Tang Zheng, who had been in a medically induced coma, began his second surgery at 8:30 on Saturday morning.

Today’s procedure was, relatively speaking, more important and more complex than yesterday’s.

Berry, who had won the rock-paper-scissors match at the beginning, replaced Zhu Jian and joined Wang Chuan as Yan Feifan’s surgical assistants.

As soon as the surgery began, Yan Feifan, fully rested and recharged after a night’s sleep, got straight to the point.

He used his scalpel to make an incision on the uninjured skin of Tang Zheng’s right cheek. He separated the muscle tissue, fully exposing a grayish-white nerve.

Most of the nerve’s end had been dissected into two separate strands. A soft, biological isolation material was placed between them to prevent them from adhering and growing back together.

Yan Feifan used a bio-electric stimulator to test the two separated nerves. After confirming they could both conduct bio-electric currents normally, he officially began the transplantation.

First, he deftly severed the upper end of the relatively thinner nerve strand.

As for the lower end of this nerve strand, Yan Feifan meticulously dissected out a small section of its terminal network, which resembled a tree’s roots.

This would inevitably cause some damage to the nerve’s control over the muscles of the right cheek.

However, to prevent the reconstructed left side of the face from becoming a “zombie face,” Yan Feifan needed to build a basic nerve control network for it.

Moreover, Yan Feifan took at most one-third of the entire terminal nerve network dissected from the right cheek.

Thanks to the human body’s natural healing and compensation mechanisms, the actual nerve damage to the right cheek would be relatively manageable.

Next, Yan Feifan sutured the upper end of this harvested nerve—which resembled a small tree—to the corresponding residual nerve endings on the left side of the face.

As for its web-like ends, Yan Feifan carefully tucked them into the muscle tissue that had been transplanted the day before…

Yan Feifan repeated this process five times, taking nearly three hours to transplant a total of five neural networks.

Following that, Yan Feifan harvested five small, relatively complete arteriovenous terminal exchange networks from several locations on Tang Zheng’s body, including his arm, calf, and abdomen.

Yan Feifan then spent another three hours implanting them one by one into the wound on Tang Zheng’s left cheek. This would supply oxygen and nutrients to the transplanted muscle tissue and neural networks.

While Yan Feifan was doing this, his surgical assistant, Wang Chuan, was also completing many tasks.

For example, he removed the corrosive keloid scars from Tang Zheng’s neck and the area near his left eye, performing cosmetic repairs.

He also repaired Tang Zheng’s left ala, which had been corroded away.

After finishing the nerve and vascular system repairs, Yan Feifan carefully and meticulously placed six thin, soft tubes into the wound on Tang Zheng’s left cheek.

These were drip tubes for nutrients and medication. freewⅇbnovel.com

For the next ten days, the nutrients and medication flowing from these drip tubes would promote the recovery of the transplanted muscle tissue, nerves, and blood vessels, as well as reduce the chance of infection…

At 3:11 PM, the moment the surgery ended, Yan Feifan set down his instruments and was once again overcome by a feeling of extreme weakness, as if his body had been completely hollowed out.

His body swayed and his vision blurred, but he didn’t faint and collapse…

Wang Chuan helped Yan Feifan out of the operating room and into the changing room, where he relieved himself, drank some water, and ate some chocolate.

After all that, and resting on a long, soft bench for a few minutes, Yan Feifan recovered. He regained that solid feeling of his mind and body being one again.

Yan Feifan sat up and sighed. “For this surgery, I’ve done everything that can be done.”

“As for whether the transplanted muscles, nerves, and blood vessels can merge into a single, cohesive system… that’s up to luck.”

Wang Chuan smiled. “Feifan, I seem to recall you don’t believe in something as ethereal as luck.”

Yan Feifan took a deep breath. “That’s because for previous surgeries, I always had a good grasp of the post-op results, even before I started.”

“But this surgery…”

Yan Feifan shook his head. “It’s equivalent to rebuilding nearly half of Tang Zheng’s face by piecing it together from scraps.”

“Chuan, the difficulty gap between transplanting parts and rebuilding a system is exponential.”

“I’m not confident about the outcome. It feels like I’m just guessing the roll of a die.”

Yan Feifan said with a gloomy expression, “I don’t like this feeling. I much prefer to be in control.”

Wang Chuan nodded and sat down beside Yan Feifan.

“Feifan, none of us like this feeling of uncertainty. But for a surgery this difficult, you at least have the confidence to bet on luck.”

“Me, on the other hand, I don’t even have that much confidence. I know the result would definitely be failure.”

Wang Chuan patted Yan Feifan’s shoulder. “I saw everything you did during the surgery. Such meticulous, detailed work… I admit I’m nowhere near capable of that.”

“I can say for certain, even if the result isn’t as good as you hope, it won’t be that bad.”

“Feifan, don’t put so much pressure on yourself.”

“You just pursue perfection too much. It’s like you have OCD. You should see a therapist to de-stress…”

Yan Feifan shot him a look and stood up. “Let’s go. We need to update Tang Zheng’s family on the surgery.”

“Hey, Chuan, if Tang Zheng were to come back to work at the hospital, would you want him back?”

Wang Chuan paused for a moment, then said, “No!”

“Why?” Yan Feifan was a little surprised.

Wang Chuan said slowly, “I invested a lot of effort into him. Even though I might have neglected him a bit later on because of you, I never treated him unfairly.”

“Everything I was supposed to teach him, I taught him.”

“He just needed to buckle down and hone his skills for two or three years, and he would have been able to shine.”

“And then he just up and quit on me.”

Wang Chuan sighed. “I was very disappointed.”

“When I lost my expectations and patience and looked at him from a more objective perspective, I realized the guy is too utilitarian, a bit self-righteous, and also rather narrow-minded.”

“To put it bluntly, his ending up in this situation today might very well be due to his character flaws.”

“If we don’t work together, this master-apprentice relationship can still be maintained. But if we were to actually work together again, I’m worried there’s a high probability we’d have a falling out.”

Wang Chuan lowered his voice again. “So, to plan ahead, I leaked the news that he has a small penis.”

Yan Feifan’s eyes widened involuntarily.

“Chuan, you were the one who spread that rumor!”

“You’re a specialist-level chief physician! For you to do something like that… isn’t that totally classless?”

Wang Chuan scoffed. “I wasn’t spreading a rumor. I was just stating a fact.”

“How others interpret it is their business. I bet all the nurses and young doctors in the hospital will be gossiping about it with great relish.”

Looking like a conspirator who had just succeeded, Wang Chuan chuckled. “With that widely circulated piece of news, on top of the incident that got him injured, the chances of him staying are probably slim.”

“I can also recommend him to Baiyun Medical Beauty, or Huarong Medical Beauty…”

As they spoke, the two passed through the isolation doors and walked out of the surgical area.

“Teacher, Teacher! Another one woke up…”

Seeing an excited Yu Beihua running over to report, Yan Feifan asked, “Patient Three? Or Patient Six?”

“Teacher, neither! It’s Patient Five, the boss who was in a coma the longest!”

This answer was completely unexpected to Yan Feifan.

Patient Five had only received the stimulation therapy after returning from Jingcheng, yet he had come from behind to be the first to awaken.

Yu Beihua said excitedly, “Patient Five’s son and his paternal aunt started arguing in the hospital room.”

“They were arguing really intensely.”

“We went to stop them and suddenly noticed the patient had woken up…”

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