It was a long while before Shen Fangyu, who had been standing there like a wax figure, finally moved, feeling heavy-headed and light-footed, as if he were walking on cotton.
He let out a slow breath, shook his head, bent down, and one by one picked up all the medical reports scattered on the floor. He tapped them neatly against the desk to align the edges, placed them back on Jiang Xu’s desk, and lowered his voice. “What do you need me to do?”
Jiang Xu didn’t turn around.
Shen Fangyu pressed his fingers against his brow and said, “You wouldn’t have called me here just to tell me I’m going to be a dad.”
He knew Jiang Xu well, too well. He was proud, stubborn, and fiercely self-reliant. After calming down, Shen Fangyu’s first thought was that unless Jiang Xu had run into something truly serious, he would never have confessed this to him.
Jiang Xu closed his eyes for a moment, then said, “Help me operate. Remove the fetus.”
He didn’t call it a child.
Jiang Xu continued, “There’s a doctor in Country M who just performed a related surgery. It hasn’t been published yet, but I’ve already emailed him. If he’s willing to share the surgical details, I want you to be the one to operate on me.”
They had been rivals for over a decade, but when it came down to it, the person Jiang Xu trusted most was still Shen Fangyu.
Precisely because they were rivals, he understood Shen Fangyu’s skill better than anyone. Believing in his own ability was no different from believing in Shen Fangyu’s, they had always been equals.
But no surgeon facing a situation like this could simply pat their chest and say it was no problem without a second thought.
As expected, Shen Fangyu hesitated.
Jiang Xu’s gaze remained on the computer screen, his index finger sliding along the mouse, his jawline sharp and tense. “You can refuse. I’d understand.”
“You know the risks, Jiang Xu.”
“I know.”
The office was so silent that even a pin drop could be heard. Only their breathing filled the space. Shen Fangyu stared at him in silence.
The silence stretched so long that Jiang Xu’s face felt stiff. It was as if his heart were soaking in water, sinking little by little. He drew a silent, deep breath, turned his attention back to the paper he hadn’t finished reading, trying to steady himself—
When Shen Fangyu suddenly spoke, “I can do it.”
“No need to rush your answer,” Jiang Xu said. “You can go home and think it over.”
“I’m your first choice, aren’t I?” Shen Fangyu asked.
Jiang Xu didn’t reply, which was as good as confirmation.
“Then I don’t need to think about it,” Shen Fangyu said again. “I can do it.”
Jiang Xu glanced at him.
“But I want the entire surgery recorded,” Shen Fangyu added. “That’s also for your sake.”
He pulled out the chair beside Jiang Xu and sat down. “When will he reply? We need to prepare as soon as possible. The longer we wait, the greater the risk.”
Jiang Xu checked his phone. No reply yet. He gave a small shake of his head. “Hard to say.”
“You’re sure he’ll be willing to share?” Shen Fangyu asked. “It’s unpublished, after all.”
“Science has no borders,” Jiang Xu replied. He had never kept anything to himself, and confident in his own skill and speed, he often shared even unpublished work during academic exchanges. “Besides, a doctor’s duty is to save lives.”
Shen Fangyu didn’t comment. In truth, he wasn’t as optimistic as Jiang Xu, but he didn’t want to throw cold water on him now, so he kept quiet.
After that, their conversation seemed to end naturally. Jiang Xu didn’t speak to him again, his eyes never leaving the computer screen. He was clearly already back in work mode.
Shen Fangyu glanced at Jiang Xu’s screen and saw he was reading a paper on targeted therapy for cervical cancer, the entire text in English.
For a moment, Shen Fangyu couldn’t help but admire Jiang Xu’s mental fortitude. Even now, he could focus all his attention on the paper in front of him.
But Shen Fangyu’s mind was still a mess.
The rush of adrenaline had ebbed, but his thoughts were still tangled, a jumbled mass. Though calmer than before, it felt less like clarity and more like the numbness that comes after a shock.
When Shen Fangyu finally looked away from Jiang Xu’s desk, he noticed something: Jiang Xu’s usual coffee, the one he drank like water, had been replaced with plain boiled water.
Jiang Xu, who normally treated coffee as a daily necessity, had stopped drinking it.
Because he was carrying a child.
For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, Shen Fangyu lowered his gaze and glanced at Jiang Xu’s lower abdomen.
Under the cover of the white coat, nothing could be seen, but the thought that there was a small child inside, a child who shared his and Jiang Xu’s blood, suddenly left Shen Fangyu unsure of how to face Jiang Xu.
On the screen, the medical literature was meticulously annotated and highlighted. Jiang Xu had already turned to the next page, clearly reading in earnest rather than merely pretending.
Shen Fangyu suddenly reached out and touched Jiang Xu.
“Don’t bother me,” Jiang Xu said, unwilling to hear Shen Fangyu’s sarcasm or ridicule at that moment.
But after a brief silence, for the first time, Shen Fangyu slightly lowered his head in front of him. “I’m sorry. I’ll take responsibility.”
Jiang Xu’s index finger, resting on the mouse, twitched slightly. After a long pause, his face remained expressionless as he said, “No need. This was just an accident. I don’t care about it, and I don’t need you to take responsibility for me. Dr. Shen, just manage yourself.”
“Jiang Xu…”
Jiang Xu continued, “After this matter is resolved, we’ll go back to how we were before. I only hope you appear in front of me less.”
