"Smack!"
The operating lights went dark all at once.
After sixteen continuous hours, the surgery was finally over.
For a brief moment, the room seemed to exhale. The blinding white glare that had burned against their retinas vanished, leaving only the softer auxiliary lighting and the steady hum of machines winding down. Xun Yuming lifted his head slowly, and his cervical spine cracked audibly with a sharp "click," the sound almost louder than it should have been in his own ears. The pungent odor of disinfectant clung stubbornly to the air, seeping into his lungs and making his temples throb.
When he shifted his weight, a wave of tingling numbness rushed up from the soles of his feet to his calves, as if countless ants were crawling beneath his skin. He had been standing too long. Far too long.
Time moved strangely in an operating room. Outside, day and night alternated without notice; inside, hours collapsed into a single stretched thread of concentration. Including the seven-plus hours he had spent earlier in the ICU and emergency department, he had been on duty for nearly twenty-four consecutive hours.
His temples pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. Xun Yuming stamped his right foot lightly against the floor, trying to force circulation back into his leg. The sensation did not immediately fade. He peeled off his dark green surgical gown, stripped off his gloves, and inhaled deeply through his nose before stepping out.
The staff corridor was illuminated by a row of ceiling lights that cast long, sterile shadows along the walls. A cluster of colleagues: tall, short, male, female, had gathered near the entrance to the break room ahead. They seemed to be waiting for him. Even before he reached them, he could feel their attention shift in his direction.
He stepped onto the faucet pedal in the scrub area and let the water run over his hands. Through the transparent sensor door, he caught sight of their silhouettes under the lights.
For the past two months, this had become routine.
Wherever he went, there were always people curious, admiring, enthusiastic. Though he had only recently joined the hospital, the momentum of his reputation had arrived ahead of him. Compliments came easily; praise lingered in corridors. He had grown accustomed to the attention, though not necessarily comfortable with it.
He dried his hands and walked toward the break room.
Before he even reached the doorway, a nurse leaning against the frame called out teasingly, "Dr. Xun, your phone's been ringing forever. We didn't dare touch it."
She covered her mouth as she laughed, glancing repeatedly into the room. "Come see for yourself."
Work, most likely. He rarely received personal calls. There was hardly anyone who would think to contact him casually.
"Thank you," he said.
The lounge was packed, some seated, some standing, others half-leaning against lockers. Xun Yuming squeezed his way toward the innermost corner, opened his locker, and retrieved his phone from inside a disposable glove he had used as a makeshift dust cover.
It wasn't a call.
It was his alarm.
Heat rushed to his face instantly.
He could hear the low ripple of laughter spreading behind him as he unlocked the screen with facial recognition. And just as he managed to silence it, the phone vibrated again and began playing in an overly cheerful, high-pitched voice:
"Baby, wake up! The sun is shining on your little bottom!"
The childish jingle echoed embarrassingly in the confined space.
His fingers trembled. The phone slipped from his grasp, arcing briefly in the air before landing on the tile floor with a heavy "thud."
"Oh no!" the nurse exclaimed, bending down to pick it up. "The screen's cracked!"
"It's fine, it's fine," Xun Yuming replied quickly, his voice strained. "It's been cracked for a while."
The hand that could hold a scalpel steady for sixteen hours now shook faintly as he powered the device off.
"I'll go change first. You guys carry on."
The locker room across the hall was empty at this early hour. He slipped inside as if escaping pursuit and closed the door behind him, finally allowing himself a quiet breath.
Eight years.
It was probably time to change that alarm tone.
His entire body ached. Not just muscle fatigue, his organs felt heavy, as if they had been working overtime alongside him. He sat on the wooden bench for a moment, elbows resting loosely on his knees, staring at the metal cabinets in front of him as if they might move on their own.
Then he rose and changed slowly, each movement deliberate, almost cinematic in its lethargy.
When he fastened the final button of his shirt, his stomach growled audibly.
Hunger arrived abruptly and without mercy.
What he wanted most in that moment was simple: a scalding hot shower and a bowl of shrimp congee, fragrant with scallions and white pepper. The breakfast stall downstairs should be open by now. He could pick up takeout on the way home. Maybe add a box of fresh pork pan-fried dumplings, the kind with thin skin and a burst of soup inside.
The more he imagined it, the hungrier he became.
He pulled on his sweatpants, grabbed his battered phone, and stepped back into the corridor.
The earlier crowd had not dispersed.
As soon as they saw him, several people surrounded him again.
"Dr. Xun! That clamp placement just now was incredible! It looked huge from where I stood. How did you know it would fit perfectly? I wouldn't have dared."
"That's experience, right? You've done so many surgeries already."
"He's not even thirty yet! I'm older than him and still not an associate attending physician. Dr. Xun performs surgeries like that and has that level of research output? That's talent. Legendary surgeon intuition! Ordinary people can't understand it."
"Stop arguing, both of you! Every time you see him, you start debating like you're defending dissertations!"
"You all talk," Xun Yuming said with a faint smile.
Behind his glasses, his peach blossom eyes curved gently, softening the sharpness of his fatigue.
"I'm not good with words. If I argue, my blood pressure goes up and I freeze. I prefer listening."
"Lucky you're not good at arguing," someone joked. "Otherwise you'd be unstoppable. Winning the Manfield Award at your age, Manfield! And with that face too. Good thing the dean's a man. If it were a woman, she'd definitely try to take advantage of you."
Laughter erupted again.
Xun Yuming only smiled politely.
He had heard variations of this before. The Manfield Award: named after Robert Manfield, pioneer of MRI and Nobel laureate—was often described as more authoritative within the medical field than the Nobel itself. It carried weight. It also carried expectations.
He let their words wash over him.
For them, the award was brilliance.
For him, it was pressure.
And beneath the praise, beneath the humor, beneath the exhausted smile he wore so effortlessly...
something else pulsed quietly.
Something he had not yet addressed.