Chapter 104
Chapter 104
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Assassin (5)
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...Hmm.
Past 4 a.m.
Drip, drip.
Plop, plop.
The sound of rain lashing against the emergency room window reached my ears from outside.
I stared blankly at the raindrops trailing down the glass.
A random thought suddenly crossed my mind.
'Possession lasts 30 minutes, right.'
That number from the shop page popped into my head.
What if.
Just suppose.
What if that aortic dissection patient from earlier had been handed to me instead of thoracic surgery?
What if all the surgeons had come down with food poisoning, leaving God's Scalpel as the only one available to operate...
'Could that guy... have pulled it off?'
Last year, it took him barely ten minutes to find the spleen in a sea of blood in the guy's abdomen and wreck it.
Those divinely inspired hands.
That speed defying the laws of physics.
And according to his profile, he's double-boarded in GS and CS.
Meaning he knows hearts inside out.
Pure curiosity suddenly gripped me.
This wasn't medical analysis—it was more like a kid asking, 'Who would win, a tiger or a lion?' But to an on-call doc at 4 a.m., it was the perfect intellectual diversion.
I quietly opened the gallery.
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[Depressed Doctors Gallery]
@God'sScalpel@God'sScalpel@God'sScalpel
Posted by: HellJoseonSlave1
Hey, got something urgent to ask you.
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Asleep at this hour?
Nah, ghosts don't sleep.
A reply came in one second.
[Comments]
God's Scalpel: ?
ㄴ HellJoseonSlave1: Could you do an aortic replacement in 30 minutes?
ㄴ God's Scalpel: Are you insane?
Then the gallery's surgical ghosts started piling on like someone hit the frenzy button.
OperatingRoomPhantom3: I hereby appoint you honorary internist.
LatteIsJustWords: Tch tch. Kids these days think surgery's a game. Click and done.
ㄴ HellJoseonSlave1: Just checking, yeah.
ㄴ God's Scalpel: First, crack open the chest right down the middle. Sawing through that bone alone takes time. Then open the pericardium. Say we cut that to five minutes.
ㄴ God's Scalpel: Hook up the heart-lung machine—cannulas into the aorta and right atrium. Then stop the heart. That's ten minutes right there.
ㄴ God's Scalpel: Leaves fifteen minutes? In that time, resect the torn aorta, size the graft, sew it with fine suture?
Huh. Pretty reasonable points, actually.
ㄴ God's Scalpel: Say we finish that. Restart the heart, wean off the machine, hemostasis, close the chest? Ancestors gonna do that for us? Thirty minutes??? THIRTY MINUTES??? THIRRRRTY MIIIINUTES???
ㄴ OperatingRoomPhantom3: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ THIRRRRTY MIIIINUTES ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ㄴ ThoracicSurgeryBigShot: World record's around two hours? In 30 you'd open the chest, see it's hopeless, close up, and still run out of time.
ㄴ Anonymous (210.94): Thinks swapping an aorta is like suturing a laceration in the ER?
No, seriously.
That guy's hands are insane, so it was genuine, pure curiosity.
I know it's impossible.
And he's GS/CS double-boarded, genius of geniuses.
Guy who can place a Levophed bolus blindfolded—I figured he'd say yeah.
'Still, impossible is impossible.'
No matter how fast the hands, procedures exist, and physics demands time.
Damage control—opening the belly and packing gauze—is worlds apart from reconstructive vascular anastomosis in terms of difficulty and time.
I smacked my lips and closed the gallery window.
'Hmm, lesson of the day.'
Conclusion.
Possession isn't omnipotent.
Even with a genius ghost in my body, the 30-minute limit is absolute.
Don't even attempt surgeries that can't wrap in 30.
The moment it ends, you're left with a gaping chest, stopped heart, and a second-year klutz holding the scalpel.
Horror movie material just imagining it.
'...Yeah. Unless I end up in thoracic sewing aortas someday.'
Fat chance.
I shook my head.
Second year in ER is killing me—thoracic?
I'd sooner bite my tongue.
I gazed out the window again.
The rain still poured fiercely.
Up in the OR, Kang Min-seong and the professor were no doubt racing the clock through that grueling process, step by step.
Not some 30-minute miracle, but a four-to-six-hour marathon battle.
"Good luck..."
