Chapter 582: A Lesson in Humility and a Breakthrough in the Operating Room

“Alright, I’m counting on you… Please!”

For the first time, Dr. Fu Chachun addressed Zhou Can with genuine respect, unable to hide his discomfort.

It was like a new bride nervously addressing her in-laws for the first time—there’s just no way not to feel awkward.

“Alright, it looks like we’ve managed a pretty decent solution here. Old Fu, you made mistakes and there are consequences. Negligence during surgery is your first offense. Berating Zhou Can in public and defying leadership is your second.”

After all Director Lou’s efforts to mediate, things had reached this stage—but he wasn’t ready to just let it drop.

Punishments had to be handed out where they were due.

But at least Dr. Fu Chachun’s consequences wouldn’t be so severe as to cost him his job.

“I accept my punishment!”

Dr. Fu Chachun nodded solemnly.

“Your surgical privileges are suspended for a week. If there are more violations, you’ll lose them for good. You’re to apologize to Zhou Can in front of the whole department to clear up any negative impact. You must understand this, Zhou Can is now your superior in the operating room. Respecting your boss is the bare minimum for any employee.”

Once he’d gotten through to Dr. Fu, Director Lou didn’t sugarcoat the reality: Zhou Can was his superior now.

“I can accept losing a week of surgical privileges. But could the apology to Dr. Zhou be limited to just the main leaders present, rather than in front of everyone?”

Thinking back to the backlash from a written self-critique six months ago, Dr. Fu still felt uneasy.

A public apology would be a big blow to his pride.

“There’s no room for negotiating that.”

Director Lou shot him down with just one sentence.

Though Fu Chachun acted honest and timid, he was actually pretty cunning. He sent Zhou Can a pleading look, trying to appear pitiful.

Unfortunately for him, Zhou Can was never someone to play the saint.

If Director Lou hadn’t handled things personally today, Zhou Can would’ve kicked Dr. Fu out of the ER on the spot—or at least out of the OR, stripping him of his surgical privileges for good.

A public apology before the whole department was nonnegotiable.

At this point, Zhou Can finally understood the bigger picture.

Having Director Lou step in was actually a form of protection for Dr. Fu Chachun.

It’s like a misbehaving child being scolded by their parents—tough but rarely as harsh as a stranger’s punishment.

“I agree!”

Seeing Zhou Can unmoved, Dr. Fu could only accept defeat with a resigned sigh.

“After work, I’ll call a short departmental meeting. I have some announcements anyway, but you’ll apologize to Zhou Can in front of everyone then. Alright, back to work, everyone!”

With those words, Director Lou brought things to a decisive close and waved them out.

The two left the director’s office one after the other. Quite a few colleagues peeked over curiously. They saw Dr. Fu slinking out like a beaten rooster, head down and face ashen. Zhou Can, on the other hand, looked unfazed as always.

It was clear Dr. Fu had come out the loser.

People started quietly discussing how the department would wrap things up.

But neither of the two had given away anything.

……

Back in the OR, the female patient in Bed 1 lay quietly on the operating table.

Thanks to her strong trust in Zhou Can, communicating with her went smoothly. Her family were honest, ordinary folks. When their daughter’s toe suffered complications, they just chalked it up to bad luck and accepted Zhou Can’s explanation of ‘postoperative complications’.

Though their finances were tight, they were willing to take the risk and go through another surgery for their daughter’s sake.

Since Zhou Can had already gotten the full story from Dr. Fu beforehand, once surgery began, he promptly loosened the sutures on her left foot’s third toe. It took almost no effort to locate the severed nerve.

In anatomy diagrams, blood vessels are marked in red lines, nerves in yellow.

Without extensive surgical experience, finding nerves isn’t easy for most surgeons.

To the untrained eye, nerves look a lot like other tissues. They’re usually well-concealed amidst muscle, making them even harder to spot.