It was as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over him. The small spark of warmth that had just been ignited in Shen Fangyu’s heart was instantly extinguished.
Jiang Xu always had a way of making Shen Fangyu feel suffocated with frustration.
Shen Fangyu looked at his profile in silence for a moment, then curled his lips slightly. “Fine, whatever you say.” He snapped his fingers and stood up. “But still, thank you, Dr. Jiang, for your trust and for acknowledging my medical skills.”
When it came to stabbing each other in the heart with words, the two of them were always evenly matched.
But before Jiang Xu could respond, a young resident doctor from the office next door suddenly pushed the door open in a panic. The two men, who had been locked in a tense standoff, flinched and awkwardly turned their gazes away in unspoken agreement.
Fortunately, the doctor who barged in didn’t notice the strange atmosphere in the office. Seeing the two of them there was like grabbing onto a lifeline. He immediately started speaking rapidly without pause:
“Dr. Jiang, Dr. Shen, an injured pregnant woman who fell down the stairs was just brought to the ER and is already in the operating room. Dr. Wu is on second-line duty today, but an hour ago, the ER admitted another pregnant woman from a car accident, and he went with Xiao Yang, the first-line doctor, to rescue her. The third-line doctor is still on the way, so Dr. Wu told me to come to the office and see if anyone else can step in.”
Before he even finished speaking, Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu were already following him toward the obstetrics ER. By the time he wrapped up his explanation, they had reached the patient’s bed.
Jiang Xu lowered his head to examine the patient while the ER nurse reported the ECG readings. The ER physician, Liu Ran, followed closely behind with a report, “The patient has multiple soft tissue contusions on her arms and knees, joint effusion in the knees. The wounds have been disinfected, IV line established, no obvious fractures or bone cracks found.”
“Patient’s name: Zhang Yun. Thirty-two weeks pregnant. Fetal heart monitoring is normal, no uterine contractions so far,” said Chen Qi, the resident doctor. After checking the fetal monitor, he turned to Jiang Xu. “Looks like it’s just a false alarm.”
Liu Ran breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness,” he said. “The patient’s family said she fell down the stairs. When I saw she was unconscious, I treated the wounds first and immediately brought her through the OB emergency channel because I was worried she’d go into preterm labor.”
He looked young, probably hadn’t been on solo duty for long.
“If that’s the case, I’ll head back,” Liu Ran told Jiang Xu. “Let me know when she wakes up.”
“Wait,” Jiang Xu said, his gaze sweeping over Zhang Yun’s bruised arms and knees. Beads of cold sweat were forming on her forehead. Jiang Xu reached out and touched her arm, finding it damp. He then leaned in closer to her, and even through his mask, he caught the faintest trace of garlic.
He raised his hand. “Flashlight.”
“We already checked. Pupils are equal and round, 3.5 mm in diameter, normal light reflex,” Liu Ran said, puzzled.
Jiang Xu’s eyes shifted to the ECG monitor. “I won’t repeat myself.”
With a trace of displeasure, Liu Ran lowered his gaze and handed him the flashlight.
Jiang Xu pried open Zhang Yun’s eyelids and shone the bright light into her pupils. “Did you run a blood test for cholinesterase?”
“Cholinesterase?” Liu Ran looked at him in surprise. “The family said she fell down the stairs. The ER handled it as trauma, why would we test for cholinesterase?”
“Draw blood. Check serum cholinesterase and organophosphate levels,” Jiang Xu ordered the nurse, then turned to Liu Ran. “Prepare for gastric lavage.”
Liu Ran’s expression clearly showed disapproval. He hesitated, glancing again at Jiang Xu’s badge.
“Dr. Jiang,” he protested, “the patient doesn’t show any obvious muscarinic symptoms, and there’s no history of pesticide ingestion.”
While putting on his stethoscope, Jiang Xu replied calmly, “I’m your supervising physician here. I’ll take full responsibility for every order I give. Your only job is to follow it.”
He shot Liu Ran a cold glance before pressing the stethoscope against the patient’s skin.
Liu Ran’s face stiffened. Looking at Jiang Xu, who seemed completely indifferent to him and hadn’t taken his words to heart in the slightest, he fumed. “I’ll file a complaint against you!”
“Go ahead,” Jiang Xu said evenly, without pausing his movements. “But for now, you’ll do as I say.” His gaze suddenly sharpened, carrying a quiet but undeniable pressure.
Liu Ran’s heart skipped. Whatever he was about to say caught in his throat. He gave a reluctant snort and started inserting a gastric tube to begin the lavage.
Shen Fangyu had been silent all along, but once Liu Ran backed down, he asked Jiang Xu, “Should we administer atropine and pralidoxime in advance?”
Both were standard antidotes for organophosphate poisoning.
After a brief pause, Jiang Xu nodded and told the nurse to prepare the medication.
“You—” Liu Ran started to protest again, but one look from Shen Fangyu pinned him in place. Oddly enough, despite Shen Fangyu’s usually gentle demeanor, that single glance left Liu Ran instinctively intimidated.
The blood test results hadn’t even come out yet, but the clear fluid was already flowing into the patient’s veins.
Jiang Xu instinctively glanced at Shen Fangyu, only to unexpectedly meet his gaze. Their eyes collided briefly before they both looked away at the same time.
Jiang Xu refocused on the patient, and a fleeting thought crossed his mind:
The last time he and Shen Fangyu worked side by side to save a patient… it had been a very long time ago.