Chapter 501: Breaking the Deadlock: The Young Surgeon’s Gamble

Director Xueyan and the rest of the medical team watched anxiously from the side.

Meanwhile, Deputy Director Ye hadn’t left the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department. Instead, he sat in his office, watching Brother Wang’s livestream on his phone.

Online viewers had already surpassed eighty thousand, and the number just kept climbing.

The comment section was filled with negative predictions, one after another.

Plenty of people mocked the young lead surgeon from Tuyu Hospital—his performance had started strong but seemed to be faltering now. The initial puncture and guidewire placement were truly impressive, but his skills now looked disappointing.

“With so many people watching online, if Zhou Can can pull off a successful surgery, that would be incredible!”

Deputy Director Ye silently rooted for Zhou Can, willing him on.

The impact of this livestream was far beyond anyone’s expectations.

Deputy Director Ye wasn’t the only insider glued to the stream. Even Director Zhu of Tuyu Hospital had quietly joined the audience, watching closely.

As for Vice Director Zhang of the Third Hospital, he couldn’t tear his eyes from his phone for even a second.

When Zhou Can repeatedly failed to guide the wire through the blocked artery, a satisfied smile crept onto Zhang’s face.

Everything was playing out just as he’d hoped.

“Even our hospital’s Japanese heart specialist couldn’t pull this off. There’s no way the kid’s getting through unscathed! Still, he’s actually got some real skills. It’s just a shame we couldn’t recruit him.”

Vice Director Zhang had personally tried to headhunt Zhou Can before, so he recognized the surgeon at a glance.

Besides the heavy hitters from the Third Hospital watching nervously, countless renowned cardiothoracic specialists tuned in to follow the surgery’s progress.

Everyone wanted to see if this established hospital, Tuyu, still had something special to show.

Especially the cardiac surgeons from Imperial Capital Renhe Hospital. After all, it was their failed case being attempted again—they had every reason to watch intently.

“No good. There’s just no way to get through from the front.”

Zhou Can shook his head again and again.

His injection technique was level five, almost at six.

His placement technique was nearing level six as well.

Both skills were at deputy chief physician standard. He should have been able to handle guiding the wire through the blocked vessel from the front.

But every attempt had failed. Clearly, this method just wouldn’t work.

The patient’s right coronary artery was a chronically blocked vessel, badly calcified and completely occluded at every branch. Finding a direct route was impossible. With no other choice, Zhou Can had to try something new.

The images of the patient’s coronary angiogram flickered in his mind. The forward path was hopeless, so reverse technique had become his only option.

A new retrograde route began to take shape in his mind.

He started by locating a fresh puncture point. Once successful, he threaded the guidewire from the left coronary artery through collateral vessels towards the blocked area on the right. But those collateral vessels were also heavily calcified.

Calcified spots along the vessel walls made it incredibly hard for the guidewire to get through.

On top of that, the collateral vessels were slim and winding. Once again, the surgery stalled.

Some professionals in the audience couldn’t help but marvel again when they saw Zhou Can choose a retrograde approach.

It was the kind of strategy only a handful of top cardiovascular specialists would even consider.

It’s one thing to come up with the idea—doing it is another story.

Those experts knew the retrograde approach was at least three to five times harder than the normal route.

Given the patient’s terrible vessel condition, the challenge only grew steeper.

After many failed attempts at the reverse approach, Director Xueyan standing nearby let out a quiet sigh. It seemed like this surgery was doomed to fail.

So much for using this operation to revive Tuyu Cardiothoracic Surgery’s former glory.

Since Dr. Hu Kan passed, the department’s specialists had never stopped trying to restore their reputation.

Even though Tuyu’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Department now handled plenty of cases, its prestige and medical standing couldn’t match the days under Dr. Hu Kan.

Back then, the department’s steadiest hand was a legend in the field, admired by countless peers.

Zhou Can took a deep breath, doing his best to calm himself.

Staying composed was key to a successful surgery.

Caring too much about winning or losing only chains you down, stifling your abilities.

The retrograde technique demanded not just experience but an exceptional sense of touch.

The guidewire was finer than a strand of hair, and every tiny resistance inside the blocked vessel had to be felt and interpreted. Navigating through the tiny collateral arteries took serious technical chops.

‘Touch’ was no stranger to Zhou Can.

Many surgical techniques relied on that subtle feedback.

