"Divine Doctor Xie?"
Xie Jinghong looked left and right, pointed at her own little nose, and asked, "Are you talking about me?"
"It is indeed you, Divine Doctor Xie."
The hospital director wiped sweat from his forehead, clearly burdened by a heavy responsibility.
Seeing the director bypass her to approach Xie Jinghong, Xie Chenghuan felt her teeth chatter with rage. As a proper daughter of the Xie family, she could not believe this wretched director dared to ignore her!
The others in the ward couldn't help but look at Xie Jinghong as well.
Xie Jinghong suppressed a smile. She had only administered a few light needles; had she really become a "Divine Doctor" just like that?
The director gave a slight bow, then pleaded with great humility, "I know this is quite abrupt, but the specialists in our hospital truly have run out of options."
The others were puzzled. This was the best hospital in Beicheng, and its doctors were the cream of the medical field. What kind of difficult case could have forced the director to humble himself so deeply before Xie Jinghong?
"You want me to save someone?" Xie Jinghong asked calmly, having already discerned his intentions.
"Yes. We have a very important patient whose condition is currently critical..." The director spoke, wiping his brow again. There was a palpable tension, as if the entire hospital would be razed to the ground if they failed to save this person.
"My consultation fees are very expensive, you know," Xie Jinghong said with a smile.
"Don't worry about that. As long as you are willing to provide treatment, whatever amount you ask for, it can be done."
Hearing that money was no issue, Xie Jinghong's eyes lit up.
Lu Wenyin squeezed her little hand, looking at her with concern. "Jinghong, it’s all right if you don’t want to go." A mother would never want her daughter to take such risks. In Beicheng, there were few people who could make a hospital director so nervous, so humble, and so ready to promise any amount of money.
"But he said he can give me a lot of money. I think I'll go take a look." Xie Jinghong tilted her head and gave Lu Wenyin a bright, charming smile.
"Yes, yes, whatever the cost, it’s fine! If he doesn't pay, the hospital will pay," the director added quickly, terrified that his chance to persuade her might slip away.
"Then go take a look if you want to; I will wait for you here, Mom," Lu Wenyin said, sighing in resignation. Though reluctant, she saw the sparkle in her daughter's eyes and didn't want the free-spirited girl to feel restricted the moment she returned.
"Okay."
Seeing Xie Jinghong agree to intervene, the director and the accompanying doctors visibly relaxed and cleared a path. Some doctors, well-prepared, brought the patient's X-rays, CT scans, and their previous diagnostic results for her to examine.
"Huh? A bullet in the brain?" Xie Jinghong glanced at them and said in a relaxed tone.
"It didn't grow there; it was shot in," the doctor closest to her quickly explained.
"Same difference." Xie Jinghong didn't look surprised at all as she followed the doctors into the elevator.
One doctor muttered, "Her specialty is acupuncture. This is a matter of extracting a bullet—can she really do it?"
The director silenced the doctor with a single glare.
"Divine Doctor Xie, the situation is this: we mainly want to ask for your assistance to see if you can disperse the blood clots around the cerebral vessels first, and then our attending physician will operate to remove the bullet..."
Xie Jinghong smiled slightly at the director. "Don't worry, I can open a skull just fine."
Hearing this, and seeing her nonchalant expression, the director wiped his sweat again. Could his desperate decision have been a mistake? But at this point, he had to treat a dead horse as if it were alive; if things went wrong, he could at least pin the responsibility on her. With the Xie family as backing, the demon from the Huo family wouldn't truly destroy the hospital.
The elevator soon reached the top floor. As the doors opened, the temperature seemed to drop several degrees. Dozens of burly bodyguards in black suits stood in the corridor. Seeing someone emerge, they all tensed up.
"This is a medical prodigy I invited to treat Elder Huo. Everyone, do not draw your weapons!" Seeing the scene, the director raised his hands above his head and began nodding and bowing frantically.
Xie Jinghong frowned slightly, scanned the surroundings, and followed the other doctors into the sterile area to prepare.
When she came back out, she saw a tall man talking to the director through the door. Even just the sight of his back carried a murderous air, as if he could draw a blade at any moment.
Just then, a female doctor looked at Xie Jinghong with sympathy. "I admit you performed brilliantly when treating Madam Xie earlier, but the person we are saving now has a special status, and the situation is far more complex. If something goes wrong, we might all lose our lives."
With their freshly sanitized hands held up, Xie Jinghong squinted at the kind-hearted doctor and laughed, "Are you afraid I'll get dragged into this?"
The doctor nodded. "This has nothing to do with you. If you want to leave now, there’s still time."
Another male doctor, having finished sanitizing, walked over and sneered, "Once you're in, you don't just get to leave whenever you please." He thought this ignorant little girl was just showing off; the patient had been shot in the head. If not for the Huo family's immense wealth and high-end equipment, he wouldn't even have made it to the hospital. In this world, the survival rate for a gunshot wound to the brain was one in ninety thousand.
