Sea City General Hospital would allocate around thirty sterile surgical instrument kits for the night shifts to handle emergency surgical cases, as they were in short supply.
Zheng Ren's crazy night of surgeries not only depleted that stockpile, but also some of the kits prepared for elective surgeries.
No one had expected the general surgery department to perform almost forty emergency surgeries in just one night.
"Matron, Zheng Ren has performed thirty-seven surgeries since last night."
"Thirty-eight. One case went in just now."
The matron was dumbfounded. "Zheng Ren? That Zheng Ren?"
"Yes, that Zheng Ren."
An enigmatic riddle, but the matron understood the conversation perfectly.
Everyone who knew that Zheng Ren had completed Professor Ichiro Moriyu's unfinished surgery last time tried to avoid any form of discussion regarding this topic as hospital management had imposed a gag order on it.
"Thirty-eight surgeries in one night?" asked the matron in disbelief.
"Yes, and there are more than ten patients in the general surgery department waiting in line for surgery right now."
"Impossible!" The matron refused to believe such an illogical claim. "I'm going to take a look."
The matron had a higher authority than most ordinary senior consultants from any department in an operating theater. In other words, the matron was an aggressive tigress, the king of the operating theater!
After changing into a surgical attire, the matron entered the operating theater with a smile on her face and said, "Yiren, you must be tired."
Xie Yiren raised her head in response. Her gaze was blank and confused after a restless night in the operating theater even as Zheng Ren remained energetic as usual.
Success would have been within Chief Surgeon Liu's grasp if his opponent was merely an ordinary person like Xie Yiren.
"Matron, you're here." Some vitality returned to Xie Yiren.
"Oh my God, why didn't you take a break in between?" the matron complained. "Little Zheng, couldn't you have given some consideration to your colleagues?"
Zheng Ren resected the inflamed appendix and threw it into the specimen container along with the medium-sized curved forceps, which caused a loud clang when it landed.
"Haha." He giggled in response.
"Yiren will rest after this surgery is over and I'll find a substitute for your subsequent surgeries." The matron waved her hand and made a decision directly without waiting for his consent.
"Okay," answered Zheng Ren.
"I don't think it's a good idea…" replied Xie Yiren hesitantly.
"What's wrong? Do you think all surgeries can be finished in one day? Who will take care of the patients if every doctor and nurse is exhausted?"
Before the matron could direct her snide remarks at Zheng Ren, she saw him hold out his hand, and Xie Yiren efficiently passed him a suture for running a subcuticular suture.
Huh? Was that it? The matron was astonished and confused. How long had it been, three minutes? The surgery was complete?
"Next." Zheng Ren went outside and asked a doctor from the first general surgery department to assist with the patient transfer. Then he said to Xie Yiren, "Go and get some rest."
"The surgery…"
"Don't worry. I'm still here, right?"
The matron assigned a highly skilled scrub nurse who had vast experience in assisting surgeons to Zheng Ren after his latest surgery was finished. After that, she dragged Xie Yiren out of the operating theater straight to her office.
"Any drinks for you?" asked the matron.
"Sister, I just want to sleep right now," replied Xie Yiren weakly as she slumped down with fatigue.
"Kid, why were you even risking your health? Zheng Ren is a heartless b*stard who has no sense of humanity and compassion. You're the apple of my eye in the nursing department. What should we do if you fall sick due to exhaustion? My initial plan was for you to lie low in the emergency department and consider it paid leave, but I didn't expect Zheng Ren to take full advantage of you like this," complained the matron.
"It's okay. Chief Zheng is very good at his job and I've learned a lot from him," replied Xie Yiren with a big yawn.
"Oh? What did he perform throughout the night?" The matron was getting closer to the truth, just like an old wolf sneaking up on its prey. There was no way she would believe that Zheng Ren had performed almost forty surgeries in just one night.
In fact, no one would believe such an absurd story at all.
"One acute appendicitis in the second trimester of pregnancy, four acute appendicitis in obese patients, eight perforated appendicitis, eleven acute phlegmonous appendicitis, fourteen… No, fifteen simple acute appendicitis cases." Even though Xie Yiren was sitting bleary-eyed and her limbs hung limp as if her muscles had given in to gravity, she remembered every surgery perfectly and even counted them off her fingers.
"Huh?" The matron was astonished. The rumor was true? How was it even possible?
"What's wrong?" Xie Yiren's mind was on the brink of shutting down.
"Get up and go to bed." The matron threw Xie Yiren onto the bed and hurried to the scene to make some arrangements.
There were lots of troublesome issues that required the matron's attention at the moment.
Since so many sterile surgical instrument kits had been used in just one night, what about the elective surgeries during the day? Such an issue was unprecedented in her thirty years of being a matron.