For example, during an incision, the tactile response differed with every tissue type and depth. Only practitioners with matching skill levels could truly tell the difference.

At that moment, viewers realized the lead surgeon had actually closed his eyes.

“Has he given up hope?”

“Yeah, he has to be desperate now.”

“I’m guessing they’ll announce the surgery failed any minute!”

“If you can’t handle porcelain, maybe you shouldn’t try being a potter! What a mess!”

“Epic fail, haha!”

The jeers and schadenfreude from the audience grew more reckless by the second.

The Japanese specialist from the Third Hospital and the cardiac surgeons from Imperial Capital Renhe Hospital all shared knowing, relaxed smiles.

This young guy had guts and serious strategic chops.

But in the end, reality had gotten the better of him.

Sometimes, it’s the hard knocks that teach young people to keep their heads down.

With his eyes closed, Zhou Can relied completely on the slightest feedback in his hands to guide the wire forward. He felt like a blind man groping his way through a pitch-dark maze, constantly running into dead ends without ever finding an exit.

The harder things got, the more stubborn he became—he simply refused to give up.

Suddenly, the guidewire seemed to make a tiny breakthrough, moving less than a centimeter ahead.

[Placement Technique EXP +1. Bonus EXP +100.]

[Injection Technique EXP +1. Bonus EXP +100.]

Both skills had just earned a major chunk of experience points.

That had never happened before.

Right now, he was using both placement technique and puncture technique.

The core of puncture technique was the injection technique itself.

A faint smile played at the corner of Zhou Can’s mouth.

Even the tiniest step forward brought him tremendous encouragement.

Carefully, he kept maneuvering the thin guidewire, feeling his way blindly for a path forward—one small breakthrough after another.

With every move, his confidence and skill grew.

It’s better to fall once and learn than to be taught a hundred times by someone else.

True breakthroughs come from your own understanding and hands-on practice.

Finally, he sensed the guidewire push through the narrow collateral vessel, reaching the main trunk of the right coronary artery.

“Wow! That was amazing!”

“He got the wire through the collateral vessel! Success!”

The operating room erupted with applause and cheers.

Everyone watched Zhou Can inch the guidewire forward, heart in their throat, hands clenched in support—yet none could help him.

They could only stand by and do their parts, making sure Zhou Can had every bit of support he needed.

Seeing a breakthrough in the surgery, the others were even happier than he was.

Zhou Can opened his eyes.

As he’d fought his way past barrier after barrier with the guidewire, both his placement and injection technique experience kept climbing.

“Just one last obstacle left!”

He took a deep breath, ready to press his advantage and guide the wire through the blocked segment of the aorta.

“No—the calcification here is way too severe. The blockage is just too much. Can’t get through at all.”

The operation stalled again.

The long guidewire didn’t cooperate as he’d hoped. Moving it through the artery felt like teaching a baby to walk, unsteady and slow. Even the force of each puncture was feeble.

But Zhou Can wouldn’t quit. He kept searching for the tiniest space to break through.

[Puncture Technique EXP +1. Bonus EXP +10.]

[Congratulations! Your Puncture Technique has reached level six. Current experience: Advanced Chief Physician. Capable of ultra-high-difficulty puncture and injection.]

Sometimes, the simpler the description, the greater the strength.

Puncture technique may sound basic, but as medical technology advanced and interventional surgeries arose, it grew increasingly complex—pushing the limits of human skill.

Achieving level six in puncture technique now was a gift from above.

Now that his skills matched a chief physician, he could instantly recognize different tissues by the faintest feedback from the guidewire.

It was like this ability was linking with his incision and tissue separation techniques.

After all, interpreting the guidewire’s feedback meant borrowing from the touch-sense of those other skills—analyzing and comparing until he could tell exactly what sort of tissue was ahead.

When dissecting, a surgeon can sense immediately if the knife hits an artery, a nerve, skin, muscle, or fat—those sensations all differ.

Now, his injection technique had gained that power too.

By carefully probing ahead with the guidewire, he could tell exactly what the structure in front was.

“This is a large, severely calcified plaque!”

Zhou Can immediately steered the wire to avoid that large calcified spot.

He might have dodged a bit far, because when the tactile feedback came again, this time it was a smaller calcified plaque.

The patient’s artery was in terrible shape.

