Chapter 766: Successful Surgery

“Rest assured, Director Zeng. Let’s begin.” Li Xu smiled and nodded. His eyes were as calm as still water, yet they carried a hint of excitement for the impending challenge.

The two doctors standing nearby, who had been emergency-transferred from General Surgery for support, had incredibly weird expressions on their faces. Because they had the help of Li Xu, the “Vice Dean,” General Surgery had only sent an attending physician and a resident. The attending physician originally thought he would be taking charge as the first assistant tonight; he hadn’t expected to be bumped straight down to second assistant.

The first assistant, naturally, was Li Xu.

Although Li Xu was the Vice Dean and their superior, he was, after all, a pure traditional Chinese medicine doctor. Letting a TCM doctor participate in an emergency surgical operation—especially a Grade 4 major surgery like a splenectomy—was absolutely ridiculous in their eyes. Wasn’t this treating a patient’s life like a joke? But since the director had spoken, they didn’t dare say a word. They could only pray silently that Dean Li wouldn’t do more harm than good later, and that he wouldn’t mistake a blood vessel for a meridian and puncture it.

“Let’s begin.” Zeng Yunjun walked to the side of the operating table and glanced at the anesthesiologist.

The anesthesiologist gave an OK gesture and nodded at him. Only then did Zeng Yunjun take a deep breath, accept the scalpel, and decisively make an incision on the patient’s upper left abdomen.

“Suction.”

As the abdominal cavity was opened, a heavy scent of blood rushed at them. The inside was immediately a sea of red. Due to internal bleeding from the ruptured spleen, a massive amount of pooled blood surged out. The entire abdominal cavity looked like a boiling spicy hotpot broth, making it completely impossible to see the anatomical structures.

“Suction.” Zeng Yunjun instructed the second assistant to quickly use the aspirator to suck out the blood while he observed Li Xu.

In a major hemorrhagic surgery like a splenectomy, the role of the first assistant was crucial. Not only were they responsible for holding the retractors to expose the surgical field and stopping bleeding in a timely manner, but they also had to precisely assist in separating tissues or even take over operations when the chief surgeon encountered blind spots or difficulties.

Zeng Yunjun’s audacity to let Li Xu serve as his first assistant stemmed, on one hand, from absolute confidence in his own skills as a chief surgeon, feeling that he could keep things under control no matter what. On the other hand, he was genuinely curious. He wanted to see what level of surgical prowess Li Xu—a genius who had been hyped to miraculous proportions—could actually achieve. As for the second assistant, they were merely grunt labor, requiring very little technical skill.

However, as the surgery progressed, Zeng Yunjun was surprised to find that not only was Li Xu not holding them back, but his skill far exceeded expectations.

“Retractor, a bit higher… Right, exactly this angle.”

The moment Zeng Yunjun spoke, the retractor in Li Xu’s hand was precisely adjusted to the optimal position. A fraction more would damage the tissue; a fraction less would leave the field of vision unclear.

“Forceps.”

“Hemostats.”

Li Xu’s speed in passing instruments was both fast and accurate, as if he had anticipated Zeng Yunjun’s next moves. Moreover, during delicate operations prone to bleeding, such as dissecting the gastrosplenic ligament, Li Xu’s hands were incredibly steady. His movements in stopping the bleeding and tying knots were as smooth as flowing water, even a hundred times more proficient than a professional second assistant.

“Dean Li, the blood vessels around the splenic pedicle are quite complex. This area… could you help me dissect it?” Zeng Yunjun asked tentatively.

“I can.” Li Xu nodded and took the dissecting forceps. His eyes were focused, and his hand movements were gentle yet decisive.

He already knew the vascular pathways of this area like the back of his hand thanks to the anatomical atlas provided by the system. Bypassing the tail of the pancreas, he accurately dissected the splenic artery and splenic vein. Not only was his surgical level high, but because he practiced TCM massage and acupuncture year-round, his finger dexterity and tactile perception of tissues were even sharper than those of surgical veterans with over a decade of experience. Handling this surgery was more than a breeze for him.

“Dean Li, you… how long have you studied this surgery?” Zeng Yunjun couldn’t help but ask as he watched Li Xu’s textbook-perfect dissection and knot-tying.

“About two months.” Li Xu casually made up a lie. He couldn’t exactly say a system had taught him in his dreams, could he?

“Two months?”

The second and third assistants standing on the side exchanged glances, both seeing the undisguised shock in each other’s eyes. Two months for this flawless level of skill? Even if one were practically living in the operating room every day with a top-tier expert teaching them hand-in-hand, two months wouldn’t be enough to develop this kind of touch. Furthermore, Li Xu’s primary profession was still TCM. He certainly didn’t have any prior systematic training in surgical anatomy or foundational animal experiments. This was simply not leaving any room to breathe for them general surgeons.

“Do you normally specifically study and train in this area?” Zeng Yunjun swallowed hard, unwilling to give up.

“Yeah, when I have free time, I read anatomical books and watch surgical recordings,” Li Xu replied, nodding with a straight face. “Surgery isn’t just about manual operations; the theoretical aspects and familiarity with anatomical structures are the foundation. As long as you thoroughly understand the structures, the hands-on execution will naturally fall into place.”

Li Xu was indeed very clear on this point: theory guides practice. While conversing, he had already cooperated with Zeng Yunjun to smoothly ligate the splenic pedicle vessels, completely resect the ruptured spleen, and extract it from the abdominal cavity.

“Director Zeng, the bleeding has stopped. We can close the abdomen now, right?” Li Xu put down his instruments and looked at Zeng Yunjun.

Zeng Yunjun opened his mouth, looking at the perfectly clean surgical field, momentarily left speechless. This wasn’t just “okay”—this was beyond okay! This major surgery, originally estimated to take two hours, was flawlessly concluded in under an hour thanks to the cooperation of a god-tier first assistant like Li Xu.

After a long period of busywork, all the postoperative cleanup was finally completed.

By the time Li Xu and Song Sisi, who had been waiting outside the operating room, walked out of the Emergency Department, the sky was already turning slightly bright. It was past five in the morning. Following that patient with the ruptured spleen, the Emergency Department hadn’t received any more critically ill patients needing resuscitation. However, Li Xu and Zeng Yunjun had stayed in the Emergency Department office, drinking strong tea and exchanging thoughts on the surgery for a while, closely observing the postoperative conditions of several severe patients at the same time.

At five o’clock, having confirmed everything was stable, Zeng Yunjun finally let everyone go back to rest. Director Lin Guorui of Internal Medicine had suffered quite a blow upon seeing Li Xu successfully complete the surgery. He had quietly slipped back to the internal medicine duty room to rest long ago. After all, he still had to run outpatient clinics during the day. With his old bones, he couldn’t afford to pull all-nighters anymore. Therefore, when Li Xu got off work today, he wouldn’t be accompanying Lin Guorui.

Stepping out of the hospital gates, the cool morning breeze blew past, refreshing their spirits.

“Are you sleepy?” Li Xu took Song Sisi’s hand, turning back to look at her gently as he asked.

Having stayed up all night with him, Song Sisi had faint dark circles under her eyes.

“I’m alright.” Song Sisi smiled faintly and shook her head.