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

Half an hour later, the call was connected.

"Mr. Chen, I am Williams."

Chen Yuanshan's voice came from the other end of the telephone line, neither too close nor too far, polite yet shrewd.

"Sir, it's been a long time since we last contacted each other. Is there anything I can help you with?"

Williams glanced down at the note on the table. He had spent fifteen minutes revising the wording four times. The first three drafts read "academic exchange," "technical cooperation," and "observation and inspection," but he crossed them all out in the end.

On the fourth try, he wrote two words.

Learn.

Williams flipped the note over and over again. The corners of the note were already frayed from his twisting.

"Mr. Chen, I would like to apply to lead a tour group to China."

"What kind of group is it?"

Williams gripped the telephone receiver tightly. At sixty-two years old, his palms were sweating.

"Study Group"

He slammed the sticky note on the table, as if to bolster his courage.

"I hope to take three surgeons from the Royal Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery in the UK to the Beicheng Military General Hospital to learn from Dr. Ye Zhen about her autologous pericardial replacement technique published in the Chinese Journal of Surgery."

There was a three-second silence on the other end of the phone.

Three seconds is considered a long silence in diplomatic settings.

"Sir, you just said—study?"

Chen Yuanshan's tone remained unchanged, but the last syllable rose slightly by half a tone. This diplomat, who was used to weathering many storms in international settings, was clearly taken aback for a moment.

"Yes. To study."

"Mr. Chen, I have been performing surgeries in this field for thirty years. I have opened up more chest cavities than most people have eaten bread."

He paused, his gaze falling on the Chinese Journal of Surgery on the table.

"But what Dr. Ye wrote in that paper made me realize for the first time that I might have taken a detour over the past thirty years."

There was a moment of silence in the office. Outside the window, the rain in London was still falling, the raindrops pattering against the glass, as if counting the beats he had missed over the past thirty years.

"So I want to learn it."

"I do not represent any company, nor do I represent any commercial interests. All expenses are to be borne by the individual."

"If Dr. Ye is willing to teach, my colleagues and I are willing to pay the tuition."

Williams swallowed hard and added one last thing.

"If she's unwilling to teach—we can just watch and listen from the sidelines."

When he said those words, even he felt it was a little unreal. A lifetime fellow of the Royal Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery, offering to be an auditor for a Chinese girl in her early twenties.

If this gets back to Brompton, Anderson and his crew will probably laugh their heads off.

But Williams didn't care. He had seen the knife.

The weight of that knife was enough for him to trample his dignity underfoot.

Chen Yuanshan chuckled on the other end of the phone. It wasn't a polite laugh; he genuinely found it amusing.

"Sir, the equipment and artificial blood vessels you brought were a great help during Zhao Lanlan's surgery last time. I'll inquire about Dr. Ye for you first."

"But there's one thing I can tell you in advance."

Chen Yuanshan's voice took on a different tone, his steady, official manner now tinged with a sincere reminder.

"Dr. Ye doesn't care about connections, he only cares about attitude. If you go there putting on airs, you probably won't even get into the operating room."

"I know."

Williams' gaze fell on the enamel mug on the table. White with red stars, it was the only thing he had brought back from Beijing that hadn't been "confiscated."

It wasn't because Gu Zheng showed mercy, but because this thing wasn't worth much.

Thinking of this, the corner of his mouth twitched.

"Mr. Chen, there's one more thing I need to remind you of."

"What is it?"

Williams' voice slowed down, as if he were weighing the weight of each word.

"As far as I know, a medical device company is forming a so-called academic evaluation team, which is also preparing to go to China."

"They claimed it was an academic inquiry, but their real purpose was to question the reliability of Dr. Ye's plan and try to prevent this procedure from being promoted internationally."

Chen Yuanshan's smile faded. The static in the telephone line seemed to subside slightly.

"Sir, do you mean someone is going to China to cause trouble for Dr. Ye?"

"That's one way to understand it."

