Ryuzhen POV
The operating room was silent, save for the rhythmic hum of machines and the faint, high-pitched beeping of the heart monitor. I stood at the head of the operating table, staring down at the patient whose life now dangled by a single thread. The sterile scent of alcohol and antiseptic clung to the air, thick and heavy like the pressure in my chest. My eyes flicked to the overhead clock 5 minutes. That's all I had. Just five minutes to correct a lifetime of damage caused by Neural Cataclysm Syndrome.
"Scalpel," I said quietly. Nurse Verona handed it over with trembling hands. Her eyes were wide, filled with fear not for me, but for the man on the table who had only a 0.5% chance of survival.
"Dr. Ryuzhen…" she whispered. "Are we really doing this? This is—"
"—impossible?" I interrupted, glancing around at the seven others in the room: three fellow doctors I trained myself and four of the best surgical nurses handpicked from across the globe. "No. Not impossible. Just... unprecedented. But if there's even a fraction of hope, even a sliver of life, I will fight for it. We all will."
I took a breath, steadying my hands as I looked around the table. "Believe. Pray if you must. But most of all focus. This man has a 0.5% chance. That's not zero. That's enough for me."
The tension broke, only slightly, as they nodded. The room transformed into a battlefield, our tools our weapons, and I the general leading them into a war against death itself.
The man's brain was already exposed beneath the surgical drapes, a smooth dome of gray matter pulsating ever so slightly. Neural Cataclysm Syndrome had ravaged the hippocampus and temporal lobes, creating micro-ruptures, neural corrosion, and synaptic collapse. Most believed it was untreatable certainly not operable. But they weren't me.
"This," I murmured as I activated the Arcturion Neuro-Laser, "is where it begins."
"Arcturion system online," echoed the AI assistant embedded into the surgical HUD visor I wore. A holographic overlay displayed the man's brain in cross-section, highlighting the areas of degradation in real-time.
Dr. Halvorsen, standing beside me, whispered, "You built that system yourself, didn't you?"
I nodded. "Took me six years. It maps synaptic activity in 4D. But more importantly, it lets me operate without guessing. Every cut. Every stitch. Calculated to the micrometer."
"God," he breathed, awed. "You're not a man. You're—"
"—a surgeon with 4 minutes and 26 seconds left," I said sharply. "Let's keep moving."
I used the Seraph-Needle, another of my inventions an ultra-fine, memory-alloy suture instrument designed for live neural stitching. It entered the damaged region without resistance, guided by the live holographic feedback.
"Verona, stabilizer beam at 30 percent. Dr. Tanaka, prepare the DCR Digital Cranial Restorer. Dr. Müller, regulate cerebral pressure with the Aether Valve."
"Yes, Dr. Ryuzhen," they chorused.
My mind entered a zone where time slowed. I could feel the brain's rhythm in my fingertips. I knew the exact moment to cauterize a burst vessel without burning surrounding neurons. I rerouted dead pathways with the NeuroSynaptic Rewiring Tool, another of my designs, injecting nano-conductive filaments that bridged synaptic voids like tiny silver threads of life.
Beads of sweat ran down my temple, but I didn't blink. "Clamp. Micro-drill. Slide the fusion mesh forward."
Nurse Kira passed me each instrument without needing a second call. She'd assisted me in seven miracle surgeries, but even she had never seen me move like this.
"Two minutes," the nurse said.
"I know," I whispered. "I'm almost there."
The patient's vitals dipped slightly. A collective inhale echoed across the room. But I was already ahead of it.
"Now! Müller, hit the cortical stimulant two milligrams!"
A pause, then the monitor beeped steady once more.
I inserted the Lucent Plate a transparent, graphene-based cranial shield that would allow for post-operative laser therapy without reopening the skull.
"One minute, Doctor," Verona said, eyes wide with disbelief.
"I'm not finishing at 5 minutes," I muttered. "I'm finishing at 4:59."
They watched as I sealed the last connection, guiding the final nanothread into place, linking the left hemisphere's corroded memory node with a fresh artificial synapse I designed in the lab just two nights ago.
I stepped back, breath shallow but eyes clear.
"Close him," I instructed calmly. "Slowly. Let the brain reset."
My team moved without hesitation, gently lowering the protective cap and starting the tissue regeneration protocols. The room was still thick with tension, but I felt it the shift.
The impossible had been done.
"Vitals stable," Verona whispered.
"No rejection," Dr. Halvorsen said, blinking at the screen. "Ryuzhen… you did it."
I stared at the clock.
Elapsed time: 4 minutes, 59 seconds.
I exhaled for the first time in what felt like eternity and stripped off my gloves.
"This," I said, voice steady, "isn't a miracle. It's preparation meeting belief. Science meeting faith."
I told them to bring him to a safe room where he would be observed for several days especially for signs of Neural Cataclysm Syndrome. Then I turned to the attending doctors.