Xie Jinghong shrugged, indifferent. "Then I'll just leave after I'm done with the craniotomy."
The male doctor: ...
The female doctor: ...
Everyone else: ...
Their expressions were strained. Even though the director had been out of options, was inviting her truly the right decision?
With heavy hearts, they entered the operating room. No one dared to perform a craniotomy on Elder Huo. Though fortunately the bullet had missed the brainstem, it was still a brain.
"Are you sure you want to perform the surgery yourself?" asked the attending physician, a world-renowned neurosurgery expert. He was unsure if this young girl had the courage for something he himself dared not attempt lightly.
"I’m already here, might as well try." Xie Jinghong raised her hand, took the scalpel from an assistant, and as soon as the blade touched her palm, her voice turned cold, steady, and commanding: "Surgery begins."
Everyone took their places. They knew that entering this room was like putting their heads on the chopping block. To survive, they had no choice but to go all in.
Xie Jinghong’s technique left everyone stunned. She used traditional Chinese silver needles in conjunction with a Western surgical blade. As she lowered her head to extract the bullet, she seemed like a different person—gone was the flippant, carefree girl from before.
The experts followed her instructions, cooperating with the utmost dedication. The operation was broadcast on a large screen, and the cold man in black watched the display, his face grim, his deep eyes sharp and piercing. The director stood behind him, shivering, not daring to take a full breath. When he saw Xie Jinghong use maneuvers that deviated from standard procedures, he broke out in a cold sweat, praying silently: *Heaven, please let the Divine Doctor's surgery succeed.*
The surgery lasted for two hours. The moment the bullet clattered onto the tray, everyone let out a long sigh of relief.
Xie Jinghong set down the scalpel and tilted her chin at the still-shocked attending physician. "You should be able to handle the suturing, right?"
The attending physician nodded repeatedly. "I can do that." At over forty years old, a medical doctorate holder with countless international awards, he acted like a timid primary school student in front of this young girl.
"Good. I'll leave the rest to you." Xie Jinghong winked at the female doctor who had advised her earlier, then turned and walked out of the operating room without hesitation.
On the electronic monitor, the patient's vital signs were all normal.
"How on earth did she do it?" someone asked, shocked.
"Don't ask me. You were the closest; didn't you see?"
"I couldn't follow it. I've never seen such a surgical method."
The people in the operating room felt as if they had just returned from hell to the world of the living; the atmosphere suddenly lightened.
Within a few moments, Xie Jinghong emerged from the operating room. Seeing that the surgery had been a success, the man in black had already been waiting outside. As Xie Jinghong appeared, the director rushed up to offer a thousand thanks.
"You’ve got a lot of nerve."
The man was very tall; his voice came from above Xie Jinghong's head, devoid of any emotional color.
Xie Jinghong looked up at the stunningly handsome face before her. Her eyes brightened slightly. Was Beicheng a gathering place for male models? Xie Cinan was already a masterpiece of the gods, yet here was a top-tier man whose presence eclipsed all others. Regardless of his looks or his temperament, he stood a head above Xie Cinan.
However, her gaze did not linger on that beautiful face for too long. She smiled calmly and said, "My appetite is even bigger."
She turned to the director. "Do you have a pen?"
The director hurriedly and respectfully produced the pen from his white coat pocket, handing it over with both hands. Xie Jinghong grabbed the man’s arm, rolled up his sleeve, and wrote a string of numbers on his skin.
Seeing this, the director—who had just finished wiping his brow—broke out in a fresh sweat. *God, what is the Divine Doctor doing!* The man before them was Huo Yunting, someone whom everyone in Beicheng avoided at all costs. She just casually rolled up his sleeve and wrote on his arm?
Xie Jinghong finished writing. She looked up and stared into the man’s eyes, her own gaze as firm as if she were taking a solemn oath.
"This is my card number. Eight million—not a cent less."
A trace of playfulness flickered in the man’s cold, handsome eyes. Before he could speak, Xie Jinghong had already let go of his arm.
"If you're short even a cent, I’ll come looking for you."
There was a faint smile in the girl's beautiful amber pupils, yet her words carried a distinct threat. It was the first time Huo Yunting had ever seen anyone dare to speak to him this way.
He looked at her with an inscrutable expression, his voice cold and low. "If there are any problems with the person inside, I will be the one coming to look for you."
Though the two seemed to be speaking with smiles, the air pressure around them plummeted. The director, caught in the middle, started wiping his sweat again.
Xie Jinghong curled her lips, ignored his threat, waved her hand, and walked away with flair. Huo Yunting watched the girl’s receding figure, his expression complex. He turned and called out to the man in black beside him:
"Qu Feng, have the people you were looking for been found?"