Ryuzhen POV
The moment the surgery ended, I let out a slow breath I hadn't realized I was holding. The woman's heartbeat was steady, her breathing calm. She was safe. The room, once thick with urgency and the metallic scent of blood, now felt lighter like the air itself had learned how to breathe again.
I stepped outside the operating room, pulling off my gloves. Her family was already waiting faces pale, eyes swollen from hours of crying. As soon as they saw me, they rushed forward.
"Doctor…" the father's voice trembled. His hands, rough and calloused from years of labor, clasped mine tightly.
"Is she…?"
"She's safe," I said, meeting his gaze with steady reassurance. "She's resting now. The surgery was a success."
The mother gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. The younger brother collapsed into a chair, sobbing into his palms. Relief rippled through them like a wave breaking on shore.
The father squeezed my hands tighter, his voice cracking. "Thank you… thank you, Doctor. I—how much do we owe you? We… we don't have much, but we'll pay in any way we can. Please, just tell us the amount."
I shook my head slowly, offering a faint smile. "You owe me nothing."
They froze, exchanging confused glances. "N-Nothing?" the mother whispered.
"That's right," I continued, my voice calm but firm. "This hospital was built so that no one would have to choose between life and money. Not a single yen will be taken from you. Life is precious. Saving it is not something I will ever put a price on."
The mother's tears fell harder. She gripped my arm, shaking her head as if she couldn't believe what she'd heard. "Doctor… people like you… they don't exist anymore. The world… it's not kind like this."
I let out a quiet breath. "The world may not be kind, but we can choose to be. And I choose to be."
The younger brother finally looked up, his eyes red but filled with something brighter hope. "When I grow up… I want to be like you," he said softly.
A small smile tugged at my lips. "Then start by taking care of your sister when she wakes up. She'll need your strength more than mine."
The father bowed deeply, his voice heavy with sincerity. "If there is ever anything anything we can do for you… we will. You've given us back our daughter, our sister, our light."
In that moment, I was reminded why I built this place. Not as a monument to myself, but as a sanctuary for those the world often forgets.
Life is fragile. Money can be earned again, but a heartbeat… once it stops, it can never be bought back. That is why this hospital will always stand for them, for the ones who have nowhere else to turn.
After a few more words of gratitude, I excused myself, telling them to wait for the nurse who would guide them to their daughter's room. The father bowed once more, the mother whispered another "thank you," and I turned away, letting them have their moment as a family.
Walking down the quiet hallway, the echoes of my footsteps seemed louder than usual. The sterile white walls felt like they were closing in, not with pressure, but with a strange stillness that always comes after a life-and-death battle in the operating room.
I am twenty-seven years old. Old enough, people say, to have built not just a career, but a life a family, a home. And yet… I have neither. Not because I'm incapable of love, but because I have never wanted anything less than what my heart truly longs for.
A queen.
Yes, you read that right a real queen. Not in the sense of royalty wrapped in gowns and jewels, though I wouldn't mind that either. I mean a woman whose very presence commands respect. Someone whose gaze is steady, whose voice holds both gentleness and authority. A woman who can rule not a kingdom of gold, but the hearts of the people around her.
I've met countless women beautiful, intelligent, graceful but none who carried that rare kind of power I've been searching for. The kind that could stand beside me not as someone I protect, but as someone who could protect me in ways no shield or armor could.
Maybe it's foolish. Maybe it's the dream of a man who has spent too much time in books, in stories of knights and kings, of kingdoms rising and falling for love. But even in this modern world, I still believe there is a kind of woman who is born a queen not because of a crown on her head, but because of the fire in her soul.
I imagine her sometimes. She walks beside me through the hospital halls, her presence quiet but commanding. The nurses would glance up, sensing the regal air she carries. And when our eyes meet, it would feel like the world has stilled for a moment, as if even time wishes to bow before her.
Until then, I remain here saving lives, building this sanctuary, and waiting for the day my queen walks through those doors, not as a patient, not as a stranger… but as the one I've been searching for all along.