I raised my mix coffee cup in a toast to the air.
Know your place.
I'm just the ER gatekeeper.
***
Tap. Ttap.
I forced my heavy eyelids up, finishing the last line of the chart. The rain persisted, and the ER air hung humid.
Ugh, hate this air.
Then a fact hit me.
"Oh, right."
I turned to Baek Eun-seo beside me, who looked half-asleep but was glaring at the monitor.
"Eun-seo."
"Yes, sir?"
Baek Eun-seo snapped to attention.
"That dissection patient earlier. We gave Labetalol 20mg, right."
"Yes, sir. We did."
"When'd you order that? I was busy with ultrasound and the call, missed the timing."
In all the chaos, it was already ordered before the professor even yelled for a beta-blocker.
Baek Eun-seo shrugged it off.
"Oh, that... As soon as the professor saw the echo and said there's a flap, I put it in."
"..."
"I didn't want to dose without orders, so I entered it, got CS on-call to confirm on the way to CT. BP stuck in the 150s..."
'...Holy.'
I swallowed a dry laugh.
Situation assessment.
Timing.
And the savvy to get cross-cover confirmation to shield a first-year from blowback.
Not savvy? Whatever.
'...She's sharp. Real sharp.'
Beyond just sharp.
First-year spring with this instinct? She's gold.
A strange sense of crisis washed over me.
'My spot's threatened.'
Give her a year, she'll be like, "Dr. Han, that judgment seems off."
To preserve role model status, I gotta grind harder.
"Good job. Great instincts."
"Thank you."
Baek Eun-seo smiled bashfully at the praise.
Then she scooted her chair closer and asked,
"But sir."
"Yeah."
"How'd you really know?"
"Know what."
"The aortic dissection."
Baek Eun-seo's voice pitched up.
Equal parts frustration and awe.
"Look, it screamed PE no matter how you sliced it. Honestly, not just me—anyone would've called PE."
She ticked off fingers, venting like it was killing her.
"Think about it, sir. Patient took a flight. Textbook DVT risk factor."
"Right."
"Symptoms: dyspnea and chest discomfort. Vitals: tachycardia, tachypnea. Okay, overlap there."
Baek Eun-seo jabbed at the monitor's EKG from that patient, face screaming injustice.
"But the EKG was classic! That pattern we drilled: see it, call PE. Echo showed dilated right ventricle, even septal shift..."
Baek Eun-seo was spot-on.
By algorithm, she was right.
"All clues screaming 'Pulmonary embolism here!'—then you go 'Nah,' and call for CTA. I legit thought you lost it, sir. But it was torn..."
She shook her head.
"How the hell did you spot it..."
I sipped coffee, pausing dramatically.
Tell the truth?
My heart ghost threw a fit saying Marfan, so I knew?
Yeah, that'd land me a psych consult stat.
I set down the paper cup, striking a smug, profound pose.
"Saw something off about it."
"Off how?"
"Yeah. You saw it too. Patient's fingers."
"Fingers?"
"Spider-like, long. Tall, lanky. Classic Marfan body type. Uncontrolled HTN. Poor med compliance."
Baek Eun-seo's eyes sparkled.
Intense, dude.
"And crucially, mom's family history. Genetic predisposition. Plus leg edema two-to-three months. Not acute DVT. Chronic."
Baek Eun-seo's jaw dropped.
"I heard leg edema, figured DVT swelling, glossed over duration."
"History-taking matters."
I dropped senior wisdom.
Gallery helped, sure.
Without asking, I'd have heparined up per PE protocol.
But.
I eyed my hand.
I noticed the fingers.
I grilled family history.
I sensed the subtle mismatch, queried the ghosts.
And crucially, I took their advice, called CTA, executed.
'Suspicion was mine, bottom line.'
Ghosts give knowledge, direction—decisions are the living doc's.
If I zoned out, no amount of ghost chatter registers.
'Over a year of beatings sharpened my eye.'
I smirked.
Worth the grind.
Starting to doc for real.
Baek Eun-seo scribbled notes, nodding solemnly.
Gonna go far.
Might turn monster.
"Yeah. Dawn soon. Hang in there."
"Yes, sir!"
The sky lightened outside.
Stormy night passed.
Patient to OR, we survived another day.
Thus the ER dawn faded.