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

The high note still trembled at the end.

Ye Zhen did not respond; instead, she slapped the fax copy onto the blackboard in the center of the demonstration room.

"Complete transposition of the great arteries."

She picked up half a piece of chalk and sketched a simple diagram of a heart on the blackboard.

The chalk struck the blackboard, making a crisp, thumping sound.

"In a normal heart, the right ventricle is connected to the pulmonary artery, and the left ventricle is connected to the aorta."

"This child is completely reversed."

She turned around and glanced at the group of young doctors.

"This means that the oxygen-deprived dark blood that returns to the body bypasses the lungs and is directly and intact returned to the whole body."

"The oxygen-rich red blood in the lungs can only circulate back and forth between the left side of the heart and the lungs."

"Two cycles, independent of each other."

Half a piece of chalk was thrown into the chalk box, and Ye Zhen patted the white dust off her hands.

"I ask you, in this vicious cycle of complete isolation, how did this child survive to be five months old?"

A layer of sweat appeared on Gao Yuan's forehead, and he stammered as he spoke.

"It's a concomitant malformation."

"He definitely has a hole in his heart, either a ventricular septal defect or an atrial septal defect, or his ductus arteriosus has not closed."

"He can barely survive if a little blood leaks through these few passages."

"That's right."

Ye Zhen braced her hands on the edge of the table.

"But he can't hold on any longer."

The air in the demonstration room seemed to have stopped moving.

"This is not an interventional procedure, but a full-scale open-chest surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass."

Ye Zhen straightened up, her voice striking everyone's eardrums.

"I will break down the surgical procedure in detail over the next two days, and everyone needs to memorize the anatomical diagrams."

"yes!"

Several young doctors responded in unison.

Next Wednesday afternoon, a red carpet will be laid out on the tarmac at Beijing Capital International Airport.

The Royal Air Force plane landed smoothly, and Mrs. Thatcher stepped down the gangway, instantly triggering a flurry of flashbulbs from foreign media reporters.

However, the atmosphere was completely different four hours later at the Beicheng Military Region General Hospital.

All the sliding doors outside the emergency building were pushed open.

Gu Zheng, dressed in a crisp military uniform, led his team to set up two safety barriers, keeping the onlookers and their families more than 100 meters away.

Zhou Hai stood on the steps, frequently glancing down at his watch and wiping away sweat.

"Beep beep—beep beep—"

The sound of police sirens came from the street corner.

Three police motorcycles leading the way rushed into the courtyard first.

Immediately afterwards, three intensive care ambulances painted with the Red Cross came to a stop at the bottom of the emergency room steps with a screeching sound of brakes.

The car door was pushed open.

George, the BBC documentary director with a full head of blond hair, jumped out of the car.

Following closely behind were the photographer carrying a camera, Sir Williams, and several panting British doctors.

Ye Zhen stepped down the stairs to greet them, nodding to George and Williams.

Where is Arthur?

She spoke fluent and concise English.

Williams, without bothering with pleasantries, pointed to the first car.

"Car number one."

"His condition was very bad; he experienced ventricular fibrillation before the plane landed."

Ye Zhen turned her head away.

"Push the bed!"

"Bring oxygen!"

"Lin Yi, connect the transfer monitor!"

Several young Chinese doctors rushed into the carriage.

Thirty seconds later, a small, emaciated baby with a purplish-black face was pushed off the road.

George turned the camera around and gave a close-up of that pale, bluish face.

This is the baby that Mrs. Thatcher sent all the way to China seeking a miracle.

The cart wheels echoed across the terrazzo floor.

The group rushed into the intensive care unit.

The heavy double doors slammed shut, completely shutting out all the noise from outside.

"Ultrasound!"

"Push it over here right away!"

Ye Zhen connected the tubing to the child while giving instructions.

Half an hour later, in the discussion room outside the intensive care unit.

The walls were covered with emergency imaging diagrams that Arthur had made on the plane.

Sir Williams pointed to one of the photos, his face ashen.

"Too small."

"3.8 kg, malnourished."

He looked at Ye Zhen, his tone revealing helplessness.

"We had a joint consultation with French experts in London."

"There's only one conclusion: the only option is the Mustard procedure."

Zhou Hai couldn't understand English, so he could only look up at Gao Yuan.

Gao Yuan lowered his voice to explain.

"The Mustard procedure is an intraatrial switch."

"It's like sewing a barrier into the atrium to forcibly redirect blood that's flowing to the wrong place, which can temporarily save a life."

Ye Zhen crossed her arms and leaned against the lightbox.

"Is this your top-tier London design?"

She tilted her head to look at Williams.

"The Mustard procedure can only be considered palliative care."

"A child's right ventricle is not designed to supply blood to the whole body."

"Even if you sew on a shield, the right ventricle can't withstand the pressure of the systemic circulation."

"Ten years, fifteen years at most, he'll die of right heart failure anyway."

Williams braced his hands on the table, his chest heaving violently.

"But we had no choice!"

"Dr. Ye, he's only five months old!"

"Everyone knows that a different approach is needed to completely cure it, but no one dares to operate on a heart of this size!"

Ye Zhen picked up a red and blue pencil from the table and walked to the lightbox.

"Therefore, we need to prepare for the aortic switch procedure, also known as the Switch procedure."

She emphasized the location of the major blood vessels on the angiography image twice with the tip of her pen.

"The principle of this surgery is to cut the misaligned aorta and pulmonary artery and 'reverse' them back to their normal positions."

Williams' voice trembled suddenly as he looked at her as if he had seen a ghost.

"Are you crazy?"

Ye Zhen ignored his shock and moved the tip of her pen to the root of the aorta, drawing two small circles.

"The critical challenge here is that tiny coronary arteries must be transplanted simultaneously."

"This is a 3.8-kilogram baby, and his coronary arteries are less than two millimeters wide."

"The coronary arteries are removed from a heart of this size and then sewn back into place intact."

"If a twisting or anastomotic stenosis occurs, the child will suffer a massive myocardial infarction and die on the operating table."

George stood beside him, holding a camera and holding his breath to record the entire scene.

The room was deathly silent.

Ye Zhen turned around and threw the pencil back onto the table with a dull thud.

"So, as long as I don't let these two blood vessels become twisted, this child can have a completely normal heart and live to be seventy or eighty years old."

Williams was completely stunned.

"Beep—beep—beep—"

The piercing alarm of the emergency monitor suddenly pierced through the wall.

The door to the discussion room was opened, and Liu Xiaohe rushed in anxiously.

"Teacher Ye!"

"Arthur's blood oxygen level has dropped to 60!"

"Notify the operating room to open the chest immediately."

Ye Zhen ripped the imaging image off the wall and strode out.

In the corridor, the sounds of wheeled carts rolling and emergency equipment clanging mingled together as they headed straight for the sterile operating area.