"Study him," I said calmly but firmly. "Document everything. His vitals, neural responses, regenerative patterns, memory fragments everything."
They nodded, already taking notes, already preparing their scanners and protocols. But I knew. I already knew the answers they were about to chase. I was just giving them the illusion of discovery.
Because they needed to feel like scientists.
And I—I was the architect of this resurrection.
They don't understand what happened in that operating room. They don't see what I saw behind those blood-soaked synapses. They won't see the echoes of fractured consciousness floating beneath the cortical layers. But I did. I saw it. I touched it. I held it in my hands while every rule of medicine cracked and screamed.
What they're about to study is the aftermath.
What I've seen is the truth.
He didn't just survive Neural Cataclysm Syndrome.
He adapted to it.
After ensuring the patient was stabilized and safely transferred to the neural observation chamber, I gave one last look at the monitors his vitals steady, brainwave activity slow but present, like a whisper clinging to life. That alone was enough for now. I exhaled deeply, the adrenaline slowly dissolving from my bloodstream like smoke thinning into the night air.
Tomorrow… was France.
Another hospital. Another life. Another storm of patients, challenges, and scalpel-thin decisions.
I left the operating floor quietly, still gloved in silence and antiseptic scent. The corridor lights hummed dimly night shift mode. As I walked through the hallways of the very hospital I built from the fragments of sleepless nights and unrelenting ambition, the nurses who passed me straightened their backs, offering polite bows and warm greetings.
"Good morning, Dr. Ryuzhen."
"Doctor, the operation earlier was… incredible."
I gave them a soft nod, but my lips curved into something only halfway to a smile. I didn't need praise. I needed time. Something I always borrowed and never truly owned.
"Thank you. Please make sure ICU-9 remains isolated for the next 72 hours," I instructed one of the night nurses as we passed by.
"Yes, Doctor. We'll follow the protocol strictly."
I made my way up to the executive floor my private wing. My shoes echoed against the polished marble, my lab coat dragging slightly behind me like a white ghost tethered to science. I tapped the biometric panel beside my office door. It scanned my iris and thumbprint, then clicked open with a soft chime.
The door swung inward, revealing the sanctuary I seldom used but had meticulously designed. Glass walls. Floating shelves of medical journals. A wall-size holographic screen. And at the center a sleek obsidian desk and my leather-backed chair.
I stepped in and exhaled. The silence was different here. Thicker. More personal.
I walked over and collapsed into the chair, letting my body sink into its deep embrace. I leaned back, finally letting the tension drain from my spine. My hands, still remembering the weight of the scalpel, trembled slightly—not from fear, but from the intensity of the life I just pulled back from the edge.
I closed my eyes.
Just… for a moment.
The sound of the hospital dissolved into a distant echo. The weight of the world, the voices, the lives, the expectations they all slipped away like sand through fingers. I didn't even realize I had drifted into sleep until the rhythm of my breath slowed and my mind floated into the darkness, deep and quiet, like the stillness of the sea before dawn.
But before my consciousness fully surrendered, a voice whispered faintly in my head. My own voice.
"You saved him, Ryuzhen… But tomorrow, you start again."
And then silence.
Total and beautiful silence.
I woke up to the gentle tapping of fingers on my shoulder, a warmth pulling me out of sleep. My eyelids fluttered open slowly, the dim orange hue of the setting sun pouring through the blinds casting golden shadows across the floor. The scent of chamomile lingered faintly from the tea someone must've left on my desk.
As my vision cleared, I turned my head and there she was.
"Kaasan...?" I murmured, voice hoarse from sleep and too many buried memories. Beside her stood a small figure who leapt forward with glowing eyes.
"Onii-chan!"
My little sister, Arika.
Her arms wrapped around me before I could even sit up properly. My heart clenched. Her embrace was small, light, and warm… but behind it, I could feel the memories—the nights in the hospital bed, her body weak and pale, the tears of our mother silently spilling beside her.
"You're finally resting, huh?" Mama smiled gently, touching my face with her calloused hand, a hand that had once trembled with fear, now steadied by relief.
"Even heroes need sleep."
I chuckled faintly, placing my hand over hers. "And what miracle brought you two here unannounced?"
But then I noticed something… or rather, someone missing.
My gaze swept the room and narrowed. "Where's Rinlei?"
They paused. Arika's grip on my arm tightened.
"She didn't want to come," Mama answered quietly.
"Still?" I muttered under my breath, jaw tightening. "She really still hates him that much…"
Mama didn't need to say more. I leaned back into my chair and stared up at the ceiling, tracing the fine cracks above like lines of an old map, a memory I didn't want to unfold.
Our father… a doctor, once proud, once praised. And yet, when we needed him when Mama collapsed from the early stages of a rare autoimmune disease, when Arika's neural system was failing he chose silence. Distance. Another woman.