There are many types of nerves—the trigeminal nerve, spinal cord, brainstem are most famous. Then there’s the lesser-known sympathetic, parasympathetic, vagus nerve, and various autonomic nerve networks.

Once both cut ends of the nerve have been found, they’re thoroughly debrided before being reconnected under a microscope.

It goes to show just how interdependent every surgical discipline really is.

The more skills and higher mastery you have as a surgeon, the greater your chance of success in the operating room.

Nerve anastomosis isn’t just delicate—it’s notorious for having subpar results.

That’s because nerve cells are the only cells in the body that can’t regenerate.

Irreplaceable means they can’t heal by regrowth.

Their only hope is to realign the internal conductive pathways so signals can pass through again.

But even the tiniest nerve contains thousands of microscopic bundles thinner than a hair. Severing a nerve cuts all these bundles at once.

There’s basically no surgeon who can match every bundle up perfectly.

Just reconnecting even a small fraction counts as a win.

You’ll often see patients paralyzed after falls, car accidents, or gymnastics injuries, with damaged spinal cords leaving their lower bodies useless. Even after seeking help at major hospitals across the country or abroad, no one can fix them.

The reason? Repairing and reconnecting nerves is just that hard.

Given current medical science and technology, precisely matching every nerve bundle is still impossible.

It’s practically an unattainable feat.

So, after Dr. Fu accidentally severed this patient’s third toe nerve, he chose to ignore it.

First, to dodge responsibility for the accident.

Second, because success rates for nerve reconnection are just so low.

His skills are pretty basic—he didn’t even consider trying the procedure.

All the motor nerves and most sensory nerves in the foot branch off the sciatic nerve. Only the saphenous nerve, which covers the inside ankle and foot, handles sensation in a small area.

The sciatic nerve breaks into two—one runs straight down as the tibial nerve; the other veers outward as the common peroneal nerve.

Once you understand these primary branches, finding out why her third toe can’t bend or feel anything is much easier.

Simply put, the nerve from the sciatic to her third toe was severed right at the toe.

Reconnect it, and her movement and sensation may return.

Zhou Can’s nerve anastomosis is already Level 6—junior chief surgeon level. Pretty impressive.

That, combined with his gift for nerve work, made him feel like he was blessed during the entire operation.

It’s hard to explain—suturing the nerve felt second nature, as if he’d done it millions of times. Every movement, every crossing, came instinctively.

Each stitch landed right where it needed to.

He knew this surgery wasn’t just about fixing a toe—it was a little girl’s dream on the line.

So he poured his heart and soul into it.

Halfway through, he felt like some invisible force was guiding him.

That mysterious energy made his every move sharp and precise, almost supernaturally smooth.

Nearly two hours later, the surgery was finally done.

It’d only been a minor procedure, but Zhou Can had spent almost two hours in there—enough time to finish a high-difficulty, Level 4 major operation.

The hospital’s famously quick-handed surgeon had just set a record for his slowest surgery ever.

Nerve reconnection demands extreme accuracy. One bad stitch could ruin everything and wipe out all progress.

The surgery felt like building a tower.

The higher it got, the riskier it became.

One loose block, and the whole thing could come crashing down.

Slow and steady truly are siblings.

That was the surgical wisdom Dr. Hu Kan had passed on to Zhou Can.

He never really got it before.

After all, with his skills, he’d proven he could be both quick and steady in surgery.

But only after today—with the slowest operation of his life—did he truly understand what Dr. Hu Kan meant.

“The slower you go, the steadier you are!”

It was a whole new perspective on the Steady Scalpel Technique—a real breakthrough.

Before this, he’d always thought so long as he was steady, adding speed was fine, too. Countless successful procedures had proved it.

“Did I just reach the second, deeper level of Steady Scalpel?”

First you see a mountain as a mountain. Then you realize it’s not just a mountain. Finally, you return to seeing it as a mountain again—that’s the highest level of simplicity.

After the operation, Zhou Can felt a brand-new wave of understanding.

