Chapter 217: Anxiety

Liu Weichen did not sleep well that night.

He could see Ling Ran’s face even in his dreams, especially how Ling Ran looked like when he said, “It doesn’t really matter to me.”

As the saying went, “Chronic illness makes the patient an expert.” As he was a frequenter of the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center, Liu Weichen was familiar with the doctors’ attitude towards surgeries and patients.

Relatively speaking, a patient would have a closer relationship with his doctor in-charge in comparison with other doctors. This was especially true for hotshots like him. He could communicate any of his medical needs to Doctor Qu, and Doctor Qu would then raise the request to the center.

There was once when Liu Weichen requested for a ward with the standards of a presidential suite. In the end, the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center went all out renovating a ward into a luxurious suite for him. Even though it was not on par with the presidential suites in the hotels of Las Vegas, it was a large suite with four bedrooms, a balcony, and a kitchen. It was quite decent.

Even though the presidential ward was still around right now, Liu Weichen did not care about it anymore.

When he stayed in the presidential ward a few years ago, it was to recuperate from minor injuries and hide from reporters. For the sake of exposure, the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center cooperated fully with Liu Weichen. Doctor Qu even fulfilled many of his requests, whether they were reasonable or not.

However, a ruptured Achilles tendon would not heal on its own if he just stayed in a presidential ward. No matter how amazing the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center was, they were not able to hire renowned doctors from overseas for his surgery. They were not even able to hire renowned local surgeons. Even though Doctor Qu was still good at consoling and humoring him, said all the right words, and was passionate, patient and meticulous; Liu Weichen was getting more and more impatient.

Liu Weichen wanted his injury to be treated as soon as possible.

This was his only request. As long as it was fulfilled, he no longer cared about how the ward looked like or how the medical staff’s attitude was.

If he wanted to be somewhere beautiful, he could just go to the Maldives or Tahiti. And if he wanted to be treated nicely, his fans would be more than happy to indulge him. Aside from that, the media and sponsors would also treat him nicely to get him to work with them.

But what he really wanted was a doctor who could not only treat his injury but also make sure that he was able to compete for another two years without becoming handicapped. Yet in the end, none had shown up.

Even in his dreams, Liu Weichen kept recalling Ling Ran’s words.

“Because it doesn’t really matter to me!”

“But it matters to me!” Liu Weichen woke up with a start. He sat for a while, and when he was about to go back to sleep, he realized that his pillow was soaked with sweat.

Right then, Liu Weichen could no longer asleep.

He shifted his leg with his hands and tried his best to shift to his wheelchair.

Back when he was healthy, he would not need to use much energy to do this. But today, it broke him out in sweat.

Liu Weichen drew the curtains back. As he gazed at the rosy clouds of dawn, he felt as though his entire being was being sucked into it.

He had already been injured for more than a week. Liu Weichen was already privy to the fact that when it came to Achilles tendon repairs, only ruptures that happened within two weeks were still known as fresh Achilles tendon ruptures. Compared to chronic Achilles tendon ruptures, the success rate of the repair of fresh Achilles tendon ruptures was higher. It was also more effective, and it also had a shorter recovery time.

Even though there was no substantial difference when it came to the results of Achilles tendon repairs performed on tendons that were ruptured within the two-week frame, Liu Weichen did not want to wait until the last day. Besides, there was no definite last day for things like this.

It was definitely better to treat the injury slightly earlier rather than wait until it was too late when there were no choices left at all.

When he was done gazing at the rosy clouds of dawn, Liu Weichen picked up his mobile phone and was about to call someone before he changed his mind and sent a text message instead. [Is there any news from Mayo?]

Mayo Clinic was the top in the world when it came to the field of orthopedics, and was very welcoming to patients from all over the world. No matter how much Liu Weichen trusted Zhu Tongyi and his research center, it was impossible for him to sit there and wait blindly.

In the past week, Liu Weichen had been trying his best to contact specialists and hospitals all over the world through his connections.

However, no one was able to come up with his ideal rehabilitation plan.

Zhu Tongyi, being the one who understood him the most, came up with a plan. But no one was capable of executing that plan.

There was a bitter smile at the corners of Liu Weichen’s lips.

Would he need to go with the palliative plan in the end?

The palliative plan meant that he had to recuperate for one year in exchange for an Achilles tendon that might be able to provide him with great athletic abilities for three months or maybe half a year before he had to leave everything to God.

Or he could just recuperate for half a year and possess an Achilles tendon that would allow him to possess great athletic abilities for three months or less, and after that, he had to announce his retirement right on time…

Liu Weichen wanted neither.

He wanted to compete for two more years, or at least for one more year before he even had to consider retirement.

His mind wandered for an indefinite amount of time until a notification rang from his mobile phone. Liu Weichen immediately retrieved his mobile phone. There was a reply to his text message. [None.]

Liu Weichen tightened his grip on his mobile phone. He then sent a WeChat message to his assistant. [Wake up, we’re heading to the research center.]

…..

Doctor Qu had an even more restless night. His mood did not become better even after he woke up early to go to his workplace.

The food provided by the center’s cafeteria was lackluster. Only the yogurt and milk could stimulate Doctor Qu’s appetite. He asked for a bowl of porridge while he was at it and carried his tray to his seat.

“Have you heard about it?” Before Doctor Qu could even put a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, a resident doctor sat down across him with the kind of expression one put on when they possessed secret information.

Doctor Qu slowly tore off the yogurt’s plastic packaging and took a sip before asking, “Heard about what?”

“Ling Ran operated on six patients.”

Doctor Qu furrowed his eyebrows so tightly that they looked like they were sewn together using a thread. “Achilles tendon repairs?”