My thoughts about my imagined queen shattered the moment a nurse came rushing toward me, her voice urgent.
"Doctor," she called, almost breathless.
"Yes?" I replied, my voice calm but already preparing for whatever she was about to say.
"There's a patient… his condition is extremely severe. It's in the brain," she said, her hands clutching a folder tightly against her chest. "The other doctors… they can't identify the disease. It's nothing they've seen before."
I stopped walking, my mind sharpening like a blade. "Where is the patient?"
"In the operating room, Doctor."
Without another word, I turned and made my way there, my stride long and certain. My coat swayed behind me, and the quiet corridor seemed to part before me like a path carved by purpose.
Inside the operating room, I was met with an unusual scene silence. Not the normal quiet of preparation, but the kind that comes when everyone is holding their breath. A group of doctors and nurses stood around the monitors, their faces pale, eyes locked on the brain scan displayed on the large screen.
The moment I stepped in, they turned toward me. Some with relief, others with disbelief, as though they weren't sure even I could solve this.
One surgeon broke the silence. "Doctor Ryuzhen… this is beyond us. His brain activity is… unlike anything we've seen. The degeneration is happening at a speed that doesn't make sense. He should be dead already."
I walked past them without answering, stopping in front of the screen. My eyes scanned the x-ray and MRI images in quick succession. The patterns were chaotic to the untrained eye sharp waves of neural collapse, concentrated bursts of electrical storms, microscopic lesions that appeared and vanished between scans.
But to me… it was a language. A deadly one. And I could read it.
The nurses whispered behind me, "He hasn't even asked for the patient's history… how can he—"
"I know what this is," I said suddenly, my voice cutting clean through the room.
All eyes snapped to me.
"This," I continued, pointing at the scan, "is what I call Neural Cataclysm Syndrome a rare neurodegenerative event so fast and so aggressive that it can shut down the brain in under a second. It's triggered by a molecular misfire in the brain's electrical network, causing the neurons to essentially self-destruct. This is why the damage is both rapid and unpredictable."
Gasps echoed across the room. A senior doctor frowned. "But… that's impossible. There are no recorded cases—"
"No recorded public cases," I corrected. "I've seen it once before. Years ago, in a classified research case that never reached the medical journals because the patient didn't survive long enough to be studied. This disease is so rare, so dangerous, that it has no official name outside of black-level archives."
They stared at me in shock.
The patient on the table twitched slightly, his vitals spiking. "He's going into another episode!" a nurse warned.
"Stabilize him with hyper-cooling," I ordered immediately. "Bring his core temperature down slow the neural firing rate before it burns itself out. Prepare micro-neuroinjections of synaptic protectors. We don't have the luxury of hesitation."
They moved fast, following my commands. My hands worked steadily, mapping the electrical patterns in my mind as if I could see every neuron firing.
Minutes passed like hours, but the patient's brainwaves began to steady. The destructive storm inside his mind quieted. He was alive.
I removed my gloves slowly, the tension in the room easing as everyone let out breaths they hadn't realized they were holding.
One of the younger doctors stepped forward. "Doctor… how did you even know? Just from looking at the scans?"
I gave a small, almost imperceptible smile. "When you've spent your life chasing the diseases the world calls 'impossible,' you learn to recognize their shadows. This one… I've been waiting to meet again."
The patient lived that day proof that even a killer that strikes in a second can be stopped if you see it coming.
I was in the private consultation room now, seated with the three doctors who had been working with me for years men I trusted in the operating room, men who had stood beside me in moments where most would falter. But tonight, I could see it in their eyes they were unsettled.
One of them finally asked, "Doctor Ryuzhen… what exactly is this disease? Why can't it be seen on any scan or x-ray? Why is it absent from every research archive we know of? And how is it that you knew instantly?"
I folded my hands on the table and met their gazes.
"This disease," I began, "was never meant to be found by ordinary means. It exists in a realm of neurology so rare that the human race may only see a handful of cases in an entire century. It hides by using the brain's own patterns as camouflage, making itself look like nothing more than irregular electrical activity. And by the time it leaves a trace, the patient is already dead."
