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

The monitor emitted a piercing long beep, and the red light flashed frequently.

The ST segment remains depressed. The myocardium is suffering from severe ischemia, and the displaced shrapnel has pressed against the coronary artery wall.

"Enlarge the wound! We must expand the field of vision immediately!" Director He shouted instinctively, gripping the retractor and trying to apply more force.

"stop!"

Ye Zhen grabbed Director He's wrist, directly stopping his movement.

"The incision can't be widened any further." Ye Zhen stared at the beating heart. "The tension around the shrapnel is barely balanced right now. If you pull harder on the sternum, the pressure inside the pericardium will be released, the shrapnel will lose its support point, and it will sever the coronary artery directly. Blood will spurt out, and even a miracle won't be able to fix it."

Director He broke out in a layer of white sweat and quickly withdrew his strength.

"Li Hong, administer esmolol, bring the heart rate down to below 90. Maintain coronary perfusion at 80. Not a little less." Ye Zhen spoke very quickly. "Lin Yi, use double suction tubes to completely aspirate any blood seepage from the edges of the field of vision, not a single drop left."

She turned to Director He and said, "Hold the hook properly and keep it at the current angle. Without my order, you are not allowed to flinch."

Director He's Adam's apple bobbed as he gripped the hook handle tightly, barely daring to breathe too heavily.

Outside the laboratory, hurried footsteps and shouts of arguing approached. Several high-ranking officers from the base, having received word, attempted to force their way in.

"Commander Gu, move aside! We need to go in and check the situation..."

"No." Gu Zheng glanced at the group. "This is a critical surgical area. Every unnecessary word inside reduces the patient's chances of survival. You should all wait outside."

The corridor was deathly silent. The cold, menacing aura brought from the battlefield froze everyone in their tracks.

Inside the door.

Ye Zhen lightly pressed her left index and middle fingers against the surface of her heart. Contraction and relaxation. With each high-frequency beat, the shrapnel caused tiny vibrations within the fibrous membrane.

"The heart rate has dropped to 95 beats per minute!" Li Hong stared at the screen.

"Not enough. Administer another two milligrams." Ye Zhen stared at the shrapnel. "We need to take advantage of the pause during ventricular diastole. That's the only window of opportunity."

Ye Zhen picked up the Siemens precision micro-tweezers with her right hand and inserted them into the incision.

She gripped the end of the shrapnel with the tip of the tweezers. She didn't pull it out immediately, but applied only a very small pull.

Resistance came immediately.

"The barb is stuck." Ye Zhen loosened the tweezers and observed the local tissue reaction. "We can't pull it back along the original wound path. The small hook of the barb is embedded in the pericardial fibers. If we pull it out any further, the fibrous layer along with the outer membrane will be torn apart."

Such extreme situations cannot be found in any textbook.

"Lin Yi, blunt needle number three." Ye Zhen changed tactics on the spot.

Lin Yi handed over the instruments. He noticed that Ye Zhen's hand was incredibly steady as she took the needles, showing no signs of fatigue from her continuous travels.

"No need to pull it out," Ye Zhen instructed. "Disengage it in the opposite direction first."

Ye Zhen held a blunt needle in her left hand and pressed it precisely against the exposed base of the shrapnel's barbs. With her right hand, she used micro-tweezers to re-lock the shrapnel.

"Get ready to suck blood. There can't be an error of even a millimeter."

Her heartbeat continued. During the thirty-fifth diastolic pause, Ye Zhen moved.

Instead of pulling outwards, the micro-tweezers were gently pushed downwards along the angle of the barbs. Immediately afterwards, the tip of the tweezers rotated half a circle with exquisite precision.

This exchange relies entirely on anatomical prediction. Too much force, and it pierces a blood vessel; too little force, and the barb remains.

The moment the shrapnel rotated, capillaries ruptured, and blood gushed out, covering the operating area.

Lin Yi's hand holding the suction tube froze for a moment, just as he was about to turn his head to find the bleeding point.

