The moment Yu Chuanbai’s car drove away, Yan Feifan couldn’t help but ask, "Su Ye, you have a weird habit of eating toothpaste?"
"Just how many weird habits and bad behaviors do you have?" Yan Feifan’s face was full of disdain.
"That brother of mine..."
Watching the car disappear into the distance, Yu Suye puffed out her cheeks in frustration. She quickly turned her head and explained, "The whole toothpaste-eating thing... it’s only half-true."
"It was mostly an act for my parents and family to see."
Yan Feifan looked at Yu Suye, a little confused, as she continued, "If I didn’t make myself seem a little abnormal, I would have been forced to get engaged to Lu Yao and set a wedding date long ago."
"And I never would have been able to come to Binhai to study with Mrs. Qin."
She sighed. "Although Mrs. Qin is highly renowned in the industry for her replantation surgery, you can still find a few trauma surgeons in Jingcheng who are almost as skilled."
"Coming to Binhai to study was more of an excuse. I was just using my studies with Mrs. Qin as a pretense to get away from my family’s pressure and find some peace."
"Feifan, let me tell you, to get my family to agree, I ate so much toothpaste back then. I ate until I felt sick."
"Now, forget eating it, even brushing my teeth with it makes me a little nauseous."
Yan Feifan reached out and patted the top of Yu Suye’s head, saying sympathetically, "You poor kid!"
Yu Suye seized the opportunity, putting on a pitiful expression. "Feifan, you know what?"
"Right now, you’re my safe harbor. When I’m with you, I feel incredibly secure."
Yan Feifan suddenly had a feeling of absurdity.
He muttered to himself, ’Your sense of security is built on my insecurity...’
For lunch, Yan Feifan made do with a bowl of noodles.
At three in the afternoon, he arrived at the anatomy lab in the comprehensive teaching building and began practicing on a prepared cadaver.
Aided by an endoscope and a limited surgical field, Yan Feifan created an access channel by resecting a left lumbar rib and removing the left kidney. He then carefully inserted a pair of long, thin laparoscopic scissors.
During this process, he had to navigate the labyrinthine network of nerves and blood vessels near the spine.
After successfully navigating past the nerves and blood vessels, the long scissors, which Yan Feifan wielded as if they were an extension of his own arm, reached their target.
It was a large protrusion embedded in the vertebra, completely encased in a thick layer of connective tissue and fused with its surroundings.
When a large foreign object penetrates the human body, over time, it becomes encapsulated by a layer of connective tissue. This physically isolates the object from the body, preventing further harm.
This is also why some people who are shot with toxic metal projectiles, like lead bullets, have a fair chance of survival without dying from lead poisoning, even if the object cannot be removed for various reasons.
Yan Feifan first used the surgical scissors to clear away the connective tissue from the surface of the foreign object. Once it was fully exposed, he switched the scissors for a long, thin metal rod, pressing it against the object.
This metal rod could transmit high-frequency, low-amplitude vibrations, allowing the vibrations to slowly dislodge the foreign object from the vertebra that had held it captive for so long.
If he tried to brute-force it like pulling a tooth, damage to the surrounding nerves and blood vessels would be inevitable...
Seeing Yan Feifan extract the foreign object with a pair of long-handled surgical forceps, Lo Jun, who had been observing from the side, came over. He laid the cadaver flat, opened the abdominal cavity, and inspected for any damage from the procedure.
After observing carefully for a few minutes, Lo Jun nodded in praise. "Fantastic. A perfect job."
"Feifan, you can take on that police officer’s surgery now."
Yan Feifan said cautiously, "Practice is just practice. A real surgery is a different matter."
Lo Jun encouraged him, "If you can’t even succeed in practice, the chances of a miracle happening where you perform above your level in a real operation are even slimmer."
At this point, Lo Jun realized something and chuckled. "Xiaoyan, I’ve noticed that you’re actually more focused and perform even better during real surgeries."
"You’re the type who thrives under pressure..."
When Yan Feifan and Lo Jun returned to the neurosurgery department and stepped into the first-floor lobby, they heard a shout.
"That’s him! That’s the guy, Yan Feifan! He’s back!"
Before Yan Feifan could figure out what was happening, he was suddenly swarmed by four or five middle-aged and elderly women.
A woman who looked to be in her seventies grabbed Yan Feifan by his white coat and demanded loudly, tears streaming down her face,
"My grandson is lying paralyzed in his hospital bed! Not only did you not visit him, but you even had the police arrest him!"
"What are your real intentions?"
"Don’t you have any compassion?"
"Do you even deserve to wear that white coat?"
Beside the old woman, another woman in her fifties was also wiping away tears. "My son nearly broke his neck! He’s paralyzed!"
"He was just trying to play a joke on you, wasn’t he?"
"He didn’t even hurt a single hair on your head! Did you really have to be so cruel and have the police arrest him?"
Hearing their words, Yan Feifan finally understood why Cheng Lezhi had grown up to be the way he was.
The ancients used to say that an untaught son is the father’s fault.
But these days, fathers are often away from home, working hard to support the family.
It’s usually the mothers who spend more time on the family and shoulder more of the responsibility for their children’s education and discipline.
So now, that saying should probably be: a bastard son is the mother’s fault.