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

After that CNN episode aired, the entire American medical community was in an uproar.

Supporters, opponents, and fence-sitters argued fiercely in various academic and social settings.

The first thing the Mayo Clinic's registration office does every day when it opens is to clear out fax paper and then register the newly received registration numbers.

The editorial department of The Washington Post's medical section.

Emily Sanders was slumped over her workstation, her headphone cord dangling from the computer tower into her ears, while a videotape copied from a colleague played on a loop on the screen.

BBC documentary, "Heart of the East".

The image quality isn't great; a lot of color information was lost during the copying process.

But the outline of the young woman in the white coat in the operating room was still clear.

Emily pressed the rewind button.

The scene then returns to the pre-operative preparation stage.

The Chinese female doctor is giving a child a final check-up.

The child's lips are purple.

Emily stared at those purple lips for a long time.

She dragged the progress bar to the post-operative recovery segment.

The same child was carried out of the ward by his mother and waved at the camera.

Her lips turned pink.

Emily's fingers hovered above the keyboard for a few seconds.

She dragged the progress bar back and watched the pre-operative footage again.

Then wait until after the surgery.

Purple, pink.

Purple, pink.

She rewound the tape seven times.

On the eighth time, she paused the video and zoomed in.

At maximum magnification, the pixels are blurred into mosaic blocks, but the faint pink hue is still discernible.

Emily took off her headphones and pulled the list of sick children from the documentary's folder.

Her finger slid down the list and stopped at a name.

Julian Werner.

German nationality.

Diagnosis: Congenital left ventricular myocompactment disorder.

Post-operative condition: Recovered and discharged from the hospital.

Emily picked up the landline phone on the table, opened the address book, and started dialing.

When the overseas call was connected, it was six o'clock in the morning in Berlin.

The phone rang eight times before it was answered.

"Hello, who is this?"

"Mr. Werner, this is Emily Sanders from The Washington Post. I'm so sorry to disturb your rest."

"...The Post?" Carl's voice became more clear-headed.

"I'd like to know about your child's medical treatment in China." "Is it about that doctor in China?"

"Yes." Emily held the microphone, trying to keep her tone professional. "I'd like to know about Julian's current recovery progress."

There was a rustling sound coming from the other end of the phone, as if Carl was getting up and getting out of bed.

A few seconds later, the sound of a door being gently pushed open came from inside.

"Wait a minute," Carl said in a low voice, "I'll go check on him."

Emily waited.

About half a minute later, Karl spoke again.

This time, there was something strange in his voice, like laughter, or like a dazed feeling of not having fully emerged from sleep.

"He was still asleep, lying on his side, hugging the little wooden donkey that the Chinese child had given him."

Emily's pen rested on the interview notebook, but didn't fall.

"Mr. Werner, could you tell me about his current physical condition?"

He played football last week.

Carl's English was halting and disjointed.

"During the school's soccer class, he ran, he ran for a long time."

Karl's voice suddenly stopped.

"He used to have to squat down and catch his breath after walking 20 meters. The doctor said he would never be able to run in his life."

Emily put down her pen.

"And now?"

"Now he pesters me to take him to the park every day. He can ride a bicycle now." Carl took a breath.

Emily gripped the bottom of the microphone with her right hand.

"Before the surgery, I was always afraid he wouldn't wake up when he slept. Every morning, the first thing I did was touch his fingers to see if they were cold."

"His fingers are warm now, and his toes are warm too."

Emily didn't ask any further questions.

She held the microphone, listening to the static and Karl's heavy breathing in the transoceanic line.

After a while, she spoke.

The voice was half a octave lower than before.

"Mr. Werner, one last question."

"Please speak."

Do you think that Chinese doctor is truly capable of doing things that others cannot?

There was silence for a few seconds on the other end of the phone.

Karl answered slowly, one word at a time, with that characteristic German seriousness.

"Ms. Sanders, I am not a medical expert. I do not understand the standards and certifications you are talking about."

But my son is alive and healthy now.

"That's true."

When Emily hung up the phone, a drop of water was clinging to the back of her hand.

She didn't wipe it, but directly opened the computer and started typing the business trip application form.

Destination: Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.

Subject: To provide full coverage of the Huaxia Standards Academic Exchange Conference.

She typed a line in the "Remarks" section at the end of the application form, then deleted it.

The deleted line read: My daughter is three years old and has a ventricular septal defect. We can't afford to wait.

the same day.

Mayo Clinic.

When Stephen's secretary pushed the door open for the fourth time, he was reviewing next week's work schedule.

"Professor, the registrar's office just finished compiling today's data."

"How much?"

"Two thousand three hundred and twelve people."

Stephen stopped writing.

"The main hall, with 1,200 rooms, plus the second hall with 800, is already full. The registration supervisor is asking how to handle the extra 300-plus people."

Stephen put the pen on the table and rubbed his temples.

"Add a third room. Only turn on the audio, no cameras."

The secretary nodded and made a note of it, then turned to leave.

"Wait a moment."

Stephen took a form out of the drawer.

Statistics on the sources of the number of applicants.

He glanced at it, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Cleveland, Mount Sinai... all the top 20 medical schools and teaching hospitals in the United States received applications.

There are also frontline attending physicians from twelve community hospitals.

And more than forty registered journalists.

The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, CBS, and the Associated Press.

Stephen put the form back in the drawer.

After the secretary left, he sat for a while and then opened the safe under the table.

The combination lock knob turned three times, and the cabinet door popped open.

The brown paper bag is still inside.

He pulled it out, untied the knot, and spread the documents inside out on the table.

The first part consists of several brand-new ultrasound prints and contrast images.

All the laboratory data pointed to one result: left ventricular hypoplasia, mitral atresia, ventricular septal defect, and severe aortic arch constriction.

These four fatal deformities are superimposed on a four-month-old baby named 9087 in the intensive care unit.

This also became the crucial test he was preparing to throw at the Chinese doctor.

He put the documents back into the brown paper bag, tied the rope, and put it back in the safe.

When the cabinet door is closed, the knob makes a slight metallic clanging sound.

Stephen stood up, grabbed his suit jacket, and walked out of the office.

He didn't go home.

Turn left in the corridor, pass through two safety doors, and enter the neonatal intensive care unit.

The lights inside the glass door were dimmed, and the incubators were arranged in two rows.

Stephen stood in the corridor, looking through the glass.

In the innermost incubator, baby number 9087 is sleeping.

No, saying "sleep" is not accurate.

He was covered in tubes, and his chest heaved with each rise and fall, creating a noticeable cavitation. The numbers on the blood oxygen monitor fluctuated between 78 and 82.

The skin was bluish-purple.

Encased in cold instruments, this tiny life resembled a mutilated specimen that could cool completely at any moment.

The nurse on duty came out and saw Stephen standing at the door, and paused for a moment.

"Professor? Still here so late?"

Stephen waved his hand.

The nurse wanted to say something, but then swallowed it back.

She knew about this case, and all the nurses in the intensive care unit knew about it. The family had already rejected the suggestion to give up treatment twice, and the child was just hanging on like that, dying day by day.

Stephen stood there for about two minutes.

Then he turned and left.

Take three steps.

"If she can really save this child."

The voice was very soft, as if it were being spoken to oneself.

"I'll be the first to sign."