Williams picked up the enamel mug and downed the last mouthful of the now-cold jasmine tea. The tea leaves clung to his tongue, making him wince slightly from the bitterness.

A British knight wanted to tip off a Chinese doctor.

Williams himself found the whole thing absurd. But one thought kept running through his mind: the diagram of the teardrop-shaped patch, and the differential pressure data that could rewrite textbooks.

It would be truly absurd if this technique were nipped in the bud by commercial interests.

The sound of Chen Yuanshan flipping through a notebook came through the telephone line, the pages rustling a few times.

"Sir, when is the earliest you can depart?"

"Tomorrow. London to Beijing, with a stopover in Moscow."

"There are four of us, all paying for our own accommodation. We just need your help to arrange a place to stay, preferably close to the Beicheng Military Region General Hospital."

He paused for a moment, then smiled slightly.

"It doesn't matter if the conditions are a little worse."

"Sir, I'll contact North City right away."

"But I need to let Dr. Ye's wife know first."

"Her lover? You mean that..."

"Yes, that's him."

Chen Yuanshan coughed.

The information contained in that cough was greater than that in a diplomatic note.

Williams' hand holding the receiver froze.

A picture flashed through his mind instantly.

Outside Quanjude restaurant in Beijing, the cold wind stung his face. He clutched a paper package containing a neatly sliced ​​duck carcass. His pockets were empty, his hands were empty, and even his Montblanc Meisterstück gold pen, which had been with him for twenty years, had silently changed hands at some point during that Peking duck meal.

That wasn't a gift.

That was blatant robbery in broad daylight.

And he, a knight of the great British Empire, actually smiled and shook hands with the other party after being robbed.

But he's halfway around the world, so who can he appeal to for justice?

"Mr. Chen." Williams took a deep breath, his voice carrying a sense of resignation born of hardship.

"May I ask if Commander Gu will be picking me up at the airport this time?"

"Highly likely."

There was a five-second silence on both ends of the phone.

In those five seconds, Williams felt as if he could sense the iron grip of Beijing Airport reaching out towards his shoulder from 8,000 kilometers away.

"Mr. Chen, could you change your flight to the day after tomorrow?"

"What's wrong?"

"I need to go to the department store."

Williams' voice was somber and calm, like a veteran giving his last instructions.

"Purchase a batch of... items."

He paused, then added.

"I'm bringing two more suitcases this time."

Chen Yuanshan finally couldn't hold back and burst out laughing on the other end of the phone.

"Sir, let me put it this way: consider it a... long-term investment."

"invest?"

Williams repeated the word bitterly.

He recalled Ye Zhen's calm and composed face when she plotted against him at Quanjude. Her eyes were clear and cold, without a trace of apology, and the corners of her mouth were even slightly curved, as if to say—"Those who are willing will take the bait."

He recalled Gu Zheng patting his shoulder and laughing like a brother. The force of the pat almost made half of his body go numb.

That couple.

One was wiping lives on the operating table, the other was seizing supplies off the operating table. Their coordination was flawless; they didn't even need to exchange a glance.

To be fair, what I learned from Ye Zhen's surgery was definitely worth a whole box of equipment.

They even made a profit.

Williams hung up the phone and sat in his walnut chair for a long time. The chair creaked, as if sighing for him.

The rain in London outside the window had stopped sometime ago. A very narrow crack appeared in the horizon, which had been gloomy all day, and grayish-white light shone in, falling on the cover of the Chinese Journal of Surgery on the table.

But Williams knew that this thin magazine was about to stir up a storm in the entire European cardiothoracic surgery community.

He was preparing to fly there to pay his tuition.

Williams shook his head, but the corners of his mouth curved slightly.

He picked up the newly bought Parker pen, a cheap one, the feel of which was worlds apart from a Montblanc. On the calendar, he carefully wrote two words in the designated space.

Beijing.

Bring enough luggage.

After writing it, he stared at the two words for a few seconds, then added a line of small print below them.

Lock the suitcase.