Chapter 157

               

Jaewon wasn’t making a fuss for no reason.

After Kang-hyuk had removed the small intestine, the remaining organs in the abdominal cavity looked relatively clean.

No—faintly tinged with pink, they looked far from death.

In contrast, the small intestine in Kang-hyuk’s hand was so blackened it looked like death itself.

“Hey, stop standing there with your mouth open. Take this and put it over there.”

“Huh…? How did you know I had my mouth open? I’m wearing a mask.”

“You wearing that thing over your jaw joint too or something? Honestly, sometimes you really seem like an idiot.”

“No, I just…”

Jaewon had expected the insult to end at ‘sometimes an idiot,’ but it ended with ‘often,’ which stung a bit more.

Still, what could he do?

He just had to suck it up.

Especially since the rotten intestine Kang-hyuk handed him was far from light.

It took all his focus just to deal with it.

“Ugh!”

Jaewon struggled to place the resected bowel on the instrument tray.

Immediately, the stronger stench of rot spread through the room.

“Ugh…”

It was the kind of smell that made one wince instinctively.

“There should be a bullet in there somewhere. We still need to check. Find it.”

Kang-hyuk handed Jaewon a pair of scissors and forceps as he winced.

He meant for him to dig through it.

“Uh… this… really?”

Even after being removed whole, the smell was this bad.

If he had to cut it open and dig through it, it felt like a glimpse of hell.

Of course, Kang-hyuk didn’t care.

No—he did care.

Just in a different way.

“Hey, if you start picking at that here, this won’t be a sterile field anymore. Take it to the next room and do it alone.”

“You want me… to go next door and do this… alone?”

“You can’t even do that?”

Kang-hyuk gave Jaewon a look so disappointed it was almost a talent.

Some people just had that gift—making you feel worthless with a single glance.

“That’s not the point…”

“What do you mean, not the point? You just don’t have the confidence. If you can find it, then go find it on your own.”

Somehow, the conversation twisted as if Jaewon’s hesitation came from not being able to do it solo.

If Jaewon were just a bit smarter or more rational, he wouldn’t have taken the bait.

But he was someone who had impulsively entered the toughest specialty in medicine.

He took the bait.

“Fine. I’ll find it!”

With a determined look, he marched out of the room.

So dramatic that he didn’t hear what Kang-hyuk muttered as he left.

“Idiot…”

Which was, fortunately, for Jaewon.

“What’s the situation?”

The moment Jaewon left, Internal Medicine Director Yoon Jae-ho and Captain Lee Dong-joo, who had been waiting in extra gowns, moved in swiftly.

Naturally, not to follow Jaewon, but to get a look at the surgical site.

At least for now, Jaewon had become something like a discarded card.

“Get a step stool and see for yourselves. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

Kang-hyuk was already rinsing the abdominal cavity with diluted betadine solution handed to him by Jang-mi.

Thanks to the [Harmonic Scalpel] and the precise incisions it allowed, almost no blood had been spilled.

That was because Kang-hyuk, using his insanely sharp vision, had intentionally left only a thin layer of necrotic tissue along the incision lines.

“Hmm, ligate here. Suture.”

While irrigating, Kang-hyuk would perform a [tie] whenever the thin layer of necrotic tissue detached.

For areas too narrow to fit a finger, he used a one-handed tie or instrument tie instead.

‘Seriously… the professor’s a monster.’

Jang-mi couldn’t help but be stunned, even though it wasn’t her first time seeing this.

Of course, being a professional through and through, her assisting was flawless.

“All right. Irrigate again.”

“Yes.”

After tying off all potentially problematic blood vessels in an instant, Kang-hyuk reached out his hand.

Jang-mi placed a large syringe in it.

It was like a perfect baton pass between Olympic relay runners.

Swoooosh—

What infection remained in the [peritoneal cavity] was flushed out by the torrent of irrigating fluid.

Jang-mi diligently kept refilling the large syringe with solution while also keeping the suction device in place inside the abdominal cavity.

Suuuuuuck—

The [suction tip] used for irrigation had ridiculously wide holes and a massive range.

So water flowed in and out almost simultaneously.

After repeating this several times, the abdominal cavity was clean beyond expectation.

Only then did Director Yoon and Captain Lee step up onto their footstools.

It wasn’t that they were slow.

Kang-hyuk and Jang-mi were just that fast.

“Wow… this is… this might actually work.”

As the younger of the two, Captain Lee Dong-joo’s reaction was naturally more animated.

That didn’t mean Director Yoon was indifferent.

Seeing a patient he had spent over a week with recover—wasn’t that the greatest joy for a doctor?

Even with a mask on, it was obvious he was smiling ear to ear.

“We’re not done yet. The segment we just removed was 92 cm… We’re on the edge here.”

If they cut any more, digestive function would be severely impaired, lowering the chance of survival.

And the patient’s body was already covered in injuries.

The chance of death within a short time was still high.

Which meant damage had to be minimized from this point on.

‘First… we’ll skip the anastomosis. Let the remaining bowel past the distal incision rest.’