"Hold on! Don't move!" Ye Zhen didn't even look up. "Keep sucking just one millimeter away from the edge of the shrapnel."

Lin Yi gritted his teeth, fixing the suction tube in place. The blood was drained, and his vision cleared again.

Li Hong stared intently at the blood pressure curve: "My blood pressure is still dropping!"

"Norepinephrine, 1 mg, push now!"

Li Hong's hands trembled, but she didn't stop moving. This was the first time she had independently determined intravenous access and safeguarded the circulatory system during a national-level emergency rescue.

The fraction of a second that the thirty-seventh diastolic interval arrives.

Ye Zhen noticed that the resistance under the blunt needle in her left hand had disappeared. The barb had come free from the pericardial fibers.

"Decoupling successful."

Before the next heart contraction, Ye Zhen used her right hand to gently lift the heart upwards in the opposite direction with small tweezers.

The shrapnel left the adventitia of the coronary artery, bringing with it a trickle of blood.

Ye Zhen tossed aside the blunt needle and took the non-invasive sutures handed to her by the nurse. In the intervals between heartbeats, a needle pierced through the tiny, broken wound, tied a knot, and applied pressure.

The bleeding has stopped.

On the monitor, the ST segment rises and the waveform tends to stabilize.

Clang.

The deadly shrapnel with barbs landed in the stainless steel bent disc with a crisp sound.

In the underground laboratory, Lin Yi, Li Hong, and the nurses beside them all breathed a sigh of relief. Director He's legs went weak, and he almost knelt on the floor.

Just as everyone was preparing to celebrate the miraculous success of the surgery, Ye Zhen threw the needle holder back onto the tray.

"Don't relax, the surgery isn't over yet." Ye Zhen's voice remained calm, without the slightest hint of joy at a successful completion.

"Lin Yi, flush the chest cavity with saline solution."

"Wash away any tiny gunpowder residue and blood clots that may remain inside."

Ye Zhen took the suction device and, with the help of the warm saline solution poured by Lin Yi, carefully cleaned every corner of the pleural cavity.

"Pericardial drainage tube, size 32." Ye Zhen held out her hand.

She led a silicone drainage tube with side holes out of the intercostal space, placed it precisely in the lowest part of the pericardial cavity, and then secured it firmly to the chest wall with sutures.

"The mediastinal drainage tube should also be prepared."

After placing the two life-saving drainage tubes, Ye Zhen glanced at the still stubbornly beating heart.

"Prepare to close the chest." Ye Zhen said calmly.

"Steel wire, needle holder."

For this type of open-chest surgery, the sternum has been completely sawed open, and closing the chest is not a simple matter of stitching up two stitches.

Ye Zhen took the thick stainless steel wire and, as if threading a needle, used tremendous hand strength to pass it through both sides of the hard sternum.

The bones rubbed together, producing a teeth-grinding "crackling" sound.

She threaded six steel wires through the wires, then crossed her hands and twisted them tightly.

The sternum, which was originally split in two, was tightly closed and fixed together. Ye Zhen used wire cutters to cut off the excess length and folded the tip back to bury it deep in the periosteum to prevent it from puncturing the skin.

"Use absorbable suture No. 1 to suture the pectoralis major fascia and subcutaneous tissue."

Ye Zhen's hands moved extremely fast, and her stitches were fine and even, ensuring a tight fit between the muscle layers.

Finally, the surface skin is sutured.

After the last stitch was completed and the final surgical knot was tied, Ye Zhen took the gauze and sterile dressing and neatly covered the wound.

"The first 48 hours after surgery are critical. The period of myocardial edema has not yet passed. Only if no complications occur can we truly say that we have survived the ordeal," Ye Zhen instructed.

Only then did Ye Zhen truly breathe a sigh of relief, take a half step back, and leave the operating table.

She took off her blood-stained gloves and turned to walk towards the pool in the corner.