Their faces were grim.
"In the medical underground, it's been given a nickname," I continued. "The Black Death of the Brain."
The name made one of them shift uncomfortably in his seat.
"But that," I said, leaning forward, "is just the nickname. Its true name… is Neural Cataclysm Syndrome."
I let the words sink in for a moment before continuing.
"Neural Cataclysm Syndrome," I explained, "is the most lethal form of neurodegeneration known to exist. It begins with a molecular misfire a catastrophic error in the brain's electrical system. This error acts like a spark in a field of dry grass, triggering an uncontrollable chain reaction," I continued, my voice steady but heavy with the weight of the knowledge I carried.
"That spark races through the neural pathways, igniting every connection it touches. The neurons billions of them send out destructive signals to each other, not by accident, but in perfect, lethal synchronization.
Within milliseconds, entire regions of the brain shut down. Motor control, sensory processing, cognitive function—gone. And within a single second, the body collapses into total systemic failure. Heart, lungs, circulation… all cease as if someone pulled the plug on life itself."
One of the doctors leaned back in his chair, stunned. "So it's… suicide. The brain killing itself?"
"In a way," I replied, my gaze sharp. "But don't mistake this for random malfunction. The pattern is too precise. It's like watching a building implode every section collapsing in perfect order. This is what makes Neural Cataclysm Syndrome so terrifying… and so different from anything else in medicine."
Another doctor frowned. "And that's why we can't detect it? Because it leaves nothing behind?"
"Exactly," I said. "No toxin. No bacteria. No virus. The destruction is internal, self-inflicted. When you scan it, all you see is a burst of electrical chaos like an extreme seizure but no cause. That's why it hides from all standard diagnostic methods. The only way to recognize it is by the signature of that chaos, and that…" I paused, my eyes narrowing slightly, "…is something you can only learn from seeing it happen with your own eyes."
They exchanged glances. I could see the fear in them not fear for themselves, but for what this meant for the patients they would face.
"This is why," I said firmly, "if you ever even suspect Neural Cataclysm Syndrome, you must act instantly. You cool the brain to slow the chain reaction. You shield the neurons with protective compounds. You override the body's normal electrical rhythm to disrupt the collapse. Seconds… are the difference between life and death."
I leaned back, my tone softening but my gaze still intense. "I've been preparing for this day since the first time I saw it. That patient didn't survive. But this one… did. And that means we can fight it."
Silence filled the room. Then one of the doctors asked, quietly, "Doctor… if this is so rare, so undetectable… are you certain it's natural?"
"Yes," I said finally, my tone measured. "It's natural… especially in this type of syndrome."
They looked surprised. One of them leaned forward. "Natural? After everything you just described?"
I nodded. "Neural Cataclysm Syndrome can occur without human interference. It's a phenomenon so rare that most doctors will go their entire careers without seeing it. The truth is… the brain is a paradox fragile and resilient all at once. It can survive trauma, adapt to damage, even rewire itself after injury. But in extremely rare circumstances, a single molecular misfire in the electrical network can set off the chain reaction we saw tonight."
I could see them listening intently now, hanging on every word.
"It's like lightning striking the same tree twice," I continued. "The probability is nearly impossible, but not zero. A specific genetic predisposition, combined with extreme neurological stress, can trigger this event naturally. That's why the first case I ever saw was not in a lab or a warzone it was in a quiet rural town, in a man who had never left his home."
One of them tilted his head. "Then why did you sound… suspicious earlier?"
"Because," I said slowly, "natural Neural Cataclysm Syndrome is random and isolated. It appears once, then vanishes years, decades, sometimes centuries before another case surfaces. But now…" My eyes narrowed. "This is the second case I've seen in my lifetime. And it appeared in the same decade."
The oldest doctor's brows furrowed. "Which means… either we've been extremely unlucky—"
"—or someone has learned how to recreate the perfect conditions for it to happen," I finished for him.
Their faces grew grim again.
"So yes," I said firmly, "it is natural. But like fire, it can be started by lightning… or by human hands."