of environment-dependent sleep disorder."

She mentally diagnosed herself.

"Or it could be a temporary malfunction of some kind of thermoregulatory center. After getting used to a high-temperature environment, suddenly returning to normal temperature causes a withdrawal reaction in the body."

"Or it could be a Pavlovian conditioned reflex. Gu Zheng's heart rate is about 60 beats per minute, which is an extremely stable low-frequency vibration. My brain may have mistakenly established a neural connection between this vibration and 'safety'."

The analysis is thorough, scientific, and very Ye Zhen-esque.

If it can be explained clearly using medical terminology, then it's not a problem, it's an illness that needs treatment.

Ye Zhen took a deep breath, forced herself to close her eyes, and began to recall today's surgical plan in her mind, trying to use the tedious anatomical diagrams to combat this inexplicable sense of emptiness.

The first layer is the skin. The second layer is the subcutaneous tissue. The third layer is the galea aponeurotica...

When I got to the periosteum, the image in my mind suddenly changed.

It was no longer a red and white anatomical diagram, but a face with distinct features.

The man had deep-set eyes, a roguish air about him when he smiled, and a gaze so intense it was almost unbearable to look him in the eye.

"Wife, come here, let me hug you."

"Dr. Ye, your hands are life-saving; you saved my life."

"Feeling cold? If you're cold, snuggle into my arms, I won't charge you for heating."

Gu Zheng's deep, magnetic voice seemed to have a penetrating power, echoing in the quiet guesthouse room.

Ye Zhen suddenly opened her eyes, her heart skipping a beat.

It’s over.

This time it's probably not a simple case of "thermal regulation disorder".

She reached out in the darkness and touched the cold sheets beside her.

There was no longer that domineering hand gripping her waist, nor that embrace that, though spouting nonsense, would instinctively protect her head when she turned over.

Ye Zhen buried her face in the pillow and let out a helpless sigh.

"Ye Zhen, Ye Zhen, you actually fell for a mere brat?"

Admit it.

You're not just clinging to the hype, you're missing him.

That feeling of being completely trusted and protected without reservation was like a deadly poison to her, who was used to fighting alone in her previous life, wielding a scalpel and battling in the cold, white tower.

Once you get it, there's no cure.

The next day, Ye Zhen arrived at the archives with dark circles under her eyes.

One night, she finally came up with a solution: fight fire with fire. She would find something to do, keep herself busy, and force herself to forget about that bad guy.

She sat in the rickety wooden chair, a stack of medical records half her height beside her. These were death case files reported by Qingyun County Hospital and various commune health centers over the past five years.

In this era, without electronic databases or ICD codes, all life and death were hastily recorded on these yellowed papers.

"Shh, shh."

Ye Zhen flipped through the pages extremely quickly, her fingers almost blurring into afterimages.

In her previous life, as a top-notch surgeon, she underwent extremely rigorous speed-reading training while studying at Harvard Medical School. The ability to grasp key information at a glance was a fundamental skill.

Initially, she just wanted to help Zhao Haifeng organize the data on complications of surgical procedures.

But as she looked at it, her brows furrowed.

Not right.

One, two, ten...

Ye Zhen's fingers suddenly stopped. She pulled out five medical records from the messy pile of papers and lined them up on the table.

These five people all came from the same place—Dahe Commune, Lanniwan Brigade.

The cause of death was listed as "ascites", "hematemesis", "cirrhosis with ascites", and "failure".

The oldest is 65 years old, and the youngest is only 29.

Ye Zhen picked up the medical record of the twenty-nine-year-old. The deceased was a young woman named Er Ya. The medical record contained only a few lines: *The patient's abdomen was distended; she suddenly vomited a large amount of blood at night and died despite resuscitation efforts.*

"Cirrhosis with portal hypertension, esophageal and gastric variceal bleeding."

Ye Zhen read out the modern medical diagnosis in a low voice.

But in rural areas in the 1980s, cirrhosis usually meant two things: long-term alcoholism or hepatitis B.

Does it have hepatitis? The hepatitis B surface antigen and antibody test results on the medical record are negative.

A 29-year-old woman with a long history of alcoholism? That's impossible.