There had to be some soft space between the two plaques—maybe that was the only possible breakthrough point.

Using the wire, Zhou Can searched carefully for that gap between the plaques.

It wasn’t nearly as easy as he’d hoped.

Move too far, and he’d bump straight into another plaque. Move too little, and he wouldn’t reach the edge.

He kept racking up experience, fully absorbed in an intense state of surgical focus.

By now, viewers had soared past one hundred thousand.

The number had even reached a jaw-dropping two hundred eighty thousand, making it the top trending stream.

‘Terrifying’ was the only word for this.

For the patient, this livestream was a first—he’d never had such amazing results before. His face was lit up with glee.

Specialists from both cardiothoracic and cardiovascular medicine flocked in, more and more by the minute.

Even government health officials, business magnates, and the relatives and staff around them found their way into the stream, catching up on the situation through the comments.

Once they found out that both the Japanese heart surgeon from Imperial Capital Renhe Hospital and the Third Hospital had tried—and failed—on this case, their curiosity in the outcome only grew stronger.

Everyone wanted to see how a top-level cardiac intervention would play out.

Zhou Can had no idea that overnight, he’d become the center of attention for hundreds of thousands.

After all, many viewers had to leave before the end.

But human curiosity is hard to resist. Most would surely return later, or in a few days, just to check in on the surgery’s result.

So the operation’s real impact would go far beyond those two hundred eighty thousand live viewers.

Douyin’s traffic power was nothing short of monstrous.

Its active users were a force to be reckoned with.

Kids as young as three, and grandmas and grandpas pushing ninety, could all find themselves watching a short video stream.

Every time Zhou Can made a significant breakthrough, Deputy Director Ye would clench his fists in excitement and cheer him on.

“That’s it! This spot is much softer than the calcified area. We can make it through!”

Trusting the tactile sense through the wire, Zhou Can finally found a breakthrough after tireless effort.

He immediately pushed the guidewire forward at that weak point.

Swish!

He did it.

[Injection Technique EXP +1. Bonus EXP +1000.]

This breakthrough was incredibly tough—the kind of milestone that defines interventional surgery.

A thousand points of injection technique experience as a reward felt entirely fair.

But don’t think just because he made it, the surgery was over.

Far from it.

After moving the wire another two centimeters, it got stuck again.

From the tactile feedback, he could tell—yet another big plaque ahead.

If only this patient had come for surgery sooner, things wouldn’t have reached this nightmare level. Now, the procedure was hellishly difficult.

Quickly, Zhou Can angled the wire differently, drawing from past experience to find a soft spot for a new breakthrough.

[Injection Technique EXP +1. Bonus EXP +100.]

Another success.

This time, though, the reward was cut by a factor of ten.

Still, a hundred points was not bad at all.

Honestly, he was too absorbed in the surgery to care about the numbers.

With two barriers behind it, the guidewire finally poked through to the far end of the blocked artery.

Cheers and applause erupted in the operating room once again.

Meanwhile, in the stream, generous viewers started sending all kinds of virtual gifts—Carnivals, Dragon Riders, you name it.

“Looks crazy impressive, even if I don’t really get it!”

“Support for top Huaxia doctors!”

“Who’s the king of cardiac surgery? It’s gotta be Tuyu Hospital!”

“If my arteries ever clog up, I’m coming here to see this young doctor!”

“How do you train a specialist? I just witnessed with my own eyes that age doesn’t matter!”

“That’s what a true master looks like!”

“Big bro, you’ve got my respect!”

That one was probably a fellow professional, out-and-out in awe of Zhou Can’s operation.

Where the comment section was once filled with mockery and insults, now it had taken on an entirely different tone.

That’s how opinion always changes.

Most people follow the crowd. On the internet, hiding behind a screen, no one bothers holding back—they just say what feels good.

When we were kids, our words didn’t match what we meant. Growing up, our words often ring hollow.

Maybe you have to be tactful in real life, but online, everyone drops the mask and says whatever they want.

No need for fake praise while cursing in your heart.

“We can finally place the stent!”

Zhou Can couldn’t help grinning with joy.

Carefully, he guided the stent into the blocked segment of the artery, where it expanded and propped the vessel open.

[Placement Technique EXP +1. Bonus EXP +1000.]

The system wasn’t stingy—another one thousand points for placement technique.

At this critical moment, his placement technique finally reached level six.