System Came When the Doctor was Thirty

"Boss, hurry up, will you. My stomach’s already glued to my back."

"Boss, add some broth over here."

"Boss, that tripe I ordered, is it still coming? If not, then just bring the bill..."

The alley was definitely in Han City, but Lu Cheng could hear familiar accents from Xiangxi, Guizhou Province, Yu City, and Sichuan Province.

This was a skewered hotpot place; the broth in the pot was bubbling away, red oil rolling, steam billowing.

Hu Cong’s lips were already burning red from the spice; he had no choice but to retreat to a plate of fried rice with egg and bury his head in it.

Seeing this, Lu Cheng teased, "Your spice tolerance is really not up to par. The chili paste in Han City is pretty brutal too. How do you usually eat?"

"It’s got that sauce fragrance." Hu Cong looked up and answered as if it were nothing.

"You’ve practiced, but never really been tempered—then there’s nothing to be done."

After more than half a bowl of rice, Hu Cong was indeed full. He put down his chopsticks: "Can you stay a few more days? This destruction injury and Functional Reconstruction Skill are a sequential continuum."

Lu Cheng shook his head as he bit into pickled chili beef. The sour and spicy juices exploded in his mouth, making his heart blossom with joy, but he still shook his head:

"No can do."

"My current clinical workload is heavy. Being able to spare half a day to come learn is already not easy."

"At just over thirty, this is exactly the age to be charging ahead in your career. How could I easily find time to relax?"

"Honestly, it’s mainly that the old bro in the hospital is being a pain—of all times, he chooses now to ask me to help with amputations, not earlier and not later."

"I figured, we came out of Zhongnan Hospital, and with Professor Lan Hualuo making Limb Preservation Surgery for destruction injuries so good, we can’t go out and lose face that easily, right?"

Hu Cong nodded: "To manage what you’ve done just by wolfing things down whole, you’ve already surpassed a lot, a lot of people."

"Mainly because your foundation is solid."

With his high forehead, low nose bridge, big eyes, and height of about one seventy-eight, Hu Cong’s features were fairly delicate. Right now, he was rubbing his hair, looking conflicted:

"Just an attending professor in the ER was enough to coach you into this—shows my master’s current approach is right."

"The old teaching mode of letting students grow wildly on their own just wasn’t scientific enough."

"Genius surgeons do need talent, but ordinary surgeons can be forced out through repetition and formal training."

"If only we’d had standard learning processes like this back then, how great would that have been?"

Lu Cheng rolled his eyes: "If you roll back a few decades, people who go through a whole life full of regrets are a dime a dozen."

"For the environment to improve and for individuals to grow stronger, both take time to slowly move forward. You can’t force it."

After nodding, Hu Cong asked directly, "What are you thinking about your academic degree? You can’t let it lock you down, right?"

"Don’t end up cramming a degree right when you’re about to be promoted to academician."

Lu Cheng looked up and studied the expression on Hu Cong’s face:

"You really know how to throw shade."

Hu Cong shook his head: "It’s not shade. There are already big names in the field doing exactly that. At the last review, the doctoral degree requirement was what boxed them in."

Academic credentials are the most useless and also the most useful thing.

Especially in medicine.

If someone hands you a doctoral diploma and tells you to go find a job with it, once your true level is exposed, just see whether you get beaten to death, case closed.

"I already have a plan in mind; I’ll get around to it sooner or later," Lu Cheng said.

"Mm, as long as you’re thinking about it, that’s enough. I won’t be constantly, properly relaying my teacher’s exact words either!~"

"Next time, if my master asks you about this, help me cover it—just say I’ve already talked to you about it." Hu Cong continued shoveling rice into his mouth.

Lu Cheng nodded in agreement: "Okay, thanks."

Hu Cong made a point of stressing: "No need to thank me. Over the May Day holiday next month, I’ll be going to Feng County."

"You don’t need to host me, but you have to recommend a few good places to eat and have fun."

"Going with someone?" Lu Cheng asked.

"Mm, barely counts as a junior female apprentice." Hu Cong said.

Lu Cheng laughed: "Even rabbits don’t eat the grass by their own burrow, you know."

Rolling his eyes, Hu Cong shot back: "You’re the one who doesn’t eat the grass by the burrow, but you eat what’s inside the burrow—and you’re lecturing me?"

Lu Cheng immediately shut his mouth. The Hu Cong in front of him was extremely good at seizing every opening. He might be small in stature, but he was definitely not someone you could easily out-talk or toy with.

"..."

Lu Cheng took a cab to the high-speed rail station himself; he didn’t trouble Hu Cong to drive him there.

Hu Cong did indeed have his own tasks. After the meal, he drove straight to a medical research building in the Optics Valley area of Han City.

After face scan, fingerprint scan, another face scan, and then a password lock—passing through four access controls in all—Hu Cong arrived at a spacious conference room.

The research building had six floors in total, and this was on the fifth floor.

Professor Lan Hualuo was currently bent over a tablet, coffee in his left hand, his right hand sliding along the video timeline on the tablet; sometimes he shook his head, sometimes he nodded.

"Master... Lu Cheng’s gone back. He’s on duty tomorrow; he’s working in the trauma center now, so he can’t be away for long." As he walked forward, Hu Cong took the teacup from Professor Lan Hualuo’s hand to refill it.

Lan Hualuo’s right hand continued to slide along the video. With his left hand now free, he tapped lightly on the table: "The speed of his basic skills accumulation is acceptable."

"His operations don’t look flashy, and there’s not much finesse, but his thinking and integration ability is genuinely stunning."

Hu Cong’s brows knitted slightly; he hadn’t been able to see the subtleties in what Lan Hualuo was talking about.

Considering that his own level was still limited and definitely not on par with his teacher’s, he turned his head and asked in detail: "Master, is there any ’private stash’ tucked into Lu Cheng’s operations?"

"A wild goose leaves tracks in its wake."

Lan Hualuo spoke slowly, choosing his words with care: "He once developed a Suturing Technique. Those techniques carve themselves into your bones; they’ll always show up in his operations."

"You can’t really call that good, and you can’t really call it bad either."

Gently setting down the cup, Hu Cong stopped his hand thirty centimeters from Professor Lan Hualuo’s left hand: "These Suturing Techniques don’t fit with the concepts of Limb Preservation Surgery for destruction injuries?"