“Yes, he was at it all night without stopping at all.”

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Before the resident doctor could continue, Doctor Qu pushed his tray aside. He then rose and left.

When he was about to arrive at the Operating Area, Doctor Qu suddenly had a change of mind, and his train of thought immediately became clear. He instantly turned and went into the demonstration room.

As expected, there were quite a few people in the room who were watching the live stream of a surgery Ling Ran was carrying out.

Four of the operating theaters in the Orthopedic and Sports Medicine center could be connected to the demonstration room. The doctors loved and hated those operating theaters’ existence at the same time.

You could often gauge a doctor’s surgical skills just by looking at his degree of love and hatred towards those operating theaters.

Even though ordinary doctors did not care about which operating theater they were in, there were some doctors who cared very much about whether there were cameras in the operating theaters they were in. Of course, most of the doctors in the research center secretly favored the existence of the demonstration room.

Those doctors who liked to brag in the operating theater and fool around with young doctors and nurses wished that all the surgeries they carried out could be recorded and viewed by others.

When Doctor Qu heard that even resident doctors had begun paying attention to Ling Ran, he could guess that the surgeries Ling Ran carried out were streamed in the demonstration room.

When he entered the room, as expected, all the screens on the wall were lit.

The surgery was being filmed with a panoramic camera, and Ling Ran’s face itself took up one screen. His nose bridge was tall and straight, while his gaze was firm and deep. His skin was in such a good condition that one could write an entire thesis about it.

He had also changed into another cap. There were two small yellow bunnies with droopy ears on it which swayed along with Ling Ran’s movements.

Another screen showed the surgical field. Ling Ran had already started suturing the patient. He combed the Achilles tendon, which looked like a horse’s tail, while making neat stitches on it. The stitches were even and closely woven…

With his quick thinking, Doctor Qu asked, “Has he been at it since yesterday?”

“I heard that he slept for four hours in between and woke up to continue at three or four o’clock in the morning.” A resident doctor flashed a slight smile when he saw Doctor Qu, and he said, “I asked about it, and heard that Ling Ran had always been like this even when he was in Yun Hua Hospital. Apparently, it was very normal for him to operate on patients at three in the morning.”

“Wouldn’t the nurses on duty get extremely annoyed?” The moment Doctor Qu said that, he knew that he was being silly. If the nurses on duty were annoyed at him, they would not have given him the cap with two bunnies on it.

Doctor Qu intentionally turned and looked for the resident doctor, who looked like he weighed around 220 pounds.

He then saw a ball of flesh holding a bottle of mineral water and taking large mouthfuls of water from it in the corner.

“Do you know what time Ling Ran plans to stop?” Doctor Qu looked around.

The resident doctors in the demonstration room glanced at one another. One of them said, “Ling Ran put all the remaining patients on queue. He will probably operate on all of them.”

“How many more patients are there?” Doctor Qu asked.

“Four.”

“Doesn’t that mean that he would have operated on all ten patients?” Doctor Qu had goosebumps all over his skin, not because he was surprised or worried, but because he felt good.

Just like how warriors felt when they heard about a fierce battle, or how athletes felt after they watched an exciting and intense competition.

The resident doctors nodded in unison.

“The assistant he brought with him was so tired that he couldn’t move anymore.”

“He started looking for people who were capable of acting as his assistants yesterday.”

“Lin Zi acted as his assistant for one of the surgeries and spent more than one hour with Ling Ran on it. Ling Ran himself only watched Lin Zi do the final sutures for ten minutes before going straight into another operating theater.”

Doctor Qu did not know what to say when he heard all of that.

It was especially so when he saw that the resident doctors were busy grumbling, being baffled, fooling around, mocking what they saw, being pleased with what they saw, and being fearful at the same time. It made Doctor Qu feel conflicted.

He actually really felt like instigating the resident doctors to go on strike. He even had the reason to go on strike ready: Ling Ran was not from the research center and had no rights to utilize the research center’s resident doctors, and that he should at least follow the procedures of the research center or something.

But he knew that such words would only earn unneeded ire.

Even though resident doctors always sounded very tired when they talked about surgeries, if there were really an opportunity to carry out a surgery before their eyes, all of them would jump at it.

There were many tiring things in the hospital, and surgery was only one of them.

Many resident doctors were willing to become their senior doctors’ punching bags without any complaints in exchange for a chance to carry out surgeries.

Apart from becoming punching bags, some resident doctors even had to volunteer themselves as punching bags just for some time to shine. Doctor Qu was once a young man as well, and knew that young people had to go through a lot of hardships to gain knowledge.

From this perspective, Ling Ran was already considered quite a good senior doctor. He was a man of few words and did not like to boast or scold resident doctors. He even took the initiative to provide resident doctors with the opportunities to carry out tasks…

You could say that aside from it being a little tiring, there were almost no cons to being Ling Ran’s assistant.

Most importantly, Ling Ran was truly skilled. And his skills were as attractive to resident doctors as his face were to the nurses.

“Doctor Qu…” Another resident doctor pushed the door open and entered the demonstration room.

“What is it now?” Doctor Qu raised his voice, feeling vexed. Doctor Qu did not usually have much work, and his work only piled up because other people pushed their work onto him.

“Liu Weichen is here.” The resident doctor did not bother to elaborate either. He answered and then turned to leave.

“Is he in my office?” Doctor Qu asked.

“He went to the academician’s office.”

Doctor Qu felt a chill run down his spine. This was not normal.

He no longer had time to watch Ling Ran’s live stream. He quickly left the room and went to look for Liu Weichen.