Under the glare of the surgical light, a patient lay on the operating table. Their chest was held open by a retractor, leaving a red, adult-fist-sized heart completely exposed to the open air.
A tall, thin man with handsome features, his face partially hidden by a surgical mask, was methodically suturing the junction of the left atrium and the pulmonary vein.
He held a needle holder in his right hand and forceps in his left. His sharp gaze was fixed on the suture site. With wrists and fingers that moved with startling dexterity, he placed one stitch after another, his motions as fluid and effortless as flowing water...
Suddenly, a KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK echoed from a door, followed by a piercing, demonic voice.
"Yan Feifan, are you awake yet?"
"Hurry up and get out of bed!"
At the sound of the shouting, the surgical light, the operating table, and even the patient upon it shattered like tempered glass struck by a heavy blow, instantly disintegrating into thin air.
All that remained was the tall, thin man, still wearing a surgical cap and mask, a needle holder and forceps in his hands.
He turned to look at the window and saw that it was already broad daylight.
The tall, thin man turned back to the bedroom door, which was still being pounded on, and called out with a helpless sigh, "Ten minutes."
This was Yan Feifan, who had recently awakened from a long coma.
Winter had given way to spring. More than four months had passed since his awakening, and it was now mid-March, a time of lush growth and birdsong.
Yan Feifan had almost fully recovered.
Today was Monday, the day he was scheduled to return to work at the Affiliated Hospital.
Yan Feifan gently placed the needle holder and forceps on his desk, peeled off the rubber surgical gloves, and removed his cap and mask. He tried to walk to the closet to change, but his legs wouldn't obey.
He had been standing for so long that his legs and feet had gone completely numb.
Leaning on the desk for support, Yan Feifan sat on his bed and began slapping his legs to restore feeling, all while mentally replaying and analyzing the heart transplant he had just been performing.
This ability to run a complete 3D surgical simulation was something Yan Feifan had painstakingly honed during his long coma.
Throughout his coma, which lasted one year, three months, and eleven days, Yan Feifan's consciousness had actually been wide awake.
Exceptionally lucid, in fact.
His consciousness was simply trapped, isolated in a boundless, silent, and utterly dark cage.
When he first found himself in this unprecedented state, his cries to heaven and earth went unanswered. He tried everything he could think of, but there was no escape.
The experience was one of pure torment and terror.
In the midst of his boundless terror, a sliver of reason told him that anyone in such an environment would quickly go mad without something to occupy their mind.
As the academic prodigy he was, the first method Yan Feifan came up with to calm himself was... reciting books from memory.
After reciting two entire medical textbooks, a somewhat calmer Yan Feifan realized something.
'My memory is this good?'
He had always been proud of his memory; he could typically memorize an article of a few hundred words after reading it just once or twice.
But reciting an entire book from cover to cover—especially a technical one—was something he'd thought impossible.
What's more, every punctuation mark and detailed technical illustration was perfectly clear in his mind, as if the book were laid out right before his eyes.
Then, a flash of inspiration struck him.
Some studies suggested that human memory was incredibly powerful, that it could flawlessly record everything a person had ever seen, heard, or felt.
The brain's limited processing power simply meant that these vast memories were stored in its depths, never to be recalled.
'In my current state, existing only as a consciousness, can I access all of it? Every last, minute detail?'
To test this theory, Yan Feifan continued to recite.
This time, oblivious to the passage of time, he tirelessly recited one thousand two hundred and eighty-one books and professional journals before he stopped.
Having confirmed his theory, Yan Feifan was overcome with a profound sense of awe.
'One thousand two hundred and eighty-one volumes,' he thought. 'How magnificent would that look all lined up on a bookshelf?'
No sooner had the thought formed than several towering rows of bookshelves flickered into existence before him.
The sight left Yan Feifan ecstatic!
It made him realize something.
This was his world of consciousness. He could manifest whatever he desired simply by imagining it!
Here, he was master. He was God. He was the Creator.
Let there be light!
Let there be food!
Let there be... everything.
When Yan Feifan finally awoke, his first question was, "How long was I out?"
When he learned it had been one year, three months, and eleven days, he was completely stunned, his mind reeling.
In his world of consciousness, it had felt like centuries, even millennia, had passed.
It made him appreciate the old proverb that it was truly possible to live a hundred years in a single dream...
After washing up, Yan Feifan sat down at the dining table. He reached for the bowl of white congee before him and couldn't help but wrinkle his nose.
"It's burnt!"
Yan Ziruo shot him a glare. "You get a meal cooked for you and you still have the nerve to be picky?"
"Eat it or don't!"
She added indignantly, "This whole time, you've been the one getting up to cook. How come you didn't get up this morning?"
"I had to rush to wash the rice and cook the congee, and then I went outside the complex to buy the shumai you like."
"And when I got back, I still had to get myself ready..."
Yan Feifan just kept his head down, eating his congee and shumai without giving Yan Ziruo the slightest bit of attention.
Yan Ziruo, long accustomed to this, continued her rambling explanation. "It's only natural that I couldn't keep an eye on the pot the whole time."
Then her expression suddenly shifted to a charming smile, her tone softening considerably. "Feifan, you're starting work again today."
"Life is finally getting back on track."
"So our lives should go back to how they were before, right?"
Yan Feifan looked up, meeting his shameless sister's eager gaze. With a weary expression, he said, "Let's just stick to the new routine!"
Yan Ziruo giggled. "You said it yourself! So no more sleeping in and skipping breakfast duty like you did today. That can't happen again."
"If there's a next time..."
She made a few mock-striking motions at Yan Feifan. "My Eighteen Subduing Palm Skill has been dormant for far too long."
"And now your body is finally strong enough to take a beating again."
Yan Feifan ignored her with a dismissive snort and went back to his breakfast...
The Yan siblings lived in a somewhat dated two-bedroom apartment, which they had received as resettlement housing after a demolition project.
Despite being beneficiaries of the resettlement, the two didn't have much in the way of savings.
Their parents divorced when Yan Feifan was three, and not long after, they each started new families.
Their mother, who had custody, pawned them off on her own parents shortly after remarrying and moved abroad with her new husband.
The Yan siblings were raised by their maternal grandparents, growing up alongside their young uncle, who was only seven or eight years their senior. All things considered, they had a smooth and healthy childhood.
However, while Yan Feifan was in high school and college, his grandparents passed away one after the other—one from complications of diabetes, the other from stomach cancer.
The money and property from the resettlement were mostly squandered, thanks to their uncle's reckless behavior and the cost of their grandparents' medical treatments.
Now, the Yan siblings only had this one apartment to their names.
They finished breakfast before 7:30 a.m.
Since their residential complex was somewhat remote, they couldn't afford any delays. After a quick tidy-up, they headed out.
Their commute took over an hour—a bus, a transfer to the light rail, and another to the subway—before they finally arrived at Binhai University Affiliated Hospital.
Just inside the hospital's main entrance, Yan Ziruo suddenly stopped.
She spun around, raised a hand, and patted Yan Feifan's shoulder firmly. With a perfectly straight face, she instructed, "Little brother, it's been a year and a half since you were last here. If anyone gives you any trouble, you just tell them who your big sister is."
Yan Feifan watched his sister turn and dash off toward the hospital's main administration building, shaking his head, utterly speechless.
Yan Ziruo, with her degree in finance and accounting, had originally worked for a private company.
But after Feifan's accident, the Affiliated Hospital had offered her a position in their finance department so she could be closer to him.
Yan Feifan adjusted the strap of his messenger bag and started walking toward the administration building himself...
P.S.
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