If they got greedy and the sutures burst, that’d be instant death.

So Kang-hyuk quickly formed a [stoma].

(T/N: A surgically created opening on the body’s surface to divert waste, commonly seen in bowel surgeries.)

It was a standard procedure, not particularly difficult, but—

Kang-hyuk was performing it so smoothly it felt almost unnatural.

His gaze even seemed elsewhere.

And that wasn’t a mistake.

‘Even if I leave the rest for later… the fractures. Especially the leg—I’ll have to fix that myself.’

Kang-hyuk was already thinking beyond the abdomen.

It was a ridiculously audacious mindset, but it suited him.

His excellent vision wasn’t just for treatment—it also helped assess its effects.

‘The abdomen… is under control.’

Because of that, Kang-hyuk could now shift his focus away from it.

“Captain Lee Dong-joo.”

Kang-hyuk finished forming the [stoma] and turned his gaze toward him.

Even while doing so, his sutures were flawless.

‘This is insane…’

Captain Lee could only nod in speechless awe.

“Y-yes, sir.”

His tone was filled with respect.

Young doctors without political entanglements were often the most easily moved by real skill.

He now looked at Kang-hyuk the way others had—like a legend.

“When did you become a military doctor?”

“Last year. It’s almost exactly a year since deployment.”

“Then how are your hands? Haven’t gone rusty?”

Captain Lee wondered why he was asking that but answered earnestly anyway.

Just talking to this monster of a surgeon was an honor.

“Huh? Oh, well… being in a deployment unit, there’s been a lot going on, so I haven’t stopped operating entirely.”

“Good.”

Kang-hyuk nodded with a faint smile.

Captain Lee smiled back, unsure why.

This exchange wasn’t anything dramatic.

It was just because military doctors often face setbacks in surgical experience.

‘Plenty of them spend three years just doing school nurse duty and forget how to operate.’

It wasn’t uncommon—it happened all the time.

By comparison, Captain Lee was actually decent—for a military doctor.

“Good. Go scrub in.”

“Y-yes, sir. Huh?”

Captain Lee instinctively replied and then paused.

“Are you deaf? Did you fake your health screening? Hurry up and get in.”

“But… I’m not part of this hospital’s—”

“And I’m from some royal medical institution? What’s your point?”

“Well…”

“Hey. Is Captain Lee Hyun-jong your patient or not?”

“He… is.”

The hospital didn’t matter.

What mattered was whether the patient was his or not.

Sure, legally it was more complicated.

But that didn’t matter here.

“If anything goes wrong, I’ll take full responsibility. Get in. I’m not asking you to operate. Just assist.”

“You’re going to operate on the leg yourself?”

“Who else would? Shouldn’t the best person do it?”

“Well, yeah…”

He thought it was supposed to be an orthopedic surgeon’s job.

But before he realized it, he was already washing his hands.

Next to him, Jaewon had returned, having somehow found the bullet.

“Impressed? Professor Baek’s amazing, right?”

Jaewon shoved his hands under the cold water as he spoke.

He had washed them earlier, but no way was he touching another surgical site with those hands after digging through rotted intestines.

Better safe than sorry.

‘It’s safer for me too.’

If he walked back in with dirty gloves, Kang-hyuk would probably kill him first.

He shuddered just thinking about it.

Violently, from the cold water.

“Y-yeah. He’s incredible.”

“Right? His skills are…”

If only his personality were just as great.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

It was hell.

Jaewon briefly made a hollow expression, then asked,

“But why are you washing your hands?”

Now that he thought about it, what was this guy doing here?

“Oh, he told me to scrub in.”

“Huh?”

“Said we’re working on the leg together.”

“Really? Then when he told me to take the arm… that was solo, huh.”

“The arm? Wait, you’re doing the arm?”

“Well, it’s pretty messed up. Someone’s got to do it.”

“Oh…”

Captain Lee thought limbs were supposed to be ortho territory, but he finished washing anyway.

Then Jaewon did too, and the two walked back into the OR together.

“Best of luck.”

Jaewon added that with an oddly pleasant look on his face.

Captain Lee blinked in confusion.

“Huh?”

“You’ll understand once you start…”

With that cryptic remark, Jaewon headed toward the arm.

Captain Lee tilted his head and went over to Kang-hyuk.

And before long, he understood why Jaewon said that.

Just like he said—he understood after doing it.

“Are you dumb?! Pull horizontally, not vertically! Is that so hard?!”

Captain Lee wasn’t even Kang-hyuk’s trainee or subordinate.

Yet somehow, he was getting chewed out like one.

He didn’t even have time to question it.

It was mind-breaking.

“You crazy? Where’d you get your ortho training? In your ass?”

“Yes! There! No, not there—God damn, this is…”

“Blood’s pouring out! Suction! What do you mean just suction it? Cauterize! That’s a nerve!”

It was practically hell.

‘Thank God… I almost ended up there instead.’

Jaewon smiled quietly to himself.

And got caught.

“You! What are you grinning at?! Get down here! You’re assisting! Captain Lee just pulls!”