[You have successfully completed a nerve anastomosis, achieving a qualitative breakthrough. +1 Anastomosis EXP, bonus Anastomosis EXP awarded.]

[Steady Scalpel EXP bonus awarded.]

[Benevolent Heart special medical skill EXP +1.]

The bonus experience popping up after the operation genuinely surprised him.

It also confirmed the insight he’d just gained.

That leap in anastomosis skill was clear as day. He figured a reward of ten thousand EXP was perfectly reasonable.

He doubted even an endless string of vascular or nerve surgeries would bring such a major leap forward.

This was a quantum jump in skill.

Like leveling up from bronze straight to silver.

Getting ten thousand points in Steady Scalpel was a fantastic surprise on top.

It was thanks to his new and deeper understanding of ‘steady’.

Where once he thought being fast could go hand in hand with being steady, that belief got shattered today.

Such a profound realization deserved those ten thousand experience points.

Turns out, you don’t need to be wielding a scalpel to gain Steady Scalpel EXP. Any time you gain new insights into being steady, it counts.

It made Zhou Can more convinced than ever: all paths lead to Rome.

He wasn’t the only one—other doctors had proved this too. Take Jiang Wei, for example. Blending book learning and real practice, she’d become a chief-level pharmacologist while still young.

Benevolent Heart skill only got a single point, but that meant a lot.

It might seem like little, but it’s huge in meaning.

He suspected that mysterious helping force during the operation was thanks to the unique effect of Benevolent Heart.

That skill felt special—almost designed to nurture his spirit.

“Alright, let’s get her back to the ward and make sure the post-op care is solid. I’ll keep a close eye on her during my rounds.”

By the end of that supposedly minor toe nerve surgery, Zhou Can was exhausted, feeling completely drained.

He’d been totally focused on the operation, pouring in every ounce of mind and effort, never pausing to worry about his own energy levels.

His stamina and concentration were nearly used up.

“Boss, it’s lunch. Should we eat and rest first, then do more surgery after?”

Ma Xiaolan asked.

“You decide. Thanks for all your hard work—let’s grab food first!”

While Zhou Can was laboring over the nerve repair, his two assisting doctors were far from idle.

They were working together on other surgeries within their skill range.

In those two hours, they’d done three operations—not too shabby.

Still, neither Yang Zhi nor Pu Dingdong had a talent for speed, so their surgical pace was only a bit above average, influenced by Zhou Can’s example.

Zhou Can hadn’t recruited a third team member yet, and there were reasons for that.

Luo Shishen, who’d been shadowing him for nearly a year, had already made it clear—he planned to join Zhou Can’s team after completing his residency.

Zhou Can valued friendship and loyalty. Every time he thought of expanding his team, he mentally reserved a spot for Luo.

There was also the question of passing down skills.

Whether it’s Dr. Xu’s Fast Scalpel or Dr. Hu Kan’s Steady Scalpel, these techniques need successors.

Chief Hu Kan had trained plenty in the Steady Scalpel Technique, but only Zhou Can had truly mastered it.

Director Xueyan had some skill in the method too, but she still lagged behind Zhou Can.

Another rapid learner was Jin Mingxi.

He was a flirt in life and a prodigy in the OR. The guy just had talent.

But without the Medical Experience System, his own progress in Steady Scalpel couldn’t match Zhou Can’s.

Still, he was coming along fast.

To become a lead surgeon for Level 3 operations, though, he still had a long road ahead. As an attending, his path to promotion was smoother than Zhou Can’s.

After all, he already met the work experience requirements for that next title.

What Zhou Can was missing now was just years on the job.

But if he kept advancing academically, he could cut down on the time required—definitely something to look forward to. He was working on his master’s and learning fast in orthopedics.

When it came to hands-on work, well… he could easily outdo his mentors in several fields.

By the time he finished grad school, Tuyu Hospital’s orthopedic department would have another ace surgeon.

Chief Resident Shen had already said he hoped Zhou Can would one day lead an orthopedic clinic the way he’d helped out pediatrics.