We were a family, but he broke it.
He had the knowledge, the tools, the oath. But instead of saving us, he turned away and built a new family. A perfect one. Untouched. Unbroken.
"What's he doing now?" I asked coldly.
"Trying to contact you," Mama whispered.
I let out a short laugh dry and devoid of humor. "Of course he is. Now that we're the Liuzhakis who saved lives and built hospitals. When we were nothing, we weren't worth a call."
Arika looked up at me, her big eyes soft. "Onii-chan… why do bad people try to come back only when it's sunny again?"
I looked down at her and smiled sadly. "Because they think the rain washed away the pain. But it didn't."
She nodded slowly, understanding more than a child should.
"Rinlei is still angry," Mama continued. "She said she'll never forgive him."
"Neither do I," I replied, firm but tired. "He lost the right to be a doctor to us the moment he let his own family rot in a waiting room."
I stood up, stretched my back, and looked outside the tall window he city glowing beneath a sky that was beginning to sleep.
Arika tugged my coat. "Will you go to France tomorrow, Onii-chan?"
I nodded. "Hai. I have to check the Neuro-Digital Therapy Center. It's important."
She looked down. "Can I come next time?"
"Of course, sweetheart. You'll see Paris with your own eyes," I knelt to kiss her forehead. "But only when your grades are as excellent as your smile."
"Yattaaa~!" she giggled, voice echoing in the quiet room.
Mama smiled, but I could see the worry beneath her eyes. "Just… be careful out there."
I nodded again, a little more gently this time.
After they left the room, silence fell once more. I walked toward my desk, fingers brushing over the edge, over old documents, a framed photo of the three of us before everything broke.
I wasn't the same man I was five years ago. I was no longer the son begging for his father's approval. I was Ryuzhen Liuzhaki healer, founder, protector.
I saved them when no one else did.
And tomorrow, I'd fly to France not to escape but to expand this legacy. Not for me. Not for my father to see. But for every child like Arika, for every mother like mine, for every family left behind by those who swore an oath and broke it.
After that moment of heavy breath and truth about my father, I stood up my hands sliding into the pockets of my coat as I looked at my mother and little sister. The lingering fatigue from sleep clung to me, but I forced a soft smile.
"It's been a while," I said, adjusting the silver watch on my wrist. "Before I leave for France… why don't we have a family dinner? Just the four of us. I'll call Rinlei."
My little sister's eyes sparkled with surprise. "Onii-san, you mean it?"
I ruffled her hair gently, "Un. I miss her too."
I walked toward my desk and picked up my phone. Rinlei's name was saved in kanji 凛麗 and I stared at it for a moment, pausing before pressing call. She rarely picked up on the first ring, always buried in courtrooms and legal warfare across the world. But this time…
Rinlei: Moshi moshi, Ryuzhen?
(Hello, Ryuzhen?)
Her voice was sharp, professional, but with a softness she reserved only for family. Hearing her speak in our native tongue always struck something deep in me something warm, but ancient. Like memories locked behind sliding paper doors and tatami floors.
Ryuzhen:Nee-chan, hisashiburi da ne.
(Nee-chan, it's been a while.)
She sighed on the other end, a long exhale that felt like it carried months of stress.
Rinlei:Yatto denwa shite kureta. Itsumo byouin de isogashii n deshou?
(You finally called. You've been so busy at the hospital, haven't you?)
Ryuzhen:
Ashita Furansu ni iku mae ni… kazoku minna de gohan ikou yo. Kaasan to Arika mo iru.
(Before I fly to France tomorrow… let's have dinner, all of us. Mom and Arika are here.)
There was a pause. I imagined her sitting in a high-rise law office in Tokyo or perhaps Paris, freezing in place. Her voice wavered slightly.
Rinlei: Hontou ni? …Mou nannen mo kazoku de shokuji shitenai mon ne.
(Really?… It's been years since we've had a proper meal together.)
Ryuzhen: Kon'ya shichi-ji ni resutoran yoyaku suru. Washoku ga ii?
(I'll reserve a restaurant for 7 tonight. You prefer Japanese cuisine?)
She chuckled softly.
Rinlei: Atarimae jan. Watashitachi no souru fuudo desho.
(Of course. That's our soul food.)
Ryuzhen: Ki wo tsukete unten shite ne, nee-chan.
(Drive safe, okay, Nee-chan.)
Rinlei: Anata mo ne, Ryuzhen.
(You too, Ryuzhen.)
The call ended, and for a moment, I just stood there with the phone pressed to my chest. There was something sacred about speaking in Japanese with her like our words stitched us together even when the world tried to tear us apart.
I turned to our mother and Arika, who were watching me with hopeful eyes.
"She'll be there," I said softly, lips curving upward. "This day… our family is complete again."
And just like that, a little light returned to our lives.